Quaint? I’m not under illusions that farming is done the same way it was 100 years ago. Most farms cannot generate enough income to make a profit on a yearly basis. And those big boys are taking a hit when it comes to cotton in some areas. The price is so low that even they hardly make a profit during some years. I’m not really all that concerned with GM foods furthering the disappearance of family farms. How many people who dealt with horses were run out of business by the tractor?
**
You’re right, they’re probably less concerned with the environment then they are with anything else.
I think we’re ready to deal with it. We’ve been dealing with it for years now. We’ve been manipulating nature to serve our purposes since we first started planting seeds. The cotton we grow today is not the same cotton that grew in the wild 15,000 years ago. Without meddling with nature we wouldn’t have the same corn, broccoli, or even potatos.
I don’t know if we have to have GM food now. Something like 45% of all soybeans have been modified in some way. (Sorry, no cite immediately available, I apologize.) But I think if GM foods can make our crops more nutritious and require less herbicide and pesticide then I think we should go for it.
But I consider myself to be a reasonable person. Let’s go ahead and test these things out in a few fields across the nation. Oh wait, I mean more so then they’re already doing now.
Am I the only one that sees the contradiction here? - if we have crops that are resistant to herbicides, we can throw caution to the wind and drench them.
Let’s not pretend for one moment that GM is being researched ‘for the good of mankind’, sure, there are some token projects to try to put a respectable face on the whole thing, and GM undeniably could benefit mankind greatly, but by and large, what’s going on at the moment is just the big chemical companies trying to line their pockets by making us totally dependent on their products.
There’s not really a contradiction here. Well I suppose it really depends on the crop. Let’s take soybeans for example. With the Roundup resistant soy you actually end up spraying less then you do with regular soy.
And let’s not go thinking that farmers actually like to spray with wild abandon. Chemicals add to the cost of doing business in a market that already has a low profit margin. Even if a farmer didn’t give a rat’s ass about the environment he’d certainly care about his bottom line.
My biggest concern is that some weeds might become Roundup resistant.
**
I don’t really care if companies aren’t motivated out of the goodness of their hearts. When John Deere first made his polished steel plow was he doing it for the good of all mankind? No, but it ended up being a pretty good thing for a lot of farmers and in turn the rest of us.
You mean like we’re dependent on a few big companies to provide us with the farm equipment we can’t live without? And believe me that we couldn’t live without them. Not without mass starvation anyway.
I’m pretty sure that it has been shown that cross-breeding plants is quite different than gene splicing, sometimes with non-plant genetic material.
Great caution, not prohibition, is all that most people are asking for. That, and information.
Peace,
mangeorge
Buy a piece of farm equipment and you (in most cases, at least) get to use it over and over again, maybe even sell it when you’re done or trade it in part exchange for a new one.
Buy Terminator seed for your crop and there’s no point in saving part of the harvest to start next year’s crop, they won’t germinate, by design.
{quote]**I don’t really care if companies aren’t motivated out of the goodness of their hearts. When John Deere first made his polished steel plow was he doing it for the good of all mankind? No, but it ended up being a pretty good thing for a lot of farmers and in turn the rest of us. **
[/quote]
There’s a bit more than simple invention going on here, the chemical companies are looking to patent crop genomes, making it illegal to grow specific staples except under license.
Could someone explain to me what the problem is with Terminator seeds? I don’t complain that the video rental place won’t let me keep the videos, after all. I also don’t complain that the tractor factory won’t replace my old tractor for free when it wears out, nor do I complain that they don’t provide me with free fuel.
Also, do you anti-GM folks have problems with canola oil? Wild-type canola plants produce oil which contains substances which make them unsuitable for consumption- so agribusiness irradiated the canola plants until they lost the genes that produce the bad substances. In the end, canola oil is edible, but who knows what other genetic changes took place? Why is there no public outcry over such a brutish method of modifying plants? Why are there no calls for banning canola oil until we make sure that they won’t spread their genes into other plants? And isn’t it better to surgically remove the genes and know what the result is, rather than blindly smashing away at a plant genome until we get something acceptably similar to what we were hoping for?
Eventually you can’t repair it any more and you’ll need to buy a tractor. You’ll have to buy a tractor from one of the few who manufacture them or you’ll have to buy it used. Either way you are dependent on a tractor for your economic survival.
**
If they don’t like that then they don’t have to buy that kind of seed. What’s the problem?
If a company spends money to develop a specific crop why shouldn’t they reap the benefits of what they sow? Perhaps something similiar to how patents work with medicines would be reasonable.
I’ll take a shot at the first of your questions, Ben.
The makers of terminator seeds could push other seeds out of the market, making their own seeds the only game in town. Produce from those seeds could be the only ones able to make a profit.
Video rental can’t do that.
Peace,
mangeorge
Let’s use corn as an example. If farmers think that one brand of corn will be the only profitable one in the following year why would they ever use another? Look at it from his point of view. “Hmm…with seed A I lose .32 cents per acre. With seed B I gain .50 cents per acre.” I know which I would use.
But then I doubt we’ll see one seed company overtake all of agriculture. Odds are you’ll see a few large ones that are responsible for the majority of seed. But I suspect organic farming will always have a niche to fill. The trouble is most farmers can’t make a living the organic way.
I’ll start by saying I’m for genetically modified food, I work in a molecular biology lab in an agriculture college, after all. And all our food has been genetically modified over the course of human agriculture anyway.
But what freaks people out, whether they’re really concious of it, and makes GMOs different from traditional selection and cross breeding, is now we can insert a gene from any organism into another via biotechnology.
In my view, this can be a great thing. If you’re a diabetic, would you rather inject human insulin produced by modified bacteria to treat yourself , or insulin isolated from a horse that may not work as well and cost a lot more?
Sure, there are groups and people against GMOs with legimate concerns, skepticism is a healthly thing.
But the zealous groups that protest the loudest, seem to view this as a crime against nature, not a matter of science (in addition to giving themselves a cause to feel good about themselves). I don’t even think they have the same moral ground as anti-abortionists.
Which would bring up the next battleground–stem cell research. But that’s another thread.
I find it curious that it appears that most protesters against GMOs are well- (or over-fed) Americans or Europeans.
How many protesters come from starving Third World countries? Does anyone think a starving african is going to give a shit that his GM yam that feeds his family puts some money in Monsanto’s pocket when the alternative is going hungry? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having a John Deere plow either (if he could afford it).
Exactly, Marc.
Not only you, but every other non-organic farmer would choose profit over loss. If they didn’t, those who did would soon own the farms of the non-users. Or developers would own the properties, because there’s already too much farmland in this country. Increased yield would only worsen this situation.
Anyway, once the seed competition fades away the farmers profit will shrink because seed suppliers will raise prices. That’s their job, to maximize profits and the return on the stockholders investments. The directors can get into trouble for not doing so.
Eventually the monopoly busters might step in. Not to force the sale of natural seeds, but to end the monopoly of the terminator technology.
We’d end up with terminator seeds and just a cottage industry in natural seeds. Much like what we now have in the computer OS market.
I’m not sure why this is a bad thing.
Peace,
mangeorge
Neither. I want a one-time treatment where I swallow a test tube full of nano-robots that will live in my blood stream and manufacture insulin for me for the rest of my life.
Or, heck, I’d settle for genetically-engineered symbiotic insulin-producing bacteria. I wouldn’t be picky.
tracer and mangeorge–let’s get the FDA and all invovled in a more evident manner. The drug companies are already international and don’t need supervision (cough, cough). (and with Phen/Fen or is it Fen/Phen, how could it go wrong?)
Sorry, but my sarcasism meter is on the fritz. But…
I would like insulin treatments by nanoprobes if I could get Seven of Nine to do it. Probe me, please…
Are organic farmers the knights in shining armor of the agriculture community? If a lot of them couldn’t make a profit farming like they do they’d probably farm in a more conventional manner. Either that or they’d go find other jobs.
**
I wasn’t aware that there was to much farmland in this country. In fact this is the first time I’ve ever heard someone say that.
**
Why will competition fade? I’m not seeing any reason to believe that one big company will take everything over.
What’s wrong with a cottage industry in natural seeds? I admit I don’t see much wrong in the current OS market either. Windows and MAC are both pretty good O/S systems for the average Joe or Jane.
This study from the UK suggests that the use of herbicide resistant varieties leads to increased use of herbicides, as does this one, though Monsanto, as one might expect, disagrees. Here is another article on the second study. I think this is a telling statement:
On behalf of the soybean farmers, Anderson agrees that the developing resistance of weeds to herbicide is a problem, but it is a problem that could be solved more quickly if critics had not derailed the approval process for new products.
In other words, “Sure, weed resistance is an issue, but as long as we keep coming up with new herbicides, we’ll be fine”?
This study looks at the effect on increased use of RoundUp on soil microbiology and the increase of fusarium (a root fungus.) I really don’t think this technology is going to prove to be the lifesaver that people want it to be. In fact, I think it will have some very negative effects.
Knights in shining armor? If they start using the seeds, they’ll no longer be organic farmers. Right?
An assumption, based on what I’ve heard about subsidies, over production, low farmland prices and the like.
[quote]
Why will competition fade? I’m not seeing any reason to believe that one big company will take everything over.
[/quote
Monsanto own’s the patent. See Microsoft.
Cottage industries are cool!
Mac and Windows are pretty good from Joe and Jane’s POV. But quite a different matter for poor ol’ Pete, who’s trying to market a new OS which he’s put a lot of work into developing.
I’m no scientist or farmer, MGibson. What you’re seeing here is an average Joe Schmoe’s take on this issue.
Peace,
mangeorge
647: *I find it curious that it appears that most protesters against GMOs are well- (or over-fed) Americans or Europeans.
How many protesters come from starving Third World countries? *
Quite a few, actually. Check out this Sierra Magazine profile of Ethiopian plant ecologist Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, who represents in international negotiations the so-called “Like-Minded Group”, made up of many developing nations plus China, and helped draft the international Biosafety Protocol. In this interview, he sets out some pretty cogent reasons why many Africans and others from “starving Third World countries” are concerned about GMOs, particularly the ways in which they’re being developed and marketed.
For another excellent perspective on the whole issue, check out Richard Lewontin’s review, “Genes in the Food!” in the June 21 New York Review of Books, of several recently published works on GM technology. An online version can be found via a search at the NYRB site.
Again, the chief point is that this is a very biologically, ecologically, economically, and politically complex issue. Pro-GMO cheerleaders like 647 who assume that anti-GMO sentiment is nothing but ignorant hysteria on the part of fat Western food fusses are being just as shortsighted and silly as the uninformed technophobes who reject GMOs because they “don’t want to eat anything with DNA in it.”
On rereading the whole thread more carefully, I noticed that 647 actually presented a more balanced overall perspective on the GMO debate in the post from which I snipped the above remarks. I’d like to withdraw my hasty characterization of him/her as a “pro-GMO cheerleader”, if I may.
