I should specify that focuses on insecticides.
Insect pests evolve pretty fast, and some are (recent article in Scientific American) developing a resistance to the crops bred to resist them.
(It’s a little like the unending war between code-makers and code-breakers.)
The battle between farmers and herbicide-resistant weeds has also been going on for a long time.
“The evolution and widespread distribution of herbicide-resistant weeds and their management is a challenge for crop producers and land managers. The evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds is not new. The first report dates back to 1970, when common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) resistant to atrazine was confirmed in Washington.”
Some weeds are now resistant to multiple herbicides. Beyond using genetically engineered crops, farmers will need to use integrated weed management principles to limit future problems.
http://cropwatch.unl.edu/multiple-herbicide-resistant-weeds-and-challenges-ahead
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on the front page of section B about the problems of herbicide drift destroying fields near fields that have been planted with (GMO) dicambra-resistant crops. I haven’t gotten around to looking for a reference, but I’ve read several articles about bt corn being harmful to migratory monarch butterflies.
Rapid change creates risks. GMO facilitates rapid change. That doesn’t mean GMO is bad. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow it. But it should be subject to regulation that is sensitive to the risk it creates. Some of those risks are externalities, and will not be automatically accounted for by the makers or customers of the new technology.
In this case, some states have outlawed dicambra, and others have greatly increased the fines for inappropriate application of it. (From $1,000 to $25,000). Both actions are too late for the nearby farmers, or their insurance companies. But will presumably decrease the damage going forward.
It’s dicamba, not dicambra. And improper use of herbicides is a function of ignorance/carelessness that has nothing to do with whether they’re used in the growing of GM or non-GM crops.
As for Monarch butterflies (the Bambi of the insect world), claims about Bt corn pollen harming them largely stem from a 1999 lab study whose findings have been widely challenged. One of numerous factors in Monarch population declines may be wider use of herbicides on resistant crops which results in less milkweed for the larvae to eat - but this is one of many factors including destruction of habitat for overwintering Monarchs in Mexico, placing more land in agricultural use and climate change. Since all farming (including organic operations) targets milkweed and other weeds, “saving” the Monarch involves mitigating these trends while providing habitat for milkweed plants they depend on for food.*
If we’ve come to the point where “rapid change” is to be feared and discouraged, what does that say about our ability to respond not only to new and resistant plant pests, but to dangerously mutating microbes and to develop new and effective drugs to treat cancer and other diseases, which may well involve biotechnology? “Sorry, can’t approve this new highly effective cancer drug - it would change the treatment paradigm too fast.”
*a really lousy evolutionary strategy, as it turns out.
**I have a scattering of milkweed plants growing in my garden, including the “weed” kind. From small steps…
We haven’t “come to the point where rapid change is to be feared and discouraged.” That has been true throughout human history. Rather, we have come to the point where rapid change is commonplace. We need to develop methods to cope with the brand new problem of lots and lots of rapid change.
Putting your head in the ground and saying, “don’t worry, be happy” is not an adequate response. Banning all change is a bad response, too. That’s been tried by many cultures, and tends to end very badly. Negotiating appropriate safeguards and regulations of new technologies is a very tricky problem, and one that is critically important.
I grow milkweed, too.
Fabricating strawmen is inadequate as well.
And I’m still waiting for the anti-GMO/GMO-hesitant in this thread to propose new regulations, as opposed to vague suggestions that they are needed.
Good.
There are numerous varieties to choose from.
Are you suggesting that no one has given any thought to what those regulations should be, or that they’ve never been referenced here before?
From the CSPI biotech overview linked earlier:
Genetically Engineered Foods and their Regulation: the Way Forward after Twenty Years of Adoption [PDF]
which contains the following pertinent sections:
[ul]
[li]Deficiencies in the Regulation of GE Crops and Proposed Solutions[/li][li]A Mandatory Pre-Market Approval Process at FDA is Necessary to Ensure Safety and Provide Consumer Confidence[/li][li]USDA Needs to Establish Science-Based Regulations Addressing the Real Potential Impacts of Growing GE Crops[/li][li]EPA Needs to use its Oversight of GE Crops and Conventional Pesticides to Prevent the Development of Resistant Pests and Weeds[/li][li]Labeling Foods with Ingredients from GE Crops[/li][/ul]
Also this:
USDA Should Establish a Science-Based Regulatory System to Address Genetically Engineered and Gene-Edited Crops
And guidelines from a more global perspective …
Major GMO legislation in the European Union:
Discussed in a previous thread and mentioned again here – over 50 specific recommendations:
Elements of Precaution: Recommendations for the Regulation of Food Biotechnology in Canada [The link is a large PDF]
I used to have some butterfly weed as an ornamental. It did attract a wide variety of butterflies and their larvae. What I have now is common wild milkweed. I collected some seeds from a plant growing in a parking lot. It’s done nicely. It’s a little weedy (surprise!) But mostly I’ve been able to keep it in check by pulling up inconvenient sprouts in late spring.
Are you saying that you specifically endorse everything that’s in those links?
How about selecting just one proposed new regulation and explain why you support it? That’d be something new for the thread, and potentially a generator of useful conversation.
I continue to wait for your response regarding whether golden rice should be a permitted crop (there is also a provitamin A-enriched banana in the works). Both of these promise to make a substantial impact on reducing blindness and death in Third World countries, but are bitterly opposed by anti-GMOers who apparently see them as a Trojan horse which will dampen opposition to biotech crops. Do you find them acceptable, and if not, why not?
You didn’t ask me, but for the record, I have no objection to golden rice. I believe it was developed as a publicity stunt, not as an actual attempt to alleviate human suffering. But it is an example of a small, safe, helpful genetic modification.
Why do you believe it was “a publicity stunt”?
*"Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency. Are anti-GM advocates not partly responsible?
Golden rice is the most prominent example in the global controversy over GM foods, which pits a technology with some risks but incredible potential against the resistance of feel-good campaigning. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 percent at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Of these, half die within a year. A study from the British medical journal the Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of 5 each year."*
I regret this seems like a “small” thing to you.
Hmmm… over here I provided a brief overview of my concerns and the reasons for them. You deemed this (in #107) to apparently be “too vague”. So I provided a bunch of specific areas where the regulatory framework needed to be strengthened. Apparently this is now too detailed! 
You probably know from my various posts, usually in other areas like politics and climate change, that one of my hot buttons is corporate dominance over public policy and the public interest. I think the suggestions in that first document for improved oversight by the FDA, USDA, and EPA are generally good ones, and the the proactive ones related to the FDA seem to be much in line with the Canadian Royal Society recommendations and the fears it expressed over corporate chicanery.
I wasn’t aware that this was awaiting my reply, but I might have missed it. I know of no reason that golden rice would be a problem, but I’m no expert. I know that some of the opposition has been knee-jerk and not science based. However, see my next post.
This wasn’t directed to me but I do feel obliged to reply. You have completely misrepresented the poster’s statement by trotting out this boundless praise of golden rice as allegedly the greatest salvation for the third world ever conceived and then declaring that this not a “small” thing. What the poster said was that this was a relatively small genetic modification, which it is. It was an early pioneering development, simple but apparently beneficial, which is why it became a sort of poster child for GMO interests.
However, I was intrigued by the breathless praise in the article you quoted, and particularly its opening line, “Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines.” [emphasis mine] Mainly because the bolded allegation is at best highly debatable and, many would argue, totally false.
So I was curious to see who wrote that article. My, my, if it isn’t my old friend Bjorn Lomborg the climate change denier*! Good old Bjorn, the inveterate liar, the business prof with a lucrative sideline as a corporate shill, the guy hauled in front of a Danish government committee on charges of scientific dishonesty!
If you’re going to provide cites you ought to use more credible sources. Here’s an academic study on the matter: GMO activists not to blame for scientific challenges slowing introduction [of golden rice], study finds. Nor is golden rice the only means of reducing vitamin A deficiencies in the third world; the study finds that the Phillippines has developed other non-GMO means of addressing the problem.
This is not to say that there’s any sound basis for opposition to golden rice. Your article just comes from a very biased source who seems to have misrepresented the facts from the very first sentence.
–
- And lest you start nitpicking, if you prefer, let’s call him a “climate change skeptic” working hard to dishonestly downplay the impacts of climate change and undermine mitigation initiatives. Which is perfectly illustrative of exactly the kind of dishonesty I worry about in the realm of GE crops and foods.
I believe it was primarily a publicity stunt because they made no attempt to market this in the first world. My market is full of golden cauliflower, multi-colored carrots, and vitamin-enhanced breakfast cereals. If they actually wanted to sell the product, or even wanted it to be used widely, they would market it where the money is, as well as offer it to poor countries. Some of the individual scientists involved in the development were probably motivated by altruism, but I don’t think the companies that backed them were or are. But that doesn’t really matter one way or the other.
As wolfpup points out, you misunderstood my use of the word small. I meant that it is a modest change to the genome. I offered no opinion as to its value or importance.
But it is somewhat disingenuous to throw out the number of people who eat rice as a staple and compare that to the number of people with vitamin A deficiency and suggest that this one crop will somehow save the world from vitamin A deficiency if only it were approved. There are any number of other issues.
Do farmers like this crop? Are there versions well adapted to all the relevant microclimates, pests, etc.?
Does it appeal to consumers? It looks funny. Maybe it tastes a little different. People can be very conservative about staple foods.
Can the people who need more vitamin A afford it? Is there a distribution system to get it from the farmers to the consumers?
Is there a risk of consuming too much vitamin A if this replaces ordinary rice?
Vitamins are cheap. The problems are mostly about distributing them to the people who need them. There are other easy-to-grow vegetables that provide vitamin A, like yams. Many of the same problems that prevent poor people from getting access to vitamin pills or yams will prevent the same people from getting golden rice.
I’m not saying we should ban golden rice. As I said above, it seems like a harmless genetic modification. But I don’t expect it will be a panacea, either.
I think it’s right to fear corporations like Monsanto. They used to make poison, now they alter our food. More importantly, they want to control our seeds, and their modified plants shed seeds and pollen onto adjacent farms that want nothing to do with GMO’s, which is their absolute right.
As to your other stuff, I don’t believe any of that shit, but again, Monsanto is to be feared, IMO.
Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYhNryOPSJ0
If you are going to link to a video, just give a heads up what it’s about. For anyone interested, here is the description:
Why would I do that? I already said that fearing corporations that control so much of our food supply and are engaged in actively altering the genetics of plants we eat along with SUING neighboring farmers for using heirloom seeds for patent infringement!
The viewer of the video should make up their own mind. I’m not sure why you cry pardon for a description other than what I’ve already offered.
Well, personally I’d like to know if I’m clicking on some crazy YouTube rant BEFORE I click on some crazy YouTube rant, which, frankly, this seems to be. It attempts to paint, through innuendo, that because Monsanto made poisons (and Agent Orange, let’s not forget) that this implies that their other products are equally tainted…without actually saying this, of course. It’s equivalent to saying that because a chemical company like Dupont may make stuff that’s poisonous you shouldn’t use their vaccines because, well, they make POISONS!!
Instead, if you have some actual facts (this being GQ) about Monsanto’s food based products being poisonous just link to those directly. Or not. Now you know why I was riled at least.
I never meant to rile you. And I fear that your assessment of this video is wrong. It DOES present factual findings, and it is a bit alarming that a corporation that used to produce (and still does) poisons along with controlling our food supply through many corporate chains. I’m sorry if it isn’t alarming to you, but it certainly is to me. VERY alarming. And I used to vote Republican for Christ’s sake.