KIRK! Thank you!

hmm

yum!

Actually, Quayle didn’t know how to spell potato…apt, eh?

What’s up, Doc? ;-)

Fork - the stupid, it burns my memory!

Thanks for catching my blunder, Laura - duly corrected.

Hi to you, TB, CT, and argos

Wait so by eating a tater we could be giving all the germs in our body immunity from a certain Antibiotic? Why is this *cough* improvement added to the potato?

Yeah, that’s what I was wondering– why did they add that gene?

Of course, the alternative is growing your own, but then you have to know what is actually in the ground you’re using.

I absolutely despise Monsanto, ADM, and Cargill, amongst numerous others! But, interestingly, a major bone of contention here in the Isles is the frankenfood Taro, or more commonly referred to as Kalo here, developed by the UH Dept. of Tropical Ag, in conjunction with the USDA… Many Hawaiians have chained themselves to doors and aggressively protested the usage… GMO and the patent procedures need to be thoroughly upended, with an eye cast particularly at the ‘Terminator’ seed practises… 8-(

Good gawd. And I’m fixing fried chicken and mashed potatoes for supper as I type. Can you smell it?

I am not against genetically altered foods. However, all such foods should be rigorously tested and only released into the market when true scientific testing deems them safe.

Posted this on the last thread, but here’s a great slide show (NSFW, written words) that describes the subprime mess.

“the families of antibiotics affected by the potato gene (kanamycin and neomycin) are “critically important”(3) for veterinary and human use and “cannot be classified as of no or only minor therapeutic relevance”.(4) EFSA subsequently recognised that the BASF potato ARMG confers resistance to antibiotics of critical importance but failed to modify its position. Crucially, an EFSA opinion of 2004 declared that products containing ARMGs affecting “highly relevant” antibiotics should not be placed on the market.(5) “
http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-u.....uncil-vote

So we intend to give antibiotic resistance to a whole class of antibiotics that we are still using? We intend to feed these potatoes to cattle which I’m sure will help the spread especially if the meat has E coli in which case the affected antibiotics would be useless in cases of E coli food poisoning.
I want Ralph Nader as head of the FDA now.

a critical question for our times is what do we do now that the planet is a garden.

folks, we’re responsible for the whole thing now … there ain’t no real wilderness left. what’s left is a play ground that we manage — like the corner of my property in the back that we leave “wild” where the foxes live. but, it’s our property, it’s not really wild, it’s not bigger than we are.

so …

how is genetic engineering different than breeding tomatoes and trading seeds?

it’s not, in any fundamental way.

the difference is in risk. and how much we can foresee. no big problems from trading heirloom tomato sees. but, possible big problems from genetic engineering.

but only if we act like children.

time to grow up. and take responsibility for shitting in our own back yards. and admit that we manage the planet now.

Things and Riesz, the genes for antibiotic resistance are added as “markers” that allow the VatLords to distinguish which cells “took” the mutant genes (genes that alter starch metabolism in the potato) that BASF wanted to cram in the natural potato.

Noonan, fortunately we also have the alternative of selecting organic produce.

Sadly, even organics are under threat from pollution by Fraknenpollen from GMO crops.

And CT, I hope our most recently conquered colony shows the rest of the US the way to freedom! How do I say “good on ya” in Hawaiian?

We grow most of our veggies, chicken, eggs, pork and beef. We freeze and can. But we water all these things with ground water. Ground water which may contain contaminants. Like farm fertilizer, and pesticide runoffs.

I want Ralph Nader as head of the FDA now.

Isn’t that like having the fox guarding the hen house…? Think about it! The Corvair will be small potatoes in comparison…! *g*

I wonder if the Big Pharma companies have a new antibiotic that they want to launch with a bang. If we lose a class of antibiotics then we would be forced to buy the new antibiotic at whatever price because it would be the only antibiotic that works.

oh please don’t let that be the case!

How do I say “good on ya” in Hawaiian?

Shaka, Bra! Loosely translated…! ;-)

Sure can! Served with frozen peas?

Hey Kirk. I’m thinking of doing a vege garden. It’s not an inexpensive proposition, though. I’m thinking gopher proof mesh on the bottom, build up a wooden enclosed area bringing in good soil, and fencing all around to keep the rabbits out, and a gate so I can get in and out. Also the expense of changing the sprinkler system so it will water the goodies. I don’t know whether it would be worth the expense…

You paint too broad a brush when you talk about all genetically engineered food as being ‘frankenfoods’.

First of all, Darwin included a number of crop genetics practices in his work to demonstrate that people had already been long manipulating genetics in order to benefit themselves. We’ve been doing this for a long time; wild wheat is just not as useful as the wheat we currently have. We have provided evolutionary pressure to activate certain genes which, on wild wheat, just aren’t as helpful. Resistance to certain antibiotics and other chemicals come at a price, just as bacterial resistance comes at an energy price.

To explain: When a bacteria (or wheat, or rice, or whatever) becomes resistant to a chemical, it must generate its own compound which counteracts the original chemical. In the case of bacteria, most antibiotics attack the cell membrane of the bacterium, so the bacterium will tend to introduce something into the membrane to make the bug more resistant to the antibiotic. Similar processes occur in plants; herbicides attack the fundamental ways in which the plants are held together and produce energy. Resistant genes can be turned on, but at a price, and that price is the cost of producing the resistance chemical.

In the wild, where exposure to antibiotics (and pesticides) is minimal, activating genes to provide resistance is actually an evolutionary disadvantage, because the organism is spending energy on a resistance it doesn’t need. That doesn’t mean the strain won’t propagate, it just means the strain is at a disadvantage. However, in the presence of the pesticide, any plant with the gene turned on will have a distinct advantage, because all of its competitors will be dead. Similar with antibiotics; this energy cost turns out to be a great investment on the part of the bacteria, and it will survive in the presence of the antibiotic while the other bacteria will not, and the survivor will get to pass on its genes.

(as a side note, that’s why antibiotic resistant bacteria are typically not found outside of hospitals; the cost of making the antibiotic is too much of a disadvantage without the antibacterial agent there).

Similar processes occur in plants. Turning on genes which allow the plant to be resistant to chemicals is a great boon to farmers, because then they can get rid of weeds very easily, using standard pesticides, rather than cycles of pesticides which try not to harm the target plant.

So, for instance, take a look here:
http://www.checkbiotech.org/gr.....foId=16899

Providing an antifungal into rice would be of great benefit to those communities that depend on rice. Note that the work here was done at research universities, not companies.

While I understand the irritation at Monsanto and other biotech companies, consider this. While the top-down approach to farming has greatly destroyed what was the ‘American way of life’ in the middle of the last century and previously, we need that large infrastructure to support our population and many other populations that depend on American aid. Yes, there are inefficiencies built into the system, but the fact is that the oranges which only cost me $1.50 at Whole Foods (Paycheck) only come about because it’s profitable for someone. Diverse farming comes at the price of food costs going up everywhere.

This problem is a complicated one. If doing this kind of engineering turns on already latent genes in organisms, provides cheaper food for people who need it, and, if open sourced, allows for a non-mega-corporate farmer to get his hands on the genome and genetic product, then I’m all for genetically engineered foods.

I don’t believe the use of the words frankenfood, frankenspud, mutant and alien are constructive.

lee5, bless you and your family for leaving space for the First Creatures.

though I agree with your conclusions, I would disagree with:

how is genetic engineering different than breeding tomatoes and trading seeds?

it’s not, in any fundamental way.

The fundamental difference between biological plant breeding (seed saving, hybridization, even directed mutations via radiation/chemicals) is that all the foregoing methods only recombine the genetic information within one species.

Genetic engineering, in contrast, allows the combination of genes from organisms that are not only from different species, but (in the case of Frankenfoods like the Frankenspud) from entirely different phyla.

(in biology, “phyla” are the basic divisions among groups of living creatures - kinda like contintents are the basic divisions in geography. Along with salmon, we live in the animal phylum; bacteria that contain the genes for antibiotic resistance live in a different phylum; our crop plants (and other plants) live in yet another phylum.

Frankenfoods combine the genes from entirely different phyla into creatures never possible with bilogically based breeding.

And - simply by reproducing - the Frankenoffspring act as little natural Xerox machines that spread the mutant genes across the planet.

Now you’re lookin’ at a man that’s gettin’ kinda mad
I had lot’s of luck but it’s all been bad
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive.

My fishin’ pole’s broke the creek is full of sand
My woman run away with another man
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive.

A distant uncle passed away and left me quite a batch
And I was livin’g high until that fatal day
A lawyer proved I wasn’t born
I was only hatched.

Ev’rything’s agin’ me and it’s got me down
If I jumped in the river I would prob’ly drown
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive.

These shabby shoes I’m wearin’ all the time
Are full of holes and nails
And brother if I stepped on a worn out dime
I bet a nickel I could tell you if it was heads or tails.

I’m not gonna worry wrinkles in my brow
‘Cause nothin’s ever gonna be alright nohow
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive.

good for you and L, kiddo.

we don’t grow most of our food, but we grow a lot of it. still eating a lot from last summer’s garden!

same deal — organic gardening, but using groundwater. which given all the farmers around us is definitely not organic.

I think it frames it nicely… I don’t object to drought resistance, but, terminator and poison friendly seeds is pushing the envelope too far…

we need that large infrastructure to support our population and many other populations that depend on American aid. Yes, there are inefficiencies built into the system, but the fact is that the oranges which only cost me $1.50 at Whole Foods (Paycheck) only come about because it’s profitable for someone. Diverse farming comes at the price of food costs going up everywhere.

This argument is commonly in attempts to stifle fundamental criticism of the Frankenfood industry.

In reality, Frankenfoods are not at all necessary to support our popualtion or populations that rely on American food exports.

The problem of global access to food has repeatedly been demonstrated to be a problem of maldistribution.

As for the assertion:

First of all, Darwin included a number of crop genetics practices in his work to demonstrate that people had already been long manipulating genetics in order to benefit themselves. We’ve been doing this for a long time; wild wheat is just not as useful as the wheat we currently have. We have provided evolutionary pressure to activate certain genes which, on wild wheat, just aren’t as helpful. Resistance to certain antibiotics and other chemicals come at a price, just as bacterial resistance comes at an energy price.

any suggestion that the crop genetics addressed by Darwin are the same as the Frankengenetics created in labs was addressed in # 25 above.

Plants evolve slowly animals like us evolve along with the plants so we can keep eating them as they evolve new tricks. A sudden shift in plant makeup that only effects a small population after longterm exposure redheads, AB negative bloodtypes whatever might slip through our testing procedures.
Especially with the GOP in charge of testing these foods, more testing should be done. Or imagine the legal liability Monsanto if we don’t test more.

Hey kirk–

great post…potato and mansanto…and Dan Quayle. You gotta love it!!

Yeah, those’re just vicious and nasty practices, terminator and poison friendly.

Hence the desire to have the genomes open sourced and the tools available to anyone. Of course, then you run the risk of a farmer making some especially virulent strawberry that wipes out the local plant population; that’s a risk that’s a bit minimal and one I’d take over the risk (certainty?) of Monsanto developing trickery to keep the world population under its thumb via termination seeds.

Plus, anyone remember when the potassium markets got fixed?
http://www.competitionbureau.g.....1185e.html

Control the food sources, and you’ll control the game. Starcraft taught me that.

seeds that are illegal to breed for the next year are a bad thing.

releasing gmos into the world w/o understanding what the impacts of them will be is a bad thing.

pretending that we’re not responsible for our actions is a bad thing.

these statements seem obvious.

now … we live in colorado. is a potato that is resistant to the colorado potato beetle a bad thing?

i dunno — i plant organic seed potatoes pick the beetles by hand and kill them (with the most compassion in my heart that i can summon). does this make me, who flies across the continent most weeks, a better person? what impact does my choice of potato seeds have on someone in latin america? how does it compare to wearing leather shoes, burning jet fuel, writing code that can be used to monitor internet communications (although none of my clients do that, the software i work on can be used to do that), or creating products that let individuals publish their ideas (this is what my software does)?

no easy answers … promises made by dark of night dissolve by light of day …

changing the sprinkler system

You might consider using soaker hoses instead. Not only will you use less water, there are things (tomatoes, for example) that don’t necessarily like getting their leaves wet. Soaker hoses and mulch work a treat, for happy plants and a smaller water bill.

You have managed to sidestep the central argument I presented, namely, that genes can be turned on that aren’t naturally on, and by doing so, provide the plant with resistance.

To which you say?

Or simply rename everything a frankenfood and be done with it?

Like the attempts to engineer a cassava plant resistant to the mosaic virus?
http://www.tropentag.de/2005/p.....de348.html

I mean, it’s only 600 million Africans which could benefit from that.

And if you live where I live you can hook up an illegal greywater system like I did!

USDA is backpedaling on their original stance in HI’s District Court, that they had actually followed the EPA’s, and, their own USDA protocols on safeguards for seed testing! When in fact, they had failed to establish a ‘proper’ buffer zone around a GMO corn field on Maui… The research was for seeds bound for Africa…

Those cheap oranges you like so much taste like shit. Which is what they are. Wake up fool and realize that the rest of the world sez no to GMO for most excellent reasons. Hast heard of ‘mad cow disease’ or did you miss that one to watch American Idol.

Honestly, this is just plain stupidity. Please go back under your bridge.

ease up

Not peas tonight. We love all kinds of legumes though. Breaded in cornmeal, and fried okra tonight. From last season’s garden. This is afterall, ‘Okrahoma’. ;0)

i believe you mean an “undocumented” grey water system ;)

OOOHHH…. How? I’ve got a water barrel, but if there’s a reasonably efficient way to use graywater… (There are certain laws that just cry out to be broken, you know!) FB or e-mail info, please? (Not fair to hijack the thread!)

I’m not against Franken foods but spreading antibiotic resistance to antibiotics that we are still using is wrong.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs survival is the first step, we need antibiotics to survive more than we need a new potato.
Anyway what is so special about this potato anyway? Why risk losing a class of antibiotics? The Benefit/Risk scale of this potato would have to be very impressive to justify that.

There it is!

They do evolve slowly, but targeted breeding is much, much faster than natural evolution. A farmer deciding to propagate only 5 or 2% of their crop to the next year is highly selective; there’s usually way more genetic transferance to the next generation. That selection means that certain traits will show up faster and be emphasized more quickly. Hence why we can enjoy delicious beer, because without generations of farmers in the fertile crescent trying to get hammered, we would not have developed the basic ingredients.

So what about just turning on the genes, if they are extant?

But yes, we should still test. Designing that kind of experiment would be tricky, at the best, because you’d have to determine first what the variables are to test for. Would it be acceptable to have some people be allergic to the food, as some people are now allergic to peanuts and develop sprue with respect to glutens? Would we want the plants to only be able to cross pollinate with their own genetically engineered brethren, or with the rest of the population? It’s still a very tricky territory, and I do agree with the fundamental thrust of the good doctor’s post– the GOP should not be in charge of it. But neither should we be so quick to reject this advance in farming either.

Good point. Hoses that just water the plants.

Sorry for pointing out that the world isn’t as black and white as you’d like it to be.

But maybe you’d like to stew in your own bile a bit more, so enjoy.

yet another reason that I eat raw and try to shop exclusively at a Farmer’s Market. Even when we are pressed to shop at a grocery store, we pay attention to those SKU numbers on veggies and fruits as they tell you whether they are organic, standard or genetically modified.

Don’t forget the apples in illinois the store bought apples well suck. Coming to Seattle though Mmmm! I learned to like apples again.

thank you mmroden. this isn’t an easy subject (sez the organic gardener …) beware of all easy answers. but ask the hard questions!

We have an orchard of Tangelos grown by a local that produces the largest, sweetest orange orbs known to man! The size of grapefruits and as sweet as tangerines… No pesticides, and, No fertilizer used, except lime to sweeten the volcanic soil…!

Isn’t graywater they water from washing clothes and dishes? Wouldn’t that kill the veges from too much soap/detergent?

Lahoma says hello, lee5.

okk

Just a friendly reminder…
If you have an argument with the facts or science, state it.
But disparaging persons here is prohibited.

“So what about just turning on the genes, if they are extant? ” I have no problem with that as long as we test designing a good test would be the next step.

In the wild, where exposure to antibiotics (and pesticides) is minimal, activating genes to provide resistance is actually an evolutionary disadvantage, because the organism is spending energy on a resistance it doesn’t need. That doesn’t mean the strain won’t propagate, it just means the strain is at a disadvantage. However, in the presence of the pesticide, any plant with the gene turned on will have a distinct advantage, because all of its competitors will be dead. Similar with antibiotics; this energy cost turns out to be a great investment on the part of the bacteria, and it will survive in the presence of the antibiotic while the other bacteria will not, and the survivor will get to pass on its genes.

(as a side note, that’s why antibiotic resistant bacteria are typically not found outside of hospitals; the cost of making the antibiotic is too much of a disadvantage without the antibacterial agent there).

Hmm. Ideology meets empiricism, chapter 412:

By 2005 Wright’s team had combed through the genes of nearly 500 streptomyces strains and species, many never before identified. Every one proved resistant to multiple antibiotics, not just their own signature chemicals. On average, each could neutralize seven or eight drugs, and many could shrug off 14 or 15. In all, the researchers found resistance to every one of the 21 antibiotics they tested, including Ketek and Zyvox, two synthetic new drugs.

“These genes clearly didn’t jump directly from streptomyces into disease-causing bacteria,” Wright says. He had noted subtle variations between the resistance genes he pulled out of soil organisms and their doppelgängers in disease-causing bacteria. As in a game of telephone, each time a gene gets passed from one microbe to another, slight differences develop that reflect the DNA dialect of its new host. The resistance genes bedeviling doctors had evidently passed through many intermediaries on their way from soil to critically ill patients.

Wright suspects that the antibiotic-drenched environment of commercial livestock operations is prime ground for such transfer. “You’ve got the genes encoding for resistance in the soil beneath these operations,” he says, “and we know that the majority of the antibiotics animals consume get excreted intact.” In other words, the antibiotics fuel the rise of resistant bacteria both in the animals’ guts and in the dirt beneath their hooves, with ample opportunity for cross-contamination.

Nobody knows how long free-floating DNA might persist in the water.

A 2001 study by University of Illinois microbiologist Roderick Mackie documented this flow. When he looked for tetracycline resistance genes in groundwater downstream from pig farms, he also found the genes in local soil organisms like Microbacterium and Pseudomonas, which normally do not contain them. Since then, Mackie has found that soil bacteria around conventional pig farms, which use antibiotics, carry 100 to 1,000 times more resistance genes than do the same bacteria around organic farms.

“These animal operations are real hot spots,” he says. “They’re glowing red in the concentrations and intensity of these genes.” More worrisome, perhaps, is that Mackie pulled more resistance genes from his deepest test wells, suggesting that the genes percolated down toward the drinking water supplies used by surrounding communities.

An even more direct conduit into the environment may be the common practice of irrigating fields with wastewater from livestock lagoons. About three years ago, David Graham, a University of Kansas environmental engineer, was puzzled in the fall by a dramatic spike in resistance genes in a pond on a Kansas feedlot he was studying. “We didn’t know what was going on until I talked with a large-animal researcher,” he recalls. At the end of the summer, feedlots receive newly weaned calves from outlying ranches. To prevent the young animals from importing infections, the feedlot operators were giving them five-day “shock doses” of antibiotics. “Their attitude had been, cows are big animals, they’re pretty tough, so you give them 10 times what they need,” Graham says.

uh - your comment reflect ignorance of the fact that over 90% of the antibiotics used in the US are used outsdie of human medical care - mostly for feedlot cattle.

as you evinice ignorance of this basic concept - and draw fallacious conclusions as a result - I give you an “A” for ideology and rhetoric..,

but I’ll move on to commenters who demonstrate more intellectual substance.

when time permits, I’ll look forward to demolishing more of the Frakenpropaganda you’ve shared with us this evening.

drip irrigation. attention to water. centered mind as you work the ground by hand. awareness of where all the ingredients came from …

oops, that drip irrigation is all plastic. oil. death in iraq. what’s the planetary impact of extracting oil to get my drip irrigation supplies, refined in the third world, vs. wasting local water …

how does that compare w/ possible decrease in hunger from gmo potatoes?

no easy answers …

The amount of soap used isn’t that great, and if you consider that one of the things to use to combat bug critters in the garden is dish soap in water it seems almost like a gift…

and hi back to Lahoma. it’s nice to be hanging back here on the lake after a couple month’s break. interesting to see how the more it changes, the more it’s the same.

looking forward to voting for the same candidate this fall ;)

please see comment #54, immed’ly about yours …

best,
me

oops, that was supposed to be in response to #55 …

I’m not against Franken foods but spreading antibiotic resistance to antibiotics that we are still using is wrong.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs survival is the first step, we need antibiotics to survive more than we need a new potato.
Anyway what is so special about this potato anyway? Why risk losing a class of antibiotics? The Benefit/Risk scale of this potato would have to be very impressive to justify that.

What you are describing, Things, is the Precautionary Principle in action.

Good thing, that PP.

I look forward to seeing it become the basis of US regulatory law.

I’m thinking of investing in a garden not only for healthier food, but for food in general if the economy truly tanks. I have almost four acres, but can’t afford to water it. (I’m thinking of a small garden, enough to feed about three or four)

I suspect that you’ve become too emotionally involved with being right to actually be worth arguing with, but I’m the champion of lost causes, I guess.

I’m not defending everything that Monsanto does, nor any other large biotech company. They’ve done nasty things in the past (as I said, regarding potassium fixing, termination seeds, and poison vulnerable seeds), so they don’t get a clean slate.

The fictitious, straw-man-argument woman in Iowa lost her farm because she couldn’t compete, as you pointed out. That’s why Monsanto exists– they can compete very well. You can complain about it, or you can understand the scope of the problem, and realize that allowing local farmers to have similar control over the crops would certainly help them counter such occurrences.

And you also fail to realize that there are many, many people involved in this effort, as I was pointing out with the Casava example (work by a German group, but there are many others out there). That there are people who really are trying to help others in the world, even if it’s through genetic engineering, doesn’t seem to fit within the possibilities of your world; what a sad and bitter place you must inhabit.

Cross pollination of wild crops with modified crops is another problem to consider.

Instead of plastics, concentrate on cellulose products… Hemp, Switchback grass etc…

Kiddo and I are going upstairs to watch “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”. On PBS. The kiddo and I absolutely adore this 1947 movie. Good evening dear friends.

L and okk.

we live in the arid west (which I think you do too, if i remember correctly)., and it takes surprisingly small amounts of water to keep a significant garden in play. just be careful about it. we’ve got 3 acres, most in pasture, that we irrigate maybe once or twice a year (in a good year). garden from a well, about 1/3 acre. waaay more vegetables than 3-4 can eat. if you try to grow yr own protein, it’s a different story. but think seriously about chickens, a milk sow, and goats … i do beans (vegetarian scruples and all) and it’s a daunting task to think about growing yr own protein. we’d be eating chickens in a second if we had to do this for real.

It’s a lovely movie. Enjoy! Night, night.

do they make drip irrigation supplies from cellulose? we’d use that in a second.

Once again, you take a side point, and fail to address the central point of my argument.

OK, so most of the antibiotics used in the US is in feedlots– and then what happens to the groundwater goes ahead to prove my point, that in the presence of antibiotics, those organisms with resistance are favored to survive. My exact point! But, bacterial generations are on the order of 20-40 minutes, while plant generations are longer, so they take longer to develop the resistance, time that farmers generally don’t have.

So perhaps you could bend your mighty intellect to my original point– that you’re being too broad in your characterization of genetically modified foods, and that they can be used for good things in the world.

oops, that drip irrigation is all plastic. oil. death in iraq. what’s the planetary impact of extracting oil to get my drip irrigation supplies, refined in the third world, vs. wasting local water …

how does that compare w/ possible decrease in hunger from gmo potatoes?

lee5, good on ya for raising those big questions about the ecological footprint of all our choices.

the last trade-off, however, is the equivalent of dividing by zero: the BASF Frankenspuds aren’t even marrketed with the promise of reduciing hunger - they are market as feedstock for inidustrial processes.

Despite the best efforts of the FrankenCourtiers (and those in academia know to suck up the Frankenteat of funding, GMO’s haven’t actually reduced hunger. They have been instrumental in increasing our exposure to the herbicide Roundup (aka glyphosate) - which has been shown to be associated with increased lymphoma risks.

Oh - and associated with vastly increased profits for Monasanto.

The “choice” between Frankencrops and solving hunger is every bit as false as the “choice” between nuclear power and “expensive” energy.

Amazingly enough, the megacorp “answer” that requires the greatest megacorp involvement proves to be the most expensive public policy choice.

GM crops do not tackle hunger or poverty

• The majority of GM crops are used to feed animals in rich countries rather than people in poorer nations. South America’s expanding GM soybean plantations produce soy meal for Europe’s livestock industry, and have reduced food security by displacing poor farmers and reducing land area planted to food crops like corn and beans for local consumption.

• Not a single GM crop on the market is engineered for enhanced nutrition, increased yield potential, drought-tolerance, or other attractive traits touted by the biotech industry.

GM crops increase pesticide use and foster spread of resistant “superweeds”

• Four of every five acres of GM crops worldwide are Monsanto’s Roundup Ready varieties, designed specifically for use with glyphosate, the pesticide that Monsanto sells under the name of Roundup.

• US government data reveal a 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate on soybeans, corn and cotton in the US from 1994 to 2005, driven by adoption of Roundup Ready versions of these crops.

• Rising glyphosate use has spawned a growing epidemic of weeds resistant to the chemical in the US, Argentina and Brazil. Weed scientists have reported glyphosate-resistant weeds infesting 2.4 million acres in the US alone.

• Increasing weed resistance to glyphosate has led to rising use of other toxic chemicals. In the US, the amount of 2,4-D herbicide applied to soybeans more than doubled from 2002 to 2006. In Argentina, it is projected that 25 million liters of herbicides other than glyphosate will be needed to tackle glyphosate-resistant Johnsongrass.

The report also states that GM crops do not yield more than conventional crops and that GM crops benefit mainly biotechnology companies.

“For years, the biotech industry has been trumpeting the benefits of GM crops, but this report shows the true emerging picture,” added Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “These crops really promote greater use of pesticides, and cause direct harm to the environment and small farmers.”

That they do… I’m sure a quick google might locate a purveyor, it might be a foreign producer tho…! ;-)

Dang, Doc! Ya really know how to piss on one’s parade, eh? *g*

so, we live next to a big corn field. the farmer’s grandmother grew up in the house across the field. the corn he raises is harvested by the good ol boys down the road and feeds the cows on their family ranch. i don’t know what happens to the cows — whether they’re dairy cows or meat cows.

i do know that i’m happy when cliff sprays pesticides in the spring. it means he’s farming for another year — not gonna turn that field into a subdivision — and not gonna grow a field of weeds.

are those pesticides bad?

ok — cool. we’ll be looking for cellulose-based tubing this spring. thanks!

mmorden, your rhetoric is as amusing as it is irrelevant.

The rhetorical trick is to use one area of plant science in which only the extant genome is manipulated, cite theoretical benefits from such work…

and then use that as a putative basis for dismissing concerns about the artificially created genomes (created by combining genomoes from multiple organisms) discussed above as Frankenfoods.

I’m sure that’s a useful rhetorical device when overlooked.

Here, it didn’t work.

This needs its own post. I take it that we Americans are breeding plants to withstand or contain their own pesticides. But we are not creating multivitamin rice, potatoes with protein etc. Is anybody doing this research?
Building plants with pesticides is not a good use of research money. This is a great example of companies creating a market that we don’t need.
Normally I don’t care but by doing this we are ignoring world hunger. GOP freemarket polcy DOGMA is way wrong on this one.

sorry CT!

kirk, the sad thing is that i think both you and mmorden are trying to raise real issues. would certainly be better for both of you to acknowledge those issues, take each others intentions as good, and try to move forward. i don’t see either of you as the bad guys, but somehow, you’ve set yourselves up as that. (see post #54 above, please).

why is that? (serious question.)

Ah! Now a presentation of what I was asking for!

Apparently, I was hiding it behind too high a shield of ideology and rhetoric (really just taken from freshman biology, but hey). And so you have evidence from a group of organic farmers who themselves are incredibly not disposed to believe anything that comes out of any corporation’s mouth that has more than 50 employees. But hey! Rhetoric aside….

I see a much more disturbing trend in what you’ve presented– this problem is, as it always is with the GOP, about control. If Monsanto can make every plant require roundup, and then start to develop plants that are resistant to what they spray on roundup-ready plants, then they’ve got a vicious cycle started that will be hard, if not impossible to break. Termination seeds for the poor farmers, ever growing expenses with pesticides for the more well-to-do.

That GM foods haven’t been used for any good purpose can be attributed to a number of causes, not least of which is constant fearmongering that the food will somehow turn you into a shambling collection of cancers. I, for one, would be extremely excited if the work on casava actually managed to work. Furthermore, given the speculation that the wars in Nigeria might have been precipitated by extremely destructive drought the previous few years, drought resistant plants would also be a great boon.

You dismiss all GM foods out of hand, and by so doing, ignore a large amount of work being done by plant biologists around the world. It is you, sir, who are condemning yourself to irrelevance. While I understand the letters after your name give you some level of expertise, they do not make you the master of logic you would like to believe you are. Please, don’t make the mistake that most of your medical brethren make– learn that you are not the master of all that is human learning, and humble yourself to know that there are still things to learn.

I see a much more disturbing trend in what you’ve presented– this problem is, as it always is with the GOP, about control. If Monsanto can make every plant require roundup, and then start to develop plants that are resistant to what they spray on roundup-ready plants, then they’ve got a vicious cycle started that will be hard, if not impossible to break. Termination seeds for the poor farmers, ever growing expenses with pesticides for the more well-to-do.

and this is the fundamental sin … monsanto acting like a selfish child … no room for that on this garden-of-a-planet anymore.

we need to grow up!