Monsanto

[GlennB]

Correct that's why Golden Rice is a joke.
Just get people to eat some green vegetable such as whole coriander plants growing in the ditch at the side of the Indian road and Vit A deficiency solved.

You still ignore the fact that 50g of leafy coriander is a huge amount.

You also ignore the fact that green veg are a distinctly seasonal product in many parts of the world. Sure, the 1st world can fly in broccoli and spinach year-round to stick on the supermarket shelves (or you can reach into the frozen food cabinets), but much of the 3rd world cannot.

Meanwhile rice has a shelf-life measured in years.

 

[qayak]

And, being such a science buff and all, you are no doubt aware that many of the scientific wonders we now take for granted were explored in science fiction long before they emerged as actual science.

Yes, and your point is?

For eons people have dreamed of travelling to the heavens but it wasn't until recently that science was able to allow us to. Do you think the first person that wished to stand on the moon was the precursor to the moon landing?

The fact is, thinking of things is the easy part, developing the science and technology to allow it to happen is another. The person who imagines life on another planet is a very far cry from the person who finds it. Unless you really do expect martians to be bipedal, have green skin, and black, googly eyes.

I think its central premise has merit: It is naive to expect to be able to maintain perfect containment of frankenorganisms 100% of the time.

It's fear mongering to take a movie about the largest, most ferocious creatures to ever walk the planet (arguably) and relate it to the genetic modifications used in food crops. There's just too many fallacies at work for it to be taken seriously.

Come to think of it . . . humans being hunted by GM wheat woiuld make a great cult classic!

Oh, wait . . . it's been done in "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."

 

[Dymanic]

Do you think the first person that wished to stand on the moon was the precursor to the moon landing?

Yes. Absolutely. Ever person who has ever wished that was a precursor to the moon landings.

It's fear mongering to take a movie about the largest, most ferocious creatures to ever walk the planet (arguably) and relate it to the genetic modifications used in food crops. There's just too many fallacies at work for it to be taken seriously.

For one thing, a population of feral frankenRexes would be pretty easy to track, and they'd make wonderful targets. But, as I've said, some of our experiences with invasive species provide firm support for the position that deliberate introduction of any new species is something that should always be taken seriously. (Unless it's just in a movie).

 

[marplots]

And, being such a science buff and all, you are no doubt aware that many of the scientific wonders we now take for granted were explored in science fiction long before they emerged as actual science. In response to another poster's question, I said that I was mostly joking with the Jurassic Park bit. The non-joking part is that while that film (which would have more accurately been titled "Cretaceous Park") may have taken certain liberties with its artistic license that some of us regarded as bordering on abuse, it may not be entirely without some value as a sort of lighthearted thought experiment; an entertaining hypothetical exploration of some of the possible outcomes of reckless use of our newfound ability to redesign organisms. I think its central premise has merit: It is naive to expect to be able to maintain perfect containment of frankenorganisms 100% of the time.

I think this is demonstrably true, since we can't contain invasive species either. However, it's a cost/benefit situation, isn't it? Calling them "frankenorganisms" dredges up visions of extreme science fiction, like "Day of the Triffids." It also doesn't allow for the robust response of native species.

In a very real sense, we are competing with an ecology resulting from the powerful forces of natural selection. That ecology has a several million years head start on us. It's just as naive to think we are going to seriously damage this with our meddling. We may change it a bit, but I hardly think we could crash the system even if we wanted to.

 

[Susheel]

Which is why there are regulatory requirements that are required to be met for the research, development and release of LMOs.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Which is why there are regulatory requirements that are required to be met for the research, development and release of LMOs.

Are you sure? The nutters insist that GMO's haven't been tested enough.

 

[!Kaggen]

Oh yes...the whole "farmers are being harassed and arrested for saving their own seed" thing. Well good for her that she is helping to save these seeds. Funny thing is, this is already being done by state funded universities. She however now has a whole room of local seeds in her farm, stored in a very unscientific manner but looks significant and impressive to non-farming "activists".

Let me tell you something about a lot of these "local varieties". They are abandoned by farmers because they are no longer commercially viable to grow. I know of more sensible farm activists in tribal Central India who gave up on "traditional" vegetable varieties because of their low yield and disease sensitivity. Finally, the yield that they did get had a low shelf life that by the time they got it to the market they were more or less mush.

Local varieties of wheat that had stalks 5 feet and above more or less resulted in famine in the early 60s. Because in large farms and the unpredictable weather conditions around harvest, a slightly strong wind, or unseasonal rain meant that these top heavy thin stalks would fall over and a farmers entire harvest would just literally be lost in the dust. It was people like Dr. Borlaug who introduced practical short stalked long yielding varieties from Mexico that enabled India to become perhaps the second largest grower of wheat in Asia.

Vandana Shiva refuses to consider the growing population, depletion of aerable land and natural resources She grows "organic" vegetables on a large farm that she was lucky enough to inherit and sells these at boutique prices. More power to her. No one is going to prevent her from continuing to do this, but she is so keen to bully farmers all over the world to do things her way.

Do you know that, much against the will of the university scientists, the experimental farms for Bt Eggplant had to be kept secret because her fellow "activists" actually uised to tresspass into the farms and vandalise them and beat up and harass the workers.

Vandana Shiva bullying farmers? Now that is funny...

You need to get your facts straight about Borlaug's work though.
It was the use of soluble fertilizers which caused the lodging of the long stemmed varieties and by using varieties with reduced stem length you could use soluble fertilizer to your hearts content. Of course this comes with its problems such as reduced air movement around the wheat plants resulting in higher pathogenic fungi pressure from the conducive environment.

Ah the growing population, feed the world argument has eventually arrived.
I suppose that is why we waste up to 50% of the food produced (http://www.imeche.org/docs/default-source/reports/Global_Food_Report.pdf), because we need more to feed everyone?

 

[Segnosaur]

Besides which why is it that she hasn't been able to institute an effective nutrition initiative using her "low cost, no tech" solution despite the fact that she and her ilk does not have to jump through regulatory hoops to do so?

Because you and your kind have tied up all the money in your promises of a hunger free heaven with your pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo post diction nonsense.

But, you claimed that this miracle Vitamin A herb grows "wild in the ditches".

If this herb is growing wild like that, then money should not be an issue.

So again, if an herb which can basically be picked for free is not currently solving Vitamin A shortages in India, why not?

Oh really

http://www.vegangela.com/tag/cilantro-coriander/

50g per day provides 100% RDA

Ummm... really?

First of all, I couldn't see in your link where it mentions the amount you'd need to get 100% RDA.

However, if I go to Wikipedia (which in turn obtains its information from the USDA), it points out that 100g of Coriander (i.e. twice as much as you claim) contains only 42% of the recommended dose of Vitamin A.

So, you don't need 50g of Coriander on a daily basis, you need over 4 times as much (or over 200g), or around half a pound.

Do you know how much 50 grams of coriander amounts to. Go buy 50 grams of coriander and try to incorporate into your food requiremnts for the day, every day and see how far you get. In shops here the average consumer does not ask for 50 grams, its too much.

I see so farmers that plant your gm eggplant and are used to using x grams of fertilizer on their current varieties will not be persuaded to use more to their benefit?

Umm... I think the issue is golden rice, not eggplant.

And the thing is, there would still be a necessity to plant rice (since it is a staple of the diet, providing needed carbohydrates. Using 'golden rice' (with vitamin A) will not require any more fertilizer to be used than would normally be the case, since Coriander by itself would not provide the needed calories.

(According to Wikipedia, Coriander provides less than 1/10th the amount of calories as rice.)

 

[Susheel]

Vandana Shiva bullying farmers? Now that is funny...

Not really. There were lots of instances of activists under her influence harassing early Bt Cotton growers in India. And the vandalising of the experimental fields and roughing up of the farm workers at universities is fact.

The funny thing is that pioneer farmers who began growing Bt Cotton were initially harassed by neighboring farmers who went with the "its not natural" argument. Then there was the rumor spread about dead cattle and farmers who committed suicide because of the "adverse socio-economic impact" of Bt Cotton. This was effectively belied by the fact that more and more farmers, even those who had initially resisted the change adopting the new cotton when they saw how effective it was much to the chagrin of the activists. Today India is the second largest producer of cotton. A leap from around the fifth position in the early 90s.

 

[Segnosaur]

Ah the growing population, feed the world argument has eventually arrived. I suppose that is why we waste up to 50% of the food produced (http://www.imeche.org/docs/default-source/reports/Global_Food_Report.pdf), because we need more to feed everyone?

First of all, keep in mind that the article specified that up to 50% of food gets wasted... the article actually gives a range of 30-50%. However, it also points to a growing population (an estimate of 9.5billion by 2075), a growth of 35%. If the amount of waste is in the lower range, then yes... population growth will outstrip food production (without the development of new techniques).

Secondly, I don't think anyone is denying that food gets wasted. However, the fact that food gets wasted is because modern techniques have improved yields. If we went to all-organic methods of production, then we wouldn't have enough food to feed everyone.

Lastly, even if there is enough global food production to feed everyone on the planet, there are still advantages to using techniques (such as GMO) to increase yields, especially in the 3rd world...
1) It makes countries and individuals self-sufficient.... i.e. some farmer doesn't have to worry about a local warlord cutting off food shipments from the outside
2) It helps the environment... Less wilderness needs to be cut down for farming purposes, less transportation (and ultimately less energy consumed... you know, fossil fuels contributing to the greenhouse effect) is needed to ship foods in from other locals.
3) It helps the economy of places in the 3rd world, since less of their income needs to be spent on imported food.

 

[Dymanic]

I think this is demonstrably true, since we can't contain invasive species either. However, it's a cost/benefit situation, isn't it?

Yes. A risk/benefit analysis might be a better way of putting it. "Cost" tends to imply monetary cost, and some things can't be valued monetarily. [/quibble]

Calling them "frankenorganisms" dredges up visions of extreme science fiction, like "Day of the Triffids."

Well, there are the bizarre visions that may be invoked by extreme science fiction, and then there are the bizarre realities that are -- right now -- being invoked by extreme science.

In a very real sense, we are competing with an ecology resulting from the powerful forces of natural selection.

Then we are competing with the very systems that created us, and which have supported us for some hundreds of thousands of years. I don't see that as a competition we can win. I don't even know how "win" would be defined in that context.

That ecology has a several million years head start on us. It's just as naive to think we are going to seriously damage this with our meddling. We may change it a bit, but I hardly think we could crash the system even if we wanted to.

Wait. You don't think we have the power to crash ecosystems?

 

[sophia8]

Correct that's why Golden Rice is a joke.
Just get people to eat some green vegetable such as whole coriander plants growing in the ditch at the side of the Indian road and Vit A deficiency solved.

Right, go to any rundown poor area and tell the residents they can get lots of vitamins from eating the weeds growing in the wasteland - see how far that will get you.
Such 'greenies', on their own, are tough, tasteless, not at all filling and need to be cooked and served with other foods. Plus, they're only available for a few months of the year - what are people supposed to eat in winter? Further, when picked from the wild, they always need to be washed, as you never know who/what's been excreting/spraying over the leaves - and clean water is a scarce commodity in some parts of India. Rice, OTOH, is cheap, filling and always available. Hence, the advantages of Golden Rice.

Why do I get the impression that you've never lived on a limited income?

ETA: I have lived for a long time on a small income, and one summer I did supplement my diet with wild nettles and dandelion leaves. But that wasn't from choice.

 

[GlennB]

Why do I get the impression that you've never lived on a limited income?

ETA: I have lived for a long time on a small income, and one summer I did supplement my diet with wild nettles and dandelion leaves. But that wasn't from choice.

Amen.

In fact some of our poorer Greek neighbours pick this horta (wild greens) at certain times of the year. But the season is very limited, and it's more of a tradition than a real necessity (you pay good money for these greens in a local taverna).

There's no way we could rely on those wild veg to sort out our vitamin A requirements. We go to the greengrocer or the freezer cabinet for most of the year, which is not always possible in rural parts of 3rd world countries.

 

[marplots]

(much snipped)
Wait. You don't think we have the power to crash ecosystems?

We are probably going to run into problems with definition here. I'm going to guess that desertification (the most extreme example I can think of) would count as "crashing" from your perspective?

Let's say I grant that (as opposed to "changing), my next point would be to ask why we don't just crash the new ecosystem as well? The answer, of course, is that some ecosystems are more robust than others. What we cannot do is crash those ecosystems which are not vulnerable to temporary onslaught or make a moonscape. If we could, we'd have gotten rid of the tsetse over whole swaths of Africa or crashed the ecosystem in Australia that keeps the cane toad (and others) around.

Sterility is hard to come by and so is directed change. An ecosystem that replaces a previous status quo should count as anti-crashing if you adopt the nomenclature based on "what was there before isn't."

But I am curious to hear an example of human beings crashing an ecosystem. I'm going to guess that changing the course of a river so that a delta dries up should do it?

 

[GlennB]

But I am curious to hear an example of human beings crashing an ecosystem. I'm going to guess that changing the course of a river so that a delta dries up should do it?

Not really an "ecosystem" as such, but the crash of the N Sea herring and the Grand Banks cod fisheries were pretty dramatic, to mention but two.

 

[marplots]

Not really an "ecosystem" as such, but the crash of the N Sea herring and the Grand Banks cod fisheries were pretty dramatic, to mention but two.

And indeed, we can look to putting formaldehyde in our tennis shoes as destroying an ecosystem made of fungi, in fact, taking a strong purgative might crash my intestinal flora. I only mention this because my original quote had to do with a larger system, the planet as a whole:

Marplots That ecology has a several million years head start on us. It's just as naive to think we are going to seriously damage this with our meddling. We may change it a bit, but I hardly think we could crash the system even if we wanted to.

If I roto-till my front yard and plant grass, I'm altering an ecosystem. But without sustained effort, the background conditions (or some other uncontrolled condition) reemerges. My contention is we don't have the resources to pave the planet or sterilize any significant part of it and keep it that way.

Alter, yes. In the sense that any organism could alter an ecosystem. Crash the planet? Harder for me to buy. As a species, we have a tremendous way to go to keep bacteria, insects, fungi and plants from taking back what they probably believe is rightly theirs. Larger species are easier targets I suppose, but it's a much, much bigger picture than we usually think of.

 

[GlennB]

...... I only mention this because my original quote had to do with a larger system, the planet as a whole:

No. Your original quote was not about "the planet as a whole". It implicitly and explicitly refers to ecosystems at a much lower level than that.

If we could, we'd have gotten rid of the tsetse over whole swaths of Africa or crashed the ecosystem in Australia that keeps the cane toad (and others) around.

.. which is what I was responding to.

 

[marplots]

No. Your original quote was not about "the planet as a whole". It implicitly and explicitly refers to ecosystems at a much lower level than that.

Maybe there's a mix-up in posts. Here's where I first brought it up:

In a very real sense, we are competing with an ecology resulting from the powerful forces of natural selection. That ecology has a several million years head start on us. It's just as naive to think we are going to seriously damage this with our meddling. We may change it a bit, but I hardly think we could crash the system even if we wanted to.

I should have been clearer. I thought the "several million years head start" implied more than it really does. Should I have said "billion" instead?

The conversation then drifted into fisheries and other, smaller units afterward. We switched from "ecology" to "ecosystems" in the meanwhile.

We probably agree then that while we can alter some ecosystems in the short term, we have no ability to change the underlying ecology of the planet?

 

[brodski]

Yes, but the RDA is set by the government, and they're owned by Monsanto, aka "Big Ag".

(They're also owned by Big Pharma, so it can get confusing)

Big Pharma= Big farmer, think about it- why else would they be pronounced the same?

 

[Dymanic]

We probably agree then that while we can alter some ecosystems in the short term, we have no ability to change the underlying ecology of the planet?

It might help if you would begin by defining "underlying ecology".