GM Crops: Should We Be Scared?

[Hellbound]

Ouch.

Reminds me of an interesting sci-fi story I read, can't recall the name or author, though...have to see if I could find it.

Basically, in the course of a murder investigation invoving an Amish community, the detective discovers that the Amish have been practicing biotech for years, achieving all sorts of biological products through extreme selective breeding (light-generating plants, treees that act as silent alarms, etc, etc). The reason for the Amsih seclusion was to safeguard their tech.

An unlikely story, but an interesting read with a unique twist.

 

[Almo]

What worries me is Microsoft type market manipulation:

http://www.biotech-info.net/Farmer_v_Monsanto.html

To get Roundup Ready canola's advantages farmers have to buy new seeds from Monsanto every year. The agreement also states they must destroy any leftover seed each year and let Monsanto inspect their fields.

I read somewhere, but I can't find it now, that they are figuring out how to make the seeds expire after a year on their own.

 

[CurtC]

I read somewhere, but I can't find it now, that they are figuring out how to make the seeds expire after a year on their own.

This was Monsanto's famous "terminator" technology, which they dropped several years ago because of bad PR. I think it was a good idea, but at this tender stage of the develoment of GM technology, I guess they were being sensitive. What it was trying to do was to develop sterile crops, whose seeds produced one year would not be able to be re-planted the next. This would get around issues of inspections to verify compliance with the license terms.

What's often missed in this discussion is that several more conventionally bred hybrid crops produce seeds that can't be used the next - not that they're completely sterile, but the resulting seeds would themselves not make quality crops the next year. This is already effectively equivalent to terminator technology, completely separate from the GM issue.

But GM Roundup-ready soybeans are not like this - the seeds can be re-used. There was a famous case where a Canadian farmer (Percy Schmeiser) took seeds from plants near the edges of his fields, where they bordered neighboring farms who were Roundup-ready users, then intentionally selected for those plants by spraying them with Roundup, then planted those seeds. He knew he was violating a company's patents, and was fined by the courts. He's become a hero for the anti-GM crowd.

 

[patnray]

I was puzzled by the idea of adding bt genes to a plant.
I didn't think BT conferred any immunity to pests upon the plant itself, but rather it infected those pests directly. How would putting BT genes in a plant help?

(anecdote)I used BT one year on a pear tree that was particularly troubled by codling moths. It didn't seem to help much; the whole tree was devastated. The following year I used liberal doses of malathion, and had a nice crop.

IIRC BT kills insects because of a toxin they produce and the BT gene being inserted in the plants is the gene for the toxin.

http://naturalscience.com/ns/cover/cover11.html

"Bt toxin is considered to be an ideal tool for biological pest control for several reasons. It is highly specific for particular insect species; therefore, non-target organisms will not be affected. It is non-toxic to vertebrates, and target-insect resistance is slow to develop. Finally, due to its light-sensitivity, it does not persist in an exposed environment. Bt toxin has been used to control gypsy moth and spruce budworm populations; in this application, the protoxin is applied as a component of proteinaceous inclusion bodies produced by the bacterium, along with chemicals that attract feeding insects. However, the genes encoding the various forms of Bt toxin can also be inserted into other bacteria or plant species. For example, Bt corn is corn that contains a truncated form of the cry1Ab gene, and therefore produces an active form of Bt toxin, rather than the proform normally produced by the bacterium."

 

[ysabella]

This was Monsanto's famous "terminator" technology, which they dropped several years ago because of bad PR. I think it was a good idea, but at this tender stage of the develoment of GM technology, I guess they were being sensitive. What it was trying to do was to develop sterile crops, whose seeds produced one year would not be able to be re-planted the next. This would get around issues of inspections to verify compliance with the license terms.

Well, and with all the concerns about GM crops "contaminating" other crops, you'd think people would welcome sterile GM crops that can't reproduce themselves.

 

[meg]

I don't see how anyone could view the "terminator" gene as a good idea for conventional crops. Pretty much it means that if I plant soybeans and my neighbor plants roundup ready soybeans, his soybeans will cross pollinate with mine without me knowing it. I'll save my seed for next year, but nothing will germinate, because they've been "terminated". I'm out my next year's crop and facing hardship because of my neighbor's choice of seed.

I do, however, see value in using terminator technology when growing GM crops for pharmaceutical production. See www.prodigene.com for examples of "pharm" crops. I do have concerns about those crops free pollinating with the neighbor's and/or making it into the food chain.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=adT0ydpQc5Gg is an interesting article about some of the research going on.

Overall, I've been very interested reading this thread. It's so refreshing to be able to read opinions about this topic that aren't insane on one side or the other.

I do have a couple of opinions about GM crops in general, though, that I'd like to throw in.

First off, Bt corn. I am not concerned in the slightest about eating Bt corn, however I do not believe it is a good idea to plant it and here's why:

1. Insects mutate quickly to become resistant to pesticides. Bt, when applied topically has been able to be used so successfully because its use was timed specifically to when the corn borers were most vulnerable, then it broke down quickly and was gone. There are many valid concerns that if the Bt gene is in the corn through the entire growth cycle that corn borers will become resistant to it.

2. Bacillus thuringiensis (bt) is also NOT specific to only corn borers, but will colonize and kill many different caterpillars that eat it, particularly lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). Many of these are considered beneficial bugs and are pollinators for other crops.

So theoretically, we could quite possibly see in the next few years that Bt no longer is effective again corn borer, and we have poor pollination of other crops because of a general decline in lepidoptera populations.

3. I don't know that the possible outcome is worth the risk, given that I've yet to find any research that shows GM crops are in any way more cost effective than conventional. They don't produce more per acre, they don't cost less, they're not easier to grow. I don't see the point, honestly. The only reason they get grown is because syngenta and pioneer have some awesome advertising bucks.

Anybody that says GM crops reduce the need for pesticides is wrong. Most GM crops grown today are of the roundup ready variety, meaning you can and should spray MORE pesticides on them, not less. That's the whole point of them. You can now make 4 or 5 passes with the weed killer instead of the one before planting you used to do. And actually, most farmers are finding that they *do* have to make more passes with the roundup, because many weeds are now becoming resistant.

And my final thought, as to antibiotics and animals. While I hear what Rolfe is saying, I think there's got to be some middle ground there. When we started raising pigs I couldn't find a commercially prepared feed that didn't have antibiotics in it. I finally had to make up our own blend of feed just because I didn't want to feed our pigs that stuff if they didn't need it. All the consultants I spoke with were sure that we were going to need it because "pigs are sickly". Well, it didn't take long to figure out that pigs that get plenty of fresh air, water, sunlight and room to run aren't sickly at all.

My 2 or 4 cents worth.
Meg

 

[ZirconBlue]

Anybody that says GM crops reduce the need for pesticides is wrong. Most GM crops grown today are of the roundup ready variety, meaning you can and should spray MORE pesticides on them, not less. That's the whole point of them. You can now make 4 or 5 passes with the weed killer instead of the one before planting you used to do. And actually, most farmers are finding that they *do* have to make more passes with the roundup, because many weeds are now becoming resistant.
Meg

Just a clarification that Roundup is an herbicide -(it kills plants), not a pesticide (which kills pests).

 

[Jorghnassen]

Just a clarification that Roundup is an herbicide -(it kills plants), not a pesticide (which kills pests).

I thought pesticide was a catch-all term for herbicide, insecticide and fungicide...

I just checked. Dictionary.com seems to agree with you, while wikipedia says the EPA has a much broader definition.

 

[meg]

I was taught also that pesticide is the term for all -cides. Insecticide, miticide, rodenticide, herbicide, etc.

M

 

[hodgy]

There are two issues here. The one you seem to be focussing on is the husbandry standards of healthy stock. This may or may not be better in organic herds. Certainly you're not going to get the evils of the real "Stalag Hen" variety, but many conventional farms have very good welfare standards, and many so-called free-range systems have miserable conditions for the livestock. Welfare in this respect has little to do with whether or not an individual farm can tick the boxes that allow it to call itself "organic".

Point taken - I am a layman on this issue so its good to hear a well-informed point of view from someone with more expertise. Actually I just double-checked the farm where I like to get my meat and its not organic, only free-range. When I go there I can see the animals and they look like they have a pretty good life.

I have a pretty simple approach - I buy free range (and sometimes organic) because I don't like the idea of animals spending their entire lives in cramped dark cages or being shipped across half of Europe in trucks. Free range and organic classification helps me to identify sources. I have no pretensions to being an expert in the life history of each animal I eat but I try in a limited way to reduce suffering.

The second issue is the important one of the prevention of disease and the treatment of sick animals. This is where organic farming sickens me. The use of many (if not most) properly tested, safe, effective and licensed medicines is forbidden. Farmers are encouraged and indeed instructed to use unlicensed, unproven and non-safety-tested preparations, under the laughable heading of "natural" remedies. This includes the use of some very toxic compounds for disease "prevention", far more toxic than the licensed products, simply because they aren't tested and licensed and so aren't "big pharma" medicines. It also includes the heavy promotion of homoeopathy.

That's a very good point and one that I was not aware of, I assumed that sick (organic) animals were treated as best veterinarian practice allowed. If you are telling me that this is not the case then maybe I will stick to free-range in future.

Most farm animal vets simply tear their hair out over "organic" livestock farms, despairing over the animals being allowed to suffer from eminently treatable conditions because waiting till the problems go away on their own (assuming they do) will not lose these animals their "organic" status while giving the poor, thin, scouring calves a dose of much-needed wormer will. And the amount of woo coming out of the organic proponents about homoeopathy being "good for" mastitis and so on would just make you throw up.

It certainly would make me very angry so thanks for enlightening me.

It has been shown in objective tests that the overall welfare standards of organically-reared animals are not better than conventionally-reared livestock and may often be worse. Anyone who is choosing organic meat for animal welfare reasons had better go away and do some serious reading, and have a rethink.

I'm not so concerned about the organic bit - I am more interested in the general welfare of the animals that I eat therefore I will re-evaluate my position a little. Having said that I still think that organic pork is on balance likely to have had a far less cruel life than factory-farm pork.

We should also bear in mind that cruelty is not just about how sick animals are treated but about how healthy ones are. A polar bear in a small enclosure in a zoo may have the best veterinarian care in the world but it does not make it a happy polar bear. Conversely an individual polar bear in the wild may starve to death in a bad year but I would still prefer that polar bears in general be not confined to zoos.

 

[Rolfe]

Stick with the "free-range" idea, then. But even there, it's good if you can actually see where the animals came from. Some producers have managed to squeeze into the "free-range" category with setups that aren't exactly what the consumer might have imagined - poultry with theoretical access to a small outside run that about 10% of the birds might actually succeed in locating during their lifetimes, for example. And the problems of bullying and victimisation aren't always addressed.

I'm all for improved welfare standards, it's just that you have to be constantly on the watch for people who will sweat the letter of the law while maintaining systems that really aren't too great. However, the whole "organic" movement, complete with overt, preposterous claims of efficacy for homoeopathic remedies, just makes me see very very red.

Rolfe.

 

[meg]

I understand why you see red, Rolfe, when dealing with an organic woo woo that's more concerned with whether he'll lose his organic certification than the health of his animal. This makes me see red, too.

To be fair, though, on the other end of the spectrum is the factory farmer piglot where the pigs are suspended in cages no bigger than their own bodies over a lagoon of their own manure and fed daily doses of antibiotics to attempt to counter the many diseases that such a system naturally breeds.

Or a somewhat less disgusting opposite end of the spectrum is the diligent farmer that worms his goats every 12 weeks whether they need it or not, which is resulting in the problem we have now that many wormers no longer work because the worms have developed resistance.

These also make me see red.

I think its a good thing to remember that the whole organic movement is a *reaction* to what has been occuring in our food production systems. And, like most kneejerk reactions, its not the absolute best choice of all. I believe that in general the organic movement is a good thing, because it is bringing to the forefront questions about how we grow our food, how we treat our food animals, and how we process that food for the table. I think these questions are important. I think we all should be taking a lot more responsibility for what we eat.

Unfortunately, I think many people think that as long as that "certified organic" stamp is on the package, it means that this food was lovingly grown by old macdonald himself in eden where, since he doesn't use those nasty chemicals, nothing ever gets sick and everything grows perfectly and you don't even need to wash it. Buying that "organic" product somehow proves how much they care about the environment, and sticks it to "the man".

It's just not true, though. There are huge organic factoryfarms interested only in taking the larger profit that organic stamp can get them, and there are soil conscious environmentally concerned conventional farmers that do everything in their power to maintain a healthy sustainable ecosystem.

Finding that middle ground where a farmer can make a halfway decent living and raise healthy nutritious food in a sustainable way is hard. I think the best advice is to try to have a relationship with the farmers that grow your food, and take a more active role in the decision making about where your food comes from, and how it gets to your table.

Trying to bring this back to the whole GM question. I think that those that consider all GM foods to be evil are wrong. Equally wrong is the attitude that since organic methods don't allow GM seeds, and since (some) organic farmers are woo that GM must be ok. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Meg

 

[Rolfe]

To be fair, though, on the other end of the spectrum is the factory farmer piglot where the pigs are suspended in cages no bigger than their own bodies over a lagoon of their own manure and fed daily doses of antibiotics to attempt to counter the many diseases that such a system naturally breeds.

Just for information, where does this actually happen?

Rolfe.

 

[meg]

That is a fairly common method used by large pigfarms. It is called the "conventional confinement system". Quite common here in the midwest US, anyway.

ETA

Here are a couple of links describing the various options for farmers looking to get into hog production, which include some descriptions of confinement operations.

Brief paper description hog production systems from North Dakota State University:
http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/dickinso/research/1975/produc75.htm

"Hogs Your Way. Choosing a hog production system in the upper midwest" pdf. Has a pretty good description of confinement systems. Warning, fairly big download 80+ pages.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/livestocksystems/components/DI7641.pdf

Let me know if you want more. I detest the "anti" websites that only show pictures of the disgusting parts in order to get emotional reactions, so I'm trying to put forward only university based publications that tend to be a bit more balanced.

Meg

 

[Rolfe]

I don't have the welfare regs at my fingertips, but so far as I'm aware, that stuff is illegal in the UK.

Rolfe.

 

[Floyt]

I don't think it really constitues "hard data", but: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0009/feature4/

The following link is clearly not objective, but it contains links to more scholarly articles: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Sixth_Great_Extinction

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6502368/

I could try finding scientific data on the current extinction rate and what scientists believe the normal background extinction rate is, if you'd like.

I started reading the Biodiversity Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (which is largely an UN project). You can get it here:

http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/Products.Synthesis.aspx

- the specific biodiversity report is half a page down. (big, 14Mb)
It seems to be thorough and comprehensive research on a global scale. Had some surprises for me! So far it seems to pretty much bear out the hypothesis that we are triggering a noticeable extinction event.