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Is there anything you'd like to ask from a GMO specialist (doing an interview)?

Kuko 4000

Graduate Poster
Kuko 4000
Joined
Mar 2, 2008
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I'm doing an in-depth interview with an adjunct professor who's been teaching plant breeding and genetics since the 1970's in the University of Helsinki. The format is video, target is YouTube, and I'm hoping to include translations in English.

We don't have time limitations so I can basically ask everything I can think of. The point of this video report is to make the basic science of gene technology more familiar to the overall public, to address all or most of the misunderstandings and fears that I can think of that are related to GMO's and also to map out the real problems / risks and benefits of the technology.

If you have any thoughts or worries at all about GMO's, this would be a good place to share them. I try my best to include ALL of the questions or worries you might have, from the simplest to the more complicated, the more variation in the questions, the better.

Thanks in advance, I hope you too will find this interesting.
 
"Are there GMO developments whose general use would be significantly beneficial to the public interest or to the environment, that are not permitted to be used for reasons you consider irrational?"

If so, please discuss examples -- what expected benefits are going unrealized, and why? And is it just a matter of waiting a few more years for further testing to get those benefits, or is progress on some fronts stalled indefinitely?

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Not sure how to phrase this...

Would like to see a comparison between the open source computing community versus proprietary

and what if any parallels exist in the GM community...
ie University non proprietary work on GM versus say Monsanto

what are the issues and realities of open source GM versus for profit proprietary

( looking at it ....it somewhat relates to Myriad's point )
 
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What percentage of the total agricultural research funding (private and public) is spent world wide on GMO related research?
What percentage of agricultural production is dependent exclusively on breeding and genetics?
Are the percentages above similar?
If not why not?
 
Genetic diversity reduces the risk of common mode failures. Such as crop failures over large geographical regions due to some novel plant virus or pest.

To what degree is GM crops technologically, economically and politically compatible with a high degree of genetic diversity? What prevents taking a hundred different strains of soybeans and introducing the same genetic modification, e.g. round-up resistance or draught resistance, to all of them?
 
This may relate in some fashion to macdoc's question.

The issues with patent law, and the inadvertent cross pollination of related strains seems to have a a potential for misuse, especially when the financial resources of large corporations are devoted to legal tactics. I think evidence of this is already turning up in the courtrooms. How are the patent wars going to go, and what can be done to reduce collateral damage, such as a farmer whose seed crop gets cross pollinated by an engineered strain? Is he a thief for growing from it? What if he doesn't want the engineered characteristics? Can he sue for damages?
 
Could he give some insight into the successes and failures of GMOs up to now. What particular GM crops have worked and why? Which other crops have not worked as expected? To what degree GMOs have fared compared to the promises and expectation (yields, pesticide usage, etc). And please, provide hard data or references, not vague assertions.

ETA: how hard is it to actually create a viable GMO, from the beginning (i.e. starting with how to identify the desired/appropriate gene in a foreign organism)?

I'm asking this last one as the process of inserting a given gene in the target crop has been explained to the public, but the process prior to that not so much. I remember reading a while ago that developping new GMOs is just pretty much as expensive as developping new crops through conventional breeding, so the molecular recombinant approach probably does involve more trial and errors than the proponents would like to admit, just at a different stage than in conventional breeding.
 
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!Kaggen said:
What percentage of the total agricultural research funding (private and public) is spent world wide on GMO related research?
What percentage of agricultural production is dependent exclusively on breeding and genetics?
Are the percentages above similar?
If not why not?
Click to expand...

Just to clarify.
I am interested in establishing if the amount of money spent on GMO research is justified by comparing this figure as a percentage of the total amount of money spent on agricultural research with what we understand to be the influence on agricultural production due to genetics alone.
 
!Kaggen said:
What percentage of the total agricultural research funding (private and public) is spent world wide on GMO related research?
What percentage of agricultural production is dependent exclusively on breeding and genetics?
Are the percentages above similar?
If not why not?
Click to expand...

!Kaggen said:
Just to clarify.
I am interested in establishing if the amount of money spent on GMO research is justified by comparing this figure as a percentage of the total amount of money spent on agricultural research with what we understand to be the influence on agricultural production due to genetics alone.
Click to expand...


I almost thought I understood what you were asking ... until you clarified it.
 
quadraginta said:
I almost thought I understood what you were asking ... until you clarified it.
Click to expand...

What can I say its complicated......

short version- I am jealous of all the money being thrown at GMO research I want some thrown my way :(
 
Kuko 4000 said:
I'm doing an in-depth interview with an adjunct professor who's been teaching plant breeding and genetics since the 1970's in the University of Helsinki. The format is video, target is YouTube, and I'm hoping to include translations in English.

We don't have time limitations so I can basically ask everything I can think of. The point of this video report is to make the basic science of gene technology more familiar to the overall public, to address all or most of the misunderstandings and fears that I can think of that are related to GMO's and also to map out the real problems / risks and benefits of the technology.

If you have any thoughts or worries at all about GMO's, this would be a good place to share them. I try my best to include ALL of the questions or worries you might have, from the simplest to the more complicated, the more variation in the questions, the better.

Thanks in advance, I hope you too will find this interesting.
Click to expand...

Ask him if he's ever met an anti-GMO nut who knows even the basics of science.
 
I'd ask him about the patent stuff, too. The number one complaint against GMO's, apart from imagined health risks and spiritual/religious issues, is the idea that cross-pollination would occur, and that the owner of the patented food would all of a sudden own the food on the neighbouring crops as well.

This sounds downright bizarre (and is of course a bit of a red herring as it doesn't have anything to do with GMO's themselves, but rather with patent laws) Is there any truth to this at all? Have there been court cases, and if yes, how did they turn out? If this is a legitimate issue, how soon can laws to be changed?
 
Good stuff, thanks everyone :)

If you have any further questions, suggestions or ideas please keep them coming, we start shooting in about a week from now.
 
Is GMO comparable with traditional breeding, like alot GMO fans keep saying?
Where does the expert see the big diference, when there is any.
 
DC, I see you have very strong views on this issue, could you list your concerns one by one in this thread? The more the merrier, thanks!
 
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