Genetically Modified Crops

nanaej I raised this subject on Gransnet some time last year in an attempt to get some kind of understanding about the subject, but still remain confused. I think one of the difficulties of getting one's head around the subject is that there are a lot of ramifications. It's not simply a question of whether GM crops will produce better yields, there are other issues such as will proximity of GN crops affect organic crops, possibly rendering the farmers affected bankrupt? Is it sustainable to leave the future of farming communities, especially in deprived parts of third world countries, in the hands of a single trans-national company? Will they make the use of pesticides less necessary or simply ensure that only pesticides produced by the same trans-national company are effective?

Yes absentgrana ...I still feel this is being driven by large conglomerates out for money not for humanitarian reasons ...after all ...shouldn't they be trialled in the countries that are having the difficulties??

Have been lead to believe that oil seed rape is a GM crop ...though don't think that term has been used with it ...but scientists have fiddle with it? Look at how many people are alergic to its pollen

absentgrana agree it is difficult to find any clear picture. I do understand the issue for organic growers and appreciate their concerns. As you point out is it going to lead to a monopoly for the benefit of multi-nationals and minimum benefit for struggling farmers in developing countries? I can see that if a ceral crop can be devised that is as drought /pest resistant as possible it could be of huge benefit but how do we ensure it is also ethically managed??

All our food crops are genetically modified. We have bred them selectively from wild plants to give greater yields, better taste, etc since farming began. I'm therefore not against GM crops in principle, but I have the same concerns as others have expressed about the way modern GM varieties are in the control of multi-national companies who might use unethical methods to promote their own seeds at the expense of poor farmers.

That's what I tell people, I can't see the difference

I studied crop physiology and now work with people who are convinced that GM crops are the answer to improving agricultural productivity.

I am not convinced. Just to give one example, no-till soybeans are grown in America. They are supposed to protect against soil erosion as the ground is never left bare. BUT they still need lots of fertilizer and herbicide.

I think most people are aware of the dangers of fertilizer once it gets into the water supplies and herbicides have a long history of toxic effects.

jeni There is a huge difference from selective breeding if a species is modified with a gene from a species with which it could not possibly breed naturally. Do you remember the colourful day-glo piglets (jellyfish gene)? It may not be a cause for concern, but who knows? You can't grow crops from the seeds of the previous crop but have to buy new ones each year from the company that owns it. That is also a grave concern, especially for subsistence farmers.

I agree with you if you can't grow crops from the seeds, but if you modify to give more abundance and insect resistance, the you don't need as much insecticide and fertiliser. At least I thought that was the idea!

Like any technology it can be used wisely or not. And comes with potential risks as well as benefits.
It is up to governments to regulate their use.
Monsanto did not do the cause of GM any good at all with their Roundup resistant soybeans.
I think the technology could be used for huge benefit to mankind, in ways that we have not yet dreamed of. It could also lead to a range of bad consequences. Depends what you do with it.
The issue of contaminating "organic" certification is a bit of a red herring. What is it but protecting the interests of one set of business people? So change the definition of what "organic" means if they are so worried. It started off meaning no pesticides or artificial fertilisers. Who says they have to add in "no GM genes"?
More concerning are the wider environmental and economic risks.

Sorry but I am no scientist... if it is not possible to use the seeds of GM crops then how do GM crops contaminate organic crops? Cross pollination rendering organic crop non-usable for seeds??

JessM do you know of any lobby groups that are campaigning for good regulation rather than those just campaigning to disrupt trails?

Scientists, including the ones in Rothampstead, are no doubt in favour of good regulation and in touch with government science teams.
Yes it would be cross pollination. If it was something like apples, it would be bees flying from one to another. Cereal crops are wind pollinated, so probably a bit of a joke to say that you can isolate them...

nanaej I think that users of genetically modified seeds are not allowed to collect and use (or sell) the seeds they produce.

And you are right that cross-pollination is a worry. Its long-term consequences are as yet unknown. It is possible that the balance of the ecosystem will be disturbed in a similar way to when "foreign" plants or animals are introduced to a new country. Like what happened to the native red squirrels after the grey ones were brought from North America and introduced in Cheshire in 1870.

This has turned into a bit of a lecture

Sorry, I took so long to write my lecture that JessM beat me to it

grossi & JessM Thanks I am really trying to work out what I feel about GM crops and your information and views are all adding to my thinking. Like many things it all seems so simple at first: create food crops that will have high yield and help towards solving food production issues in the developing world but.....

Everyone thought the car was fantastic , and of course it has been in so many ways, but it has created so many problems too

That's called 'progress'

jeni

JessM Of course the definition of organic could be changed. However, the trans-national still owns the genes from the GM modified crop, so the farmer whose crop has been affected must destroy it by law (or possibly pay for it?) as it no longer belongs to him but to Monsanto or whoever.

I think one of my major worries is the concept of a company owning genes or specific combinations of genes. There was a big issue a while ago when a company working on the human genome tried to copyright individual already existing people's genetic make-up. They weren't allowed to but how worrying is it that they thought they might be able to? We already have issues with "medicinal" plants that have been used by particular groups of people for generations now "belonging" to a a company that is exploiting them because they have the genome. Thus the tribes who have used them traditionally down the ages may no longer use them.

Have just read several interesting passages on this subject in Merchants of Despair by Robert Zubrin. Here's one about "environmentally robust crops" which gives me a good deal of hope for future farming success:

"Bioengineered crops have been created that can grow well in acidic soils, such as those common in the tropics, whose aluminium toxicity can otherwise reduce harvest yields by as much as 80%. Bioengineered plants tolerant of salinity are also being created. Drought resistance can also be engineered into plants. For example, Cornell researchers Ajay Garg and Ray Wu have identified genes in South African 'resurrection plants' which allow them to produce a sugar known as trehalose which gives them the ability to survive and then resume growing after droughts.....

Going even further, bioengineers are now closing in on the ability to transfer genes enabling nitrogen fixation from legumes to grains. This will allow plants to grow their own nitrates, thereby making productive agriculture possible in the poorest of soils without the need for chemical fertilizer."

Monsanto did the world no favours at all did they. Bit like nuclear technology kicking off with the bomb.
I think we should remember the heartbreak of subsistence farmers whose crops are blighted and whose children starve. Look what happened in Ireland when they were so dependent on a single strain of potato that was not blight resistant. GM can change a single gene and bring resistance.
The problem with "you can't use the seed" is a commercial device -
Some genetically modified plants will not "breed true". So if you collect seed it may not all have the desired gene in the next generation.
Seed does not have to be GM to have this issue - anything you by from Suttons that says F1 on it, will not breed true if you collect seed. And F1 hybrids have been around for many a long year. Think of mules - combine some of the advantages of both parents but you can't breed mule from mule. .

You could rightly argue the scientists at Rothamstead and the like are heroes who are trying to find ways to prevent starvation and famine. Most revolutionary technology can be used for good or ill.

"In 1846, at the height of the Irish 'potato' famine, Ireland exported over 730,000 cattle and other livestock, and over 3 million quarts of corn and grain flour to Great Britain. The Irish [peasant] diet was confined to potatoes because — having had their land expropriated, having been forced to endure merciless rack-rents and taxes, and having been denied any opportunity to acquire income through manufactures or other means — tubers were the only food the Irish could afford."

Zubrin again.

And William Cobbett at the time:
"Hundreds of thousands of living hogs, thousands upon thousands of sheep and oxen alive; thousands upon thousands of sides of bacon; and thousands and thousands of hams; shiploads and boats coming daily and hourly from Ireland to feed the west of Scotland; to feed a million and a half people in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in Lancashire; to feed London and its vicinity; and to fill the country shops in the southern counties of England; we beheld all this, while famine raged in Ireland among the very raisers of this food."

The food was there. Politics got between it and the growers of it. That is the fear with GM crops, but it need not happen like that.

Bags that is a very simplistic view to say politics got between the food and the growers. The famine was a plant disease. It was the social context and the lack of political response wot dun nit.
The meat production would have been monopolised by the anglo-Irish elite upper classes. Rich English speaking anglican land owners, very much part of the British upper class. Land poor irish catholic peasants - a much bigger population than there is today. There was ample grass. It was not a drought. The poor on either side of the Irish sea would never have dreamed of eating much meat - like poor the world over they survived on a staple starch food and it was this crop that failed in Ireland due to disease.
The rich , who included the politicians, did nothing about it. They would have had to import grain in vast quantities if they were to save lives. They let the Irish starve or emigrate. Population plummeted by several which probably suited them fine.
It is however a stark reminder of what can happen when poor people are dependent on a staple crop that is not disease resistant. But I am not following the point you are making. And I am distracting myself from the long list of things I should be doing...

So what part of the anglo-irish elite's monopoly of the food supply in Ireland at a time of starvation isn't politics? The British government could have done various things to help the starving peasants AND CHOSE NOT TO for, um, political reasons. Politics is "how people organise things within their societies".