Why GM crops are vital

[Dinner]

The Economist has a great article about man's history of genetically modifying grains. A great read and it also details how we're going to need between 35%-50% more food being produced world wide by 2050 in order to feed everyone and we're going to have to do it with less farmland and worse farmland.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5323362&no_na_tran=1

[Sava]

[Urban Ranger]

Creating hybrids is not the same as genetic engineering because you cannot introduce genes from individuals that cannot reproduce sexually with the crops you have.

As discussed before GM crops have huge problems. So we need to look elsewhere - such as start eating algae.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
such as start eating algae.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Creating hybrids is not the same as genetic engineering because you cannot introduce genes from individuals that cannot reproduce sexually with the crops you have.

As discussed before GM crops have huge problems. So we need to look elsewhere - such as start eating algae.

indeed. We need to be wary of the GM agenda - it offers much that is good but behind its friendly facade of "we want to produce more food for the hungry" lies the agri-bio labs greed for creating non-self reproducing crops, the dollar sign sadly leads much of the GM revolution. Its the main reason much of europe is so anti-gm, and why i am as well - i'll be damned if i let politicians decide who can eat and who can not
so just be aware of ALL the issues surrounding GM imho.

This is a good link discusing both sides of the GM debate:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A2418509

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by child of Thor


indeed. We need to be wary of the GM agenda - it offers much that is good but behind its friendly facade of "we want to produce more food for the hungry" lies the agri-bio labs greed for creating non-self reproducing crops, the dollar sign sadly leads much of the GM revolution. Its the main reason much of europe is so anti-gm, and why i am as well - i'll be damned if i let politicians decide who can eat and who can not
so just be aware of ALL the issues surrounding GM imho.

Politicians deciding who can eat and who can not is what the anti-GM movement is all about. The rhetoric denies it but their actions speak much louder and more clearly.

As for greed being behind the GM "facade", well "greed" was the force behind the development of telecommunications, computers, hybrid crops, locomotives, steam power, hell probably well over 90% of all innovations. Presumably those who complain about this "greed" are boycotting all products and services offered by for profit companies.

[Az]

Man, some of the anti-GM rethoric is bizzare...

[Sandman]

One third of food purchased in Britain is thrown away. Plenty of room to move without resorting to GM crops.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Geronimo

Politicians deciding who can eat and who can not is what the anti-GM movement is all about. The rhetoric denies it but their actions speak much louder and more clearly.

edit.......

Fine, so you are happy with all the decisions that world leaders make? If you were living in Korea or china you'd be happy with the government decideing if your family could grow food or not? Or how about if it was used in a bargining sense over a political disagreement, like "hey you can not ban our companies setting up factories here - or we will stop the shipment of grain so you can't feed your people" etc? Is this a future worth even contemplating? not so imho.
I(and most of europe if you believe the polls) would most likely support GM if they stopped this sterile seed production technology.
If this technology is truely about feeding the worlds poor - then lets do it properly, without all the tricks and traps imho. Until that issue is addressed i doubt GM will take of anywhere other than in the USA, despite the hard sell that the GM companies constantly try.
Hows this for an idea to make GM acceptable?

1. Reduce the debt on third world countries
2. Use this as revenue to help the GM companies recoup their costs
3. Do away with making food seeds(a basic of life) sterile.
4. Not release untested crops into the eco system(as in the corn incident in south america etc)

I think the bad image GM suffers from could be fixed with this, and we would all be doing something really constructive to helping developing countries.

[Sandman]

Having read the article (it wasn't working before), I'm not too impressed. Not exactly a scholarly work, is it? I love the suggestion that gluten allergies are a 'fashion'.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Creating hybrids is not the same as genetic engineering because you cannot introduce genes from individuals that cannot reproduce sexually with the crops you have.

As discussed before GM crops have huge problems. So we need to look elsewhere - such as start eating algae.

Inserting genes is the most expensive and least common way to genetically engineer. Instead, since the early 1950's, scientists deliberately expose certain genes to radiation or other mutagenes in order to try to provoke mutations. That's an inexact method but it is cheap and you can create 10,000 of mutants that way and then select just the mutants you want to continue traditional cross breeding.

Also, for the last 10,000 years wheat has lead the world both in total farm output and in total acres planted. Or rather it was until the late 1990's. Corn and rice have very simple genomes so they've been much easier to GM then wheat which has an exceptionally large geneome since it is actually a mutant merging of three different grains.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sandman
Having read the article (it wasn't working before), I'm not too impressed. Not exactly a scholarly work, is it? I love the suggestion that gluten allergies are a 'fashion'.

Oh, but they are. Notice the thousands of percent increase in claimed cases in the last few decades? Notice how most people don't have any identifiable physical reaction? Instead we have a mass of people claiming something which very few of them have had any reaction which scientists can even observe.

[JohnT]

I(and most of europe if you believe the polls) would most likely support GM if they stopped this sterile seed production technology.

The stuff is sterile because of fears about "mutated" organisms "reproducing wildly" that were being thrown around in the seventies, eighties.

****, you please one interest group, you piss another off.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by child of Thor
behind its friendly facade of "we want to produce more food for the hungry" lies the agri-bio labs greed for creating non-self reproducing crops

You realize that wheat is completely unable to reproduce itself without men intervining, right? It has been that way for thousands of years. Also the quant little notion that farmers save part of their crop as seed stock virtually only happens in the poorest and least developed parts of the world these days. Instead the latest hybrids and/or GM versions change on a yearly basis so farmers sell all their crops and just buy new stock. Next year do they project a big outbreak of disease X? No problem we use the specific version that it immune. In fact the primary reason for selling all the crop and buying new seeds each planting cycle is done today is because there are so many thousands of hybrids, each suited for slightly different conditions, that the farmer will often switch which breed he uses every 3 months.

Only the poorest and most backwards places on earth continue to use the same seed stock year after year. You might ask yourself why those farmers are so poor and instead of numbly blaming GM crops you should rather blame 1st world farm subsidies and agricultural tarrifs.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sandman
One third of food purchased in Britain is thrown away. Plenty of room to move without resorting to GM crops.

How likely is that to actually occur? We can be 99% certain that by 2035 the world population will be 10 billion which is 66% larger then it is today. We can be 99% certain that urbanization and desertification are going to mean significantly less farm land in 2035 then we have today. We can also be certain that people who are currently poor, like India & China, will have developed to the point where vast numbers of people will no longer be poor. One thing always happens as incomes rise, they start demanding more food and better food. Instead of meat once a week they want it every day if not with every meal and meat take ALOT of grain to eat. World food production is going to have to grow substancially in the next 30 years even if 1st worlders learn to eat and waste less.