Why GM crops are vital

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sandman

Cheaper food is only part of the solution. A family of subsistence farmers sells their only cow to buy a week's food; now they can buy two weeks worth.

You previously whined that GM wouldn't do anything to solve Malnutrition and I showed you it would since lower prices mean more people can afford the food they need. Now you back track and say increase the amount of food and lowering the cost of food is only part of the solution to planet scale malnutrition we now experience.

Instead you offer this:

It's just as important to provide a cash safety net.

Yeah, like the defunct Somolian government either has money for welfare handouts or would even give welfare if they had the money. Let's face it a little reality here; the countries where starvation or malnutrition are most a problem DON'T HAVE MONEY FOR WELFARE CHECKS! What's more is the reason they're so royally screwed up won't be solved by rich people giving them welfare checks from now to eternity. Those countries have institutional problems that go way beyond the debate about crops and farming methods.

There were loads of other reasons for the Green Revolution than just radiation-mutated wheat strains. There were (and are) plenty of advanced propagation techniques used that didn't involve radiation, for starters. Better use of water resources was another one.

Over and over you read that the main reasons for the green revolution were things like 1) More productive grains 2) Crops which were more drought resisitant & disease resistant 3) crops that needed less water and so forth. Sure, there were incrumental increases in other areas but none of those other areas brought about 400% crop yield increases in a single planting season with no other capital investment but seeds (often freely donated by rich countries). GM did do that and will continue to do it if ludites don't block it with their foolish and harmful ideologies.

[pchang]

evolution in action

Too bad we can't let the anti-GM luddites slowly starve themselves out of existance while the rest of us eat.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Oerdin
You previously whined that GM wouldn't do anything to solve Malnutrition and I showed you it would since lower prices mean more people can afford the food they need. Now you back track and say increase the amount of food and lowering the cost of food is only part of the solution to planet scale malnutrition we now experience.

Yeah, like the defunct Somolian government either has money for welfare handouts or would even give welfare if they had the money. Let's face it a little reality here; the countries where starvation or malnutrition are most a problem DON'T HAVE MONEY FOR WELFARE CHECKS! What's more is the reason they're so royally screwed up won't be solved by rich people giving them welfare checks from now to eternity. Those countries have institutional problems that go way beyond the debate about crops and farming methods.

I never said that GM wouldn't do anything to solve malnutrition. I simply don't beleive it to be the panacea you seem think it is.

Averting a demand-side famine typically involves creating employment by public works schemes, to discourage free-riding. Not 'welfare checks'. Difficult to do in Somalia, but then supplying Somali farmers with new seed every year isn't going to be very easy either.

Over and over you read that the main reasons for the green revolution were things like 1) More productive grains 2) Crops which were more drought resisitant & disease resistant 3) crops that needed less water and so forth. Sure, there were incrumental increases in other areas but none of those other areas brought about 400% crop yield increases in a single planting season with no other capital investment but seeds (often freely donated by rich countries). GM did do that and will continue to do it if ludites don't block it with their foolish and harmful ideologies.

New irrigation techniques allowed for two growing seasons a year. That's not incremental.

[Dinner]

And which new irrigation techniques are those? Sprinkler heads to water pipes? Drip irrigation? Any sort of mechanical irrigation what so ever? Heck even primative flood irrigation relies upon large public works to create canals and plume gates. Let's once again have a reality check; subsistance farmers in the third world can't afford these nice 1st world irrigation practices just like they can't afford chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Most of them live on tiny plots of land which are unable to suppot them or their families and that's why they don't have enough food to eat much less to sell and buy state of the art irrigation systems.

What they need are crops that can grow on their marginal, unirrigated land which will increase their yield enough so that their families are no longer starving or malnurished. GM hybridized crops can give them that but nothing else really can. Certainly Gm crops in and of themselves can't solve every problem and good government policies are sorely needed especially since kleptocratic governments and crap economic policies are the single largest reasons the world's poorest countries remain the world's poorest countries. But nation building is a very difficult, time consuming, and capital intensive proposition that is unlikely to be done, in our lifetimes, for most of these peasant farmers. GM crops very easily can solve much of the world's starvation and malnutrition problems simply by making more nutrious food available to the world's poor.

BTW the nonreproducing crop argument is a red herring since only a tiny, tiny fraction of GM crops have such an expensive gene spliced into their geneome. Even when companies try to create such crops the failure rate is quite high, as farmers in Latin America and Asia have found, as a percentage of the plants go ahead and produce fertile seeds any way. What I'm mostly ticked off is that rich white yuppies run around attacking the world's best hope for solving hunger and malnutrition, claiming they're doing it for the poor, when in fact their self centered politics do nothing but harm the world's poorest people. The poorest subsistance farmers want a way to make their tiny plots productive enough to feed their families while the world's landless poor want food to become cheap enough so that they'll be able to buy enough of it to keep their families well nurished.

How does attacking GM crops achieve that? What other realistic option is there to increase farm yields enough to provide enough affordable food for these people? GM crops will provide more food, more nutrious food, and more drought & pest tolerant food. Will it solve all of the world's problems? Nope, and I haven't heard anyone claim it will though I have heard lots of people say it is the best hope we have to feed everyone with the food they need.

[Dinner]

Also, modern irrigation and fertilizers generally get 3-5 growing crops out of quality farmland for those farmers who can afford it not two. But then again the people we're talking about don't have modern irrigation equipment, modern fertilizers, or quality farmland so that's just academic.

[mrmitchell]

The problem unfortunately with this one is that its a little too little a little too late. The inane practice of "set aside" policies have essentially driven a whole generation of farmers (read family farms) out of existance as it was more profitable for family farmers to move into different occupations (and collect on subsidies to augment and keep afloat) then to continue farming. In the process the kids move on to greener horizons. I predict you'll likely see a whole slew of last genration farmers die off with no kids to inherent and run family farms. Lovely.... The end result of course being either sell off of property to developers or if lucky to large co-op type farms.

Why do people lament the loss of the family farm? Let's throw back 100 years to the time when most Americans were farmers...farmers were poor, usually in debt, were threatened by drought, lived at hte mercy of crop prices, worked long hard work weeks, and had little or no education. Thankfully, the family farm is already dead. The efficient, massive company farms we have today are necessitated by economic and societal needs, and no one really wants to go back to toiling on the farm to make ends meet.

But that's another thread's concern.

GM foods

[Barnabas]

this is great for argentina

overpopulation in other countries

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Oerdin

Agreed, a lot of hunger/malnutrition is caused by food being to expensive for people to buy enough of it or the right kinds.
edit........

which happens in most of the poorer countries in the world. which is why forcing them to have to buy our GM food grain each crop cycle is not ethical imho.
And when GM companies start to play nasty games by letting their crops interfere with the native established crop(as in the corn fiasco in south amercia) with the end result of forcing farmers to either use the contaminated GM crop or grow something else. The kicker was that the GM crop became a sterile crop after so many generations - so again forcing a relativly poor country into having to buy its food. Not ethical imho.( i have provided links to this particular scenario before in another gm thread - but dont have it to hand - although i'm sure google could find something)

And this is the problem with GM - it may offer the future way to grow food, but in the current form it is being produced and introduced around the world - it is doing more harm than good. I am proud that my country(as in wales) has decided along with its farmers to keep the land GM free. And untill my concerns are addressed by the GM companies i just cant see GM as anything other than a bad thing.
Most people in europe feel this way too - which is why even high street stores like Pret/Sainsbury's/Waitrose etc all advertise their foods as 'GM free'.
Tellingly 'Asda' in the uk(which is owned by wallmart) doesn't, and all its rice is from the USA - mmmmm GM full no doubt

This is a consumer world - and if the us agri companies want to bring the rest of the dveloped world on side over GM, they are going to have to work to repair the damage to their reputations imho. Strong-arming the world into becoming food 'slaves' isnt the way to do it

[Sikander]

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

You eat the garbage and I'll eat gm.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by 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.

I suspect it's actually the same group in both instances.

[child of Thor]

Ref Silkander above,

yes sterility in some instances its essential - like in the field trial stages(and dont get me started on this topic - lets just say we have had hard lobbying from pro GM intrest groups to rush trials through in the uk, irresposible is the best way you can call these people!), where you are not certain what the mid to long term ecological impact will be. So it makes sense to keep these crops sterile.

But when we get to talking about using the tested and extensively trialed crops for their purpose(that of helping produce high yield crops with low pesticide requirements, with the aim of helping feed the worlds hungry), you get stiff opposition from these same GM companies that want to force the poor farmers/countries to have to come back each year with the money to buy next years crop. Its all very cynical and underhand imho

Which is a shame, as i can see the real benefit this technology offers. And a agree with all the good points that Oerdin makes. I just think its proving impossible to use this knowledge responsibly in its current form. Governments are probably largely to blame for not supporting the technology enough - forcing these cutthroat tactics by the GM companies, and by extension that means we all are to blame.
I think thats why you have such a hard line in Europe over this - we(the customers) have forced the governments/ food companies to act more responsiby. Looking at much of the GM development around the world, its probably been the wiser course to follow.

[Ecthy]

As for food being thrown away - I do it, I'm proud of doing it and I will do it again and again.

There'S plenty of food in the world, and especially in Europe. It would help noone if I was more efficient with my food. The whole world drowns in food, so why shouldn't I throw away moldy cheese?

The problem isn't the amount of food wasted in the west - it's evil African dictators unable to distribute ood in their countries. Asia, too.

Do tell, how do I help some starving Ethiopians when I force myself not to throw away food but rather eat it despite I'm not hungry and it can't really be eaten anymore?

[Dinner]

It seems that no matter how many times you beat down stupid claims (I.E. a perfect distribution system could solve the world's problems or "OMG EVERY GM GRAIN WON'T REPRODUCE" (reality check: There will always be crap governments and enviromental problems preventing a perfect distribution system becoming reality and very, very, very, very, very few GM grains prevent reproduction) it seems these same silly claims will just crop up again. Debunk them time and again yet the ever faith filled anti-GM folks will still believe in them.



BTW the OP showed how we will not be a wash in food. We're going to need a 35%-50% increase in food production to feed all the new people especially since so many new middle class people are going to demand more and better foods which require a lot more grain to produce (like meat).

[child of Thor]

and your great-grand children will thank us for their freedom to grow food for free if they so choose to, and an added side effect for it might be that they have a rich, balanced enviroment as nature intended

When it comes to dabling with the enviroment we dont have a great track record(i'm looking at a grey squirrel right now!)

dont read my anti GM as permanant - i(and many many others) just want it to be handled right, digging our heels in over this will hopefuly force changes for the better.

[Dinner]

Grow food for free? You mean because the two ro three attempts to produce nongerminating seeds were deemed failures before they even reached market? It seems a fair percentage of teh nongerminating seeds just went ahead and germinated anyway.

On the other hand the thousands of other GM verities never had such a modification yet you still attempt to tar every last one of them. Don't you?