Why GM crops are vital

[child of Thor]

So what about all the surpless food we produce in the west, the piles of it the events like Live Aid bought many peoples attentions to? This can be(should be imho) used to shore the gaps in those area of the world that need something done right now. But again politics will not let it happen.

But the whole issue of world hunger isn't just about the GM issue or yields/pesticides etc. War plays probably the biggest factor in deciding what countries suffer from starvation. And we support our own governments dirty dealings in the causes of many of these wars.

Its a big complex problem, but not one that the reckless release and use of GM crops into our all ready fragile eco system will provide the answer for.

For our part we can best serve the future by ensuring our politicans/companies all do the right things over these issues.
And further building up the wall between rich and poor and continuing in our current course over enviromental issues is just making the situation worse.
We can stop people going hungry right now - if we(as citizens of our respective countries) put enough pressure on our politicians to do so.

Its the curse of the first world citizen to be so well pampared that we lose the ability to give a s**t beyond our bank balances each month and mortgage repayments. I'm as guilty as the next guy - but i'm not kidding myself about the choices available to us as people in countries that are curently shapping the world, and that shape is pretty ugly from where i look at it

GM can help - but not in the current way its being handled, all the good it will do as it stands is for the bank balances of a few all ready wealthy corporations. And the potential damage it could cause when used in this way - well having a billion dollars wont help you i'm afraid.

[Dinner]

Did you read the article in the OP? THERE WILL BE NO SURPLUS FOOD WITHOUT BIG CHANGES! Human population growth and demands for more grain intensive foods (i.e meat) mean we're going to need a minimium of a 35% increase in total world food production. We don't have more farmland to go plow up without cutting down the last of the rainforests or national parks. We need to drastically increase farm output per acre in order to feed everyone in the future.

You're basically saying "everything is fine now so let's not do anything" where as the rest of us are looking ahead and saying "wow, 20 years from now food is going to start getting short on a world wide scale". Isn't it better to plan ahead and avoid the crisis before it hits?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

GM can kiss my arse. I eat 100% organic and I'm not budging on that.

[KrazyHorse]

Feel free to keep paying a premium to eat less healthy, nutritious foods.

[DanS]

indeed - another 'pandora's box'. We have far too many of these going on at the momment, across many different fields of human 'progress'. To me its all about greed, but i suspect you'd disagree with me

Let's just say that I'm glad that you and your anti-progress friends are marginal in my country. Keep your craziness on the other side of the pond, please.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
GM can kiss my arse. I eat 100% organic and I'm not budging on that.

I eat lots of organic foods. I grew up on them, too. Two things of note about it:

(1) many organic crops are incredibly inefficient to grow; and

(2) many people confuse the benefits of organic foods with the benefits of non-processed foods. The benefits of organic often are minimal. The benefits of non-processed foods often are large.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
GM can kiss my arse. I eat 100% organic and I'm not budging on that.

GM can be grown organically as well. (not that I would see any value in doing so but demands for organically grown food aren't advanced by opposing GM crops.)

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by child of Thor
So what about all the surpless food we produce in the west, the piles of it the events like Live Aid bought many peoples attentions to? This can be(should be imho) used to shore the gaps in those area of the world that need something done right now. But again politics will not let it happen.

But the whole issue of world hunger isn't just about the GM issue or yields/pesticides etc. War plays probably the biggest factor in deciding what countries suffer from starvation. And we support our own governments dirty dealings in the causes of many of these wars.

Its a big complex problem, but not one that the reckless release and use of GM crops into our all ready fragile eco system will provide the answer for.

For our part we can best serve the future by ensuring our politicans/companies all do the right things over these issues.
And further building up the wall between rich and poor and continuing in our current course over enviromental issues is just making the situation worse.
We can stop people going hungry right now - if we(as citizens of our respective countries) put enough pressure on our politicians to do so.

Its the curse of the first world citizen to be so well pampared that we lose the ability to give a s**t beyond our bank balances each month and mortgage repayments. I'm as guilty as the next guy - but i'm not kidding myself about the choices available to us as people in countries that are curently shapping the world, and that shape is pretty ugly from where i look at it

GM can help - but not in the current way its being handled, all the good it will do as it stands is for the bank balances of a few all ready wealthy corporations. And the potential damage it could cause when used in this way - well having a billion dollars wont help you i'm afraid.

Charity will never put a dent in destruction of habitat because it is too fickle and inconsistent. Even when people are swimming in charity food they will feel insecure about their families immediate future (Ie the next growing season) and continue destruction of habitat until it is apparent to everybody there that the region can meet it's own food needs. Charity will do even less about habitat destruction that will result from increased afluence in those countries raising their appetites for meat products because the kinds of aid the charity provides will do nothing to alleviate that pressure.

Finally, if your whole problem is GM "in the current way its being handled", then drop your wide brush and start foccusing your opposition specifically towards those particular GM crops that you think are causing the problems you specify. To do otherwise is not only obviously counterproductive to whatever agenda you advocate but also amounts to willfully spreading ignorance and confusion. You recognize that GM products can do some good so maybe you should be holding those up as the alternative to the GM products you fear.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Feel free to keep paying a premium to eat less healthy, nutritious foods.

Keep smiling as your antibiotic-packed meat destroys your gut fauna and stacks up major risks of future epidemics.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by DanS


I eat lots of organic foods. I grew up on them, too. Two things of note about it:

(1) many organic crops are incredibly inefficient to grow; and

Some are, some aren't. Did you know it's actually cheaper to rear free-range organic chickens on a small-scale basis than it is to intensively rear them on a large scale?

Secondly, remember I'm a farm boy. I know full well that intensive "industrial" agriculture is more efficient than organic farming. Then again, I also know it's one of the most environmentally-disastrous industries on earth, lagging just behind open-cast mining.

This whole argument just reeks of a failure to think outside the box. Faced with increased demand, you're just looking at what you do now and concluding "the only solution is to do the same thing on a bigger scale!". Ain't just the one way, you know.

(2) many people confuse the benefits of organic foods with the benefits of non-processed foods. The benefits of organic often are minimal. The benefits of non-processed foods often are large.

Minimal? Where ingestion of organo-phosphates are concerned, that "minimal" is a sticking point. I attribute my mother's Parkinson's Disease (and my grandfather's death) to agricultural pescticide/fungicide use, and have no intention of exposing myself to the same risks.

And I don't think the eco-deserts that are omni-resistant crops are a satisfactory answer. More to the point, nor does the majority of public opinion in Britain. Don't need them. Don't want them. Argument over.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


Keep smiling as your antibiotic-packed meat destroys your gut fauna and stacks up major risks of future epidemics.

incredible. You think there is some sort of link between abuse of antibiotics in animal husbandry and GM crops?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

If you'd bothered to actually read the exchange between KH and myself, you'd see we were discussing organic food. You incredible fool.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


Keep smiling as your antibiotic-packed meat destroys your gut fauna and stacks up major risks of future epidemics.

Any proof this has happened any where? To anyone or anything?

Rich people are free to attempt to ban GM foods due to what ever reason they wish. I just hope they realize that this increases the odds that a lot of poor third worlders will not get enough nutrious food. Either because they can't afford it or because they can't grow enough of it on their small degraded plot of land. There is a viable organic market so it seems absolutely self centered and small minded to attempt to ban all GM foods or place so many restrictions on it that it becomes small minded. That's just ignorance on a mass scale. If you really think organic is so much better then why are you denying consumers a choice? Are you afraid that people might not make the choice you want? You know, like buy the more nutritious food which costs less?

The reason these arrogant people move to ban GM is because they know that in a free, fair, and open competition their claims would be proven wrong and people aren't going to opt to pay 50% more to get inferior food.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Did you read the article in the OP? THERE WILL BE NO SURPLUS FOOD WITHOUT BIG CHANGES! Human population growth and demands for more grain intensive foods (i.e meat) mean we're going to need a minimium of a 35% increase in total world food production. We don't have more farmland to go plow up without cutting down the last of the rainforests or national parks. We need to drastically increase farm output per acre in order to feed everyone in the future.

You're basically saying "everything is fine now so let's not do anything" where as the rest of us are looking ahead and saying "wow, 20 years from now food is going to start getting short on a world wide scale". Isn't it better to plan ahead and avoid the crisis before it hits?

The article did not say what you just said.

Heck, the artciel stick mainly to wheat, and does not go too far into the fact that Maize and Rice yields keep going up. Far more would be done if certain crops like Cassava or Millet, which are vital crops in the fastest growing portions of the world, were improved. Hell, lets switch hectares from wheat to corn- that crop substitution would help in the caloric yield. BUt anyways, as the artciel states, GM is a "nicer" version os brute mutation techniques. But then, no one attacks the burte mutation techniques, so we can continue creating random mutants without attacks from the greens.

A bigger problem than more mouths is mouths eating more, as many in the third world go from subsistance to oversusbsitance diets. Hell, most American could stand to east 1000 less a day it seems, think of that caloric surplus being redirected elsewhere....

Like most pieces in the Economist, intriguing, but always lacking somewhere..

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
If you'd bothered to actually read the exchange between KH and myself, you'd see we were discussing organic food. You incredible fool.

And if you'd bothered to read the OP (let alone the entire thread) you'd see it has nothing to do with your comments about organic food which you (quite oddly) decided drop in without any sort of connecting comment. Don't be offended if we assumed that you imagined there to be some understood connection.