GM Foods

I know there is allot more opposition to GM foods in europe. What do you guys think of it?

IMO it's overall a good thing. Most oppostion to it is completely irrational. However there is the issue of possible cross polination with wild species that could cause major environmental problems. that is the only draw back I can see.

Anyway, I'd like to hear your opinions on the subject, regaudless of which side of the pond you reside.

I don't disagree with it on principle, and it does have a lot of worthwhile benifits, but I can't help wondering what would happen if some cross pollination occured somehow, and a race of giant man eating plants was created, or something like that. I know it's not a real possibility, but seriously, it's hard to imagine nothing bad coming out of it at all.

Certainly in developing countires where the desease immunity and yield of crops can be critical to peoples survival, the benifits of GM foods would seem to far outweigh the potential risks, but in the 1^st world, where the only reason for GM crops seems to be to make more money, what are the benifits to balance the potential risks?

<sidenote> Lep, how about making 1^st and 2^nd etc automatically change to 1^st and 2^nd?

The main benefits are environmental, as are the main risks. most corn now grown in the US is immune to a particular relatively environmentally benign herbicide. that way they can spray the whole field with this stuff (roundup?) and everything dies but the corn.

The downside of cross pollination is that you might end up with weeds that will out compete everything else and basically take over the world

Tracer Bullet said:
The downside of cross pollination is that you might end up with weeds that will out compete everything else and basically take over the world

Not unless they suddenly become immune to fire. :smile: Sure field burning creates smoke, but that's generally better than drowning the general area with pesticides which the weed may or may not have a resistance/immunity to.

I really don't care all that much, I'm a big science kind of supporter, although I do realise the implications they have (I take a lot of geography/geology etc. courses) so I know both sides. But if people keep saving people and the population doesn't cull in some way we won't be able to sustain life without unnaturally creating crops and food since we're technically unnaturally extending life.

I think nature should be left as it is. There are other ways to feed the world. If we destroy our own environment to help ... who will help us ? Hunger should be handled by dealing with governments ... because there's plenty of food for all of us, It just doesn't make it to the right place.

As a member of greenpeace (Belgian Division), I went to manifestations about this subject too.

scary_jeff said:
I don't disagree with it on principle, and it does have a lot of worthwhile benifits, but I can't help wondering what would happen if some cross pollination occured somehow, and a race of giant man eating plants was created, or something like that. I know it's not a real possibility, but seriously, it's hard to imagine nothing bad coming out of it at all.

Certainly in developing countires where the desease immunity and yield of crops can be critical to peoples survival, the benifits of GM foods would seem to far outweigh the potential risks, but in the 1st world, where the only reason for GM crops seems to be to make more money, what are the benifits to balance the potential risks?

<sidenote> Lep, how about making 1st and 2nd etc automatically change to 1^st and 2^nd?

I am all for using GM crops, but only after very extensive testing. Not on a 1-month-test basis like they did over here. Monsanto, for example, f**ked around a lot with Indian farms, including this incident:

This is what happened to Basanna Hunsole, on whose land the first cremation took place. According to the farmer, he was approached in July 1998 by officials from Mahyco-Monsanto, who offered him the chance to grow - free of charge - a new variety of cotton, which they claimed would give him wonderful results. They omitted to tell him that the cotton was genetically modified, or that it had not been approved for testing by the government. In other words, Monsanto tricked Basanna Hunsole into unknowingly growing illegal crops on his land. Moreover, Basanna was unimpressed by what he saw. Despite Monsanto's claims, he said that the GM 'bollgard' cotton grew "miserably", and reached less than half the height of the traditional strains he was growing in nearby fields. Worst of all, they were heavily infested with boll weevils.

These illegal tests on Basanna Hunsole's land were carried out with no safeguards in place. There was no 'buffer zone' around the field, and none of the farmer's neighbours was notified of the potentially hazardous crops that were growing near their fields. Basanna only discovered the truth about what was growing on his land when Karnataka's Minister of Agriculture publicly announced, in November, the locations of Monsanto's test sites in the state.

No one will ever trust GM crops, or the associated Biotech companies after incidents like these. I think the general public here, including me, will only trust any GM crop if it
a) Comes through Government channels, after testing, research etc...
b) Is developed right here.

I personally know lots of people working on such ideas in various fields, and these are definitely a step forward, considering that a large section of the country has been under drought for a long time, and we need high-resistance, high-yield crops with more immunity to pests. GM crops are most definitely the way forward, but it will not happen while asshats like Monsanto hang around.

I am a pro-ecological person, so I am basically against it; we don't know exactly the side-effects of eating GM products. Natural selection has brought every living being, plant or animal, to an optimum state. Modifying that will be like cutting off stalactites with a chainsaw: quick and raw modifications to a process that lasted a thousand years! The weeds obtained are somehow genetically abnormal individuals.

But of course, like scary-jeff said, in some countries a bad harvest can be critical to their survival, so I guess this need over-rides ecological considerations.

Hmm that is a rather shocking corporate indiscretion! I hadn't hared about that. However, I think the description of the crops as "potentially hazardous" is kind of silly. The only "potentially hazardous" thing about GM crops is the possibility for the introduction of a protein which might cause unexpected allergic reactions.

Currently something like 80% of all soy beans, and 60-70% of all corn grown in the US is genetically modified.... it sort of makes me laugh at all the people eating tofu and soy milk, as they are the ones who (stereotypically) protest genetic modification! Obviously, if there were any immediate human health hazards we in the US would be dropping like flies by now.

Kain said:
I am a pro-ecological person, so I am basically against it; we don't know exactly the side-effects of eating GM products. Natural selection has brought every living being, plant or animal, to an optimum state. Modifying that will be like cutting off stalactites with a chainsaw: quick and raw modifications to a process that lasted a thousand years! The weeds obtained are somehow genetically abnormal individuals.

But of course, like scary-jeff said, in some countries a bad harvest can be critical to their survival, so I guess this need over-rides ecological considerations.

Do you consider evolution to be finnished then? IMO there is no "optimum state" there are always improovements to be made.

Forceflow said:
I think nature should be left as it is. There are other ways to feed the world. If we destroy our own environment to help ... who will help us ? Hunger should be handled by dealing with governments ... because there's plenty of food for all of us, It just doesn't make it to the right place.

So, I guess after 10000+ years of messing around we should just stop playing with nature? I think this is classic scaremongering that we seem to get every 2 minutes (c.f. being worried about trains going faster than 20mph, ice caps melting and causing an ice age in the northern hemisphere, nanotechnology eating us alive...). What would side effects be then, do you think? I for one always worry about turning into a banana every time I eat one, in case some banana genes transfer over into my body.

Anyway, here are a selection of what I presume to be unbiased articles on GM. See if you can count how many are actually negative and what they say.
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/gm/

Tracer Bullet said:
However, I think the description of the crops as "potentially hazardous" is kind of silly. The only "potentially hazardous" thing about GM crops is the possibility for the introduction of a protein which might cause unexpected allergic reactions.

I think they meant Potentially Hazardous to other crops. Not to people. An independent lab tested one version of the Monsanto Cotton seed and found what appeared to be traces of a "terminator" gene. Of course, independent labs are not usually accurate, but this was since verified spearately. Monsanto went further and tested one of these varieties out in the open, with what seemed to be insufficient permission, and got bashed further.

PS: "terminator genes" will prevent a crop from growing by spreading it's own seeds, hence forcing farmers to purchase more seed from the company. And they found that these seeds cross-pollinate and affect surrounding plant life/ other crops.

It's not nice to fool mother nature. :cool:

Tracer Bullet said:
Hmm that is a rather shocking corporate indiscretion! I hadn't hared about that. However, I think the description of the crops as "potentially hazardous" is kind of silly. The only "potentially hazardous" thing about GM crops is the possibility for the introduction of a protein which might cause unexpected allergic reactions.

Currently something like 80% of all soy beans, and 60-70% of all corn grown in the US is genetically modified.... it sort of makes me laugh at all the people eating tofu and soy milk, as they are the ones who (stereotypically) protest genetic modification! Obviously, if there were any immediate human health hazards we in the US would be dropping like flies by now.

Wow! I didn't know there were so many in the US... Well, I may be a passeist, but I like good old fashioned vegetables.

I don't really consider evolution over (although I fully appreciate being a Homo Sapiens ), but I meant that genetical modifications should come spontaneously over the years, and not in a lab. I don't have a blind trust in science, because I don't think the actual world is a lot better than our forefathers'. Overpopulation, pollution, fuel dependance... those are all problems of modern times who didn't exist a few hundred years ago (of course there was cholera, hunger, syphilis etc..). Who could anticipate the effects of the spreading of GM weeds? I mean, it's our food they're playing with, good natural food who was tested for a zillion years. I am totally with science sending whatever they want on all the planets of the solar system, but I don't wanna read a report saying "sorry guys, there was a little DNA coding mistake, the corns you are eating will make your children completely dumb"...

Whenever they play with nature, tragedies happen. Remember that Kreutzfeld Jacob thing... since when do cows eat meat???

Kain, syphilis is stil about buddy as is hunger and cholera. :smile:

IMO theres nothing wrong with GM. The people know what theyre doing, there havent been any serious health scares about it, and it is the most rigorously tested kind of food that is sold.

Better than synthesized chemical crap ->

fraggard said:
PS: "terminator genes" will prevent a crop from growing by spreading it's own seeds, hence forcing farmers to purchase more seed from the company. And they found that these seeds cross-pollinate and affect surrounding plant life/ other crops.

The whole point of the terminator genes is not based on profit mongering. the idea is that if tha plant is incapable of self-propagation it can't go wild and out compete natural species.

another thing to consider about GM foods, for those concerned about the environment, is that it is possible to make the plants produce natural pesticides, thereby elminating the need to sprey fields with toxic chemicals

I was just reading in the paper that GM sweetcorn from America is being introduced into europe and they're also looking for a licence to grrow the stuff too.

Yup, that is sort of what sparked this thread. I was listening to a report on the radio about that and decided to find out what you guys thought.

According to the report I hared, no one is actually expected to grow the stuff in Europe even if it gets approved because of the massive negative public reaction to it.

GM foods are banned from most English supermarkets, so it won't have much of a market there. Europe has far too much food as it is, but it'd be nice to see this food entering poorer countries and markets.

Tracer Bullet said:
The whole point of the terminator genes is not based on profit mongering.

Every single thing humans do is essentially based on profit mongering. Humans will only ever do what they feel will ultimately benefit them.

wil5on said:

Tracer Bullet said:
The whole point of the terminator genes is not based on profit mongering.

Every single thing humans do is essentially based on profit mongering. Humans will only ever do what they feel will ultimately benefit them.

True, but only in general. There are many specific things which are done for enterily different reasons.

Tracer Bullet said:
The whole point of the terminator genes is not based on profit mongering. the idea is that if tha plant is incapable of self-propagation it can't go wild and out compete natural species.

another thing to consider about GM foods, for those concerned about the environment, is that it is possible to make the plants produce natural pesticides, thereby elminating the need to sprey fields with toxic chemicals

I agree with that in principle, but I don't see any need for it in a very backward agricultural system where farmers can't afford to buy more cropseed, and want the crop to self-propagate.

And sometimes the toxic chemicals issue can backfire too. Like the boll-weevils which attack the cotton crop. Considering the number of things that went wrong, it's going to take a lot of hard work for Indian farmers to find any faith in GM crops. And from what I'm reading, the same issues exist around the third world nations where stupid Biotech corporations (Stupid, but not evil. Evil requires brains) set up shop to avoid the very stringent quality control/ environmental safety rules in the more developed countries. Bah.

hey, as long as they taste good :biggrin:

Tracer Bullet said:

wil5on said:

Tracer Bullet said:
The whole point of the terminator genes is not based on profit mongering.

Every single thing humans do is essentially based on profit mongering. Humans will only ever do what they feel will ultimately benefit them.

True, but only in general. There are many specific things which are done for enterily different reasons.

Name one. :biggrin:

Oh BTW I agree $loth :smile:

I know a guy who ate some GM sweetcorn. He said it was the nicest stuff he ever tasted then bam two months later he got hit by a car. I wouldn't eat the stuff, too risky.

Alien_Sniper said:
I know a guy who ate some GM sweetcorn. He said it was the nicest stuff he ever tasted then bam two months later he got hit by a car. I wouldn't eat the stuff, too risky.

, damn, remind me not to go too near to the roads,

Oh BTW I agree $loth :smile:

Thank you :biggrin:

wil5on said:

Tracer Bullet said:

wil5on said:

Tracer Bullet said:
The whole point of the terminator genes is not based on profit mongering.

Every single thing humans do is essentially based on profit mongering. Humans will only ever do what they feel will ultimately benefit them.

True, but only in general. There are many specific things which are done for enterily different reasons.

Name one. :biggrin:

Oh BTW I agree $loth :smile:

I believe I already did. Whether you choose to see it that way is an entierly dfferent question.

I'll stay organic for the most part, don't like the idea of messing with foods even more than we already have.

Aside from that, the argument that GM could help feed thousands of starving people in poorer nations is good, but the biggest factor is subsidies/trade agreements and just plain wastage. If you don't tackle those issues, GM will just be another money making machine for Western (subbed) farmers who have plenty to live by already... :sad:

and no offence to americans, but it seems you can make a direct correlation between the vast overproduction by US farmers and big portions in meals, and indeed growing waistlines. (edit - haha, and britains too after reading a few articles :razz: especially children!)

Food doesn't need to be produced more efficiently, it needs to be sold at fair prices and to the right people.

Tracer Bullet said:

wil5on said:

Tracer Bullet said:

wil5on said:

Tracer Bullet said:
The whole point of the terminator genes is not based on profit mongering.

Every single thing humans do is essentially based on profit mongering. Humans will only ever do what they feel will ultimately benefit them.

True, but only in general. There are many specific things which are done for enterily different reasons.

Name one. :biggrin:

Oh BTW I agree $loth :smile:

I believe I already did. Whether you choose to see it that way is an entierly dfferent question.

Think about it from the scientists point of view. If they dont include some way of stopping the GM plants from cross-pollinating, people will get angry and the government would, most likely, ban GM crops, meaning the scientists won't be able to profit from their research (investment if you will?).