GMO

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My opinion on this is one of sadness. I'm saddened by the human need to improve things that may not need improving. Why do we constantly mess with things to the point of destruction? We improve many things that give us short term benefits while paying deeply with long term consequences.

My belief is that this is all about $$$$$$$ and not at all about solving hunger problems.

On a side note, I live on the edge of corn country - it's everywhere here - and all I see are placards for modified corn crops everywhere as I drive around. We are literally living in the middle of a genetic experiment which at one time was simply a farming community.

I shop at local farms and the farmer's market but now I feel that I need to start questioning them about GMO and their use of this stuff. Isn't it sad that I can't trust that the Amish don't use this stuff? :(
 
:plus1:

As i live in DK i dont have to think about GMO to much. I always try to buy thinks local and organic if i have a chance.
But my opinion of GMO will be, if it can help pur population then why not :)

But as i see it now, it been mostly used to make bigger profit and modifying things in to easier use. But it is not only GMO it is all food in General.
We see it more an more, and unfortunately it will probably be the future of our food.

haha wile i read my last line i sound like an old man :clown:
 
Dave Martell said:
My opinion on this is one of sadness. I'm saddened by the human need to improve things that may not need improving. Why do we constantly mess with things to the point of destruction? We improve many things that give us short term benefits while paying deeply with long term consequences.

My belief is that this is all about $$$$$$$ and not at all about solving hunger problems.

On a side note, I live on the edge of corn country - it's everywhere here - and all I see are placards for modified corn crops everywhere as I drive around. We are literally living in the middle of a genetic experiment which at one time was simply a farming community.

I shop at local farms and the farmer's market but now I feel that I need to start questioning them about GMO and their use of this stuff. Isn't it sad that I can't trust that the Amish don't use this stuff? :(
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Dave, there is no difference between a gene being inserted by a scientist using a retro-virus and a novel gene emerging randomly and then being incorporated into a plant or animal through cross-breeding. hell, many genes in both our genome and in the genome of the things we eat were naturally inserted by retro-viruses in nature. almost nothing we eat is "natural," as anything grown by man has been modified. bananas didn't start out as seedless easy-to-peel marvels. they were made into that by cross-breeding lines that had different random mutations. the end result of that is no different than finding the gene you want and inserting it directly. all agriculture is a genetics experiment. all agriculture consists of GMO, because whenever you choose to allow one seed to be planted over a different seed, you are genetically modifying your crop. the politics and the science are completely separate.

and of course it's about money. almost everything is.
 
I think this is a case of "in theory there is no difference in theory and practice, but in practice there is."

I don't think that the gene insertion techniques used in labs make anything new possible. they do have a huge effect on the LIKELIHOOD of certain events though. e.g., it's possible that virus could migrate a gene from a fish to corn...but it's incredibly unlikely. Does that mean it's bad? as always: it depends.

In terms of the role of GM in food production. If we switched all agricultural activity to organic techniques, the food yield across the planet would decrease so much that the number of starvations would increase dramatically. The usual metric for this is: 1,000,000,000 people. one billion. So, for the foreseeable future, organic crops will remain a choice for relatively wealthy people, and super poor people (who don't have the capital for modern agri techniques)....the extreme ends of the spectrum.
 
Zwiefel said:
e.g., it's possible that virus could migrate a gene from a fish to corn...but it's incredibly unlikely. Does that mean it's bad? as always: it depends.
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that's not how it works. a retro-virus is used to deliver a genetic payload into a germ cell, and the payload is tailored to be inserted into a specific place on a specific chromosome of a specific specie's cell nucleus. it's not present in the final product, and even if it was, the virus no longer has a payload to deliver, and even if it did, there almost certainly wouldn't be a place for the payload to be delivered . there is a possibility of whatever you plant that is GMO being cross-bred with something else, but the possibility of harm isn't any different from anything else. the only real possibility of harm in that scenario is to whatever company is trying to sell the characteristic in question. there is an awful lot of fear with an awful little amount of basis. i blame high schools for it.
 
EdipisReks said:
that's not how it works. a retro-virus is used to deliver a genetic payload into a germ cell, and the payload is tailored to be inserted into a specific place on a specific chromosome of a specific specie's cell nucleus. it's not present in the final product, and even if it was, the virus no longer has a payload to deliver, and even if it did, there almost certainly wouldn't be a place for the payload to be delivered . there is a possibility of whatever you plant that is GMO being cross-bred with something else, but the possibility of harm isn't any different from anything else. the only real possibility of harm in that scenario is to whatever company is trying to sell the characteristic in question. there is an awful lot of fear with an awful little amount of basis. i blame high schools for it.
Click to expand...

Certainly I'm not a geneticist...but we do have a LOT of cruft in our DNA from these kinds of processes--virii depositing DNA segments into our DNA...obviously this is only inherited if it occurs in a sperm/ovum that is then part of conception. Clearly, this is not where MOST of our genetic code comes from though, so yes, point taken. Was just drawing the closest analogy my education offers.
 
a pretty big part of our "active" genome is derived from virus transcription, actually. you can likely think a virus for the fact that starches turn sweet in saliva, as a gene responsible for amlyase production was transcribed from digestive tract code. i'm not a geneticist either, but i worked with them for years, in a technical capacity (i kept their experiments running), and it's a strong interest of mine.
 
Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution was one of the big success stories of the late twentieth century. Paul Ehrlich had written "The Population Bomb" in 1968, that millions of people would die in the 1970's and 1980's, because of lack of food. Borlaug cultivated a high yield wheat, that dramatically increased the production of farm lands. Mexico went from importing wheat to exporting it. Bourlaug went to Pakistan amidst a war, and planted his wheat with artillery shells going off in the distance. With in a decade Pakistan and India were growing enough wheat to feed their populations. Millions of people didn't die, because of the Green Revolution.

Now we got people wringing their hands over genetic modified food? Please, all vegetables as we know them are genetically modified. We used to say cultivated or breed. Genetic seems to conjure up images of scientists working in labs, injecting vegetables with unknown substances. The so called modification is that a particular trait is desirable, like carrots being orange. I don't know why that trait is desirable, but apparently the Dutch liked it.

Jay
 
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Yeah something to think about. Another thing is that in DK we have very large pig farming and all the fertilize for vegetables and corn come from pigs. Because of that we have large pollution in our sea and rivers. So if they made corn and vegetables that did not had to be fertilized we can safe a lot of fish and pollution in the waters and soil.
So it is 2 sides of the story
 
When your free range are mammoths, and you must kill them with spears... Plus, the occasional plant turns out to be deadly poison... tends to shorten life span. ;-)
 
I think that the problem with conflating gm with selective breeding is the scope of change. One of which is that a lot of the gm crops are sold sterile (ostensibly to comply with various laws). Another is that in selective breeding, the results come in gradual, easily testable results that over time will get to where we want without introducing unknown unknown side effects (e.g. Could bees be allergic to this strain due to the inserted pesticide).

The last point is that the grains that aren't sold sterile can cross contaminate for miles around, so even if you wanted do a controlled test and you found that there was a problem, there's no way you could guarantee that you had destroyed all of that strain. (and they need to have some non sterile crops to get the seeds that are subsequently sterilised). It also means that if the company ever goes bust, every farmer that they supply won't be able to grow grain again.
 
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