GM foods

[Aught3]

here's a nice one to get you started, the rest of the links are saved on my laptop which is in the car
so read this http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/05/18/every-30-minutes-an-indian-farmer-commits-suicide-biotech-is-not-to-blame/

So I've looked into this issue before and from what I remember the farmers go into debt with seed merchants in order to buy these amazing seeds which will ensure them a bountiful harvest. What the farmers don't get told is the cost of pesticides and the high water requirements of the new varieties. When the crops fail they can't pay back their loans and kill themselves rather than face the shame. Where I think Monsanto deserves some of the blame is in not discouraging the seed merchants from engaging in these deceitful practices. But then I already agree with the criticisms of agricultural companies who put profit over any other consideration.

Of course, the problem of farmer suicides isn't due to inadequate testing of the new GM varieties. I thought you were talking about consequences of the plants themselves rather than socioeconomic issues surrounding them. I think those issues are important but I expect we already agree on them.

And I see you've added another post, yes patents are the main issue in the practice of GMO use.

 

[Aught3]

Sorry I guess I should have lumped them all into one post instead of posting each one on it's own.
Last one, unless you ask for more. ( I have lots) this subject is only one of the many windmills I tilt at.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/monsantos-gmo-corn-linked_n_420365.html

Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however. ......

I have read this paper before and am not convinced they found anything of note. Summed up best by: "FSANZ also independently investigated the material presented in the paper and concluded that the incidence of statistically significant differences in animals fed GM corn (MON863) is entirely consistent with normal background variability."

Essentially, if you do enough pair-wise comparisons eventually something will become significant just by chance.

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

Essentially, if you do enough pair-wise comparisons eventually something will become significant just by chance.

Fair enough, I'm always willing to hear and learn from another side.

The little circle of reality I live in is way more agriculture based and many of my acquaintances have been touched by the monsanto GMO thing.
so my perception of it might be a little shy of the actual reality. One could even call it biased.

I suppose my assessment could be a leap in logic but I'll demonstrate what I'm talking about and you (or any of you) can point out the logic flaw.

Canada has begun testing in the "real world" (outside of the lab) of terminator or suicide seeds. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/gmf-agm/appro/oleic_soybean-soja-eng.php
for those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically a plant that produces sterile seeds.
This is a fairly recent development but it was originally discussed in 2005 at a UN summit in Bangkok (I believe) http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/feb/09/gm.food
Right sorry I'm rambling a bit.... now cast your mind back to our friend Percy Schmeiser who's fields got contaminated with roudup resistant crops. Now imagine what if they had have gotten contaminated with terminator crops?
Right now I don't see that there is a way to contain the gmo crops and protect the original strain
I think if this wasn't our food supply we were messing with I'd probably be a a bit more ok with them testing this stuff.
But I sorta see this whole GMO thing as a big clusterfuck. It's like deciding that Mules (which are sterile) are the way to go for all beast of burden type applications and then not protecting the donkey and horse breeding stock that creates mules. All of a sudden you don't have a donkey due to illness or whatever and then what?
Ok, pick my logic apart..... I'm ready and willing to take it and hopefully learn from it.

 

[Aught3]

Right now I don't see that there is a way to contain the gmo crops and protect the original strain

Well one way to contain the GM crops is by using terminator seeds. When the GM plant tries to outcross from the field where it is grown the resulting seeds will be sterile and no genes will be passed into the next generation. If Percy Schmeiser's crops had been crossed with a terminator variety, the seed he saved that had the glyphosate resistance gene would not have germinated and he would not have been able to grow patented varieties whether by accident or design.

I understand why people who are opposed to the practice of GE are against terminator seeds since they are used by corporations to protect their intellectual property. But for the people would worried about genetic contamination, terminator varieties seem like a pretty good answer to that concern. Personally, I don't see the need for terminator varieties except as a way to allay these fears.

Another way you can prevent gene flow from neighbouring fields is to plant a row of non-modified plants to catch any pollen that drifts on the wind. Genetic contamination is a problem farmers of organic and heirloom varieties already have to deal with and they have methods for doing so.

I think if this wasn't our food supply we were messing with I'd probably be a a bit more ok with them testing this stuff.

I think this is where a lot of the objections come from. It's okay for scientists to do these things just as long as it doesn't get put in my body! Given the way new plant varieties are derived by mutagenesis and out-crossing, GM isn't really that much more scary and there is much tighter control of the changes made and a strict regulatory regime in place to make sure the new varieties are safe.

For the people who are opposed to the way Monsanto operates, what do you think about GMOs produced on a not-for-profit basis? Golden rice for providing vitamin A to malnourished populations and Sub-1 rice for growing in flood-prone areas like Bangladesh are two that spring to mind.

Edit: I was also going to mention seed banks as a way to preserve plant varieties.

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

For the people who are opposed to the way Monsanto operates, what do you think about GMOs produced on a not-for-profit basis? Golden rice for providing vitamin A to malnourished populations and Sub-1 rice for growing in flood-prone areas like Bangladesh are two that spring to mind.

Edit: I was also going to mention seed banks as a way to preserve plant varieties.

Yes quite possibly I would feel better if it wasn't a major monster of a corporation that already has a pretty heinous track record.
I'm not actually concerned about the GMO thing cuz it's something I'm going to eat. I'm more concerned because food is something we all need to eat.
Basically, I'm concerned of this being some nasty pandora's box that has the potential to take over our existing food supply and then if something goes wrong due to inadequate testing we have no way to close that box again. (using the example of terminator seeds again, what happens when they all become sterile and even our originals aren't fertile)
If they were genetically manipulating something else, something we don't eat and perfecting all the different ways of modifying that first...... I'd probably feel a bit better.
Like.... um I don't know, lawns.
play with different grass varieties.... make it grow, blue, orange, taste like cotton candy... what have you, once that is perfected then move on to our food.
Once they can grow a lawn that grows skybluepink with a tartan border then start messing with the food.

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

Oops forgot to add to that post
who owns the seed bank, the big one in Svalbard? The one they're calling the doomsday one?
Ok own is probably not the correct word
So a group including Bill Gates, Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation and the Government of Norway, and a couple of others.
Yup I feel our food is really safe

 

[Aught3]

Basically, I'm concerned of this being some nasty pandora's box that has the potential to take over our existing food supply and then if something goes wrong due to inadequate testing we have no way to close that box again.

Yeah this is always said about new technologies. Not that genetic engineering of plants is that new it's been almost thirty years since the first ones were made and none of the dire predictions have panned out. If we worried about the tiniest possibilities we'd never step out of the front door in the morning for fear of getting hit by a car. It should really be about risk analysis and developing safe ways to use new techniques.

using the example of terminator seeds again, what happens when they all become sterile and even our originals aren't fertile

How would this even happen? If a terminator plant out-crosses any potential offspring will not survive hence the GM variety is separated from the gene pool.

play with different grass varieties.... make it grow, blue, orange, taste like cotton candy... what have you, once that is perfected then move on to our food.
Once they can grow a lawn that grows skybluepink with a tartan border then start messing with the food.

How about glow-in-the-dark tobacco?

who owns the seed bank, the big one in Svalbard? The one they're calling the doomsday one?

Well I liked the bigger one in the UK, the Millennium Seed Bank but it's good there is a back-up. Safe indeed.

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

using the example of terminator seeds again, what happens when they all become sterile and even our originals aren't fertile

How would this even happen? If a terminator plant out-crosses any potential offspring will not survive hence the GM variety is separated from the gene pool.

Ok now I do know that I'm probably over-passionate about this subject but......do you actually know where seeds come from???

I'll explain how it all works.......
Seeds come in some form from the mother plant, either inside the fruit itself or the plant "goes to seed " and forms a seed pod/collection on the top of the plant .
Even if, as the farmer, you're not saving a portion of your own harvest for seed purposes and replanting, and buying them from a seed supplier.
That seed supplier is actually growing that crop as well and using it strictly for seed.

For example, I grow seed Puslinch variety garlic for a local organic seed store http://www.sunshinefarm.net/

This is how it's done..... EVERYWHERE. Next years food is growing right now in the form of seed in someone's field.

So I take my seed garlic, which I grew last year. I don't harvest the bulbs for sale as food but rather let the plant go to seed and harvest that seed (which forms on the top of the plant long past the stage that the food portion is edible.

Then it gets sold by them (sunshine farms) to other people looking to grow this particular variety of red garlic.

So say some neighbour starts growing the fast growing terminator garlic (obtaining those one use only terminator seeds) and my plants get cross pollinated.
I'm not going to notice until the portion of my crop I replant the following year doesn't grow, and Sunshine farms contacts me because none of the seeds I sold them grow either, by then It's too late to salvage my crops I could still save some seed but I'll never know if it will actually grow and BAM I'm outta business and there is one less grower of Puslinch Garlic.(not that there are many of us, this variety is quite rare)

If something goes doomsday with our food supply and all the seeds need to be replaced using the doomsday vault there are going to be a lot of freakin hungry people for at least 2 years.
Lots of people are gonna die, which I'm actually kinda ok with cuz I think there are too many people on the planet, but starving to death is not a good way to die and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy

 

[WarK]

So I take my seed garlic, which I grew last year. I don't harvest the bulbs for sale as food but rather let the plant go to seed and harvest that seed (which forms on the top of the plant long past the stage that the food portion is edible.

Then it gets sold by them (sunshine farms) to other people looking to grow this particular variety of red garlic.

So say some neighbour starts growing the fast growing terminator garlic (obtaining those one use only terminator seeds) and my plants get cross pollinated.
I'm not going to notice until the portion of my crop I replant the following year doesn't grow, and Sunshine farms contacts me because none of the seeds I sold them grow either, by then It's too late to salvage my crops I could still save some seed but I'll never know if it will actually grow and BAM I'm outta business and there is one less grower of Puslinch Garlic.(not that there are many of us, this variety is quite rare)

Does this kind of thing happen? Could you sue your neighbour or the company that produced the sterile seed for damaging your plantation? Or would the company that produces the sterile seed sue you for "using" their intellectual property?

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

Does this kind of thing happen? Could you sue your neighbour or the company that produced the sterile seed for damaging your plantation? Or would the company that produces the sterile seed sue you for "using" their intellectual property?

yes there are lots of cases, you can google them, of farmers being sued by monsanto corp for having their seeds (from cross pollination) growing in their fields.
I'm more opposed to these "terminator" seeds than any other type of GMO for two reasons.
One, they have the potential to wipe out our food supply
and two, because the technology exists solely for the purpose of major corporation controlling the seed and therefore our food.

 

[Aught3]

So say some neighbour starts growing the fast growing terminator garlic (obtaining those one use only terminator seeds) and my plants get cross pollinated.
I'm not going to notice until the portion of my crop I replant the following year doesn't grow, and Sunshine farms contacts me because none of the seeds I sold them grow either, by then It's too late to salvage my crops I could still save some seed but I'll never know if it will actually grow and BAM I'm outta business and there is one less grower of Puslinch Garlic.(not that there are many of us, this variety is quite rare)

Really, all of your garlic happens to get pollinated by your neighbours garlic? That is very implausible. If you are growing a specific variety of crop then the trouble you have with cross-pollination producing hybrids at the moment is the same level you will have if GM garlic is brought onto the market.

How big is your farm?

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

So say some neighbour starts growing the fast growing terminator garlic (obtaining those one use only terminator seeds) and my plants get cross pollinated.
I'm not going to notice until the portion of my crop I replant the following year doesn't grow, and Sunshine farms contacts me because none of the seeds I sold them grow either, by then It's too late to salvage my crops I could still save some seed but I'll never know if it will actually grow and BAM I'm outta business and there is one less grower of Puslinch Garlic.(not that there are many of us, this variety is quite rare)

Really, all of your garlic happens to get pollinated by your neighbours garlic? That is very implausible. If you are growing a specific variety of crop then the trouble you have with cross-pollination producing hybrids at the moment is the same level you will have if GM garlic is brought onto the market.

How big is your farm?

No you're correct the chances of me loosing the entire crop in just one year are slim, but remember that 90% of my seeds get sold elsewhere, so I retain 10% and replant those, what if 50% of that 10% which is basically only say... 20 plants, as each plant produces say 20 or so seeds. Chances of cross pollinating with terminator to the rest of those plants is way higher as they're growing right there beside them all. Within 2 years my whole production could be hooped.
The purpose of inventing terminator seeds is to control the food market and that's it, they don't have any other benefit.

Anyhow, I'm a tiny farm, only 25 acres and not all of that is garlic, I grow other product, mostly chicken and feed for those chickens and I have my own slaughterhouse which processes other farmers chickens 5 days a week.

 

[Aught3]

No you're correct the chances of me loosing the entire crop in just one year are slim, but remember that 90% of my seeds get sold elsewhere, so I retain 10% and replant those, what if 50% of that 10% which is basically only say... 20 plants, as each plant produces say 20 or so seeds. Chances of cross pollinating with terminator to the rest of those plants is way higher as they're growing right there beside them all. Within 2 years my whole production could be hooped.

But the whole point of terminator varieties is that the out-crossed seeds wouldn't grow at all so I don't see what the problem is. You would perhaps have a slight reduction in viable seeds but not a catastrophic situation. Varieties out-crossing isn't even a problem unique to GM crops so I'm not particularly concerned about it.

The purpose of inventing terminator seeds is to control the food market and that's it, they don't have any other benefit.

Well they have the benefit of preventing even the possibility of particular genes escape from transgenic plants, but since this isn't a huge problem I suppose I would agree terminator seeds don't have any real benefit.

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

But the whole point of terminator varieties is that the out-crossed seeds wouldn't grow at all so I don't see what the problem is.

Actually I don't think that's correct, although thankfully I've never had it happen. I did end up growing some interesting pumkini's when my pumpkins and zucchini
From what I understood during the last Agriculture lecture I attended...... say my garlic seed plants got cross pollinated, during the flowering stage with some terminator pollen the plant would still grow and produce seeds, but those seeds would be sterile. So I could in theory harvest those sterile seeds and plant them thinking they were viable.
I wouldn't realize I had a problem until the following spring when only a portion of my crop actually grew.
Anyhow, I do try to keep a really good finger on what's going on in the area and know who's growing what.... So far all of us are really against this type of terminator technology, so the chances of this happening here are pretty slim for me personally.
The fact that this technology is being created and put out into the environment still has me trepidatious.

 

[Aught3]

From what I understood during the last Agriculture lecture I attended...... say my garlic seed plants got cross pollinated, during the flowering stage with some terminator pollen the plant would still grow and produce seeds, but those seeds would be sterile. So I could in theory harvest those sterile seeds and plant them thinking they were viable.

That's correct, but those planted non-viable seeds would not grow. If they did manage to grow then it wouldn't matter in terms of food supply because the terminator gene is obviously not working (for whatever reason).

 

[Nom_de_Plume]

From what I understood during the last Agriculture lecture I attended...... say my garlic seed plants got cross pollinated, during the flowering stage with some terminator pollen the plant would still grow and produce seeds, but those seeds would be sterile. So I could in theory harvest those sterile seeds and plant them thinking they were viable.

That's correct, but those planted non-viable seeds would not grow. If they did manage to grow then it wouldn't matter in terms of food supply because the terminator gene is obviously not working (for whatever reason).

Ok, I'm probably being an overcautious freak about it then, I attend quite a few Agricultural conferences and nearly everyone is freaking right the fuck out about all this... maybe some of it has rubbed off on me.

 

[SoundOfScilence]

Hello, everyone. I'm new to these fora, but since the topic of genetically modified food (specifically crop plants) is something of a speciality of mine, I thought I'd wade in.

On the subject of terminator seeds, I would like to throw the following facts into the mix:

1) I hope everyone is aware that currently, this topic is not currently used commercially.
2) Many farmers already grow conventionally -bred hybrid lines, which also produce sterile seed, making the proposed technology little different from existing methods (in a commercial sense).
3) It is genetically possible to produce 'terminator' lines which do not spread the gene by pollen, meaning that only the farmer growing the GM line will be unable to re-sow the following year, while neighbouring farms will produce viable seed that do not contain any foreign transgenes.

As I understand the present situation, the lattermost point is merely a concept. That is, the Biotech companies have only created terminator lines that can spread through pollen. However, the potential still remains for GM lines that do not contaminate non-GM neighbours.

I would be interested to know how this changes (if at all) your views on the subject.

Regards,

SoS