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How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

nytimes.com

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Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#21

Post by nodata »

daeken wrote: post #18
nodata wrote: post #15

Looking at the comments, the pro-GMOers are just as blindsided as the anti-GMOers. Shame on us all. One of the anti-GMO arguments is that you don't want to get a knock on your door (and a lawsuit) from Monsanto for accidentally having a field next to your Monsanto-loving neighbour.

> One of the anti-GMO arguments is that you don't want to get a knock on your door from Monsanto for accidentally having a field next to your Monsanto-loving neighbour. Except that it's never happened, to my knowledge. Monsanto has sued farmers for using their seeds illegally, and in those cases it was shown that the farmers did so knowingly -- accidental cross-contamination has never been sued over. For instance, in…

> this is pure, unadulterated bullshit.

You mean it's wrong, let's not exaggerate here. I'm just saying what I saw on a documentary featuring three farmers.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#22

Post by PythonicAlpha »

There is one big reason, I oppose G.M.O. Food: They are "patented life". Big corporations take life forms and make them patent-able and this way they make that that once belonged to all their "intellectual property".

And don't forget one thing: GMO might help to stop hunger in some regions, but in the current state of it, it does not. Many farmers in poor regions where lured into the GMO trap, just to find out one or two years later, that the proposed additional productivity of the crops did not make up for the additional costs of the fact that they had to buy the crops (and in case of Roundup, the glyphosate) from big corporations, which before they could take from their own harvest.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#23

Post by pbreit »

tptacek wrote: post #6
pbreit wrote: post #5

You wouldn't know it from the article but I thought the anti-GMO argument went something like: sorta different from natural breeding; long term effects unknown; moving anecdotes notwhitstanding, necessity is modest; crates some unappealing situations due to the scope and dynamics of food production.

Can you fill in some of the blanks on why the necessity of GMOs is modest? Apart from things like "supporting the Ugandan cassava crop that would otherwise be devastated by diseases cured by GMO", don't most GMO strategies also drastically reduce other harmful chemical inputs to farming? I'm not sure I understand the last argument. Just curious; I know you're just explaining the argument, not making it.

Those anecdotes are powerful but I think they are mitigated by the fact that we can easily produce enough non-GMO food to feed the planet.

The last point was a weak attempt to note the problems you hear of, for example, proprietary strains infesting non-customer farms. Not strictly a GMO problem, tho.

I'm not reflexively anti-GMO but don't think the case is quite closed (for or against).

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#24

Post by song »

rhino369 wrote: post #17
song wrote: post #13

I blame monsanto for the G.M.O. hysteria, they gave G.M.Os a bad name and now people who call themselves environmentalists behave irrationally because they can't be bothered to look past the name and actually look at the facts... In a lot of cases G.M.Os are safe and are actually better for the environment because they can reduce the amount of pesticides used (or reduce deficiencies in the target populations). G.M.Os…

As far as I can tell Monstanto got a bad name because of GMO.

Well yes but it's also what they did that's a bit of an issue. The roundup ready crops are crops that are engineered to be resistant to the Roundup herbicide which is a bit more iffy than the example given in the article of a eggplant with a gene transferred from Bacillus thuringiensi which is allowed to use in organic farming.

On Monsanto side, the controversy was originally about the use of Roundup (which the G.M.O. permitted) and the potential toxicity of glyphosate.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#25

Post by tptacek »

ScottBurson wrote: post #20
tptacek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a generally very high opinion of the Science Based Medicine blog, and the SBM editors have a very low opinion of glyphosate alarmism: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-boge... The short version of this post: there is a wealth of evidence to analyze from significant human exposure to glyphosate (from farmers, for instance) and none of it supports significant toxicity. Because glyphosate is…

The debate is ongoing. For example: http://www.nature.com/news/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-c... For the time being, I plan to do my best to avoid the stuff.

Here's another source:

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-carcino...

A couple other important things to note:

1. The 2A classification is based on things like mouse models; epidemiological studies --- which have been done, on people with exceptional exposure to glyphosate --- don't support it.

2. There are a lot of 2A carcinogens that you're exposed to far more routinely. For instance, do you also avoid potatoes? Acrylamide for-sure causes human cancer.

I guess my point with #2 here is that the IARC classifications give a misleading sense of the precision involved here: there is no direct causal link between human cancer and glyphosate, but many of the 2A carcinogens are simply known to be cancer-causers.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#26

Post by chestnut-tree »

pbreit wrote: post #5

You wouldn't know it from the article but I thought the anti-GMO argument went something like: sorta different from natural breeding; long term effects unknown; moving anecdotes notwhitstanding, necessity is modest; crates some unappealing situations due to the scope and dynamics of food production.

I'm not sure what to make of GMO foods to be honest. Safety is a concern, as are concerns about crop patents.

My opposition to GMOs was softened somewhat by an incident a few years ago (2012) in the UK. Scientists at Rothamstead Research (an agricultural research institution) wanted to grow genetically modified wheat to deter aphids.

http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/our-science/rothamsted-gm-wheat-...

I thought the scientists put forward a good case for the research. But a campaign group opposed to the trial planned to destroy the crop. It prompted the scientists to make a public plea to the campaigners to not destroy the crops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9scGtf5E3I

I'd like to hear more from the scientific community on the topic of GMO. In Europe, there is a strong anti-GMO movement which skews the debate against GM crops.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#27

Post by tptacek »

pbreit wrote: post #23
tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you fill in some of the blanks on why the necessity of GMOs is modest? Apart from things like "supporting the Ugandan cassava crop that would otherwise be devastated by diseases cured by GMO", don't most GMO strategies also drastically reduce other harmful chemical inputs to farming? I'm not sure I understand the last argument. Just curious; I know you're just explaining the argument, not making it.

Those anecdotes are powerful but I think they are mitigated by the fact that we can easily produce enough non-GMO food to feed the planet. The last point was a weak attempt to note the problems you hear of, for example, proprietary strains infesting non-customer farms. Not strictly a GMO problem, tho. I'm not reflexively anti-GMO but don't think the case is quite closed (for or against).

This is a little like the nuclear-vs-coal debate. We can generate more than enough power for the country with coal, and because we've been using coal for centuries, we're blinded to the costs (for instance, the annual death toll) of coal. The same may be true of the environmental costs of large-scale farming of genetically inferior crops.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#28

Post by BurningFrog »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #22

There is one big reason, I oppose G.M.O. Food: They are "patented life". Big corporations take life forms and make them patent-able and this way they make that that once belonged to all their "intellectual property". And don't forget one thing: GMO might help to stop hunger in some regions, but in the current state of it, it does not. Many farmers in poor regions where lured into the GMO trap, just to find out one or…

Patents and GMO are entirely separate issues, and far from all GMOs are patented.

I agree that the patent system is seriously flawed, but that doesn't mean we should ban the internet because of software patents.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#29

Post by randomdata »

ScottBurson wrote: post #7

The point I think needs making about GMOs is that they aren't really a category. That is, there aren't any true, important statements one can make about all GMOs, except for the obvious one that they are produced by genetic manipulation. But as far as their benefits and their dangers, they have to be evaluated individually. So on the one hand I'm very concerned about Roundup Ready crops, not specifically because they…

> So on the one hand I'm very concerned about Roundup Ready crops, not specifically because they're GMOs, but because I'm concerned about long-term glyphosate toxicity.

For what it is worth, I grow non-GMO soybeans and they still often get sprayed with glyphosate towards the end of the growing cycle in addition to a host of other chemicals earlier in the season. Not being roundup ready doesn't mean no roundup.

Re: How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food

#30

Post by sampo »

nodata wrote: post #15

Looking at the comments, the pro-GMOers are just as blindsided as the anti-GMOers. Shame on us all. One of the anti-GMO arguments is that you don't want to get a knock on your door (and a lawsuit) from Monsanto for accidentally having a field next to your Monsanto-loving neighbour.

> knock on your door (and a lawsuit) from Monsanto for accidentally having a field next to your Monsanto-loving neighbour

This is pure FUD and has never happened. If you are ready to stop spreading false propaganda, you can go to Wikipedia and read what really happened in those cases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases

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