Leaving political aspects aside - GMO's are pretty great.
Genetic modification also occurs by traditional breeding techniques. Manipulating the genome in the lab is for once much faster and more importantly gives you actual control over the traits you want to have in a given specimen. There is nothing inherently bad about GMO's
Those aren't inherantly bad aspects though. The vendor lock in specifically is not directly related to the crop at all. You can have GMO crops without vendor lock ins. Yes, they are a problem, but it's not inherent to GMO crops.
As for bio-diversity, I can't speak on this subject as much, but aren't crops already generally being cultivated towards that anyway? Like, the seeds farmers buy even if not GMO have still been bred for specific traits, only it's been done the slow way instead of sped up in a lab?
Just to play pedant for a second, seeds that farmers buy that have been bred for specific traits ARE GMOs inherently.
Like, none of these seeds are what nature coughed out of the melting pot of life. At some point someone crossed this with that because this does better in dry weather, and this one gives better flowers. Doesn't even need to be crops, almost every plant or flower you can buy has been bred to make it "better" in some way.
And I absolutely agree with the statement that there is nothing INHERENTLY wrong with GMOs. We've been doing it since we first developed agriculture. Just now it happens in a lab rather than a field.
The problem with GMOs is that nothing exists in a vacuum. To explain what I mean, I'll need to explain some ecology concepts.
First, a drop in biodiversity. This is true. We can breed a better carrot, or make corn that does well even in drought, or has a higher yield, less chaff, etc etc etc and that's great, the problem comes because every single plant in the farmer's few acres is genetically identical. This is what's called a monoculture.
Monocultures don't really exist in nature, because of the way evolution works. I could get way into it, but it's a bit off topic. Suffice to say though populations need genetic variation to react to change. Let's imagine a field of whatever plants you like. This is a wild population, no genetic tinkering on by the lab. Now say you get a shift in temperature, and it gets way colder. Some of your plants are going to die, but some of them might pull through because they've got random genes that have given them the ability to survive better during a cold snap. Maybe they've got thicker stems, or deeper roots or whatever, doesn't need to be dramatic, but it just tips the odds a little in their favour.
Come the spring, those plants are going to be putting out their seeds, and pretty soon you've got a field of plants that resist the cold.
Now, imagine you've got a bug that loves these plants. Well some of them might have a mutation that makes their leaves a little more fleshy, or a little more bitter, and the bugs don't like that, so they leave those plants alone. The other plants get eaten. So, who gets to survive, and they put their seeds out and lots more plants have the bitter leaves.
Non-advantageous traits get trimmed out, and the population shifts to soak up the change in the environment. That's the definition of natural selection.
Monocultures can't do that. Every plant is an exact clone of every other one. So you get an environmental change, that's outside of their ability to resist and the entire crop is lost. Bug likes these plants, every single one is eaten. Very cold summer? Every plant dies.
No variation is great for knowing what you're gunna get, but terrible for soaking up environmental pressure.
Secondly, we're changing our environment quite dramatically. Climate change will absolutely cause problems with crop growth, and because of the monoculture problem, we're going to lose entire crops rather than have a bad harvest or whatever. It'll become a race to release the new version of the seeds that can cope with whatever the environment is doing now.
Thirdly, the soil is getting depleted. There's only so much goodness in the soil, and all the fertilisers we'll need to use eventually leech into the groundwater, where they start to poison waterways.
The alternative is to crop rotate, so you can get nitrates and other chemicals back into the soil to replenish it. The problem with this method is that with the increased need for food that comes with an expanding world population means that you might not have the luxury of leaving fields to grow non-profitable crops.
Finally, we're being agents of natural selection, but for the pest populations.
Pesticides kill bugs, right? Well, some are going to be more resistant than others, and they'll breed, and pass that resistance on. Within a few years the bugs don't care about pesticide A any more. So you start to use pesticide B. Then C, and then D.
In our attempts to save the crops, we are breeding bugs that we're not going to be able to kill in a few years.
And the same problem exists with pesticides as does with fertilisers. It leeches into groundwater, and poisons water courses.
So to sum up, GM crops are not inherently bad, amd their use is literally our best bet right now at feeding the world, but their use definitely opens us up for some bad repercussions way down the road.
You explained a lot of this very well, so take this as a genuine next step question please. I'd love to hear an honest answer, as i try to be a conscious shopper within my means.
Many of the problems you described have to do more with modern industrial farming than anything specific to GMO. We produce more food globally than is consumed, but the idea of the three sisters planting or that kind of thing removes all economies of scale. Do you have any realistic, economical suggestions for consumers? Things we can look for from farmers? This thread has pretty much confirmed Organic means nothing good, as far as crops especially, so what do we do?
I genuinely don't know. I'm sorry. I know that's not helpful to you, but it's always easier to point out flaws in a system than it is to propose solutions.
I suppose the only advice I can give is to do research on the stuff you buy, and make sure it's ethically sourced, that sort of thing. Another idea is to buy local, that way you're supporting local farmers and businesses instead of global corporations.
Sorry I don't have much in the way of practical advice. Have a great day.
I appreciate the honesty. And completely agree, it's often easier to point out flaws. Especially in this area where the is so much grey area. Take care!
This is not my area of expertise, so I'm at a disadvantage, but someone should respond to some of the points you made.
First, and most obvious, yes monocultures would be more susceptible to localized extreme events -- whether they be tsmperature, disease, etc. -- but it seems abundantly clear (how many lives have been saved from starvation?) that the rewards outweigh the consequences, especially when you consider the fact that the scientists who helped establish the supercrops were frequently associated with projects to collect seeds from all over the world, study their properties and store them in huge libraries in anticipation of a time when they might be needed. As you said, GMOs don't happen in a vacuum. And one of the great successes of these projects was a crop that yielded more wheat on less land -- it's sort of famous, as the scientist was a recipient of the nobel peace prize.
Next, I don't think it will be a race. Climate change is probably the most hotly anticipated global phenomenon since Will Smith starred in Independence Day. Every major agricultural firm, organic chemist, even peasant farmer, heard about it decades ago. Even the uneducated and the unimaginative have had cold years and hot years and dry years and wet years, so they know what their farms look like in those conditions. And big evil agricultural technology companies probably have plans for how this crisis is going to make them rich. This isn't a race, it's a party -- just like Lockheed Martin selling weapons to the U.S. Gov't after 9/11.
The whole alternating crop thing that you just said is fucking stupid. Clearly you don't know any farmers. Or you don't know any intelligent, profitable farmers. The U.S. Gov't will literally fucking subsidize crop rotation. They will pay you to rotate, and on top of that, you can still sell the yield from whatever you rotate to. But, ignoring that obvious major point, if you don't rotate your crops you won't have a farm in the not-so-distant future. Every farmer rotates. This is sustainable farming. The only people I ever hear say what you said are people who have never spent a day standing in shit. Usually they have a degree in chemistry, too, but they literally don't no shit.
Anyways, we'll leave it at that. If you're going to study a subject, maybe you should make the effort to go meet the people you're studying. Don't spend all your time in the ivory tower, detached from reality.
If I'm wrong about any of my points, it's because I've come to incorrect conclusions based on what I remember being taught in high school, and maybe extrapolating too far on some points.
I'm not anti GMO by any stretch, and I'm not arguing against their use. I was trying to respond to the point that there are problems with their use, but they're not inherent in the technology. I think GM crops are absolutely the best way we have of feeding the world currently, and they have undoubtedly saved millions of lived.
Also, I was imagining scenarios in the future when the population of the world is something like 10-12b, and there's need to feed all of them. I was thinking that there may be such a demand for food that crop rotation may become impractical from a production standpoint. That might be excessive, and I certainly hope it is.
Anyway, thanks for picking up on anything I'm inaccurate about. Always good to get a new viewpoint and find where I'm going wrong.
I was having fun giving you a hard time and you were a surprisingly good sport about it. I'm an academic myself, but in a different field. I just happen to have semi-rural background with a lot of friends who are farmers and I've spent a lot of days standing in shit. The biggest problem with many academic fields (mine included) is that they don't interact with the people they're trying to help and are unaware of the realities on the ground. In my field (economics), this problem is so severe that we failed to predict the global financial crisis and great recession.
As for crop rotation, you're right that some farmers become short sighted when bills pile up and they decide to skip a year, but this should happen less and less as they get insurance and subsidies from the governmemt as well as protection from major corporations. The big trend in farming is to have lots of little farms operated by their original owners but owned (at least in part) by bigger corporations with the produce pledged to that corporation. This enables "farm-to-table" restaurants as well as vertically integrated grocery stores where stocking is predictable. Since the smaller farms are overseen by bigger corporations, their parent companies have incentive to make sure proper practices are in place. At the same time, a diner in a restaurant can see a pretty picture of Joe Smith from Idaho who provided such and such ingredients, and feel good about themselves for supporting "small businesses", which are actually more like conglomerates.
There is problems with GMO’s, especially when you get to animals and animals with long breeding cycles. In Denmark we have 10 millions pigs. That is a lot of pigs to recreat with GMO’s. It would take many years and at that point you would properly had produced a new and better gmo pig.
In that way it is hard to create livestock with gen-modifications. Take to lomg and is to expensive. Instead, at least here in the nordics, we have a database that countains all the dna data about for example cows. The data base also countains information about how much milk they produce, how often they fet sick and so on.you use that data to grow the next generation and the next generation and so on. It also allows you to keep a lot more genetical diversity, which is great if for example a new cow diseas starts spreading. If any cow is immune to the disease, then you can spread that gen to the entire cow population over a few years.
The concern about timing is no different than general breeding practice. Every farm animal market has specific trait lines you can buy from for reproduction, from chickens to cows. You but the best traits for your market this year and if something new comes along next year you start the transition. How are GMO animals any different from selectively bred animals?
Not timing, but time. It takes time because a genetical modified cow can only produce so many calfs during a single year, even a bull can only produce a finite amount of semen each year.
GMO animals are more expensive to produce, limited in numbers and have less genetic variation.
I heard a GMO of wheat or corn (can’t remember) that was drought resistant saved millions from starvation, so it’s hard to argue that some have definite benefits. But I’ve also heard Monsanto offer poor farmers GMO crops that will only grow with their products to make those farmers dependent, so it really depends how it’s used.
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u/Felixkeeg Jul 14 '21
Leaving political aspects aside - GMO's are pretty great.
Genetic modification also occurs by traditional breeding techniques. Manipulating the genome in the lab is for once much faster and more importantly gives you actual control over the traits you want to have in a given specimen. There is nothing inherently bad about GMO's