Great GMPO article. Makes you think.

Colum Black-Byron

Yavimaya wrote:

Colum Black-Byron wrote:

Yavimaya wrote:

exactly colum, which is why GMO should NOT be made, its a band aid solution.

infact, its like getting a bandaid and rubbing it in some random animal shit, then putting in on the wound.... it may seem to stop the bleeding, but it will make things a lot worse later when people are stupid enough to think that the problem is solved.

We've been modifiying plants for as long as we've been gardening/farming on earth. Most of our widely used plants are genetically modified from their original state to what they are now.

The problem now is that we can do it quicker, with a wider range of changes - gene from an octopus can be put into a tomato.

GMO's aren't going to stop, and I don't think they should. But I do think they should be controlled/regulated by people that can't be bought out by the companies making the GMO product.

It has some great potential. Think of an apple tree that could store water like a cactus, grow in desert conditions and withstand droughts/dry areas, but still produce apples. It'd give a practical use to unusable land.

Or a cereal grain that can dry off on top, but the root system keeps on going and it'll pop up again when it gets water, so a half tuber/half normal roots.

It shouldn't be abandoned because of a stigma, but it shouldn't be allowed to be sold without proper research being done into what the side affects could be.

Ok, im going to stop you there, im not going to sit and explain it all because i have done it with many other people on other forums who just dont get it, but selective breeding is NOT GMO or even close to it.

I know there is a difference, but just because something is selectively bred doesn't mean the new plants are always going to be good.

Quote:

Your apple tree wouldnt be an apple tree anymore, where is it storing this water? in its woody branches? or are its branches now like cactus limbs? so is it a cactus now or an apple tree?

It was a rough random idea about the possibilities, but does it matter if it's a cactus or an apple tree, as long as we're getting apples out of it?

Quote:

As i have also put to other people (none of which even attempted to answer).... If there is ever a problem found with GMO based genes later on.... how are those genes going to be recalled, how do you remove them from the environment?

If this can not be answered, then they should not be allowed outside of tightly controlled laboratory conditions.
People used to think DDT was great..... No problems with asbestos!! use it everywhere its great stuff says the governments of the world..... what ended up happening?

To me it isnt about if they are safe or not, it is about they are untested (no a 5 minute test in a lab by the company that made it isnt "tested") and like untested chemicals they are unleashed onto the world in the name of making a few people profits with no regard as to long term safety, no long term tests on humans to see if there are issues, no tests to see if they will change the genes of wild plants, no tests to see if an octopus eats your octopus tomato, will it get mad octopus disease??

Well let me be the first to answer.

The genes shouldn't be allowed out into the environment without proper testing to see if it could potentially become a problem. I'm not talking about 5 minute tick from an auditor, I'm talking about several generation testing, and analaysing it by people smarter than me. But once it's been tested to within an inch of it's life, and it's all found to be safe and stable, what's wrong with letting the fry fly resistant tomatoes into the enviroment?

Quote:

The major problem is really the fact that the companies / unis that make these things dont care.... that is not priority number 1 or 2 or 3 or 20.

The solution is to lower the world population, not to make GMO.

I do understand that people think natural selection and GMO is the same, but the way i see it is that the difference is:

If i want a black child as a white person i can either have sex with a black person (NS) or i can get science to change the skin colour of my child i have with another white person (GMO) by tampering with genes.

Considering that science doesnt even know how half of the easily visable / knowable about how bodies and natural systems work.... i think to try to control it is stupid.....

Do you put your 2 yr old child in control of a bulldozer that is surrounded by people?

And it's the same with the GMO, we're at a very low level at the moment, we can tinker with genes, but it's not a great science. I can promise you once you can alter an embryo to no longer have the genes that'll cause cancer, they'll be put out there. And once people can choose the skin colour of their kids, or the hair colour, or get rid of that monster nose that all the family has had work done on, it'll be happening.

But it shouldn't be done impulsively, it should be studied/tested, and then once you know the conquences, you can make a serious decision. The same with any GMO. Don't blindly throw out seeds, but test them, and test them some more, and then throw them out there.

Sleepe

mudeye wrote:

Don't get sucked in to this post,
we just had Gun Control now we are into GM, Monsanto, Organic certificates, and the welfare of children.

Everybody needs a *sigh* regularly (its good for frustration and possibly your prostate). :lol:

mudeye

same author Sleepe and from the same soap box. promoting large prostates is not a nice thing to do

earthbound

This is interesting reading...

full article here
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt ... 63429.html

Quote:

Rodale, the longest-running side-by-side study comparing conventional chemical agriculture with organic methods (now 47 years), found organic yields match conventional in good years and outperform them under drought conditions and environmental distress -- a critical property as climate change increasingly serves up extreme weather conditions. Moreover, agroecological practices (basically, farming like a diversified ecosystem) render a higher resistance to extreme climate events which translate into lower vulnerability and higher long-term farm sustainability.

The Nature article examined yields in terms of tons per acre and did not address efficiency ( i.e. yields per units of water or energy) nor environmental externalities (i.e. the environmental costs of production in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, etc) and fails to mention that conventional agricultural research enjoyed 60 years of massive private and public sector support for crop genetic improvement, dwarfing funding for organic agriculture by 99 to 1.

The higher performance of conventional over organic methods may hold between what are essentially both mono-cultural commodity farms. This misleading comparison sets organic agriculture as a straw man to be knocked down by its conventional counterpart. While it is rarely acknowledged, half the food in the world is produced by 1.5 billion farmers working small plots for which monocultures of any kind are unsustainable. Non-commercial poly-cultures are better for balancing diets and reducing risk, and can thrive without agrochemicals. Agroecological methods that emphasize rich crop diversity in time and space conserve soils and water and have proven to produce the most rapid, recognizable and sustainable results. In areas in which soils have already been degraded by conventional agriculture's chemical "packages", agroecological methods can increase productivity by 100-300 percent.

This is why the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food released a report advocating for structural reforms and a shift to agroecology. It is why the 400 experts commissioned for the four-year International Assessment on Agriculture, Science and Knowledge for Development (IAASTD 2008) also concluded that agroecology and locally-based food economies (rather than the global market) where the best strategies for combating poverty and hunger.

Raising productivity for resource-poor farmers is one piece of ending hunger, but how this is done -- and whether these farmers can gain access to more land -- will make a big difference in combating poverty and ensuring sustainable livelihoods. The conventional methods already employed for decades by poor farmers have a poor track record in this regard.

Can conventional agriculture provide the yields we need to feed 10 billion people by 2050? Given climate change, the answer is an unsustainable "maybe." The question is, at what social and environmental cost? To end hunger we must end poverty and inequality. For this challenge, agroecological approaches and structural reforms that ensure that resource-poor farmers have the land and resources they need for sustainable livelihoods are the best way forward.

Sleepe

mudeye wrote:

same author Sleepe and from the same soap box. promoting large prostates is not a nice thing to do

Not sure but I think its not too bad if they go out but not squeeze in ( that would put a damper on the pissing contest). :lol:

Charlie

I (and Im sure many others) possibly may have humoured with the idea of GMO if it had of been introduced in a small scale and controlled way by trustworthy departments and/or governing bodies.

Monsanto and the American government pretty much destroyed any chance of that happening for a large number of human beings.

GMO was 'pushed' into our lives by money hungry bastards with the sole purpose of controlling the number one commodity (food) in the world without a thought for the health and wellbeing of anything living.

I feel for the farmers and I am concerned with our future.

Charlie

Sleepe wrote:

mudeye wrote:

Don't get sucked in to this post,
we just had Gun Control now we are into GM, Monsanto, Organic certificates, and the welfare of children.

Everybody needs a *sigh* regularly (its good for frustration and possibly your prostate). :lol:

And I was nearly going to start a new thread on shark culling...... :whistle:

Sleepe

And I am starting to worry about my prostate.
Its like all these other 'discussions'; nobody is going to go anything about it.
Not my prostate I have got that, in hand, and will deal with it personally.

Every one get onto their mobile phones and give GMO a Hard time. :lol:

Yavimaya

Colum Black-Byron wrote:

Yavimaya wrote:

As i have also put to other people (none of which even attempted to answer).... If there is ever a problem found with GMO based genes later on.... how are those genes going to be recalled, how do you remove them from the environment?

If this can not be answered, then they should not be allowed outside of tightly controlled laboratory conditions.
People used to think DDT was great..... No problems with asbestos!! use it everywhere its great stuff says the governments of the world..... what ended up happening?

To me it isnt about if they are safe or not, it is about they are untested (no a 5 minute test in a lab by the company that made it isnt "tested") and like untested chemicals they are unleashed onto the world in the name of making a few people profits with no regard as to long term safety, no long term tests on humans to see if there are issues, no tests to see if they will change the genes of wild plants, no tests to see if an octopus eats your octopus tomato, will it get mad octopus disease??

Well let me be the first to answer.

The genes shouldn't be allowed out into the environment without proper testing to see if it could potentially become a problem. I'm not talking about 5 minute tick from an auditor, I'm talking about several generation testing, and analaysing it by people smarter than me. But once it's been tested to within an inch of it's life, and it's all found to be safe and stable, what's wrong with letting the fry fly resistant tomatoes into the enviroment?

On the surface there doesnt seem to be anything wrong with unleashing a plant which is resistant to all of its pests onto the environment, hell there are plenty of plants out there that are no able to be eaten as food by any animal, however the web of life is so extremely complex that man should not *frack* with it, one of the more well known examples is of the brazil nut tree. (more here: https://iwanticewater.wordpress.com/201 ... razil-nut/ )

I do agree that basically as long as the right checks are put into the pollens of GMO products so they are 110% guaranteed to never be able to pollinate any other plants except its exact GMO match (including not cross breeding with any other GMO of same strain) that there shouldnt be major environmental problems, but also only if great measures are put in place to not allow them to become weeds any where in the world.

Colum Black-Byron wrote:

Yavimaya wrote:

The major problem is really the fact that the companies / unis that make these things dont care.... that is not priority number 1 or 2 or 3 or 20.

The solution is to lower the world population, not to make GMO.

I do understand that people think natural selection and GMO is the same, but the way i see it is that the difference is:

If i want a black child as a white person i can either have sex with a black person (NS) or i can get science to change the skin colour of my child i have with another white person (GMO) by tampering with genes.

Considering that science doesnt even know how half of the easily visable / knowable about how bodies and natural systems work.... i think to try to control it is stupid.....

Do you put your 2 yr old child in control of a bulldozer that is surrounded by people?

And it's the same with the GMO, we're at a very low level at the moment, we can tinker with genes, but it's not a great science. I can promise you once you can alter an embryo to no longer have the genes that'll cause cancer, they'll be put out there. And once people can choose the skin colour of their kids, or the hair colour, or get rid of that monster nose that all the family has had work done on, it'll be happening.

But it shouldn't be done impulsively, it should be studied/tested, and then once you know the conquences, you can make a serious decision. The same with any GMO. Don't blindly throw out seeds, but test them, and test them some more, and then throw them out there.

I totally agree and am glad that you are on the side of testing.
i have come across a few people who think that current testing is fine and it has all been proven safe.
The problem as i see it right now is that testing is done in the open, the genes have already been unleashed on the environment.

coachchris

Unlike a few posted suggested, I didn't post and leave. I was simply trying to get some work done after 20 straight days of rain.

Has anyone ever researched the Golden Rice project?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice

Or the Hawaiian papaya? https://sites.hampshire.edu/blacksheepj ... f-science/

Like Colum said, Turning a bling eye to science seems like a not too intelligent option when faced with feeding 10 billion.
The Golden Rice project was NOT for profit, it was a humanitarian effort to help save hundreds of thousands of children from a senseless death each year. If that's a bad thing, then I guess I'm pro GMO.

I abhor what Monsanto is doing with their captive seed in this country. I think they are, like the vast majority of large(and small) companies, first and foremost, looking to maximize profits. But, if while doing that, they can save literally hundreds of thousands of lives a year, that's a pretty fair trade-off. I believe the number is 670,000 children each year.

mudeye

These GM producers need a good swift kick up the ar*e for abusing their scientific knowledge, how on earth these companies can think they can better whats already been here for half an eternity has got me beat. egotistical rich pri*ks that rule the world without a thought of the rest of humanity.. there ideas may well be well founded but its inevitable that what they do now will be a disaster in years to come... *sigh*..
I watched a doco' about 12mths ago, it had 3 scientists walk through a large crop of corn that was just about ready for harvest. they were looking for any sign of life, whether it be a beetle a bug an insect, a grasshopper, or even a fly or a bird.. they walked out the other side of the crop with absolutely nothing...... one bloke said it was like walking through a painting and the artist forgot to add creatures....
670,000 children a year, that's terrible stat's. Maybe Monsanto needs to get into condom manufacturing..

coachchris

Science has been bettering our world since the early ages of man. You can argue that technology has it's pitfalls, and it does. But, I don't see how creating a solution to saving over a half a MILLION children each year is so terrible.

Not sure that birth control is a solution where children aren't getting adequate nutrition. Sure, less kids equate to less malnourished and dying kids, but the analogy would be like If we stop making cars, there wouldn't be any more traffic fatalities?? Those sterile corn crops aren't simply GMO/Glyphosate resistant/Bt corn. They're a product of a weekly pesticide spraying program that is designed to eliminate pests. In all big ag, blanket spraying is very indiscriminate, and kills good bugs with bad bugs. Pretty standard stuff on a big farm pre harvest.

That's the reason most of us are here. We know what we purchase at the grocery store is sprayed with lots of pesticides and don't feel that eating that is in our families best interest. Which was the point of my original post. The anti-GMO craze is being exploited my corporations now. Yet, these same corporations don't bat an eye at using food that has been treated with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, etc. But, hey, it's non GMO. Yeah.

earthbound

Look deeper....

Golden rice is just another example of how narrow minded solutions are usually never the answer. Vitamin A deficiency is generally only one of many deficiencies suffered at the same time due to poor diet, people suffering from malnutrition.. Over 10 years and 100 million dollars have been pumped into golden rice and yet it's still not available, how many lives could have been saved if a tiny fraction of that money had been spent on education and increasing access to a wider variety of fruits and vegetables, solving all issues rather than just vitamin A..

As Michael Pollen once wrote...

Quote:

Golden Rice seemed less like a solution to vitamin A deficiency than “to the public-relations problem of an industry that has so far offered consumers precious few reasons to buy what it’s selling – and more than a few to avoid it.”

The papaya?

Quote:

Farmers complain about depressed prices for the genetically modified fruit. Many have gone out of business or switched to other crops. And while the two commercially available genetically modified varieties, “SunUp” and “Rainbow,” have helped control the virus, farmers have found themselves fighting a new plague, papaya blackspot fungus, to which the genetically altered varieties appear more susceptible than the most common “natural” papaya. And a new study has raised questions about whether the altered genes in the new papayas could be allergenic to humans.

Quote:

Since their widespread introduction, the new varieties have been afflicted with a new plague: blackspot fungus, forcing farmers to spray their field frequently with expensive and hazardous fungicides. Kapoho Solo, the most common variety of non-GM papaya, is highly vulnerable to ringspot virus, but fairly resistant to fungal infections.

And......

Quote:

Independent laboratory testing results released today
reveal widespread contamination from the world's first commercially
planted genetically engineered tree, the papaya, on Oahu, the Big
Island, and Kauai. Contamination was also found in the stock of
non-genetically engineered seeds being sold commercially by the
University of Hawaii.

....

All samples were tested by Genetic ID, one of the world's leading
scientific laboratories for genetic contamination testing. Composite
samples from the Big Island and Oahu both revealed GMO contamination.
Nearly 20,000 papaya seeds from across the Big Island, 80% of which
came from organic farms and the rest from backyard gardens or wild
trees, showed a contamination level of 50%. Oahu's composite of
papayas, primarily from organic farms, showed contamination of over
5%, and trace levels of contamination were found on an organic farm
on Kauai. One package of seed of the Solo Waimanalo papaya, a
non-genetically engineered variety purchased directly from the
University of Hawaii, also tested positive for GMO contamination.

So now 50% of ALL papaya are contaminated with the genes which cause higher susceptibility to black spot fungus.... :geek:

What a shame, they will sell fungicides.... :upset:

This is not science...!!!!! This is business.

coachchris

In 2013, author Michael Pollan, who had critiqued the product in 2001, unimpressed by the benefits, expressed support for the continuation of the research.[42]

Critics of genetically engineered crops have raised various concerns. An early issue was that golden rice originally did not have sufficient vitamin A. This problem was solved by the development of new strains of rice.[4] The speed at which vitamin A degrades once the rice is harvested, and how much remains after cooking are contested.[35] However, a 2009 study concluded that golden rice is effectively converted into vitamin A in humans[15] and a 2012 study that fed 68 children ages 6 to 8 concluded that golden rice was as good as vitamin A supplements and better than the natural beta-carotene in spinach.[17]

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has emphasised the non-commercial nature of their project, stating that "None of the companies listed ... are involved in carrying out the research and development activities of IRRI or its partners in Golden Rice, and none of them will receive any royalty or payment from the marketing or selling of Golden Rice varieties developed by IRRI."[38]

Definately science.

The above are taken from the first link I posted. I don't have time currently to examine the papaya, but will try to do a bit more research later.

Thought it interesting that the scientist you cited is now "on record" as supporting Golden Rice. The product has not been brought to market because of the the anti GMO sentiment, protest, people(activists, not farmers) ripping crops up, etc.

coachchris

We get a lot of the same types here. People picketing in front of grocery stores. Holding up signs that say "GMO kills babies!"and nonsense like this. If you ask them about why they don't think GMO's should be allowed, their response is usually along the lines of: "Because they're created my Monsanto, and Monsanto is evil." or "Because they're contaminated with fecal bacteria!" Both statements don't hold up to any logical, fact based research. Then other sheeple see these people and jump on the band wagon, often repeating the same nonsense.

I'm not saying there aren't legitimate concerns, just saying that the folks who are badly misinformed shouldn't be the ones that other people get their information from. There's volumes of scientific(there's that word again

) research out there, but most only choose to listen to the media and the hype, instead of actually doing some research on their own and making a informed decision.

Backyard Aquaponics A place to discuss aquaponics

Great GMPO article. Makes you think.

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics