General Discussion Thread

[Róisín]

Yeah, I have been watching with horror the steady decline in nutrients in each year's analysis. It seems to be in part due to higher water uptake, which is encouraged because it produces faster growth and bigger plants, but the content of actual vitamin and mineral nutrients is lower, and the sappy high-nitrogen growth encourages a whole range of pests and diseases. I think it is actually better, both for plant hardiness and nutrient content, to grow plants with a bit less water and fertiliser. Sure, it's slower and the veges are smaller, but I'll take flavour and nutrition over size and appearance any day.

And there does seem to be that assumption that only white-collar jobs are 'real', and that you have to be stupid to do any kind of manual labour. Contempt for the 'peasant' is still about.

[Ragnarok]

I think one of the more obscene aspects is the big companies sueing adjoining farms where seed or pollen from their GE crops has blown onto someone else's land. This not only puts a huge extra burden onto farmers in surrounding areas, but if the farms nearby are organic, or in an area where 'clean and green' is a big selling point for produce (as it is around where I live), those businesses are destroyed. I'm not kidding, this happens. Cases from Canada and Australia have been in the news in recent years.

Sorry about the rant, but I get pretty angry at how much of this stuff is slipping under the radar.

Don't want to be a dick, but at the very least Monsanto has never sued over accidental contamination. The one Canadian case (I assume you're referring to Perry Schmeiser) was about someone who deliberately took the seed from Monsanto crops and replanted them without compensating the company, rather than Monsanto suing over accidental contamination, and the Australian case (Marsh v. Baxter, right?) was about one neighbor suing another after the neighbor's GM crops cross-pollinated; again, the company was not involved.

Link for Schmeiser
Link for Marsh v. Baxter

Since I'm hoping to get a degree and go into genetic engineering, stories like this always bug me. I'm not saying Monsanto is a paragon or anything like that (believe me, I KNOW how corporations can screw people over) but I always dislike the stories about them that are just plain untrue.

[Sc0ut]

Thanks for clarifying that, Ragnarok. There is a lot of misinformation about GMO going around and I think everyone benefits from dispelling myths.

I'm on the fence about GMO. On one hand, I love science, I'm excited about what genetic engineering can do (mostly in the way of treating human disease) and I don't believe GMO food is bad by default.

On the other hand, I've seen what happens when new technology is made available to people who don't know the first thing about its risks, and I've come to believe companies have a responsibility to acknowledge and try to control for that. You only need to look at the worldwide plastic pollution to see what I mean. With regards to agriculture, a lot of farmers in my grandma's village, where most people have small farms for their own consumption, say that lately a lot of crops no longer sprout, or the plants turn out weak and don't produce much. They are enthusiastic to adopt whatever new herbicide is on the market if they hear it works well. I don't think anyone told them these remain in the soil for years, and they will have trouble growing their traditional crops that are not modified to be resistant to it. That's where my main beef with seed companies come from: they sell a product that comes with risks, both towards the farmer and the environment, but nobody makes sure the person who buys it understands what they're getting themselves into. A lot of farmers worldwide live in rural areas and have poor education, this is not some isolated situation. I think big companies should make an effort to know what kind of people are their customers, and make sure they're not screwing them over in ways that are accidental but easy to predict.

[Grade E cat]

I've personally figured out some time ago that in any debate, all sides use propaganda and misinformation to an extent. The only way I've found to sort things out so far is to avoid paying too much attention to any story whose message seems to boil down to "X is bad for the world, so it's okay to be a jerk towards X or anything that you consider to be representing X". Otherwise, having studied genetics myself, I've come to view a blanket opposition to GMOs because of what some companies do with them as being akin to being against computers because of some of Apple's or Microsoft's jerk moves.

[Windfighter]

everything is genetically modified/manipulated anyway!

Except maybe some rocks???

Like... you have a dog? Yup, that one has most certainly had its genetic material modified through very selective breeding.

Are you eating a banana? Yep, same there, very modified from when we first found them.

as well as lots of other things, I dunno, I haven't studied this subject much.
(I also do know that in most cases when people talk about GMO they mean stuff that's been modified in a lab not over generations but by inserting genetic material into something else through non-natural means. Selective breeding is (mostly) through just regular breeding processes (it is still a modification of their genetic material though and the reason we end up with so many dogs with hip-problems and breathing problems and the likes))

But I think we're all ignoring the most important question:

Appletrees with pear-branches, what category do those fall under?

[Ana Nymus]

[...] (I also do know that in most cases when people talk about GMO they mean stuff that's been modified in a lab not over generations but by inserting genetic material into something else through non-natural means.) [...]

And those means aren't even as "non-natural" as people seem to think. In fact, you have DNA in your own genes that is not of human origin, but is viral. This happens sometimes when retroviruses infect egg cells: they insert some of their own DNA sequences into the cell, which then (assuming it survives) grows up to be a person who can pass on those viral genes to their progeny. Granted, these sequences don't usually do anything, but the line between "natural" and "unnatural" is not so cut and dry. (Plus I think that that's pretty darn cool).

I'm all for sitting down and making laws and regulations for the creation and use of GMO's. Not so much because they're a risk to people eating them, but because introducing any new species of plant anywhere is going to mess with the ecosystem. And plants modified to be, say, pest resistant and drought tolerant have a higher than average potential of becoming invasive.

Problems like this are really complex. It's so hard to balance the immediate needs of farmers (and consumers) with the long term benefits and consequences of different production methods. Honestly, I think that the best thing we as a collective could do to work towards solutions is to have more open, honest conversation happening between all the groups involved. That way the environmental scientists don't propose solutions that the farmers dismiss out of hand because it's impossible to switch over, and the farmers understand better the need for change and the benefits of it (both to the world and to them personally) and don't feel so much like they're being pushed around by people who don't know/care about them.

Ah geez, now I've gone and rambled. Sorry for the wall of text, but it is a complicated issue with lots of moving parts.

[Ragnarok]

And those means aren't even as "non-natural" as people seem to think. In fact, you have DNA in your own genes that is not of human origin, but is viral. This happens sometimes when retroviruses infect egg cells: they insert some of their own DNA sequences into the cell, which then (assuming it survives) grows up to be a person who can pass on those viral genes to their progeny. Granted, these sequences don't usually do anything, but the line between "natural" and "unnatural" is not so cut and dry. (Plus I think that that's pretty darn cool).

I'm all for sitting down and making laws and regulations for the creation and use of GMO's. Not so much because they're a risk to people eating them, but because introducing any new species of plant anywhere is going to mess with the ecosystem. And plants modified to be, say, pest resistant and drought tolerant have a higher than average potential of becoming invasive.

Problems like this are really complex. It's so hard to balance the immediate needs of farmers (and consumers) with the long term benefits and consequences of different production methods. Honestly, I think that the best thing we as a collective could do to work towards solutions is to have more open, honest conversation happening between all the groups involved. That way the environmental scientists don't propose solutions that the farmers dismiss out of hand because it's impossible to switch over, and the farmers understand better the need for change and the benefits of it (both to the world and to them personally) and don't feel so much like they're being pushed around by people who don't know/care about them.

Ah geez, now I've gone and rambled. Sorry for the wall of text, but it is a complicated issue with lots of moving parts.

Wall of text? You should see what happens on Spacebattles XD

I agree, people definitely need more understanding of differing perspectives.
One of the things that bugs me about public perception of GMOs is the whole 'Terminator Seed' debacle.
Basically the concept was that a given seed would only grow one plant, and the plant itself would be sterile. Monsanto floated the concept and did some research before public outcry made them cancel it (despite the fact the Terminator gene basically amounted to Monsanto coming up with a way to enforce the contract they still make farmers sign pledging not to save and replant seed). They've since pledged to never use the Terminator gene.
The thing is, if modern GM crops were Terminators, we wouldn't have to worry about the darn things cross-breeding into other farms, or escaping into the wild, or anything else. So a lot of the really aggravating court cases (which are also blamed on Monsanto) would never have happened.

[Róisín]

Good points all, and thank you for taking the time to make them. It is indeed horribly complex. I do see a major difference between conventional breeding over time and directly engineered organisms. At least conventional breeding gives the general ecology more time to adapt to changes.

I'm not sure which is more likely to cause problems, terminator genes or engineered organisms that go weedy. And we haven't really even begun to investigate the effects on pollinators, or on soil microbiota, other than that there seems to be heavy loss of bees around GM canola crops, and that many of the freely-used herbicides weaken the fungal component of soil biota.

Marsh v Baxter was something of a test case. I'll be interested to see what happens in subsequent litigation, especially how said litigation is funded.

And Ana, I think you're right - more dialogue needs to happen, and soon.

[thorny]

you have DNA in your own genes that is not of human origin, but is viral.

Trying to define what's 'of human origin' is going to get pretty confusing in itself.

Are we our nuclear, or our mitochondrial DNA? I would say, both. But they're not the same thing.

And the bacteria in our guts are keeping us all alive.

-- I think a lot of the problem with GMO technology is that it's trying to deal with things as if they were simple. We'll just change out this one gene, or this little clump of genes, over here . . . why of course we know what we're doing!

If they'd admit we don't know what we're doing, I'd be a lot happier about it. It's when you think the ship is unsinkable that you don't bother to watch out for icebergs.

(Yes, of course that can be a problem with conventional breeding also. But that at least, as Róisín says, moves more slowly.)

-- The concern with the "terminator gene" was that the terminator complex itself might crosspollinate itself into other crops being grown in the area, possibly killing off not only the next generation of the GMO crop, but also other farmers' crops being grown in the general area, including local landraces being grown at least partially for seed (and carrying, in addition to those farmers' livelihoods, precious genetic diversity.) Corn pollen can travel for miles.

There's also considerable concern about attempts (and increasing successes) by a handful of companies -- a continually shrinking handful, Bayer's currently buying Monsanto -- to control a huge percentage of the seed supply of the whole planet. I don't care who it is, even if it were me or Róisín or Saint Nicholas: I don't want any single entity controlling next year's planet-wide human food supply. That's not specifically a GMO issue either, of course; but a lot of current GMO work is going into trying to further monopolies.

[Róisín]

Thorny, precisely that. The whole narrowing of genetic diversity is scary. If only a few varieties of, say, corn or rice are resistant to the next fungal infection, and we have let those varieties drop out of the gene pool because they are not the highest yielding or the most attractive, we are in trouble. Wasn't there a recent problem in America with a new strain of corn smut, with one of the old varieties turning out to be resistant?

And while I am all for science, I think more caution needs to be applied to the rush for profits, and more responsibility needs to be taken for unintended consequences. 'We didn't mean for that to happen' is not much consolation to the folk who have lost their livelihood, and often their farms.

Plant Breeders' Rights is also an issue here. For something that started out last century with the benign intention of protecting the French rose breeding industry, it has become a monster, with most of the profit going to lawyers and big corporations - funny how often that happens. It is getting harder for gardeners and small farmers to save their own seed, and many heritage varieties and cultivars are extinct or dying out. There are a few success stories, like the 'Painted Lady' bean and the 'Moon and Stars' watermelon, but those are unfortunately exceptions to the general trend.

Then there is the business of seed patenting. Fair enough if the company or individual has actually bred or otherwise created the seed in question, but far too often these proceedings are intended to take a food plant or medicinal plant out of the hands of traditional users, or out of the Commons of mankind. I've helped to do the background research for several of the court cases opposing the attempts of pharmaceutical companies to patent traditional-use plants, and its a helluva slog, trying to document centuries of traditional use among people who may not be literate or have written records, and only know that their tribe has grown or wild-harvested this plant 'forever'. Because the problem is that once such a patent is in place, often without the traditional users or growers even being aware that this has happened, they are supposed to pay money when the plant is grown or used. If you want a case in point, look up 'Hoodia gordonii', an African medicinal plant that had the misfortune to be noticed by the American fatness industry (I won't dignify it with the name of 'weight-loss industry').

This is probably far too much serious stuff to inflict on you all - sorry!

[Windfighter]

And now for something completely different:
Thinking about writing a minnion famfiction for Camp Nano in July. It will probably not feature discussions about GMOs (and probably won't even be very good) but is that something you peeps would be interested in reading/being written into?
(no plot in mind yet because I'm gonna tailor that one out more when I know what roles y'all want to play)

We did stuff like this on another forum I used to hang in and it was always great fun so I kinda wanna try it with this crowd as well now
(We also did one where we had different writers for each chapter and no outline, that was exciting!)

[Róisín]

Not sure what you mean, Windy. Could you elaborate, please?

[Windfighter]

Well... a story with minnions in all the roles? So like, it might start out with Róisín leaving her house to go to the farmer's market but instead she meets Black Mage Lenny and Paladin Eich who are on an important mission to save thorny who has been captured by Sc0ut for important experiments and Róisín decides that a Healer would be a good addition on their quest.
(I mean I'd ask you all about what roles youd want to play before starting it but something like that.)

[Abprallen]

And now for something completely different:
Thinking about writing a minnion famfiction for Camp Nano in July. It will probably not feature discussions about GMOs (and probably won't even be very good) but is that something you peeps would be interested in reading/being written into?
(no plot in mind yet because I'm gonna tailor that one out more when I know what roles y'all want to play)

We did stuff like this on another forum I used to hang in and it was always great fun so I kinda wanna try it with this crowd as well now
(We also did one where we had different writers for each chapter and no outline, that was exciting!)

I'm so up for this! That sounds like so much fun.

[Purple Wyrm]

That sounds like fun Windy