GM crops- a story of ignorance and anti-science

The story of Mark Lynas of ‘Six Degrees’ fame says it all really. Read it or look at the video and let us know your opinions.

marklynas.org/2013/01/lectur … uary-2013/

If you are still anti-GM can you still justify this opinion?

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Very interesting, although I don’t have time to read through his entire rambling speech. Basically, here we have a guy who knows absolutely fuckall about anything - and who admits that he spent a good part of his career as a professional busybody knowing fuckall about even more - presuming to lecture the world on the application of science and technology.

His position is so full of holes you could drive a John Deere combine through it. I don’t even know where to start. First off, it’s a bit daft to talk about being “anti” or “pro” GM (we assume that “GM” here refers to the targeted modification of an organism’s genes, rather than selection for certain characteristics). Like any other technology, GM can have benefits that outweigh the disadvantages, or vice-versa, depending on the exact application. So you might be “anti” Roundup-Ready, for example, on the basis that it encourages thoughtless use of herbicides, but that doesn’t mean you’re automatically “anti” genetic manipulation in general. That’s pretty much all that needs to be said on that aspect.

What gets my goat is his regurgitation of some tedious received [strike]wisdom[/strike]ignorance:

Of course it’s a bad thing. GDP growth means consumption of natural capital. Third-world countries often have extremely fragile ecosystems and the last thing they need is GDP growth. Wealth creation, certainly, but that’s not the same thing.

Er … what? He’s telling us that we’re losing biodiversity (true), and that we need to fix this by increasing our dependence on monocultures and non-renewable farming inputs.

Absolute rubbish. For one thing, nitrogen is normally not the limiting factor (in the tropics, it’s lack of organic matter, which in poor soils is the only thing that provides a usable CEC - no point pouring on chemicals if it just drains away). Secondly, growing more crops on the same land area simply invites disease and pest problems. Far better to expand the area under cultivation without destroying the natural ecosystems that exist. This is not easy, but it’s possible.

Lynas’ ignorance is laid out on display right here. Firstly, there is no such thing as “organic” farming. It’s just a convenient label invented by marketers to lump together hundreds of different techniques that are non-conventional. Secondly, it’s impossible to compare (with a simple metric like kg-per-hectare) natural methods with broadacre chemical-fed farming. They’re just too different. Natural methods can often get an economically-viable yield from land that you can’t drive a tractor over. The best natural methods are usually polycultures, so you get several different yields, at different times, from the same area - often with an aggregate mass far higher than you’d get from a monoculture. Most importantly, most natural methods focus on soil health, while chemical-fed systems treat it as an afterthought.

Again, just plain ignorant. Poor farmers cannot use or profit from mechanised, chemical-fed techniques. Natural methods are easier for them to use, less reliant on external inputs, less likely to damage fragile soils, more suitable for small labour-intensive operations, and ultimately more profitable. Fertilizers - like any other technology - have their place. If your soil is phosphorus-deficient or acidic because decades of mismanagement have eroded the topsoil, you have little choice but to apply phosphates or lime. You can then quickly regenerate the vegetation that will hold your soil together and recycle organically-applied nutrients back into the soil. But it’s a one-off; a targeted means to an end, not a substitute for intelligent management.

This is true, but most of the work in that area has been done by ‘natural farming’ proponents, such as Fukuoka. Borlaug’s lasting legacy is a reliance on heavy machinery, mined phosphates, and oil/gas.

Anyway, I’m going off on another rant, but a debate on GM would be more interesting if someone more informed and intelligent than Lynas were presenting the argument. The bottom line here is that GM might, in some limited circumstances, be useful. Most of the time, it’s simply not necessary - a classic instance of technology for the sake of technology, or of salesmen creating a market for a product that we didn’t know we needed.

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I always enjoy your posts on agriculture, finley. Feel free to rant as much as you like.

I’m not going to do a line-by-line but I agree with much of what you say Finley. I did read the speech all the way through and I couldn’t find a single concrete example of where a GM crop has benefitted humanity. No doubt examples exist, but this isn’t the man to be making speeches in support of GM. He comes across as someone who didn’t know much and now just believes whatever Monsanto tell him about their efforts to save the world from starvation (and make lots and lots of money as a coincidental side-effect). I’ve spoken with scientists at Rothamsted about their GM research and it’s fascinating stuff, but even they would say GM is only one potential answer to many different problems.

One area of real concern is the lack of labeling. Recently they’ve developed a type of hydrogel that is being used as a spray-on or injected coating for bananas (initially) and will be expanded to other produce. It increases the shelf life of a banana by up to 2 weeks. The problem is that it’s made from chitosan which itself is derived from shrimp and crab shells. This presents a real danger to anybody who is allergic to shrimp, and without any form of labeling, it’s probably only a matter of time until someone suffers the same allergic reaction from banana as they do from shrimp.

So what on earth does that have to do with GM produce? It’s an issue of poor labelling, not anything to do with GM.

GM suffers by being linked too strongly to Monsanto and other agro mega-businesses. In that case, it’s the business practices that are reprehensible, not GM per se. Monsanto is not there to save the world, but to make a profit for the shareholders (like pretty much any company).

GM projects that have had impact are drought resistant rice varieties, and golden rice, which has much more vitamin A than normal and addresses real health concern in Asia and Africa from Vitamin A deficiency.

That’s what I said, it’s a labelling issue. But it is part and parcel of the wider debate, no?

A license to rant! I’ve always wanted one of those. :yay:

My thoughts exactly. The depressing part is that a lot of influential people (politicians etc) will be listening, nodding and smiling, and taking notes. Very few of them will be thinking, or doing their own research - for example on this particular bit, which would be funny if it wasn’t so tragically stupid:

We also know from many studies that organic is much less productive, with up to 40-50% lower yields in terms of land area.

Even with chemical-fed methods, you can experience a 3:1 yield variation depending on all sorts of conditions over which the farmer has no control (or chooses not to control because of the expense). Likewise with any given set of “organic” methods. A facile statement like “organic is 40% less productive than non-organic” is completely meaningless. This isn’t science; it’s a soundbite. What “organic” method are you talking about? What experimental protocol? Under what environmental conditions? Yield of what? For what input cost? Over what time period? Yes, if you have a chemical-fed field of corn, and you suddenly stop using chemicals, your yield will drop by half (it’s quite possible you’ll get no yield at all). All that proves is that relying on synthetic inputs will destroy the fertility soil. It says nothing at all about the relative long-term productivity of organic farming, because you haven’t actually done any organic farming. That particular experimental paradigm is akin to taking the battery out of your watch and asserting (on the basis that your watch has stopped) that only battery-powered watches will fulfil our timekeeping needs.

I imagine the shrimp aren’t too happy about it either.

I’m not sure if labelling is an issue though. Simply labelling a product as “genetically modified” would achieve what, exactly? Most consumers wouldn’t know what it means, especially if the label doesn’t describe the nature of the modification. And if it did, how many people would understand it? What decision (as consumers) are they supposed to take? Why should the consumer need to know the nitty-gritty technical details of GM in order to eat a banana (or whatever) without worrying he might grow tentacles in awkward places?

This is an interesting one, and I think it illustrates my point about using technology for its own sake, to solve problems that don’t really exist, or as a band-aid for problems that have been artificially created. Why is it that so many people are dependent on rice for survival? Does nobody remember what happened to Ireland in 1845? If people are vitamin-A deficient, the obvious solution is to grow more sweet potatoes, or perhaps moringa oleifera. They’re rich in vitamins, they yield better than rice, they’re undemanding, they’re perennial, and you can eat every part of the plant. GM rice is just not necessary. As for droughts, they’re often caused by massive destruction of forests or mismanagement of water resources; restoring forest cover would modify local weather patterns, improve soil fertility, and provide all sorts of ecosystem services (such as waste recycling and food). Why the hell would anyone want to grow rice in a drought-prone area anyway? It’s a completely unsuitable choice.

cfimages: Well, tangentially maybe. Certainly labeling is also an issue with GM crops, of course.

However, a chemical extract from a GM crop is no more dangerous than the same extract from a non-GM crop. GM crops main concern is genetic escape, i.e., cross breeding with wild or non-GM varieties. But the same problem exists with non-GM crops, for example where teosinte has been cross bred (actively and accidentally) with non GM corn for centuries, thus polluting the genetic origin of corn.

Same goes for potatoes, rice, tomatoes, and even the Australian dingo, among any other examples. All non-GM, of course.

finley: people grow rice because they grow rice because they like to eat rice. They dont want to eat sweet potatoes, or they want to eat sweet potatoes AND rice. Changing culture is harder than helping preserve the culture with a solution to a problem that does exist, and is very real in many countries.
And drought resistant rice is going to be a life saver in times of water shortage to come.

fuck em, I’d rather let the masses starve, and good riddance: no point throwing good money after bad, but those do-goodie tossers in the international philanthropic movement who finance these crazy GM schemes are the ones to blame, not me, mate.

Not convinced. My point was, why do they eat nothing but rice? Nobody in their right mind would choose to subsist like that.

Well, yes, obviously. I wasn’t suggesting they should stop eating rice and eat sweet potatoes instead. About 100g of sweet potato covers your Vitamin A RDA.

In that case, I suggest Vitamin A deficiency is nature’s way of telling them to fix their culture, or natural selection will fix it for them.

This is a subject i would like to know more about. As urodacus has pointed out, there does seem to be a raft of positives in growing more nutritious, or disease and drought resistant crops, especially in countries where people are starving to death, and yet I often hear people ranting against GM like it’s the greatest evil on the planet. It may well be, but what exactly are these negative health aspects? (again, labeling, claiming property rights over stray seeds, corporate domination of food markets etc being other issues)

To me GM crops are an extension of the green revolution, they simply take a more targeted approach to achieve goals such as pest resistance or increasing seed yield.
I’m not as knowledgeable as Finley in the area of agriculture but have a good background in the science part.
Finley, I assume you are saying that better land use policies are the key to increasing yields or at least sustainability and that food culture plays just an important role as technology.

I’d like to understand why Asia’s poor subsist on rice mostly. Is it because it’s the cheapest food and they cannot even stretch to a bit of sweet potato? In Taiwan I believe sweet potato was the dominant foodstuff until the mid 20th century.
Also is the rice that the poor masses eat bottom of the barrel stuff? Where does it come from? If vitamin A rice was grown would that be more expensive? I guess it would have to be mandated to grow it and that may set off some other problems.

Personally I think GM has an important role to play in terms of mass agriculture such as soya bean or maize or wheat or rice farming, especially in places like Brazil, the US or Russia, if it can increase yields and reduce pesticide use.

The example of the hysteria against the fungal resistant potato was pretty galling when you consider Irelands history and the fact that you need to use metal based pesticides to combat blight. Of course the blight was only one of multiple factors that caused the famine.

However commercially I can understand why it makes sense for small countries to promote their non GM agriculture status to stand out from the big agro producing countries.

Taiwan actually has a big role in GM fruits. Taiwan also has a lot of business in agri seeds. I would love to know how many of the fruits we eat here are GM. I’d bet the giant guavas are GM for one.
There seems to be no requirement for labeling and very little regulation, not surprising of course.

[quote=“finley”]for example on this particular bit, which would be funny if it wasn’t so tragically stupid:

We also know from many studies that organic is much less productive, with up to 40-50% lower yields in terms of land area.

Even with chemical-fed methods, you can experience a 3:1 yield variation depending on all sorts of conditions over which the farmer has no control (or chooses not to control because of the expense). Likewise with any given set of “organic” methods.[/quote]
Oh, that’s true enough as far as it goes. But you mysteriously omit the apples-to-apples comparison of comparing so-called “organically” farmed lands vs. “chemical-fed methods” of neighboring lands during the same time periods – i.e., when the “all sorts of conditions” are the same between the two plots.

And there, the “organic” methods tend to yield about a third as much as the “chemical-fed” methods. Apples-to-apples, evil factory farming wins, hands down.

You’re just playing word games here. Make an apples-to-apples comparison between the two, and factory farming is simply more productive. Period.

I listened to all that “hurr durr organic is awesome” crap back in the 1980s, with all the “Chinese peasant labor outproduces American farmers because they do all this intensive hand-cultivating tailored to the exact landscape and conditions” shit that went along with it. There’s a reason the Chinese are now moving as fast as they can to tractors and fertilizers – they don’t want to starve to death.

I imagine the shrimp aren’t too happy about it either.[/quote]
Who cares what a shrimp thinks? They’re food.

This is an interesting one, and I think it illustrates my point about using technology for its own sake, to solve problems that don’t really exist, or as a band-aid for problems that have been artificially created. Why is it that so many people are dependent on rice for survival? Does nobody remember what happened to Ireland in 1845? If people are vitamin-A deficient, the obvious solution is to grow more sweet potatoes, or perhaps moringa oleifera. They’re rich in vitamins, they yield better than rice, they’re undemanding, they’re perennial, and you can eat every part of the plant. GM rice is just not necessary. As for droughts, they’re often caused by massive destruction of forests or mismanagement of water resources; restoring forest cover would modify local weather patterns, improve soil fertility, and provide all sorts of ecosystem services (such as waste recycling and food). Why the hell would anyone want to grow rice in a drought-prone area anyway? It’s a completely unsuitable choice.[/quote]
Oh, is that Moringa thing the plant that is apparently only suitable for places that never, ever have a frost, much less a freeze? Try farming that in Norway and you’ll have a whole field of dead plants, right?

You’re kinda missing the point. You could indeed do a ‘scientific’ experiment with two plots A and B of bare ground, sow a bunch of standard seeds, and spray A liberally with fertilizers and pesticides, while not spraying B. You would get a big harvest from A and virtually nothing from B. This tells you the following: if you have a plot of bare ground and want to get a result using seeds that were specifically bred to give high yields with fertilizers and pesticides, you should spray it with fertilizers and pesticides. That information is of no practical use whatsoever.

There’s a subtle difference between ‘science’ and ‘technology’. People think that technology is a sort of applied science, but it isn’t (not usually, anyway). It certainly borrows ideas from the scientific method, but it has different aims. The aim of scientific experiment is to refute a theory. The aim of technology is to produce a useful result. Often, science lags technology (the application comes first, and then the scientists figure out why it works). A technology-focused experiment would therefore be something like this: given a plot of bare ground, and constraints on inputs (as there might be if you’re farming in the middle of some Godforsaken hellhole), how can we achieve an economically-useful outcome? And having achieved that, how can we improve the desirable features?

There will be several possible solutions, and an iterative optimization process. The designer will have assign a certain weighting to different features depending on his own preferences or market demands, so no two organic farms will work the same way. Many people have done this sort of design work. The end result is that an “organic” farm looks nothing like a chemical-fed one. It is completely different. It has different inputs and outputs and different processes going on. What it is not is a plot of bare dirt with scraggly, nutrient-deficient plants - so to experiment with such things is a waste of everyone’s time.

They’re doing it because that’s what The West did back in 1950. China copies. That’s what they do best. Anyway, I was referring to state-of-the-art low-input systems, not Chinese peasant labour, which was as ecologically destructive (in its own way) as Western agriculture is today.

Um. The conversation was about vitamin-A deficiency in Africa and Asia. Norwegians, to the best of my knowledge, don’t subsist on a bowl of rice a day. I was simply pointing out that there is a much simpler solution than GM. If you disagree, feel free to explain.

Absolutely. Poor countries lack food for all sorts of reasons, most of which could be labelled “political”, or possibly cultural. It’s not because someone has forbidden them to use GM seeds. A lot of poor countries have more land than they know what to do with (often because half the population are queueing outside the US visa office). If they weren’t in such a hurry to clear the trees off it, they might find it would be useful for growing things.

Since Impaler mentioned it, it’s interesting to consider European “poverty”, where plenty of people subsist on baked beans, spag bolognese, and chocolate cake. Is the solution there to develop GM tomatoes that are more nutritionally complete? No doubt it would help, but that’s probably what you call “ignoring the elephant in the room”.

I’d say that’s one good example of a useful application of GM, one that’s unlikely to cause problems. OTOH I’ve never really bothered growing potatoes, except for amusement value, so I don’t know much about them except that blight is a pretty common occurrence and pretty much impossible to prevent - it’s just down to luck. Even so, I wonder if it would be such a bad thing if Europe grew fewer potatoes, and a diversity of other things instead?

As above, I (personally) wasn’t suggesting GM is inherently a Bad Thing, or produces unhealthy food. I was just pointing out that most of the time there’s an easier, cheaper, better way of doing things. If you find yourself thinking “there’s no way around this except GM”, it’s quite possibly a systems problem - you’re doing something you shouldn’t have attempted in the first place.

That’s a good example of the speaker not understanding what he was talking about. Blight resistant potatoes (conventionally-bred) have existed for about a decade now. Just because something’s GM is doesn’t mean it’s automatically good or better than current crops. However, companies with their commercial interests will certainly do everything in their power to make us believe so.

Finley, you may be interested in this: telegraph.co.uk/gardening/96 … light.html

I never grew them myself because blight was never a huge problem for me, but there’s a lot more to choice of potato than simple blight resistance. They all have different characteristics that make them suitable for different cooking methods, greater or lesser resistance to other pests, different maturity times, and so on. Potato farmers have regularly sprayed for blight for donkeys’ years and are probably happy to continue to do so for the rest of their working lives. GM is not a magic bullet.

I’ve got a book about ‘lost’ varieties that lists several that were developed to be blight-resistant back in Victorian times, but I’m sure the modern ones are even better. The Irish variety responsible for the famine (Lumper) was chosen for high yield, but it was already known to be susceptible to blight.

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Somehow, Monsanto has to justify its own existence to its shareholders, and you can hardly blame them for hyping up their products. But Monsanto regularly step over the line between honest competition and sharp practices - such as hiring people like Lynas to denigrate existing solutions.

Thanks - really good article, and it does show what can be achieved by traditional breeding. Yes, it takes longer. So what? Something that’s been created by a craftsman is always more appealing. I might get some of those for my mum - she’s a bit of a potato fanatic. Personally I’ve only grown them once or twice because I just don’t like them that much.

Yes, people forget about that. To the average supermarket buyer, potatoes are red or white. But there are dozens of different varieties still on the market, all with different characteristics. Same goes for any other vegetable. I suppose the point there is that a GM variety with some ‘killer app’ included - such as blight resistance - might get far more attention than it deserves. It’ll become a commercial mainstay, displacing landraces and unusual varieties, and we’ll lose yet more diversity. If the blight fungus works around the modification (which it will, eventually), a nationwide population of genetically-identical (almost) potatoes would be wiped out wholesale.

Finley, the world’s leading authority on potatoes, imo, is Alan Romans. Unfortunately he recently sold out to Thompson and Morgan, which is a shame but I don’t blame him. The man has a living to make. However your mother would probably enjoy growing some potatoes from this selection: thompson-morgan.com/alan-romans-collection. I’ve met him and he’s lovely, wise and highly knowledgeable.

I think part of the problem with agricultural development nowadays is that it comes via scientists and businessmen, not growers. Of course scientists have a huge amount to contribute and I’m not denying Borlaug saved millions from starvation, but as you with see the Sarpo potato varieties, developed by a family of Hungarian farmers, problems can often be solved by people who have a very deep, practical knowledge. But no big agrichemical company is going to make a lot of money out of promoting someone else’s potato.

It’s a con.

Obama and his family don’t touch it, yet support it for the rest of us. He appoints FDA food safety czar Michael Taylor, one-time vice president for public policy at Monsanto and USDA head Roger Beachy, a former director at Monsanto (other political party would do the same).

Staff at Monsanto don’t even eat GM food because it is banned:
In a notice in the canteen, Sutcliffe Catering, owned by the Granada Group, said it had taken the decision “to remove, as far as practicable, GM soya and maize from all food products served in our restaurant. We have taken the above steps to ensure that you, the customer, can feel confident in the food we serve.”
Monsanto confirmed the position. “Yes, this is the case, and it is because we believe in choice,” said the company’s spokesman, Tony Coombes.

independent.co.uk/environmen … 37948.html

Shame they don’t want to give us the choice with the communist like food policies.
How much did Monsanto and their ilk spend (tens of MILLIONS) to BLOCK proposition 37, which states that GM foods MUST be labelled so that consumers have a choice?

As long as GM’s reputation is tainted by the machinations of psychopathic corporations no one will trust it:

[i]Last week Monsanto announced staggering profits from 2012 to celebratory shareholders while American farmers filed into Washington, DC to challenge the Biotech giant’s right to sue farmers whose fields have become contaminated with Monsanto’s seeds.

Exploiting their patent on transgenic corn, soybean and cotton, Monsanto asserts an insidious control of those agricultural industries in the US, effectively squeezing out conventional farmers (those using non-transgenic seeds) and eliminating their capacity to viably participate and compete on the market. (Until the end of 2012, Monsanto was under investigation by the Department of Justice for violating anti-trust laws by practicing anticompetitive activities towards other biotech companies, but that investigation was quietly closed before the year’s end.)

“My fear of contamination by transgenic corn and soybeans and the resulting risk of being accused of patent infringement prevent me from growing corn and soybeans on my farm. There is no other reason why I do not grow those crops, and I would very much like to do so.”

As Gerritson described to me, “Farmers have suffered economic loss because they’ve abandoned growing corn and soybeans because they are certain they will be contaminated. They cannot put their farms and families at risk of being sued for patent infringement.” [/i]

aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio … 73439.html

The US has huge problems with patent law, this could be an offshoot of that more than anything else. The same problem would exist if Monsanto had IP on non GM breeds of corn or soya bean.