GM Crops on the menu?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't see how it would. Far as I'm aware, this project wasn't sprung out of capitalistic industrial agriculture.

It's heavily supported by the biotech company Syngenta. According to Wiki, Syngenta does ~$13 billion a year in business, mostly in "capitalistic industrial agriculture".

 

[Quintessence]

It's heavily supported by the biotech company Syngenta. According to Wiki, Syngenta does ~$13 billion a year in business, mostly in "capitalistic industrial agriculture".

What I meant is that the purpose of the project wasn't to support and serve the industrial agriculture model of crop production (as is the case with, say, "let's make a new GM crop that's resistant to this new pesticide we want to use"). Apparently I should have been more clear. I wasn't talking about financing.

 

[Nous]

Not sure if it is particularly on-topic, but on the whole, GM crops happen where food production has been industrialized.

Industrial food production likes to plant dense monocultures of the same crop over large acreages. This is in contrast to traditional food production, where you have diverse crops over that same space. The problem with dense monocultures is that they are inherent breeding grounds for diseases.

Do you have any evidence showing that “dense monocultures . . . are inherent breeding grounds for diseases”? Your link didn't cite any such evidence. What makes a “dense monoculture” more of an “inherent breeding ground for diseases” than “traditional food production”?

How many acres constitute a “dense monoculture”? Tomato and lettuce fields in California are much, much bigger than anything you'll find in Vermont. It obviously wouldn't make economic sense or land-use sense to have a hundred different crops in a 100-acre field.

 

[Quintessence]

Do you have any evidence showing that “dense monocultures . . . are inherent breeding grounds for diseases”?

You'll have to forgive me for not taking time to dig this up for you. This principle is so basic to disease pathology that when I see questions like this, I really have to wonder what on earth folks are getting taught in their high school biology classes. A significant reason why farmers do crop rotations is to control for the increased disease pressure created by growing monocultures like they do. It's also a significant reason why they spray toxins on the crops like fungicides. And a significant reason why GMOs exist, as a major thrust of those is disease resistance. It's well-established that disease risk is often (though not always) density dependent. This is biology/pathology 101, folks.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Bananas are modified foods.

Why not corn and such?

 

[Nous]

You'll have to forgive me for not taking time to dig this up for you. This principle is so basic to disease pathology that when I see questions like this, I really have to wonder what on earth folks are getting taught in their high school biology classes. A significant reason why farmers do crop rotations is to control for the increased disease pressure created by growing monocultures like they do. It's also a significant reason why they spray toxins on the crops like fungicides. And a significant reason why GMOs exist, as a major thrust of those is disease resistance. It's well-established that disease risk is often (though not always) density dependent. This is biology/pathology 101, folks.

Oh, I see. You're using the term “dense monoculture” not as this:

Monoculture is the agricultural practice of producing or growing a single crop, plant, or livestock species, variety, or breed in a field or farming system at a time.​

but as what the term “monocropping” usually refers to:

Continuous monoculture, or monocropping, where the same species is grown year after year,[2] can lead to the quicker buildup of pests and diseases, and then rapid spread where a uniform crop is susceptible to a pathogen. The practice has been criticized for its environmental effects and for putting the food supply chain at risk. Diversity can be added both in time, as with a crop rotation or sequence, or in space, with a polyculture.​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoculture

Perhaps that's why you were having a problem digging it up.

BTW, I own a farm. They've been crop-rotating for as long as I've been alive.

I am unaware that any agency or company has recommended monocropping genetically modified crops. Just the contrary.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

The design of GM crops is about one thing: making profits for the companies that produce them. It's certainly not about helping the hungry, or they'd be modifying tropical subsistence crops, rather than the commercial ones grown in the USA. It's not about improving nutritional value: they never claim that, and recent research in the UK has shown that even the changes produced by conventional breeding over the last century have actually reduced nutritional value.

Do I eat them? No. Luckily, public pressure in Europe has forced companies to label the products that contain them, and most European countries don't allow them to be grown anyway.

 

[Kirran]

The design of GM crops is about one thing: making profits for the companies that produce them. It's certainly not about helping the hungry, or they'd be modifying tropical subsistence crops, rather than the commercial ones grown in the USA. It's not about improving nutritional value: they never claim that, and recent research in the UK has shown that even the changes produced by conventional breeding over the last century have actually reduced nutritional value.

Do I eat them? No. Luckily, public pressure in Europe has forced companies to label the products that contain them, and most European countries don't allow them to be grown anyway.

There are cases where GM crops have been developed through funding from NGOs and philanthropists specifically for this purpose. The people who tend to block their actual release are misguided environmentalists.

The EU is opening up to GM in terms of legislation of late. Only a variety of GM maize is currently approved, and it's mostly grown in Spain. However now countries can make up their own minds on it, so I hope that we get more GM crops grown in the UK.

 

[GodsVoice]

Genetically modified crops use genetic engineering to introduce a new trait into a planet species that does not occur naturally. These techniques are often used to increase resistance to certain pests, diseases, herbicides and chemical treatments, adaption to environmental conditions or improving the nutrients of the crops.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops

Do you think the scientific evidence show this is a good or bad thing overall? What is your opinion on the use of GM crops? Would you eat something if you knew it was GM? Do you eat GM now?

We've been eating grains that have been altered genetically for thousands of years through cross pollination, cross breeding, stem transplants, and using the seed from the strongest plants that are more resistant to diseases, drought, etc. Now they can genetically alter plants much faster than they used to.

 

[Nous]

The design of GM crops is about one thing: making profits for the companies that produce them. It's certainly not about helping the hungry, or they'd be modifying tropical subsistence crops, rather than the commercial ones grown in the USA. It's not about improving nutritional value: they never claim that

Wow, you are really informed. [/sarcasm] See: http://goldenrice.org Note that the Golden Rice Project won the 2015 Patents for Humanity Award, and biofortified sweet potatoes won the 2016 World Food Prize.