It’s going to take some heavy lifting to demonstrate that a variant EPSPS is “outside the normal range of protein mutants you might expect from soy or corn.” But go ahead.
Thankfully, Canada doesn’t just have morons interviewing Rachel, this is, incidentally, a Rogers TV interview and the hosts are much less hostile towards her https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1Y9AuvmX4
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Why don’t you take 15 min of your life and make a brief abstract of his talk?
To begin, there is a difference between what is known as the intrinsic yield and the realized yield in agriculture—this is a semantic dispute, but an important one. The intrinsic yield is how much a plant can produce under ideal circumstances, while the realized yield is basically the net yield: accounting for losses such as those from ringspot, corn-borers, or drought. GM crops have never improved the intrinsic yield of any plant, they preserve yield.
Companies like DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto have been fond of claiming that GM crops improve yields, but overstate their case. Similarly, profit-seeking companies too-often claim that GM crops will be the source of a “Second Green Revolution” that will save the Third World from starvation, essentially the argument being made here by O’Leary, ad nauseum.
There are several problems with this assertion: 1. the first Green Revolution was a philanthropic aid endeavor, not a market expansion gambit 2. The vast majority of GM crop traits currently grown are for the benefit of producers, not consumers (i.e. herbicide or pest resistance), not the starving child that is cynically used in these debates 3. Improvements in the intrinsic yield of crops—the gross amount of food produced annually—are both sorely needed to address expanding population, and achievable through modern (yes, molecular!) breeding methods that are not chained to iron-clad patents seeking rent from the same group of alleged beneficiaries.
Finally, while the current bevy of GM crops are likely safe for human consumption (they have been rather extensively tested, on us), there is no reason to assume that other transgenic traits will be. There are plenty of industrially useful compounds that plants are capable of producing in high concentration which are not safe for human consumption. A piece of DNA blasted into soy with a gene-gun or transferred via agrobacterium can make vaccines, cheap antibiotics, rubber, cyanide—whatever industry wants—and no one knows how to get it out again if it happens to contaminate fields where it shouldn’t be growing. The USDA can’t even trace an E. coli-tainted lot of ground beef efficiently. This kind of ‘pharming’ isn’t science fiction, it has been realized in field trials, escaped, and consequently industry has backed off, because like the allergen issue, it represents a real problem.
None of these issues would have been addressed without skeptical people posing questions to the grand claims made by people with a vested interest in making agriculture more centralized, less diverse, and much more profitable.
edit: spacing
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Vaccines were opposed and some people claimed that Jenner wanted to turn people into cows.
I think comparing people like that to those who want GMO labeling is a bit extreme. But, anyway, I think you might like this article:
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/conservation-and-development/dont-fight-gmo-labels/
If you enjoy O’Leary getting his ass handed to him in a debate, check out his performance with Christopher Hedges during a debate on Occupy Wallstreet:
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You are telling me that sequencing some representative genes from extant varieties, and calculating whether the inserted gene falls within that group, is heavy lifting for a biotech company? Calculations, I will note, you can do with free-to-download programs? Seriously, who do you hope to fool by saying such things?
Dude, science is hard. Barbie told me so. If you make fantastically rich corporations do expensive labeling, then they won’t be able to do science, and the earth will fall out of it’s orbit and go careening into the sun, and it’ll be your fault. Stop hating America! You are starving the babies!
There, I’ve neatly encapsulated the entire stance of the anti-labeling lobby.
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A difference without distinction. I have seen papaya plants affected by ring spot virus. They cease to bore fruit, they look sick and they just occupy space in productive land. In these conditions, the GM papaya does increase the yield compared to not-immune varieties. Technology is still not mature. The first vaccine was passed from person to person, or from cow to person, and actually made you slightly sick, but nothing serious compared to smallpox. Had Jenner dreamed with the total eradication of smallpox, polio and measles, people would have called him delusional, yet, we beat polio, we beat smallpox and we will beat measles. There is potential in GE, even if it has been misused and there has been some hype. [quote=“AdamsNavel, post:46, topic:7129”]
Companies like DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto have been fond of claiming that GM crops improve yields, but overstate their case.
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Agreed, very much so.
Agreed. That’s why we need better, cheaper, easier techniques available to scientists and farmers in the developing countries, we need open tools and standards for sharing methods and gene sequences, mixing them with local varieites to avoid loss of biodiversity and enhance local crops, suited to the unique weather and soil of a region, we need tailor made biotech, we need to understand these technologies and eradicate the irrational panic that affects mostly small researchers, and leaves Monsanto and others a free path to monopoly of GM research.
Indeed. Testing of every new crop is a must. I am willing to take the risks, but not everybody is, and I understand and respect that choice. I am part of a larger society that is fearful, imposing my views on others won’t help.
“There are plenty of industrially useful compounds that plants are capable of producing in high concentration which are not safe for human consumption.”
Indeed, but hybrids are capable to do this too. Hybrids need to be tested also.
That’s possible, not sure how likely. But modern plants are not as sturdy to not being possible to just destroy the fields.
Disclaimer: I am trying to raise funds for a company to detect contamination in a cheap way, and you are very right. This kind of technology (also useful to track GMO out in the open). We lack the kind of low cost, low complexity, robust molecular tools for these tasks.
Can you provide some references? I’d love to read more about this case.
Questions != FUD
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Oh, do share. I know bullshit when I see it.
No, I am comparing hysteria to new, unfamiliar tech that feels yucky. As I said before, I support labeling, to get all this sterile discussion out of the way.
The problem I have with the labeling debate (re:sidetracking), is that even if I do know that my cocoa puffs contain GMO corn, wheat, whatever… You are still not able to make an informed decision about this.
I mean, maybe GMO corn is good for you but not tomatoes, or what kind of GMO corn do we have here?
The problem is that this seems to be a way to scare people off of GMO anything instead of actually doing the research.
So, yes, nothing wrong with labeling itself, but without actually understanding more about GMO foods, it seems pointless.
(Unless you want to avoid these products altogether, thats the only real kind of decision you can make with this labeling it seems to me)
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Here’s my take on labeling - at this point it’s unnecessary. Why? Because there is nothing showing any real difference between GMO and nonGMO foods. It’s a moot point.
Every box of cereal is allowed a certain amount of insect parts, but they don’t put that on the label anywhere. Why? Because the insect parts don’t matter. They don’t effect the overall product. Twenty years ago nothing had a label that said, “Made at a facility that handles nuts.” Now with the increase in peanut allergies, it is a prudent label to have.
All labeling would do at this point is provide a target on them. An unfair one, in my opinion. If there is no real difference between the two, why point it out? The average person will look at the label and assume GMO is different, they see it as a warning. I mean, why have a label if they were the same thing? And GMO must be “bad”, right? Otherwise why would you point it out? You label things that might be dangerous or “bad”, like nicotine in cigarettes and peanuts in your PayDay. They don’t label an apple “nicotine free”.
I hope what I just said made sense. The human brain is horrible at making conscience, rational decisions. People don’t take the time to do research. They are easily influenced by advertising and social cues. We make decisions all the time without really knowing why. It’s why many people buy the big red, round tomatoes , instead of the misshapen heirlooms, even though the heirlooms have more taste and nutrients.
If there was evidence of there being a significant difference between GMO and nonGMO foods, I would then agree with labeling.
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mcwyrm only understood my mistake enough to re-use it sarcastically, not enough to answer it. It’s sad really, he’s logically impaired and sarcastically gifted.
Apparently people develop more open minds as they age. This is a new idea.
Well, while I do basically agree with you, not everyone does, that’s why its a debate.
Basically, you are not going to convince anyone by simply saying that they’re wrong.
(I think some people are irrationally scared of the “GMO” label, but I say this not to persuade anyone, rather to make sure my point is not misinterpreted)
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And why are farmers willing to pirate this stuff that’s supposedly no good?
“She then highlighted the most basic facts for O’Leary: genetically engineered crops don’t actually out-produce organic crops,”
The Union Of Concerned Scientists did a report with the wildly provocative title "Failure To Yield"
The money shot in this report was this:
Drought resistant GMO corn doesn’t yield more if it rains!
Pest resistant GMO corn doesn’t yield more if the pests fail to show up!
Which is like saying the measles vaccine fails to prevent measles in people that are never exposed to measles or maybe that the Chevy Volt gets the same gas mileage as a Hummer when they are both parked in the driveway.
As usual, it’s dishonest, more than a little sad, and no amount of debunking will make it go away. It’s disturbing that the UCS report was clearly packaged as a propaganda piece.
OSGuido, I’m familiar with the GM papaya case and I know that that intervention really saved the day. That said, most GM crops on the market are corn and soy, and the background genetics that transgene constructs are inserted into are more responsible for the food produced than the yield preserved by the transgene. It’s worth noting that these background genetics are usually a result of publically-funded breeding efforts which are then tinkered with and essentially privatized.
This is pretty far from where the major biotech players would like to see things go. I think this idea is reasonable where necessary (as in the papaya case), but also predicated on a much more scientifically literate and trusting public, or a lot more savy dialogue from government/industry with stakeholders. As for loss of biodiversity, GM crops basically ensure that reduction in biodiversity will occur unless farmers can save seed and cross with what they please.
It would be nice if it were so easy, but with detection expensive, variable based on method, and labor-limited, it virtually guarantees that escaped GM traits would impossible to eradicate. New weeds, more uncertainty in the food system, it gets messy.
You’d have to ask one of them.
