Also, that freedom thing: GMO are generally sterile, so you have to buy seeds every year from Monsanto. Great business model for Monsanto, not so much for the farmer.
Actually, GMOs need less pesticides than non GMO crop. Some of them produce their own pesticide (BT corn and BT cotton).
"Pesticides are bad."
Thats kind of the point, they are bad to pests that try to eat the crop
"GMO are generally sterile"
You are confusing GMO with hybrids and no they are not sterile, the just lose vigour after a few generations, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid
", so you have to buy seeds every year from Monsanto. Great business model for Monsanto, not so much for the farmer."
Most farmers in the developed world buy new seed every year because of the hybrid thing, and do so because its convenient. At the end of the day its a choice the farmer makes: they could re use their own seeds and hybridise them, but for most its not worth the hassle.
> You are confusing GMO with hybrids and no they are not sterile
Monsanto did have the (terribly named) "terminator gene". They said this was to protect the environment from spilled seed.
Short answer: it's not a pesticide which affects humans.
Discussions about poisons fundamentally have to include a discussion about mechanism of action, because plenty of poisonous things to one species are completely harmless to another - i.e. chocolate is toxic to dogs, but harmless to humans in fairly massive quantities.
Debate over GMOs is in no way helped by attempts to broad-brush, and in fact reveals some rather startling and unfounded biases - i.e. the idea that "natural" is healthy is completely absurd - the vast majority of plants, and animal meats, are toxic for humans to eat. If you ever go ocean fishing, you'd be incredibly stupid to eat a fish you couldn't identify.
Not always. Endocrine disruptors work at very, very low dosages. Some pesticides have such an effect.
Just because something is poisonous to an insect doesn't mean it's poisonous to humans, especially at the same concentrations. This is even more the case for synthetic pesticides, since companies optimize the design of synthetic pesticides for "healthy for humans, poison for pests."
And pesticides are also bad for other insects that don't eat the crops, and are necessary for our ecosystem to function.
And pesticides are bad for people and animals in the longer term too.
Can you source that claim?
http://extension.psu.edu/pests/pesticide-education/applicato...
I'm looking more for a peer reviewed study that states pesticides used in GMO farming are more harmful that pesticides used in organic farming.
Herbicides like roundup affect a certain pathway in plants, not humans in animals.
"And pesticides are bad for people and animals in the longer term too."
Not at the concentrations that are used. The amount of residue is minuscule and modern pesticides have far less toxicity than older ones that have been phased out.
IIRC, the BT toxin only affects insects that have an alkaline digestive system. Animals and humans are unaffected as its acidic.
So now you give some qualifications to your earlier statement.
Do note that modern pesticides are not in widespread use all over the world (cost). Modern pesticides applied by a well educated professional can have a relatively low impact on the environment. But there are a lot of poorly educated farmers out there (most of them, really), and that doesn't begin to address the abuse of pesticides by lawn care companies and homeowners.
Actually, GMOs need less pesticides than non GMO crop.
Roundup-resistant crops allow roundup-intensive farming [1] which does less* environmental harm than some more harmful pesticides (if you ignore the development of roundup-resistant weeds). But lower intensity, less productive organic techniques use fewer pesticides and do even less environmental harm.
[1] http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/roundup-ready-crops/
Organic farming is restricted to naturally occurring pesticides which are often less effective than synthetic ones and so they need to be applied more often.
Also, organic yields are often lower than conventional ones, so more land may be needed to compensate. Clearing land is way more environmentally unfriendly than using pesticide, so any gains from organic techniques are nullified.
But i guess it depends on crop/climate and exact techniques
[0]http://www.science20.com/agricultural_realism/example_how_mu...
> It's because they're optimised to withstand heavy pesticide use. Pesticides are bad.
The use of roundup on crops predates the roundup ready gene by a couple of decades. What certain GMO traits allows is reducing the pesticides down to pretty much only roundup, instead of the cocktail – including roundup – that ends up on the non-GMO crops. Other GMO traits help eliminate the need for certain pesticides completely.
If pesticides are bad, GMOs pave the path to reducing and maybe one day eliminating them.
> GMO are generally sterile
There was a theoretical terminator gene in the news, but it has never been made available on the market.
The law dissuades replanting patented seeds, if that is what you had in mind? It's not the big deal that you might think it is though. There are a number of reasons why we would not opt to replant the seeds even without GMOs being a thing.
> Great business model for Monsanto, not so much for the farmer.
Why single out Monsanto? There are many different companies that have GMO varieties on the market. In fact, the original roundup ready patent that started this whole hubbub has already expired. You are free to replant it now.
That works too, though I also thought of F1 hybrids (made so second generation crops are crap), an idea GMO can copy. Here in France, there's a law forbidding to grow any food outside a pre-approved list of crops —most of which seems to be F1 hybrids. Fortunately it doesn't appear to be enforced right now, so some farmers grow old local species anyway.
> Why single out Monsanto?
They're a symbol, often recognised as "most evil". I'm sure others have similar practices, I'm just not aware of them.
To be clear, they're not specifically made so that second generation crops are crap. That's just the natural process of nature.
If you selected the two most ideal humans to breed, by the time their children have children, it's easy to see that there is no guarantee that the original traits in the parents that were selected for are carried down the line. The best traits are soon lost. It's much the same story here.
> I'm just not aware of them.
That surprises me. Bayer, BASF, DOW? I would have figured these are household names, and in some cases are much larger businesses than Monsanto.
> If you selected the two most ideal humans to breed
I get the point (super-crops that regress to the mean after a couple generations), but the actual downsides seem more serious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid#Disadvantages On the other hand, the upsides are enticing.
What part seems serious? That the offspring are not useful for replant? It's really not that big of a deal, honestly. I, like most farmers, don't have the equipment to prepare the seeds for replant anyway, so by the time I contract that out I may as well just buy from someone who is already in the business of selling seeds. Specialization and economies of scale won out.
It's no surprise that farmers themselves are not overly concerned about the replanting issue. It didn't happen much even before it became a legal issue. It's funny to me how the rest of the population have latched onto that topic.
There is that, but also the cost of maintaining such seeds (seems to be higher than for regular seeds). I get the economy of scale though.
There's also the problem of single point of failure. I cannot help but think that if farmers were self-seeding, the system would be more resilient. I'm not sure.
Yet another problem is one of control. If Bayer controls our seeds the way Alphabet controls our data, this isn't going to be fun when start using that control for something we didn't expect. I mean, it's food. We need it, and they know it.
I don't trust them. I've seen a documentary talking about Indian farmers committing suicide when they noticed their wonderful F1 crops could not breed properly. They thought they they were making an investment. And that's without the even more obvious problems associated with planting crops unsuited to the local climate or weak against the local pests. A crop (F1 or not) that thrives in Arizona may not fare so well in Ethiopia. I believe the "oops it requires too much water" has happened before.
You get what you pay for. Virtual anyone in the world can produce an identical product, so competition is fierce. I dare even say that farming is the most competitive industry in the world. There is no room at all to overspend on something, so the hybrids have to show a benefit to even consider the cost. They exist where they have proven to be worth it.
> If Bayer controls our seeds the way Alphabet controls our data, this isn't going to be fun when start using that control for something we didn't expect. I mean, it's food. We need it, and they know it.
I cannot speak for all farmers, but all the seed I grow, except for corn, is produced by local companies, one of which is owned as a co-operative by the local farmers. I don't really share in your control concerns. Corn is the exception on my farm as the technology that the major players have developed has far and away exceeded anything else being produced.
But, to be clear, corn is not the sweetcorn that you find down at your local grocer. Corn is primarily animal feed, with some use in production of HFCS and ethanol. So, maybe hypothetically, they can attack your meat consumption (and your sugary drinks, and your gasoline). Many people I have had discussions with would argue that is a good thing! But I also don't understand what the incentive would be. People will, as begrudgingly as it may be, start eating other foods and the value of their seed would drop to zero. Not a great play, in my opinion.
Besides, what control they can have over the market is entirely limited to the laws made by the people. While hybrids have been commonplace for nearly a century and GMOs for several decades without any trouble, if something magically changed in the future, the populace could force a change in the laws to save the food supply.
> I don't trust them. ... I believe the "oops it requires too much water" has happened before.
Sure. We had a hybrid variety fail a few years back. We were compensated by the seed vendor for their failure to deliver. I don't know about this situation in India, but they seem to understand the value of not pissing off farmers in my experience.
Sounds like excellent news to me. Keep this up.
It's incredible how these myths are able to multiply. I suppose it's because they grow organically?
To the point: No, GMOs are not generally sterile.
Also "conventional" seeds or mostly bought from a seed company, because that is most efficient. And, the subject of seed IPRs is not related to GMO technology at all; it has been there in the U.S. since 1930's and throughout the developed world by 1990's.