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Comment by 7sigma | Hacker News Reader

"It's because they're optimised to withstand heavy pesticide use"

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.

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Thats kind of the point, they are bad to pests that try to eat the crop

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.

>And pesticides are bad for people and animals in the longer term too.

Can you source that claim?

I'm surprised I need to. Here's one I found in ten seconds of searching.

http://extension.psu.edu/pests/pesticide-education/applicato...

That says large doses are potentially harmful to humans. It mostly speaks of harm potentinally coming to those who apply them.

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.

Well in the case of BT (bacillus thurigensis) cotton and corn, for example, the GM plant produces the Cry toxin which is bad for the insects that eat the crop, so better than spraying it (Also BT is used in organic agriculture via spraying btw).

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.

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.

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.

Depends what you compare it to.

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/

Where in that link does it say that organic techniques use fewer pesticides?

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...

> > "GMO are generally sterile"

> 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.

Terminator gene was never commercialised

What happens when you eat this BT corn?

The extremely acidic and enzyme rich system in your stomach demolishes the chemical structure, DNA, and proteins into constituant amino acids.

You say this as if there was no organic poison that could kill you if you eat it...

You didn't ask about poisons. You asked about the corn. It does what corn does.

If the corn produces pesticides, which are poisons, it's a reasonable question to ask "what happens when you eat the corn" - are the ears/kernels covered with it as well, or could they even contain it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_maize#Ins...

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.

Very many things are poisons, but not all poisons are equally harmful to different organisms. A substance that is extremely harmful to insects, for instance (pyrethrin), is not very harmful to mammals, particularly humans. Even within mammals, there are differences: chocolate is toxic to dogs and cats, but considered a delicacy by humans and the main adverse effect is excess energy content.

Amusing, but the real question is why it's safe for humans to eat corn laced with pesticides when (I assume?) we use essentially the same digestive process as the targeted bugs. Or, "why is it safe to eat food that is literally designed to have poison in it?" I would speculate that the answer is that the pesticide in question doesn't affect humans, but it's a legitimate concern.

The poison is in the dose. Of course all pesticides can be harmful, at least if the dose is a 200 litre barrel that is dropped on your head. Even pure water is harmful, and the dose for this is that drinking 5 to 10 litres will kill you.

> The poison is in the dose.

Not always. Endocrine disruptors work at very, very low dosages. Some pesticides have such an effect.

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

Many bitter flavors and flavors of spicy foods actually arise from chemical compounds that are lethal to large classes of animals. The human metabolic process is very good at handling things that are poisonous to most animals, and the process of cooking is also a very effective way to combat most poisons.

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."

Macromolecules can actually pass the acid barrier. There are regular reasons such as leaky gut, HCL deficiencies, helicobacter etc.. but there also seem to be aditional processes that we do not yet understand completelly about human digestion.

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