Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

This has to be one of the most poorly researched articles on the subject I've seen.

First, they want to introduce BT-maize, which has nothing to do with drought resistance - it's been engineered to produce a biotoxin that some pests have already developed resistance to:

(2021) Resistance to Bt Maize by Western Corn Rootworm:

> "Since the 1990s, an important innovation in the management of agricultural pest insects has been the commercial cultivation of genetically engineered crops that produce insecticidal toxins, which in turn act to protect plants from feeding injury by insects. To date, these transgenic crops, which include cotton, maize and soybean, have produced insecticidal proteins derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Benefits associated with planting of Bt crops include reduced feeding injury from pest insects, decreased yield losses from pests and less harm to the environment. However, the evolution of Bt resistance by insect pests can diminish these benefits. One serious insect pest currently managed with Bt maize is the western corn rootworm. The larval stage of this insect feeds on maize roots and can substantially reduce yield. In some parts of the US Corn Belt, western corn rootworm rapidly adapted to Bt maize, and currently, some populations show resistance to all commercially available Bt traits."

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/12/2/136

The next question is, what's the cost of introducing this in terms of patent restrictions on seed production, seed costs to farmers, etc.? Reuters at least addresses the issue:

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/kenyas-gmo-maize-push-s...

Given the inexorable climate trends, maybe Kenya's farmers really need better irrigation systems or help with transition to more drought-resistant crops like cassava?

https://www.devex.com/news/kenyan-farmers-look-to-drought-re...

> "Cassava production in Kenya dropped in the nineties and early 2000s due to diseases, unavailability of clean seeds, poor varieties, and agronomical practices."

>maybe Kenya's farmers realy need better irrigaiton systems

It's a challenge - I sell solar irrigation to farmers in Kenya (hi from Nairobi), and despite some successes have pivoted to SaaS irrigation monitoring. I'd be ecstatic to talk through the Kenyan irrigation problem offline with HNers & ideate better solutions together. (Contact in handle profile.)

https://www.sunnyirrigation.com

The point in this case isn't drought resistance, it's increased yields for what does grow. If food supplies are low, higher yields from pest resistance become even more important.

And even if resistance has been developed in "parts" of the US corn belt, presumably that would take years to develop in Kenya as well, in "parts"?

Better irrigation and cassava might be great ideas too, I wouldn't know. But it doesn't seem either/or -- why not try GMO maize as well?

With regards to 'seed slavery's, how can farmers be worse of than they are now? They can always go back to the normal seeds if that is cheaper.

Regarding resistance, you could make the same arguments for any pesticide.

Moreover, this is about outlawing a technology. That should only be done if that technology forbid is harmful to the environment or public health. The farmers can then decide whether they should transition to other crops. That should not be imposed from above.

If you introduce proprietary seeds into the marketplace with considerably better yields, you can easily destroy the markets for the free-to-replant crops by lowering prices of the produce.

It's not outlawing a technology really, it's outlawing a middle-man who takes a sizable chunk of the profit.

Yes, if the proprietary seeds are so much better and cheaper that nobody will ever buy legacy seeds, the latter might go out of business. Isn’t it a good thing? It’s not like proprietary seed makers will then be able to rack up prices, as bringing legacy seeds back to market is cheap and doesn’t require large capital investment.

Double yields with more expensive seed, commodity prices halve due to higher yields (you never really gain income long term with increased productivity). But now instead of being able to replant your own seed, you have to buy expensive seed. You can't go back to the old less productive seed because the prices for the yields have gone down significantly.

This is a fully general argument against any progress: let’s not improve any production processes, because if we make stuff cheaper to make, everyone will have to do it the new, efficient way, which would be terrible. Just try to think of similar proposals in the realm of computing: imagine suggesting that hardware companies shouldn’t make CPUs and memory faster, because this will allow software to do more things and do them faster, which will force people to buy this new, more productive hardware, and will put out of business companies trying to develop software for and run it on old, less productive Pentium 4s.

This is extremely silly: with this attitude, we’d never have transformed our economy away from where majority people work in agriculture to where only a small fraction does, and the rest is freed to make other products and services nicer and more affordable.

They don't have to be "so much better" - they just have to be the few % better that represents farmer's thin margins.

Seeds have to be planted continuously to have more seeds. Their shelf-life is notoriously short. No, they cannot just return to their old seeds. They got ground into cornmeal and eaten long ago.

Is maize native to Kenya?

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