Can We Trust Monsanto with Our Food?
scientificamerican.com
scientificamerican.com
The real concerns involve sustainable agricultural concerns such as pesticide resistance or overuse, gene contamination, and freedom of research, and specifically if Monsanto the company has really shown themselves to be the most responsible steward to retain near-monopolistic control over the execution of these sensitive practices, as well as a vast proportion of the world's seed supply.
For lots of in-depth discussion on these issues, I recommend this series by the Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-... Articles specific to Monsanto are here: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-... http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-... http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-...
Disclaimer: I am not a farmer, or a scientist, or someone who knows anything at all. I am merely pointing out that this article says nearly nothing useful, and referring to a series of articles by a reputable, if not opinionated, organization of experienced scientists and researchers.
I am a farmer and it is difficult as hell to create a non-GMO farm (non-GMO contaminated mulch and compost, non-GMO animal feeds, non-GMO source animals, non-GMO seed). The OP is correct in all points about Monsanto's power over seed production, but misses what SciAm (and almost everyone else) misses:
Genetic material is code being used in a production environment!
As such it needs to be protected. Code contamination (forks) need to be registered publicly and isolated with extreme prejudice from the production environment. We didn't write the code, and as far as I am concerned, I feel that Monsanto as a policy maker (by default or by lobbing) and any of the most advanced geneticists are script kiddies on a Galactic scale. We will get to adequate understanding it time, but that time is not now. Who gives a fk if you or your grandmother can live a longer or more pain-free life if the result is a global genetic seg-fault? I don't.
My answer is to set up my own isolated farm, as free of GM as I can make it. As I see it, existing organisms do have a genetic conversation (via viruses and other single cell organisms) and will resist and correct some amount of genetic contamination. Honestly I have my doubts that even this will work, but its the most I can do.
Food for thought.
It confuses me that people are ok with, like the article calls it, the shotgun approach (radiation, chemicals) but not with the surgeon approach (using a scalpel and replacing only the genes we want to), I honestly don't understand why.
If (as I feel is the case) genetic material is code, and we (all Earth based life) is a production environment... I just cannot express how sloppy I feel we have been in the last 20 years. Policy, research, implementation... its not like we don't know how to run a clean software environment, how to do safe development... but in the genetic world? Hack, reverse engineer, install trap doors, holy fuck, we brought down a root level dns server? Cool! We are awesome! We must be geniuses!
We are 13 and loving it.
That wasn't my impression when I left this field for chemistry in 1989. Back then "we" were saying "this doesn't code for specific proteins, is it junk, or does it have function?" The consensus then was "junk", and the recent claim otherwise is speculative as I read it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_DNA#Junk_DNA
The flip side is by then we were realizing that DNA moves around a lot more than we'd though, and transgenic organisms were common in nature ... or at least tries, Nature is much more a script-kiddie than us and most of those "attempts" fail.
The point I am trying to make is that we assume too much. I would say that this statement, "Nature is much more a script-kiddie than us" is just such an assumption. How much of transgenic communication is accidental and how much is necessary with the design (sorry, probably political phrasing here...) parameters. I would assert that we just don't know yet.
In any case, to use, "Nature is the bigger ignorant hacker, we can be ignorant hackers too if it lines our pockets" is a terrible argument IMO.
Or at least as view your "accidental" vs. "necessary with the design" concept; I don't give much credence to the latter, and I think it doesn't affect the argument that Nature has proved this to be generally safe.
Final note: if I and the others who believe this are correct, it's not merely a "lines our pockets", it's also a "X fewer people stave to death or suffer from malnutrition".
As concerns "necessary within the design" I would argue that you do. I am trying to say that as scientists, we like to say, "evolution has taken us [this far] (whatever [this far] is)". But we don't say, "How far could evolution have taken us?" How broad is the existing code base? Is it individual code bases branching into species, or is it all interleaved in some more subtle way?
I tend to believe it is the latter, and the evolution has taken us much farther than we realize.
This is why I believe our current handling of genetic modification is extremely bad practice and can (?) result in a "genetic seg-fault".
Me, I hope we're a lot more "modular" and that "genetic seg-faults" will continue to be by definition rare ("by definition" unless they happen after an organism breeds and is otherwise not responsible for its children). What makes you think evolution would go in the non-robust path you think might be the case?
As concerns nature, my observation is that (if I can personify nature, and grant it intention for the argument), it does not mind eliminating large groups of children if some (at least one, I guess) viable children remain. As a matter of fact, eliminating a lot of less viable children in favor of few more viable children is kind of the rule for selection.
So we take a group of strongly viable lines, contaminate them, and (in nature's much longer perspective) make them less viable. Marked for elimination.
We usually think this elimination comes from direct competition, and I would agree that in our experience so far this is the observed case. But what is observable in much GM research is that after three or so generations, animals consuming the GM product stop reproducing. The "why" here is still being researched and is at best poorly understood.
So, I argue that nature in this case is taking the robust path. Eliminating contamination.
Instead I find this as a shill article complete void of data or any other information whatsoever. It seems like a paid placement article for me.
In science "you don't trust anything", you make experiments and get data.
Personally I am fine with GMO provided 1 thing: You label your food as GMO, and then if people decide they want to be guinea pigs of new developments with their own money so be it.
But they don't want letting people to choose. In the US you can't choose. As the article says "hey, it is making Monsanto lots of money so it is very good".
I don't see any data in your comment either. Shall we classify it as a shill as well?
It's pretty clear that the article has a single argument. We have been genetically modifying foods for thousands of years and there is no fundamental difference between what we're doing now and what we did before, other than the tools we're using to do it.
How can you provide data for that?
> You label your food as GMO ... In the US you can't choose
WholeFoods is advertising all over their paper bags that they will begin doing this. That said, everything consumed by human beings in the last few thousand years is GMO. Especially our livestock, which has been forced down an evolutionary path that is not sustainable in nature in the slightest. If we become extinct for whatever reason, you will not find chickens and cows roaming about. They will be gone and they will be gone very quickly.
And most people in the anti/label-GMO movement know this an acknowledge that to be the case and love that. What they DON'T love is the intentional irradiation/gene gun/cross species GM techniques that have been employed in the last 30ish years. On an evolutionary scale there hasn't been enough time to determine if modern GM crops (specifically the cross species variety) are deleterious or not. That's where the concern lies.
I agree and what we need is version control. If at a later time we do find that we went down the wrong path, we should be able to revert to a prior state with a click of a button.
I would be quite shocked if Monsanto and the others weren't sequencing all of their products, in all of their iterations. That will allow us to revert to a previous state if necessary.
Or even better would you require all food items to have their genes completely sequenced? Have them certified by independent organizations that the sequences are identical to what you had 5 years ago? Have it done on all apples for example, as it is possible that one particular flower suffered a mutation thanks to random cosmic rays?
Would expect not. The very act of labeling suggests the produce to be inferior. Instead of choice it merely perpetuates the unscientific view.
As for Monsanto. After the Organic Seed Growers brought a class-action suit against the company for unjustly suing innocent farmers whose crops were inadvertently cross-pollinated, I found it incredibly damning that the judge had to throw the case out because the organic farmers could not produce one single example of this ever happening[2]. Nevertheless, this case being dismissed for lack of a victim has actually been used as more proof of Monsanto's control over all branches and departments of government by the tin-foil hat brigade.
[1] http://ideonexus.com/2011/12/05/gmo-foods-and-the-promise-a-...
[2] https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B83aJv4L7U-iYzYyMzQxOTktZjY5...
not so much: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#growthrate
As hackers we have to question everything instead of being true believers (in science or anything else).
For the rest of us it all boils down to trusting those held in respect by their peers and that is a belief system. Occasionally reinforced by shunning the nay-sayers as "anti-science"...
If the results aren't important, they don't tend to get built upon, they mostly just matter for someone getting tenure, the next grant, whatever.
If anyone wants to ask any GM crop technical questions, or wants any references, I'll do my best.
Isn't the most common genetic modification the one that makes the plants immune to roundup?
Wikipedia seems to say that glyphosate is harmless to humans in small doses, but the talk page references the combination of glyphosate and TN-20 which is included in roundup and this link is about the human toxicity of that combination: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23099315
GM food isnt toxic but GM food company lawyers are. the article mentions being sued as a result of cross-pollination in the intro and never speaks of it again, but thats the real GM crop threat.
There is one notable example where a farmer intentionally and willfully planted seeds that he knew were Monsantos, but I'm unaware of any pattern of litigation against farmers for the actual unintentional use of Monsanto seed.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B83aJv4L7U-iYzYyMzQxOTktZjY5...
Before this case, I believed the "Food Inc." claims about Monsanto being lawsuit-happy. Now I'm angry that it really appears to be the organic farmers who are manipulating the public.
We worry about a lot of things in computer science that has never happened and may never happen. There's common discussion several times a year on HN about the ethical rights of artificial intelligence or lab-grown brains. It's still important to worry about things that haven't happened and may never happen, if only to ensure that they really do never happen.
It's completely plausible that a company could sue over this farmer's fear. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't happen, or that we shouldn't worry about it.
If the financial hit from the bad press is outweighed by the financial gain from whatever is causing that bad press, which do you think a company would pick?
At any rate, I think you and I are in violent agreement and aren't actually disagreeing, so we'll leave it at semantics.
Please don't use hypotheticals to rationalize a bias if you're not going to also consider the entire set of all possibility.
You don't get to just say "they could be evil; therefore they are evil". That's absurd. They could be good, too.
The closest is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeis... but in that case the facts as found by the court of original jurisdiction were that the farmer selected for Roundup Ready plants that had been accidentally cross-pollinated (in exactly the same way I did this sort of thing with E. Coli in some molecular genetics research long ago), saved the seeds from those plants, and used them to plant 1,000 acres (4 km^2).
Per the judge per Wikipedia, "'none of the suggested sources [proposed by Schmeiser] could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality' ultimately present in Schmeiser's 1998 crop." Wikipedia also says in the summary "Regarding his 1998 crop, Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination."
They approached him to sign a license, the two parties couldn't come to an agreement, they took it to court.
I don't see this as a valid example of the claim. I also don't see what Monsanto could possibly hope to accomplish at net by suing good faith cross-pollination instances (yeah, they might scare more farmers into buying their seeds, but they'd get slapped down by things like that class action suit others have mentioned with failed due to standing, that is, no examples of this).
1. They are known to be aggressive in courts.
2. They are simply promising not to sue for cross-pollination.
3. They have been caught lying before.
This last one is regarding a herbicide called Roundup, where Monsanto lied to European farmers about its toxicity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)#Legal_cases). I used it and feel bad about it because I try to keep the surroundings healthy (I dont have any crops though). So if they say "Oh yeah its fine we're not gonna sue you don't worry" it makes me feel sceptical.
The seeds weren't Monsanto's seed. They were harvested crops. It would be more fair to say that Bowman probably knew or had reason to suspect that a large portion of those "junk" seeds were likely descendant of Monsanto's patented herbicide resistant seed, and that he had probably signed a contract previously in which he agreed not to save seeds from his harvest for further planting.
On the other hand, GM crops are patentable, whereas hybridized crops are not (is this correct?). This is the heart of the economic argument: Farmers can buy the seed or not. But they can't produce it themselves. So the tools and techniques aren't irrelevant.
It's certainly _possible_ to have it both ways (as we do now), but this way of parsing the issue seems to me neither economically nor technologically (in the sense of patentability) advantageous to agriculture in the long term. I'd prefer not to get into a situation where the only economically sensible way to produce food is to buy seed from one source. And that's the rational choice for a company like Monsanto: increase shareholder value by becoming the only economical source of seed.
"Whoever invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a patent therefor..."
See lots more e.g. here: http://cookingupastory.com/patent-law-how-patents-grew-over-...
If anything this a summary treating the subject at the level of depth that can be expected of a short article. Not reporting but a summary, please read her books & papers if you are actually open to those details you request.
There's a difference between selecting and breeding specific plants in your corn crop, or crossing corn with a slightly different variety of corn, and crossing corn with a fish, ginkgo tree, or bacteria.
Previously, any crossbreeding between plants, by necessity had to belong to the same species. Since this is the lowest taxonomic classification, the vast majority of the genome was shared.
Now, a plant can be crossed with any other species on the tree of life. That's a significant difference.
Of course, GMOs can also pass the tests of successfully maturing and reproducing.
From my point of view we don't have enough data to be able to make a determination one way or another, so the only logical way forward is to be cautious. At the very least that means labeling whether or not our food contains food that was genetically engineered in the modern sense (gene-gun or irradiation, primarily).
The evidence we do have about modern GM crops is almost completely provided by the industry itself. In my opinion, there is enough circumstantial evidence from studies done by third parties, even if those studies aren't perfectly executed, to be wary of unleashing GM foods onto the global population. We shouldn't be so cavalier when we are dealing with the foundations of life. We don't fully understand the genome and we require food to eat. Those two facts should be enough for us to tread very carefully down this path. Let's do the science (beyond animal feeding studies). Let's find out. But in the meantime, assuming that everything is above-board from the very people who are going to benefit from the introduction and adoption of GM crops seems irrational when the potential harm is so great.
"Humans began genetically modifying plants to provide food more than 10,000 years ago."
(This has been well understood ever since the Young Earth Creationism view of the age of the earth was set aside.)
"For the past hundred years or so plant breeders have used radiation and chemicals to speed up the production of genetic changes. This was a genetic shotgun, producing lots of bad changes and a very, very occasional good one."
(One example of this that is very familiar to me is the variety of sweet, pink-fleshed grapefruit grown in Texas, which was developed by irradiating grapefruit seeds.)
"Most early alarms about new technologies fade away as research accumulates without turning up evidence of deleterious effects. This should be happening now because scientists have amassed more than three decades of research on GM biosafety, none of which has surfaced credible evidence that modifying plants by molecular techniques is dangerous. Instead, the anti-GM storm has intensified."
If someone wants to disagree with this aspect of the article, the thing to do would be to cite evidence that there is any danger to GMO technology. As I type this, no one commenting in this thread has yet done so.
"Insect-resistant GM corn also decreases human and animal exposure to mycotoxins, highly toxic and carcinogenic compounds made by fungi. The fungi that produce mycotoxins follow insects into plants; insect-resistant plants have no insect holes for fungi to enter and therefore no mycotoxins."
This is a fact new to me that I learned from the article kindly submitted here. All living things are in biological competition, and most living things are toxic, by natural selection, to some or many of the other living things that might eat them. GMO technology allows human eaters to enjoy safer food.
"Farmers don't have to buy Monsanto seed, nor is anyone preventing them from saving and replanting any seed they want, except for patented seed they've signed an agreement not to save and plant. Farmers buy seeds from Monsanto and other ag-biotech companies because their costs decrease and their profits increase. If they didn't, farmers wouldn't buy them again."
Most of my uncles and cousins are farmers. The quoted statement is true. Farmers buy products if the products offer a good safety and effectiveness profile for sustainable farming. Agricultural products that don't work don't get a lot of repeat business from farmers. The people who are still farmers in the United States feed the entire country they live in and have enough surplus production to feed much of the rest of the world. Farmers in other countries have also enjoyed increased productivity as a result of agricultural research and free enterprise in agricultural products. The whole developed world is seeing rising life expectancies and reduced disease burdens at all ages,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w...
so whatever is new about agricultural practices in the developed world seems to working well so far.
the article is about Monsanto. Are you postulating we have Monsanto to thank for increasing life expectancies and decreasing disease worldwide? That would need some serious evidence wouldn't it ?
The title is about Monsanto. The article is not.
The question I have is largely of containment, given the potential delay between the time a GMO product is introduced to the market, and the signs of health problems appearing. If by the time a serious problem is discovered, the genetic material in question has spread to the entire gene pool for that species, then it becomes extremely difficult to address. If the unwanted presence of a modified gene prevents farmers from labeling their product organic, or exporting to certain countries, as was recently the case with Oregon wheat farmers and Japan, then it's currently having some very real consequences for people which shouldn't be dismissed.
I'm all for progress; I'd just rather let others be guinea pigs when possible, and always keep an exit strategy.
None of these new breeds were subjected to the same rigorous standards of verification and safety as the produce labeled as 'GMO' today. Worse all new varieties produced with the same forced shuffling are similarly not tested with the same standards as GMOs are.
There have yet to been someone poisoned by 'GMO' varieties whilst there are plenty of such accidents in case of 'classic' breeding. A very good book on this subject is "Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically Modified Food", that by no accident was written by a scientist and not an activist.
Whoa boy, there goes any credibility that article had. To be fair, at least they are upfront about where they're coming from.. This article probably tells us more about SA than MON.