In praise of genetically engineered foods (In theory)

[Andy Carson]

This might not be a popular opinion, but I would like to go on record saying that I support the idea of genetically engineered foods. I think that much of what has been done with genetically engineered food shows an incredible commercial bias (and some might be wrongheaded), but I truly believe the concept has great potential for good if applied correctly. I used to work with a researcher who was part of a project engineering bananas to overexpress specific proteins that could be used as oral vaccines in the third world. The idea is that third world farmers could grow thier own vaccines, instead of having to rely on expensive donated vaccines that may or may not come. I always thought that was pretty cool and is probably as good of an example of a “good” genetically engineered food as any. On the other end of the spectrum, crops could be modified to enable the use of incredibly high (and potentially damaging) levels of herbicides, or yield unsustainable levels of production. These are not things I am interested in, but I would argue that it is the specific genes (not the concept of engineering itself) that is what might be wrong with these applications. After all, run of the mill selective breeding also has yielded many varieties of crops that are probably unsustainable as well and farmers can (and do) overspray non-GE crops with herbicides anyway. As far as safety, I can somewhat understand there being worried, but I think studies are they way to determine safety, not simply fear of the unknown. As with other food safety issues, I think the relevant questions are “Can it be demonstrated that people either have been (or have a great potential to be) injured by this technology/practice?” and “Is this a significant number of people?” Is seems the level of tollerable risk is much different with GE crops, and this doesn’t really make sense to me. Just offering an alternative opinion…

[jac]

I agree.. in theory… but what needs to be remembered is that the plant breeders of old that developed the plants we have today didnt patent their work.. nor did they resort to dirty tricks like our old friend Monsanto. We were told that gm foods would feed the world .. not happened.. why develope a terminator gene if they want to save the world ??? these guys are only interested i one thing… £$£$£$. Too much tampering with nature for my liking with too much at stake.. the idea is great but as soon as big business and shareholders get involved you can kiss the ethics goodbye. I admire the technology but once the genie is out you cant bring it to heel..
John

[Carl Russell]

I understand your position Andy, and in the best of worlds, I can see the logic.

As far as GMO’s go, I just come back to a statement that my uncle always attributed to his uncle…. and it had to do with the human endeavor in general, horses feet in specific, and not necessarily with GMO’s…but I always think it appropriate.

“Once you f**K around with nature, you have a full time job”.

We can do all kinds of things to save the world, but when we ignore, overlook, and try to bypass the natural processes, we create more work for ourselves… more leaks to plug… more problems to solve…. until all we are doing is solving problems, when we could have left well enough alone.

Carl

[dominiquer60]

I agree with Carl on both points, it is hard to outwit something as perfect as nature.

Erika

[gwpoky]

I could also go on and on about this, but I will hold for the time being and leave this thought.
Yes you may not have to spray BT Corn as MUCH, but when the bug eats the corn and is killed by the corn, do I want to eat/feed that corn……I think not.

[gwpoky]

I could also go on and on about this, but I will hold for the time being and leave this thought.
Yes you may not have to spray BT Corn as MUCH, but when the bug eats the corn and is killed by the corn, do I want to eat/feed that corn……I think not, besides if you grow things in a polyculture and manage well with hand and real horse power there is no need for GMO’s, pesticides, or fossil fuels. Win, win, win.

[Tim Harrigan]

The other day I heard on good authority that about 85% of the corn grain grown in MI is GMO. Today I read in the NYT that about 95% of the sugar beets grown in the US are roundup ready. My worry is we don’t have perfect information. Nature does. The landscape is littered with craters from unintended consequences. If we are not right about this GMO stuff it is going to be pretty tough to back out of it.

[Michael Colby]

The “theory” in GMO’s can, indeed, be seductive. But it cannot and should not be divorced from the reality of a much more complex and concrete concept known as “nature.”

Furthermore, those with good theories and good intentions often find themselves subservient to the most powerful force in a capitalist system: money. And, before you know it, the pursuit of pure profit — regardless of the complex realities — trumps all the “good theories,” regardless of the facts.

You know, like rBGH and so many of the other “theories” that turned to nightmares after flowing through the corporate sieve.

Count me out on GMOs.

[dominiquer60]

I know that there is some stat out there claiming that GM corn has saved so many millions of dollars for farmers that don’t use it but benefit from being in the vicinity of lower insect populations around these fields. I can appreciate that. However the fact is debris from these GM corn fields end up in water ways and are killing small aquatic life leaving a huge gap in the food chain, and I do not appreciate that.

I wonder if in theory we could use GM technology to help the corporate elite not want so much money and instead give back to the dead communities and ecosystems that they have helped destroy. My guess is that even with the good intentions of this thought, there would be a unforeseeable and unwanted downside that goes with it.

Erika

[near horse]

Sorry but I don’t even buy into the “theory” of GMO development. Why should we be screwing with the genetics of a banana to administer a vaccine? If you want to administer a vaccine, then isolate purify and administer it but don’t risk food in the process. That’s really short-sighted. Nature has eternity to adapt to what we’re up to, not necessarily in our favor. For example, those RR corn guys are already seeing Roundup resistant weeds in those fields where they’d been using RR corn. Yet Monsanto and friends continued to push RR alfalfa approval – and, as far as I know, received it! Stupid. That’s my problem w/ the whole “gene jockey” mentality.

But, I believe that what many consider to be “the greatest evolutionary coup” – the human brain – will be the undoing of humanity itself. As a species, we continue to alter our environment and the regulators so as to increase our numbers ad infinitum. Kind of like the blob. Merry Christmas!

[Andy Carson]

I would argue that almost none of the crops any of us raise or even the animals we work with are truly natural anyway. Natural to me means “produced by nature” and not “manmade.” Was corn (just as one example) truly produced by nature or made by man??? There are many theories out there as to the origin of corn involving either the domestication of the Mexican annual Teosinte and susequent hybridization with related species or the domestication and hybridization of of Zea diploperennis by Tripsacum dactyloides. None of these hybrids would be viable in nature without artificial selection by man. So, modern corn (even hierloom varieties) are the product of thousands of years of human selection and indirect genetic manipulation. From the point of view of the man-hours involved, I can think of few things that are more “man-made” than agricultural crops… And as far as wether this is an improvement over nature, maybe the best people to ask would be Mexican corn farmers who conciser TeosinteI (ancestral corn) a noxious weed that infests their corn fields… From a production point of view, it is hard to compare the few small seeds produced by TeosinteI to the ear produced by modern corn…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teosinte

I am likewise not very interested in working with the wild pony sized horses that existed before man got a hold of them, creating the large muscular and tractable beasts we know and love.

Sometimes we (as a species) can do it right!!!

[gwpoky]

Genetic Modification and breeding are two very different things. And even with human manipulated breeding there have been some disasters, I am a Farrier by trade and see the results of bad breeding decisions often (breeding for a traits that weakens the animal over all). Much of my degree, in Animal Science, was done in genetics, I find them interesting, but splicing genes is not done in nature.

[dominiquer60]

I agree that crops and livestock are not what they were originally before we tinkered with them. We have done some huge injustices with some of our breeding projects, but on a basic level a great amount of seed and livestock breeding have been done working within the confines of what nature will allow.

Plants and some animals have seen hybridization in nature, we have just taken it a little further. To splice part of an unrelated organisms gene and have it produce a completely foreign compound in a perfectly fine organism is asking a little too much.

Even though there is a lot of genetic manipulation that goes into teacup poodles, hairless cats and variegated double petunias, in the end they are not contaminating natural populations of similar species, or causing resistance and holes in the food chain. Man has developed over 60 different colors of Old English Game Bantam chickens and none of them cause any harm to natural game fowl populations or infect commercial strains of meat chickens with terminator genes.

I think that the best use for GMO theory is in the fiction section of my local book store. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, for all the “good” that GM products may offer, there is much bad that results.

Erika

[jac]

I dont think we can compare a thousand and more years of human endevour with what goes on at Monsanto and the others. I cant trust a word of a company that sells Aspartame as a replacement for sugar knowing full well its a cause of cancer ? whats wrong with sugar anyway ? A friend of mine up in Brandon Manitoba tells me monsanto hire small aircraft to fly over farmland dropping small bags of roundup on crops, then a week or so later fly over again and check for patches of dead crop !!.. no dead areas and a car goes to the farm and asks why the farmer hasnt paid the royalties for the round up ready crop that year… They want to outlaw farm saved seed and have the whole lot to themselves in the name of “saving the world”..
John

[Carl Russell]

For me the concept of not messing with nature has less to do with the process of genetic modification than it does with the system that we depend on to produce our food.

As Andy mentioned, so many modern varieties are the result of genetic manipulations, apples, chickens, horses, potatoes, corn, etc. The crux of the issue for me is whether or not I can go into the root cellar, grab a potato, plant it, and grow the same tubers I harvested, or gather eggs from the coop and grow out birds that match the parents, or use a simple procedure of grafting scions to grow cultivated apples on native root stock.

The human endeavor of cultivation, providing nutrients and appropriate environmental conditions is fundamental to the act of farming. Take a natural plant, prune it, reduce competition, provide access to required nutrients, and we all know we can get superior growth out of it, as apposed to what might have occurred naturally.

This process is a huge part of food security. The next part is having access to livestock and plant varieties that can be reproduced consistently, as a part of the natural propagation, to demonstrate the desirable characteristics of the previous generation.

We can also take two unrelated genotypes and produce offspring that demonstrate hybrid vigor. But the next generation will not reproduce the same characteristics. So to ensure hybrid vigor, we become dependent on an auxiliary infrastructure.

The next step is to manipulate the genetic code of an organism. This requires even more complex infrastructure, increased cost, and significant energy inputs.

These are the “problem solvings” that I referred to in my earlier post. As food producers and consumers we become dependent on an industry that controls the very germ of life that we need to feed ourselves.

The questionable health and environmental affects are serious enough, but for me the loss of control of the free access to a natural resource is beyond serious. Especially as energy costs are sure to increase, and the facilities required to uphold this industry will cost more to maintain, we leave ourselves open to having no access, and no control over what has been our birth-right as earth born organisms.

There is something seriously wrong with a scenario where an organism must sign a paper and buy rights before it can reach out and consume a reservoir of energy (food/animal/plant) that was heretofore available merely at the expense of energy required to grab it.

Humans have certainly designed into our modern lives lots of “improved” genotypes, which do require extra effort on our part to keep alive, but at least most of them will breed true, and there is no patent on their genetic make-up.

Carl

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