[dinopello]

pstarr, once again, totally misses the point.

What point? Is it religious?

Is there any line in this field that concerns you ? Are you just as OK with genetically modified animals for consumption ?

Not if it looks like this.

I'd be willing to be you don't eat sushi? Right?

I love sushi! Although mostly as a vehicle for the wasabi and pickled ginger. But it also seems healthy.

That picture reminds me of the giant, featherless, boneless chickens that geneticists are working on. They figure that if they can engineer a chicken that has no bones, they won't be able to run around and hurt themselves, more can be contained in a smaller area and it will save huge amounts of labor otherwise spent plucking and de-boning.

[Withnail]

I'm sure genetically modifed pap won't kill me, I just don't want to eat it.

As long as it's labelled so I can choose not to buy it, I'm good.

I seem to recall they used to have tubes of GM tomato puree on the shelves here back in the 90s.

But nobody wanted them.

[dissident]

I'm sure genetically modifed pap won't kill me, I just don't want to eat it.

As long as it's labelled so I can choose not to buy it, I'm good.

I seem to recall they used to have tubes of GM tomato puree on the shelves here back in the 90s.

But nobody wanted them.

People get hung up on GMO as if it is some sort of poison by itself. It is not and is all readily digestible and safe. The problem is GMO interaction with the environment (e.g. how much nutrition is absorbed) and glyphosate. We do not have GM crops for the sake of GM as in selective breeding and better characteristics through gene manipulation. We have GM crops designed to tolerate high levels of glyphosate. This is poison.

Monsanto and the industrial agriculture corporations can shove their "high" yields up their collective anus. These are "high" yields of nutritionally deficient and toxic chemical laden garbage. As has been posted in the autism thread, persistent use of glyphosate results in the doubling (and higher) of water use for growing these "high" yield crops. There is no techno miracle here, but a lame hack.

[dohboi]

+1

[Pops]

We have GM crops designed to tolerate high levels of glyphosate. This is poison.

Obama is a Muslim.

Same validity.

Glyphosate isn't associated with any increased risk, and it is probably one of the most tested chemicals ever. Yet simply restating the unproven over and over seems to be enough proof of that particular knee-jerk.

Now the chemicals it replaced, including diesel? Those are proven killers.

So the question to you is, should we go back to 2-4D or just eliminate weed control altogether and accept a 50-75% drop in yield?

[Shaved Monkey]

As long as it's labelled so I can choose not to buy it, I'm good.

If they have to label them or control the wind borne spread of pollen throughout the environment, as it crosses properties and infects organic farms and makes them lose their status. they would go bankrupt
But they have good lawyers and powerful friends
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-or ... zrr1d.html

[PrestonSturges]

As long as it's labelled so I can choose not to buy it, I'm good.

If they have to label them or control the wind borne spread of pollen throughout the environment, as it crosses properties and infects organic farms and makes them lose their status. they would go bankrupt
But they have good lawyers and powerful friends
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-or ... zrr1d.html

That's what various sterility technologies would prevent, but the activists freaked out about 20 years ago, so this problem is a creation of the activists. Of course they say it will spread somehow, and that's what I was joking about upthread how if you get a vasectomy it will spread to other people and make the whole world sterile. No doubt that went right over the heads of a lot of people. Anyway, sterile seed and pollen technologies are used routinely in breeding for many years with no sign of the Pollen Apocalypse.

As long as it's labelled so I can choose not to buy it, I'm good.

makes them lose their status. they would go bankrupt
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-or ... zrr1d.html

Well if they want to demand that status, it doesn't mean anything unless there's a risk of losing it, right? There's no such as free lunch, even if it's organic and has no gluten, it still ain't free,

[onlooker]

Just was pondering the future of food. Assuming that we make it somewhat through the bottle-neck at about 1 billion population. We will face a degraded Earth and crop lands. Plus of course a different hotter climate regime. Considering this I am coming to the conclusion that GMO and Greenhouse-factory food may afford us our best option. Weather will be erratic and problematic for growing food, hence the need to created large indoor facilities for growing and/or creating food. Also, what food can be grown outside may need to be genetically modified to withstand hotter climate and maybe lack of moisture. It certainly appears that we are and can modify crops to have these characteristics. Also, greenhouses and factory made food already exist. So it is not that much of a leap of faith. I reflexively do not like the idea of artificial food as all artificial substances seem to have adverse effect on our bodies. However, it may be our only option to obtain sufficient food for all. That or have a Soylent Green scenario

[PrestonSturges]

In the Netherlands they are rediscovering potatoes that can live on salt water. these are non-GMO heirlooms, but wouldn't it be nice to add those genes to other crops? And also make those heirlooms disease resistant?

[Pops]

GMOs are unpopular with rich people because we can afford to be fashionably opposed to things other than starving.

Just like we can choose to be more afraid of the off-chance that vaccines cause autism because we have no clue how utterly terrified people were a generation ago of polio and measles and whooping cough and etc — actual things that actually kill people — regularly.

Or that certain herbicides "may" cause cancer because we forget that the alternatives DO cause cancer and worse.

--
I'm a diabetic, dead in a week without recombinant DNA E. Coli that poops insulin ... not the same as GMO but still messing with Moma's goodies, and not surprisingly, it doesn't scare me a bit.

Malthus was wrong, up to this point at least, we have continued to make our food supply grow to match— and even exceed our population growth, I think current supply is 2,700cal/capita, albeit unevenly distributed. (and I assume that is "final" food including the meat and dairy that uses lots of grain calories).

I want to think that we won't starve before the population curve in the remaining high growth regions begins to bend.

One other thing to realize; if you were to subtract out the stuff that happens after food is grown, instead of the 10% of income rich people pay for "food", we pay more like 1%. Most of what we buy is the processing and packaging and precooking and convenience and presentation, the cost of the actual food is minuscule.

But finally, there is a lot of room for GMO to grow, take for example sugar cane which (if memory serves) converts around 13% of the energy that falls on it to carbs - vs - corn which converts only 3%.

I think we are just as likely to be processed into grey-goo by escapee nano robots or terminated for our own good by the networked Singularity — and still I don't see anyone freaking out and destroying their iWhatsits or passing up their Whoppers.

[dissident]

Monsanto and its lemming supporters think so. It's such a lucrative racket to have every farmer on the planet (real one, not hobby nitwit) by the short and curlies.

For those who laugh at the idea that corporations can corner markets and reduce choice, get a grip on reality. You can see this at your local big box store. You cannot find anything there that is not made in China except from some items from South Korea, etc. Where is your choice? Back in the 1970s one could buy tools made in Germany now you have no hope unless you find a boutique supplier and pay through your nose. Consumers do no exert market control and go where the sellers lead them.

Once Monsanto's business model becomes established farmers will not be able to buy seed that is not GMO modified to work with a particular chemical pest/weed control agent. All the GMO features in addition to the pesticide and herbicide resistance are a side show. GMO is not about making better crops, it is about satisfying Monsanto and the rest of the corporate racketeers.

One thing that GMO will not address for sure is global warming impacts on agriculture. There is no free lunch in anything. You can't manufacture plant species for totally incompatible climate regimes (drought, heat, hail and wind resistance) by tweaking the genetic code of existing ones. The idea is ludicrous and any information source that conveys the impression that such genetic modification is possible is peddling degenerate propaganda.

Covering millions of acres with climate controlled domes is not realistic either.

Humanity is facing a species existence crisis by 2050. Techno masturbation will not save it.

[Lore]

Monsanto, who has successfully poisoned a good portion of the earth?

[onlooker]

thanks for those nuggets of wisdom Diss. I also feel that techno miracles are running out. We cannot completely nullify and destroy ecosystems and expect to create an artificial world completely man-made. In the end we cannot play God.We will face a period of reckoning. That I have no doubt.

[Shaved Monkey]

I would back diversity over mono culture.

[kanon]

Once Monsanto's business model becomes established farmers will not be able to buy seed that is not GMO modified to work with a particular chemical pest/weed control agent. All the GMO features in addition to the pesticide and herbicide resistance are a side show. GMO is not about making better crops, it is about satisfying Monsanto and the rest of the corporate racketeers.

It is remarkable how many people believe there is some magical superiority to GMO crops. They have no better yield than other varieties. Do GMO Crops Really Have Higher Yields? and, from failure-to-yield:

No currently available transgenic varieties enhance the intrinsic yield of any crops. The intrinsic yields of corn and soybeans did rise during the twentieth century, but not as a result of GE traits. Rather, they were due to successes in traditional breeding.

The superior yield is primarily seen in the corporate power account. In fact, it could be argued that the entire GMO industry depends on the ethanol and farm subsidy programs and would collapse without them. Besides, GMO crops depend on a support infrastructure to produce seeds, herbicides/pesticides and fertilizer. Likewise, it is wishful thinking that a plant can be spliced together from myriad organisms to grow a crop without water. Temperatures that are too high can also prevent plant growth environmental by causing respiration to exceed photosynthesis. I'm sure there is more to it, but gene splicing is out there with interstellar travel as a technological fix, IMHO.

Greenhouses are another matter as that is a structure to maintain an ideal environment for the plant. At least ideal according to someone's opinion. I think greenhouses are feasible today because of our industrial capability and plastic films. If the capability of maintaining the materials survives, then greenhouses will continue to be useful to grow "our" food.

So, assuming that we make it somewhat through the bottle-neck, I think the answer to the thread question is "No."

[PrestonSturges]

Monsanto and its lemming supporters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Straw man
This article is about the logical fallacy. For other uses, see Straw man (disambiguation).
"Man of straw" redirects here. For the novel by Heinrich Mann, see Der Untertan.
A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on false representation of an opponent's argument.[1] To be successful, a straw man argument requires that the audience be ignorant or uninformed of the original argument.

[PrestonSturges]

Also, quite a few recent GMOs are public domain. Flood resistant rice is a big one. Two days of being submerged drowns nearly all rice varieties, but scientists found a rice that can survive over a week of flooding and the gene responsible was put into other varieties of rice. That one change could prevent famines in places like Bangladesh.