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What We Don't Know About GE Crops
First, the headline picked up by the New York Times and others: there has been a rapid rise in weeds resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (also known as Roundup) that could rapidly undercut any environmental or economic benefits of GE crops. Glyphosate-resistant crops allow farmers to kill weeds with the herbicide without destroying their crop. To date, at least nine species of weeds in the U.S. have developed resistance to glyphosate since GE crops were introduced. The other primary type of GE crop is designed to produce Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt), a bacteria deadly to insect pests. Thus far, two types of insects have developed resistance to Bt. The loss of effectiveness of glyphosate and Bt crops could lead to increased use of more potent herbicides.
"This problem is growing, it's real, and it's going to get worse," said chair of the NRS committee David Ervin, of Portland State University, at a press conference today.
But just as alarming as growing weed and pest resistance is the dearth of research data on so many fundamental issues surrounding GE crops. The NRC report focused on how GE crops are affecting U.S. farmers. The assessment looked at GE crops through the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social. In the end, the researchers didn't have enough data.
"As more GE traits are developed and incorporated into a larger variety of crops, it's increasingly essential that we gain a better understanding of how genetic engineering technology will affect U.S. agriculture and the environment now and in the future," said Ervin. "Such gaps in our knowledge are preventing a full assessment of the environmental, economic and other impacts of GE crops on farm sustainability."
More specifically, what we don't yet know about GE crops:
- The full extent of weed resistance problems, or what those problems will mean in the future to the environment and farmers' bottom line.
- Little understanding of how the use of GE crops affects water systems—positively or negatively.
- The effects of GE crops on farmers not growing GE crops, including both conventional and organic farmers. The committee reported on anecdotal information that farmers have had trouble finding conventional non-GE seeds. And as Bob Scowcroft of the Organic Farm Research Foundation noted at the press conference, there is little peer-reviewed research on the enormous costs borne by organic farmers for testing to prove their crop is GE-free, let alone farmers who have lost organic certification from GE contamination.
- The impact of consolidation in the seed industry—accelerated by the transition to proprietary GE seeds—on prices and seed choices.
- Other social issues that have been overlooked include the impact of GE crops on labor dynamics, farm structure, farmer and community conflict and property rights.
The White House and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack should take a good look at this report. After 15 years, we still can't fully assess whether GE crops are good for U.S. farmers—let alone consumers. Yet, the White House and Vilsack continue to aggressively push for other countries to use GE crops. As IATP's Dennis Keeney and Sophia Murphy wrote last month in the Des Moines Register, GE crops that are widely used in the U.S. don't make sense for the challenges facing Africa, for example.
Given the NRC report's findings, it's hard to justify the enormous amounts of money spent on the development of new GE crops, and harder still to justify pushing the technology on other countries, until we fill in the enormous research gaps that remain.
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29 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
Missing grotesquely from an otherwise good list of what we don't know yet... is the cumulative impact of INGESTING plants that have had pesticides "genetically modified" into their cellular structures. In other words, we're EATING those pesticides... if these substances are designed to kill insects, they can hardly be GOOD for us. The argument will probably run along the lines of percentages, like how many dead insects are allowed to fall into a chocolate vat before it's condemned by any would-be regulatory agency. That's before agencies like the EPA were defanged since "regulation is bad for business," and business/profit is always good.
What really gets my goat is the defense that there's no PROOF that these frankenfoods harm humans.
When a technology is so new that there's no body of evidence yet collected, to argue that the lack of evidence therefore indicates it's perfectly safe is the type of reasoning that's gotten this nation into false wars, allowed the banks to take citizens' money, and essentially invalidated the unspoken covenant of any contract or treaty: that of basic honesty, itself.
It has been 15 years. How long should we wait to feel perfectly safe with this technology? 90% safe...? I know your 'goat' is important to you (to me too), but look at it from the farmer's point of view, also. Years ago, with older equipment, I sprayed for corn borers, because having your crop fall over just before harvest is a real drag. Once the wind switched on me when I was nearly done and using an open-air high-boy tractor. I breathed some of the pesticide and had blurred vision and felt sick for a couple of hours. With the new technology this use of nasty pesticides is either not needed or very greatly reduced.
I have grown vegetables and fruits in my garden and my neighbors' and none of us ever had to use pesticides. Pesticides is just a method used to make farmers feel "easy" about their work with no regards for the environment or people's health. As to your impatience on GE crops, the reason it does not deserve to be rushed into the market is this is another scam similar to "insurance". GE crops have been tested for long term damages and from what some of my friends who have come across them have told me, this is not good. Like the health care regressive scam, there is no guarantee that it is remotely safe. The socialized risks and losses from the biological hazards are guaranteed while the touted healthful benefits are extremely flaky at best. To make an argument about pesticides vs GE is like trying to make a "lesser of the evils" argument on Big Oil vs Big Nuclear or for that matter Democrats vs Republicans. There are thousands of farmers who have confessed that neither continued use or pesticides nor going GE is sustainable. Let me ask you one question as a farmer. What is wrong with checking your crops a little more frequently? Think about more exposure to fresh air and exercise.
Like you, our large gardens are not treated with pesticides (except apples). With a garden, hand work can take care of 99% of problems. But when it comes to large fields and trying to make a living, it's a whole different ballgame. For farmers, field laborers, and those living on the edges of farm fields, I believe most would rather have GE crops nearby, than be exposed to pesticide drift, etc. We do need to come up with more sustainable farming practices, but that is extremely difficult other than small-scale. There is nothing wrong with checking my crops more frequently. If checking crops more frequently meant that I could usually avoid GE crops and pesticide applications, I would certainly do it. But, after farming for many decades, I know things don't work that easily. Bugs and diseases seek to multiply just like any other life forms. My gardens are for pleasure and gastronomic delight. My field crops pay the bills. If I let bugs and diseases have their share, I'm soon out of business.
Greg, I understand and I sympathize with what you have been through. I know that gardening isn't always easy when one man has to do it. Ditto on farming. I think that a lot of the small farming efforts could be more team oriented so that small farming doesn't look so small after all. I take it that you are not confident in going the natural route. If so, I understand and a lot of this has to do with lack of not only self-confidence in most of today's farmers but also lack of team confidence. I know we all want to earn and make a living and who doesn't? The breaking point is where I see more farmers confident in falling for what makes them appear to be riding high to richness when in fact most farmers don't get that kind of luck given the economic pyramid that is capitalism. If more farmers want to farm only because they are in it for the money thinking that they'll catch up to others and show off, I have bad news for them. All this pesticide and gm engineering will only make a few corporate farmers rich while most of the farmers owning small farms are likely to lose big and this has been going on for decades ever since factory farming came into the picture and changed everything for the worse. The currently large scale farming is not sustainable and is already on the verge of collapse. At some point, the pendulum will have to swing back in favor of the small farmers.
Wasn't Tom Delay a pesticide company man. He's f*ing crazy. That's what pesticides do to people, along with causing cancer and numerous autoimmune diseases. 15 years is just the beginning of the disease cycle. Ingesting pesticides within the food itself, no saying what bizarre diseases that's going to cause. Think about the national obesity epidemic...a result of GM food with addictive additives built into the seed? Do yourself a favor, do a heavy detox program designed to remove the pesticide toxins lodged in your brain.
Tom Delay was a bug exterminator. While he does seem to be a truly obnoxious person, if you've ever lived in a roach infested apartment in Texas, you would learn to appreciate exterminators. Enough with the silly addictive additives BS. Adding corn syrup to lots of packaged foods is not a great idea, but neither is adding any other sugars.
"Adding corn syrup to lots of packaged foods is not a great idea, but neither is adding any other sugars."
Not even raw sugar or stevia?
They're all empty calories. A bit for the taste buds is nice though.
Sioux Rose
GREG: There was an article on CD 3 days ago that stated that 48% of women and I think it was 36% of men WOULD get cancer.
In more decent times the premise of "Innocent until PROVEN guilty" made sense, as there was not the same CLIMATE OF TRESPASS as is now clearly underway. I state that because one cannot say for certain whether it is: 1. food additives 2. food irradiation 3. pesticides externally sprayed onto produce 4. insecticide sprayed in warehouses seeping into boxed food cartons 5. depleted soils and their less-than nutritious produce OR 6. bio-engineered crops that are the culprit. In my view, it's ALL OF THE ABOVE.
Our food "sytems" like everything else in our nation gone drunk on corporate capitalism without conscience puts profit before every other ideal or necessity. The result is seen in the obesity levels, Diabetes levels, depression levels, cancer levels, and probably lots of other things that are being diagnosed with sexy new pseudo-scientific nomenclature.
And then there was Thalidimide... meaning, some mutations don't show until the SECOND generation... which brings me to #7: fall-out from past nuclear testing and now the winds blowing tiny particles of the weapons of war (M.E.), like D.U. around the world.
Ever hear this expression: "Man is the only BEAST that fouls his own nest." We are reaping the return on that piss poor investment. Frankenfoods are a CONTRIBUTOR, but not the ONLY guilty party, and therein lies the rub as per this "climate of trespass."
Certainly all of the things you mention have the potential for harm. A great many other things do also. Did you know thalidomide is still in use and apparently doing some good?
The main problem we have now, Greg, is that the foxes are guarding the hen houses. For example, it looks like the FDA serves corporate interests more than it does the public.
Permaculture to the rescue. Their concept is to plant trees such that if you provide for their well being, you will be rewarded by food falling on you when you complete your daily meditation. This is the ultimate secret that Buddha gave us.
...not only trees, but shrubs and perennials. That is the ultimate, but I don't think it has much to do with Buddha, PBUH.
Sioux Rose, well said.
Perhaps there is a rare feather in the regulatory cap with the FDA's withholding, more than a generation ago, of approval for thalidamide that caused fetus appendage deformities in Europe.
Europe and Canada. Health Canada waited 6 months after europe banned it before following suit. that way the wharehouse stockpiles could be sold off.
Sioux Rose
Thank you, RAY and OLE MAN RIVER. This subject (the adulteration of nature's seedbanks and exploitation of Her ecological treasures) is very important to me...
The author writes:
"After 15 years, we still can't fully assess whether GE crops are good for U.S. farmers—let alone consumers. Yet, the White House and Vilsack continue to aggressively push for other countries to use GE crops."
Gee! That's not how NPR reported it yesterday. They "reported" that this study concluded that GE crops benefited the farmers who use them. Listening to NPR, you would come away with "some" concerns, but essentially these GE crops are okay.
Meanwhile, Sioux Rose is right. We ought to be employing the "precautionary principle" for these crops the way the EU does. Ban this crap and start over and put Monsanto out of business because they really are a dangerous monstrosity. They seek a monopoly on crop seeds, and crop seed diversity is rapidly vanishing in this country. They are contaminating all the related non-GE cultivars. They are contaminating the legacy seeds of Mexican corn. Etc. This much we DO know.
They love monoculture, which nature abhors.
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The question for individuals regarding genetically-engineered crops is a general question: Do we want corporations with their sub-human machine priorities to control our food supply? USan entertainment media has cultivated distrust among people with an endless march of small-time/street antagonists, destroying human community and leaving a trust void for the corporate machines to fill with their artificial "feel-good" propaganda. We need to disconnect from these soulless machines and re-connect with the human community and the community of natural life, the endless variety of wild food with naturally sustainable yields, and the thoughtful cultivation of open-pollinated heirloom crop varieties, providing sustainable and clear advantages for people, not as a means to an end (profit) but as an end in itself.
Some posters are in error by claiming that pesticides are incorporated in the GM plants. The method is to mix in the genes of plants that have natural resistance to certain pests. This reduces the use of pesticide, not use of more, as was claimed. There is little value in a discussion based on false propaganda and this matter will not be resolved by scare talk.
Nobody said that pesticides are incorporated in GM plants. I for one understand that both of them are separate. Pesticides are bad enough but replacing them with another poison that is possibly worse such as genetic engineering isn't safe either. See my discussion with Greg R about what I think really needs to be done. I may not be a farmer but going gung ho on either pesticides or ge all in the name of putting profits first is disingenuous and reckless.
The whole GE crop thing is about patents on life. Until the advent of biotechnology plant and animal life had been free of the patent system.
What a huge and absurd thing it is to be able to take germ plasm evolved for millions of years from godess/mother earth and alter it slightly in some poitless way and then claim patented ownership. The source seed is considered free and worthless for the companies to use without paying for the rights. Even though the labor put into the selective breeding of plants for food is a huge intelectual and physical human input stretching back in some cases thousands of years. The plants are always stolen from so called primitive cultures. Changed slightly and then sold back with new laws of patent ownership.
The new plants are of course crap generally and not worth bothering with.
It's really nothing more than another step in white racist colonization.
The whole process is really designed to strip non western living people of the right to live in a subsistence way in harmony with mother earth.
Invasion is termed "improvement".
apropriation of the property of other cultures is called "developement".
native use of seeds and plants is non-use.
find a food or medicine plant that has been lovingly developed for thousands of years by a native culture and steal it and claim you "invented" it and anyone using it in the future (inclding the real native owner) now has to pay you for the privaledge or go to jail for patent infringement.
aint white people fun -- they so smart and good with buisness.
Stanley1979 writes:
"Nobody said that pesticides are incorporated in GM plants."
From the article:
"The other primary type of GE crop is designed to produce Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt), a bacteria deadly to insect pests."
Any questions?
I just love the idea that Bacillus Thuringiensis is gonna go into my gut culture and start slipping in a little DNA here and there, and may confuse some of my flora and fauna with "insect pests."
As it is, given our larger "culture," it is getting harder and harder to hold anything down.
Maybe we could hold a national VOMIT-IN. I know. Awkward expression. How about a Hoover-Heave? Or, to get more Freudian, a Day of Projectile Vomiting at our elected officials' orifices, oops, offices.
Nor do I mean to make light of the real issues here, but a new approach seems called for. Think George HW Bush in Japan. If you spit at your congressperson you can be arrested, but if you vomit in his lap...
Also, if you intend to go to a press conference, be sure to take an extra pair of shoes.
Finally, this issue ought to be one where right and left share a goal, if for entirely different reasons. Science would say that species differentiation is anti-entropic. Others might say that genetic engineering is against God's Will. Perhaps both are right.
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Yea:
Kernelz writes:
"The method is to mix in the genes of plants that have natural resistance to certain pests"
Fact:
This is just one example among many frankenfoods:
The genes "mixed in" to the bt corn are actually animal genes from the soil bacterium
Bacillus thuringiensis.
the genes from the bacterium then produce a Cry protien that is a pesticide.
yes a pestacide that is in the corn that we eat.
Thanks for clarifying. All along, I thought that pesticides and GM/GE were two separate evils, each with their harmful side effects.
As for vomitting in a politician's lap, I don't know if citizens can do it. I will guess that the Patriot Act would allow them to classify us as "terrorists" before the end of the day.
Genetically-Engineered food, just generally, can't be good for either humans or the environment.
We need science with conscience, not corporate profiteering and building and designing instruments of war. We are gleefully destroying ourselves. How could these endeavors survive unless--on some level--individuals are cooperating with and even feeding the beast? It's clear that it will take some catastrophic shock or series of shocks for things to change, but by then it may be too late. Neither will the wealthy be able to save themselves or their children by hiding in their fortresses.
If you want to know about genetically-modified food, check out this great web site. This guy Jeffrey Smith has been trying to educate the American public about the dangers of GM food:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com
Read one of these for a summary of above:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com
/Public/AboutGeneticallyModifiedFoods/index.cfm
http://www.wanttoknow.info/deception10pg
Listen to these excellent audio files:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Multimedia/10.mp3
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Multimedia/29.mp3
which can be downloaded from here:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=166
Thank you atelios.