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Are you anti-GMO? Then you’re anti-science, too.

#1
C C Offline
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...story.html

EXCERPT: . . . So why has Europe essentially banned GMOs? Why do many American food companies treat them like toxins?

Mark Lynas’s new book, “Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong on GMOs,” tells the story from a unique perspective. [...] He found the scientific consensus on climate change to be compelling. But he found the evidence for the safety of GMOs to be at least as strong. “I couldn’t deny the scientific consensus on GMOs,” he writes, “while insisting on strict adherence to the one on climate change, and still call myself a science writer.”

It was, he says, “a decisive turning point in my life.” But the public debate on GMOs turned in exactly the opposite direction. Just as scientists were becoming more confident in the safety of GMOs, global anti-GMO activists, led by Greenpeace, were making the issue a hot potato (including a genetically modified insect-resistant potato cultivated in Canada). On the strength of myths (that using genetically modified seeds somehow resulted in suicides among Indian farmers) and deception (tying GMOs to autism or cancer), supermarket chains, food companies and eventually governments were frightened into anti-GMO stances. In the developing world, anti-GMO activists spread rumors that GMO consumption resulted in homosexuality and infertility.

Lynas has carefully avoided writing a screed. He shows considerable patience for the worldview of his former allies: a preference for the small and natural, a fear that agricultural technology results in centralization and increased corporate power.

I have less patience. There is more than a hint of cultural imperialism when Westerners — grown fat on the success of modern farming — lecture subsistence farmers on the benefits of heirloom breeds and organic methods. The greatest need among farmers who spend part of the year hungry is increased productivity. Plant varieties engineered to resist cassava brown streak, banana bacterial wilt or maize lethal necrosis can be a matter of life or death. New, drought-resistant crops will be essential as the climate continues to change. And crops designed to resist insects require the use of far less insecticide — which reduces the risk of pesticide poisoning.

As with the anti-vaccination movement, a contempt for science can have a human cost. The risks are very real when societies become detached from reality....

MORE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...story.html
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#2
Syne Offline
Same reason people think MSG is horribly bad for you and DDT was banned. Appeals to authority trumped actual science.
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#3
stryder Offline
The main cons of GMO are:
  • Genetically Modification is "Patentable", which means for that particular strain of crop to be produced corporations will expect a cut of the profits from them. This means if the GMO was to spread to other farmers fields, they can be sued for growing crops they didn't pay for.
  • The modification can be done by increasing the plants natural lectin levels which can make the plant hardier to environmental changes as well as pests/fungi. The problem is that Lectins and Gluten levels can therefore be elevated by being GMO which can effect gut walls/lining leading to a variety of conditions which aren't necessarily fatal but aren't particular nice.

The posed pro's (backed by the need of corporations to make money) is:
  • The potential of higher yields.
  • Resistance to environment, pests, fungi. (This reduces costs since chemical or alternative treatments are needed less)
  • The ability to control who has food. (That's a pro to some but a con to everyone else)

While GMO is interesting from a scientific pursuit, the GMO agendas are pushed more by capitalists that deal with more ethos than ethics.

Personally I'm not bothered if it's GMO or not as long as it doesn't make me ill or undermine the jobs of those that would normally grow food (or of course be used to control the general populous)
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#5
Magical Realist Offline
I think there is an unconscious factor in anti-GMO stances that derives from a metaphor of man-made artificiality or mutated monstrosities. We saw this collective phobia in the 50's with rise of radiation hysteria and monster movies. With GMOs, we have the same reactionary fear--the produce has been turned into something unnatural and unorganic. Frankenwheat! OMG! It is a corrupt byproduct of industrialization and genetic tampering!

People need to rise above this instinctive stigmatization of the altered produce. The lines between natural and artificial are becoming more and more blurred as we learn to alter foods at the genetic level. Natural selection and hybridization have been doing this to plants for thousands of years. We are simply accelerating that process for better nutrition and hardier crops.
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#6
confused2 Offline
I'm not against GM crops in principle - Frankenwheat doesn't bother me but there may be other issues.
Looking at (for example) Monsanto 'Round-Up' crops. For them to be of any advantage you need the seeds and the right chemicals. Looking at soybeans it seems one bag plants an acre. For a smallholder to devote an acre to one crop may or may not be realistic. You (they) need to buy the Monsanto weedkiller otherwise the exercise is pointless. I suspect the economics really get good when you're looking at (say) 1,000 acres - then you're selling on the commodity market and you are unlikely to get left with half a ton of beans that nobody wants. So you decide where you want to start your 1,000 acre field and find there are 200 smallholders on it. So, in your capacity as BeansRus you burn down a few houses and for very little money you get your 1,000 acre field. In an ideal capitalist world the displaced smallholders would move to the city and set themselves up as bean traders and everybody would be happy. If Monsanto have any sense (and I'm sure they do) they'll make sure the beans you get aren't fertile unless you you do 'something' (trade secret) to them. This isn't about feeding the world it's about making money. There's more but that's all I have time for now.
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#7
Syne Offline
The economics were certainly devised to cover the R&D and return a profit. Or were there governments/organizations willing to fund such research and release the patented crops for free?
What farmers may have done doesn't reflect on Monsanto without some loony conspiracy theory. And you can't blame criminality on capitalism. In an ideal capitalist world, the investor would just pay a premium for land they know will turn a much greater profit. The small land owners would profit, and perhaps buy even more land elsewhere, where 1,000 acre tracks of land couldn't be found.

Making money is the motivation that has raised more people out of poverty and fed more people than anything else in history. Making money is just a really efficient system of cooperation.
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