A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

[rex_dart]

KONA, Hawaii - From the moment the bill to ban genetically engineered crops on the island of Hawaii was introduced in May 2013, it garnered more vocal support than any the County Council here had ever considered, even the perennially popular bids to decriminalize marijuana.Public hearings were dominated by recitations of the ills often attributed

Comments

[harumi]

Totally sympathize with Mr. Ilgan here.

I too have struggled to get a scientifically sound perspective on the issue. Based on my understanding of GMOs, I simply don't see the problem. My problem with GMOs isn't related to genetically modified foods at all, but the large companies that distribute them.

[rex_dart]

Precisely. People tend to forget that the problems with corporations like Monsanto are problems with corporations, and that not all GMOs are developed or patented by corporations.

I think having the focus all on GMOs and the junk science surrounding them is probably exactly what these corporations want. It keeps the focus off their shady business practices.

[gambitia]

MTE. I hate how easily liberals seem to fall for an appeal to nature.

GMOs are like the least of the problems with modern agricultural now anyway. I've been frustrated that every single environmental group I follow has been focused on GMO labeling for over a year now, when I feel there are more important battles to be fought.

[skellington1]

Same here. There are so many issues, and so often the things they point out as problems with GMOs (pesticide use, monoculture, etc) are just problems with industrial agriculture. I just read a 75 comment 'discussion' on a friend's FB page about that, and it made me want to bang my head on a wall.

[the_glow_worm]

I really appreciated this article. The root of the anti-GMO movement is anti-science sentiment, period.

[sesmo]

I would disagree. There are plenty of scientists who oppose GMO. Why? Because monoculture is bad. Because we have plenty of evidence the GMO strains do cross-breed, and push out other species. Because in most cases GMO means pesticide resistance, which leads to more pesticide applications & thus much worse run-off problems. Because there are a number of GMO products that have literally had no multi-year tests, on safety for humans or danger to the environment. Because we know that GMO impact local insect life negatively. Oh, and also, because the companies that sell GMO are evil bastards and we'd prefer not to have more of our food supply depend on them.

You don't have to be anti-science to believe that having GMO planting in sensitive environments like Hawaii is a terrible idea.

[rex_dart]

You have said literally nothing in any of these comments that implies that GMOs are bad, but you have made a LOT of arguments in favor of regulation of a very wide variety of corporate and agricultural practices.

Basically you're arguing in favor of banning kitchen knives because knives are weapons and weapons like guns, bombs, and flamethrowers need to be regulated.

[sesmo]

Nope. I'm arguing in favor of not changing to a new kind of pan in your cooking, without making damn sure it's not going to kill your birds (don't use Teflon, that shit kills

[kittymink]

I don't have a problem with GMOs. The anti-GMO anti-Monsanto thing is a case of liberal woo-woo. Often we have conservative woo in America but liberals catch their own cases of woo too.

[apostle_of_eris]

For a while, I've been using the tag line
"GMO isn't evil.
Monsanto is evil."
Using GMO technology to sell vicious herbicides, and to sue farmers, is evil.

[romp]

you can't be defending Monsanto...

[kittymink]

I'm not, just that many of their critics have fixated on the anti-GMO issue which is unscientific nonsense.

[sentinelsoul]

Stupid question here, but isn't GMOs basically just breeding plants? And instead of doing it in the field crossing plants over, say, a hundred generations, it's done faster, over maybe a handful of generations, in a lab?

I have only a loose grasp of the nitty-gritty of genetics, admittedly, but for the life of me I can't figure out why people are throwing a fit over GMOs. It's just breeding desirable traits and resistances into crops which is what farmers have done since agriculture began, but because it's done via science and technology, it's now bad?

[slrcosmos]

That's exactly what I was thinking. People have been breeding desirable traits in plants for a very long time. I think we should have concens over large corporations having almost complete control over certin kinds of plants.

[the_siobhan]

Well, from my perspective it depends on the modification. Just as an example; if they are modifying plants to be resistant to high concentrations of herbicide, then they are specifically engineering a situation where farmers are dumping massive quantities of herbicide on their crops - and the herbicide might be the actual problem when it gets into the groundwater, etc. The food might be perfectly safe, that doesn't mean there aren't other problems with the production of it.

[skellington1]

There are some legitimate concerns about oversight because it can go so much faster that you're introducing a new thing all at once, so who knows what effect it may have on the environment. And they can introduce genes from other species, which they would not have been able to breed conventionally.

But... yeah. Many of the 'problems' people talk about with GMO crops are problems we already had with conventional plant breeding. Others are at the intersection of the *plant* and the *process* -- which is as much if not more about problems in industrial agriculture.

And then there's "GMOS WILL GIVE YOU CANCER!!!11!" which is just made up, as far as I can tell.

[moonshaz]

I'm the first to admit that I haven't had a good understanding of the issues surrounding GMOs, so it's good to read something balanced for once. Thanks for this.

[sesmo]

How is this balanced? It's quite clearly on one side of the argument and presents the other side as anti-science idiots.

[rex_dart]

In this case the other side IS made up of anti-science idiots. The conclusions presented - that GMOs have to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis and bad corporate and farming practices are, in fact, bad - are as balanced as you can get.

You're basically arguing that to be "balanced", an article concerning a scientific issue has to present pseudoscience and woo as an acceptable alternative.

[sesmo]

The conclusions not presented, though, are rather glaring.

Nothing about the impact on insects. Nothing about pesticide run-off, nothing about monoculture.

The idea that all GMO opponents are anti-science idiots is rather strange, given given the scientists who acknowledge that GMOs shouldn't be planted in sensitive environments: http://www.ensser.org/fileadmin/user_upload/131030_signatories_as_of_131030_lv.pdf