May 17, 2004

• I read both articles, but saw no mention of "capitulation", "betrayal", or "folding under pressure from the Bush Administration".
• There is a dot. Here is another dot. Over there is a Oil-for-Food-Coverup dot. Connect them. The resulting picture is a crying Statue of Liberty.
• Here is my opinion. Here are a couple of linked articles that do nothing to support it. The resulting picture is a weak FPP.
• The sheer number of articles of the European Union stance against GM foods/crops is too numerous to list. search EU trade war genetically modified excerpt:In May 2003, after initial delay due to the war against Iraq, the Bush administration officially accused the European Union of violating international trade agreements (with Canada and Argentina), in blocking imports of U.S. farm products through its long-standing ban on genetically modified foods. the BT-11 issue is important becuase the corn industry has a huge, powerful lobby. The US got Italy to vote 'yes' and Spain to shut the hell up.
• It's tinfoil time!
• I feel like advocating for GM food is capitulating to the US agricultural lobby. And before we all start pulling out tinfoil hat comments, being worried about GM food is not all just paranoia. I don't think GM food is dangerous, but it is often much less tasty - and you can understand why Europeans don't want their already pretty fine cuisine ruined. Foods, like the infamous hard tomatoes , are not always developed with nutrition and taste in mind (there is a reason such cooks as Alice Waters and the Slow Food movement tend to be against GM, etc), but for aiding mechanization and increasing sheer output, which might not be best for the society or the soil in question. But there are also more serious issues around GM foods and world agriculture. I was enrolled in a course on Agrarian Societies last term, and also attended talks at my university's Program in Agrarian Studies (here is the schedule of talks); they are not tinfoil hat people, but they do take GM as an issue worthy of debate. Their concerns are mostly around the impact of GM on native varieties and genetic diversity, and the impact of the agribusiness monopoly of GM food on third world farmers. One of the papers, presented Mauricio Bellon, a scholar from The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center branch in Mexico, was very interesting (and I wish I had read it more carefully - I only remember the basics). He wanted to get away from the knee jerk reaction by some against "frankenfoods" and to consider seriously the benefits and detriments of using GM foods, in his case, by Mexican farmers. I remember that he raised concerns that reliance on GM corn would impact the currently very diverse Mexican corn tradition (they maintain most of the sweet corn species for the world). There are different kinds of corn in Mexico for different purposes; corn good for feed, corn good for flour, corn good for boiling, also corn that produces a lot in a year of good rain, and corn that doesn't produce as much, but is more reliable in a year of bad rain. Farmers balance out their planting for what they need, like safety corn versus high production corn. But GM corn is not designed with Mexican farming, or that of any where in the developing world, in mind. He was saying that most of the farmers he worked with/studied tended to reuse their corn as seed corn to save money, but that GM crops don't produce well in the second generation. This leads to problems in seed acquisition. Also, many GM crops are best grown under ideal circumstances - just the right amount of water, just the right kind of fertilizer - which might not be possible. There are definitely crops which are being developed with the third world in mind - like rice varieties with more protein, or designed to grow under more adverse circumstances. But we have to stop and think about what crops are being GMd for before we assume that it is always an improvement. [comment continued]
• There are, of course, also all sorts of issues around economic power associated with GM. The GM agribusinesses develop these new strands to make money, and the more the better. They don't want to make crops that recycle well as seed; they want to sell you more seed. They also want to control that seed - already there have been a court battle in Canada over Monsanto accusing a farmer of stealing seed; he contended that it blew into his fields. There have been rumours that companies wish to develop varieties that will not seed at all. The end result will be a monopoly on seeds to mostly American based companies. No, we should not condemn GM out of hand. I have heard, for instance, that GM has really helped third world cotton growers by reducing the need for toxic hand applied pesticides. But we should stop and think a) what are we GMing for? b) what will the impact of GMing be on native varieties, diversity (you always want more plant diversity), and societies? and c) do GM crops come with economic consequences because of the current agro-corporation monopolies? (this is by no means an exhaustive list, I just like bullet pointing)
• Wow, jb. You've done your homework. Those are all interesting issues, and, I'll admit, ones that need to be looked at closely. But none are arguments for banning GM outright, as much of Europe has (had?) done, and many are advocating here. Don't taste as good? Find a non-GM source. Impacts traditional farming methods? My reaction is - things change...deal with it. If it matters, gov'ts can encourage traditional methods/crops. Mess up native species? Most are already messed up by importation of foreign species or by hybridization. Of course the big argument in favor of banning has been potential danger. As far as I know, there's no evidence of this. Quite the contrary...I know for a fact that many pesticides are dangerous, and if Monsanto can make crops that don't need to be sprayed with poisons, then I'll put it on my plate. And I'll even buy some Monsanto stock and make a few bucks from it, while I'm at it.
• I think the general thrust of concerns from stakeholders about GM (rather than popular or media driven issues) are largely around the socio-economic side of GM, and the way that impacts on nature and society. Basically, there is both economic and social (from governments and agencies) pressure on farmers to use GM and other improved varieties - often because they can produce more per acre. There isn't the same kind of pressure to preserve diversity - yet diversity in crops is its own kind of protection against pests. Something like the corn blight that hit in the 1970s wouldn't have devastated the US the way it did if 70% of the corn hadn't been all of the same variety. Mexico is a very special place for maize diversity - it holds all of the varieties from which the American farming industry develops their varieties - these are worth preserving. Hybridization doesn't hurt this diversity - it would increase it, in fact. But a social system of farming that is based on GM crops, which can only be bought in a very limited variety from companies which hold monopolies, would hurt this diversity. We do need to understand the scientific and ecological effects of GM better. There needs to be research on that. GMd cotton, as I mentioned, has been an ecological blessing - because it doesn't need as much pesticides as regular cotton (which is a really pesticide whore - it's also a nutrient sucker, terrible for the soil). But other GM crops may prove to be more dependant on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. And I think (in agreement with scholars who know much more about this sort of thing than I do) that the loss of species diversity, which would be an effect of adoption of GM crops as the system currently works, is itself a serious ecological danger. We have been genetically modifying crops since agriculture began, but haven't always been doing it in the same way (and in the same system) we are now. Basically more research should be done about the effects of GM crops on environment and society before we rush into condemning or promoting them. We can always take up GM crops if they prove to have more benefit than detriment - but can we correct all the detriments if they prove to be greater, if we jump in wholesale now? Will we have seed available to replace strains that don't work out well? Not unless someone thinks they are important enough to cultivate. I think I want to do more exploring of the CIMMYT website
• We should also not be so quick to say that we should just throw traditional farming out the window. The introduction of certain modern techniques of agriculture helped cause the Dust Bowl of the 1930s; white commercial farming of the same period increased soil erosion in Kenya, though they did, of course, blame it on native techniques. Modern agriculture is currently hurting the soil productivity of farms across North America - we produce by pumping chemical fertilizer into our soil, not by husbanding it as our ancestors used to, and the micro-biological life of soil has been damaged accordingly. One of the greatest pest protections has been crop rotation - but we don't do that any more, and we have more pesticide usage because of it. There is a lot to be learned from traditional farming - people don't use the same techniques for hundreds or thousands of years because they are stupid - they often have very good reasons for what they do. Swidden farming, also known as slash and burn, has been often disparaged as wasteful, because it means burning forests to produce new fields. But, as the detailed study of Hanunoo agriculture (in the Philippines) by Henry Conklin (1957) shows, these assessments are usually based on misconceptions, and misunderstanding of traditional agriculture. In the case of the Hanunoo, clearing virgin forest was avoided, as was much easier to clear secondary (it's thinner), and the system protected delicate soils much more than more modern agriculture would. The burning added ash and nutrients to the soil (a big issue in rain forest areas where soils can become leached), and the fact that they left the largest burned logs in place means that soil didn't erode downhill as quickly. After a season or two the field was abandoned, and the forest replaced itself quickly. It's not a system that would work well in a situation of high population density, but if uniquely adapted to producing high yields with less labour (and thus a better quality of life) from less than desirable land (hilly rainforest areas, with leached soils). Here is a more recent discussion of swidden agriculture, also based on research in the Philippines. I'm sorry for such very long comments
• Zoiks - JB your well informed! My concern, FWIW, is given that no one really knows, 100%, what the introduction of these genetic strains will do, are we right to introduce them knowing that they cannot be 'unintroduced'? We're all going to feel pretty faaaahhhkin silly if we adopt the latest and greatest wheat strain and it turns out to be genetically convergent to the point of sterility in 20 generations or so. Not to metion pretty faaaahhhhkin hungry. Is it 0.001% chance? Smaller? Even smaller? Should we ever roll the dice if its not zero?
• and if Monsanto can make crops that don't need to be sprayed with poisons *laughs ass off* It's not just about selling seed, it's also about optimising seed stocks to Monsanto pesticides. Google "Round Up Ready" for more info.
• Anything that can happen has a chance, (admittedly this chance can be so close to zero it may as well be) of happening. The dice have been tossed, and they get tossed again every incredibly small unit of time for every possibility. /tiny math/philosophy knowledge. FWIW, I don't see it as betraying the world. The world will continue whether we do or not after all. Disaster strikes, and we no longer have grain/corn/papayas, humanity'd still survive. Just be a lot less of us.
• Wolof, I'll admit that I'm not happy about a GM crop that enables a farmer to dump Round Up all over his field several times a year. I fear the real dangers of these chemicals much more than the imagined danger of ingesting GM food. But have a look at Bt Corn, which allows for less chemical spraying. Most of the arguments coming from the anti-GM camp seem to be based on simple fear of an unknown technology, and/or hatred of Monsanto as a corporation. There's often not a lot of science behind it (jb's informative posts notwithstanding). I don't advocate wholesale acceptance of any new GM derivative, but I have no reason not to trust it as much as I trust any food I didn't grow myself.
• An argument that doesn't fit in your above category. Its not really about trusting the food in itself. It is about control of the supply.
• US sent banned corn to Europe for four years