How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
I've posted this GMO article below, because my sense is alot of people are freaked out about GMOs, without having knowledge of studies, field trials, and articles that point to the value of some GMO foods. This is a controversial subject. I'm posting this in the interest of being well informed. Please don't bomb my house.
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SundayReview | OPINION
How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food
By MARK LYNAS
APRIL 24, 2015
NAIROBI, Kenya — Mohammed Rahman doesn’t know it yet, but his small farm in central Bangladesh is globally significant. Mr. Rahman, a smallholder farmer in Krishnapur, about 60 miles northwest of the capital, Dhaka, grows eggplant on his meager acre of waterlogged land.
As we squatted in the muddy field, examining the lush green foliage and shiny purple fruits, he explained how, for the first time this season, he had been able to stop using pesticides. This was thanks to a new pest-resistant variety of eggplant supplied by the government-run Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute.
Despite a recent hailstorm, the weather had been kind, and the new crop flourished. Productivity nearly doubled. Mr. Rahman had already harvested the small plot 10 times, he said, and sold the brinjal (eggplant’s name in the region) labeled “insecticide free” at a small premium in the local market. Now, with increased profits, he looked forward to being able to lift his family further out of poverty. I could see why this was so urgent: Half a dozen shirtless kids gathered around, clamoring for attention. They all looked stunted by malnutrition.
In a rational world, Mr. Rahman would be receiving support from all sides. He is improving the environment and tackling poverty. Yet the visit was rushed, and my escorts from the research institute were nervous about permitting me to speak with him at all.
The new variety had been subjected to incendiary coverage in the local press, and campaign groups based in Dhaka were suing to have the pest-resistant eggplant banned. Activists had visited some of the fields and tried to pressure the farmers to uproot their crops. Our guides from the institute warned that there was a continuing threat of violence — and they were clearly keen to leave.
Why was there such controversy? Because Mr. Rahman’s pest-resistant eggplant was produced using genetic modification. A gene transferred from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (more commonly known by the abbreviation “Bt”), produces a protein that kills the Fruit and Shoot Borer, a species of moth whose larvae feed on the eggplant, without the need for pesticide sprays. (The protein is entirely nontoxic to other insects and indeed humans.)
Conventional eggplant farmers in Bangladesh are forced to spray their crops as many as 140 times during the growing season, and pesticide poisoning is a chronic health problem in rural areas. But because Bt brinjal is a hated G.M.O., or genetically modified organism, it is Public Enemy No.1 to environmental groups everywhere.
The stakes are especially high because Mr. Rahman is one of only 108 farmers in Bangladesh currently permitted to try out the new variety. Moreover, this is among the first genetically modified food crops to be grown by farmers anywhere in the developing world. Virtually every crop, in every other country, has so far been blocked.
In neighboring India, green campaigners managed to secure a nationwide moratorium against the genetically modified eggplant in 2010. In the Philippines, a Greenpeace-led coalition has tied up the variety in litigation for two years. Greenpeace activists took the precaution of wrecking field trials first, by pulling up the plants.
I, too, was once in that activist camp. A lifelong environmentalist, I opposed genetically modified foods in the past. Fifteen years ago, I even participated in vandalizing field trials in Britain. Then I changed my mind. After writing two books on the science of climate change, I decided I could no longer continue taking a pro-science position on global warming and an anti-science position on G.M.O.s.
There is an equivalent level of scientific consensus on both issues, I realized, that climate change is real and genetically modified foods are safe. I could not defend the expert consensus on one issue while opposing it on the other.
In Africa, however, countries have fallen like dominoes to anti-G.M. campaigns. I am writing this at a biotechnology conference in Nairobi, where the government slapped a G.M.O. import ban in 2012 after activists brandished pictures of rats with tumors and claimed that G.M. foods caused cancer.
The origin of the scare was a French scientific paper that was later retracted by the journal in which it was originally published because of numerous flaws in methodology. Yet Kenya’s ban remains, creating a food-trade bottleneck that will raise prices, worsening malnutrition and increasing poverty for millions.
In Uganda, the valuable banana crop is being devastated by a new disease called bacterial wilt, while the starchy cassava, a subsistence staple, has been hit by two deadly viruses. Biotech scientists have produced resistant varieties of both crops using genetic modification, but anti-G.M.O. groups have successfully prevented the Ugandan Parliament from passing a biosafety law necessary for their release.
An eminent Ghanaian scientist whom I met recently had received such a high level of harassment from campaigners that he was considering taking a dossier to the police. Activists in his country have also gone to court to stall progress in biotech development.
The environmental movement’s war against genetic engineering has led to a deepening rift with the scientific community. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center and the American Association for the Advancement of Science showed a greater gap between scientists and the public on G.M.O.s than on any other scientific controversy: While 88 percent of association scientists agreed it was safe to eat genetically modified foods, only 37 percent of the public did — a gap in perceptions of 51 points. (The gap on climate change was 37 points; on childhood vaccinations, 18 points.)
On genetic engineering, environmentalists have been markedly more successful than climate change deniers or anti-vaccination campaigners in undermining public understanding of science. The scientific community is losing this battle. If you need visual confirmation of that, try a Google Images search for the term “G.M.O.” Scary pictures proliferate, from an archetypal evil scientist injecting tomatoes with a syringe — an utterly inaccurate representation of the real process of genetic engineering — to tumor-riddled rats and ghoulish chimeras like fish-apples.
In Europe, leaders in Brussels propose to empower all member states of the European Union to ban genetically modified crops, if they so wish. Hungary has even written anti-G.M.O. ideology into its Constitution. Peru has enacted a 10-year moratorium.
As someone who participated in the early anti-G.M.O. movement, I feel I owe a debt to Mr. Rahman and other farmers in developing countries who could benefit from this technology. At Cornell, I am working to amplify the voices of farmers and scientists in a more informed conversation about what biotechnology can bring to food security and environmental protection.
No one claims that biotech is a silver bullet. The technology of genetic modification can’t make the rains come on time or ensure that farmers in Africa have stronger land rights. But improved seed genetics can make a contribution in all sorts of ways: It can increase disease resistance and drought tolerance, which are especially important as climate change continues to bite; and it can help tackle hidden malnutritional problems like vitamin A deficiency.
We need this technology. We must not let the green movement stand in its way.
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
In the interest of being even better informed, here are 2 links that call the following statement into question:
Why was there such controversy? Because Mr. Rahman’s pest-resistant eggplant was produced using genetic modification. A gene transferred from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (more commonly known by the abbreviation “Bt”), produces a protein that kills the Fruit and Shoot Borer, a species of moth whose larvae feed on the eggplant, without the need for pesticide sprays. (The protein is entirely nontoxic to other insects and indeed humans.)
From this article:
GM Bt toxins are engineered into plants with promoters designed to keep the Bt toxin protein expressing in every cell of the plant. The Bt is ingested by animals and people who consume crop plants like Bt maize. The natural Bt used in agricultural sprays, by contrast, degrades rapidly in daylight and does not end up being eaten by people, so it is unlikely to ever end up in consumers' bodies.
This is fortunate because even natural Bt can cause harm when ingested. While the GM lobbying website, GMO Safety, claims, "the Bt protein is harmless to mammals and humans", in fact, studies show that natural Bt toxin has ill effects on laboratory animals, producing a potent immune response and enhancing the immune response to other substances
And in another article:
Till now, scientists and multinational corporations promoting GM crops have maintained that Bt toxin poses no danger to human health as the protein breaks down in the human gut. But the presence of this toxin in human blood shows that this does not happen.
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
The World According To Monsanto (full-length film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6_DbVdVo-k
The Truth About GMOs (scientific article from our website)
https://occupysonomacounty.org/content/truth-about-gmos
GM Watch (international scientific organization)
https://www.gmwatch.org/
Occupy Sonoma County (website)
https://OccupySonomaCounty.org
GMO Free Sonoma County (website)
https://www.gmofreesonomacounty.com/
Global March Against Monsanto
May 23rd, 2-5 PM
Old Courthouse Square, 3rd & Mendocino, Santa Rosa
Permitted march and rally with speakers, music and non-GMO food
Pay-What-You-Can Plant Sale
Free Seed Exchange
GMO Food Heroes Shopper's Guides and Free Food Samples
Here is the international list of 400 marches happening in 50 countries
on May 23rd.
https://OccupySonomaCounty.org
https://www.gmofreesonomacounty.com/
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by tommy:
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
This is from Jon Carroll's column in yesterday's S.F.Chronicle:
(GMOs have had enormous benefits in the Third World, including increasing agricultural yields. Also, a genetically modified mosquito has decreased dengue fever, and a genetically modified cow can no longer pass on trypanosomiasis to humans via the tsetse fly. The GMO debate isn’t just about Monsanto and pesticides.)
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by tommy:
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
I am not totally against the idea of GMOs, as they hold great promise. However I fear there is insufficient caution and wisdom being applied to the god-like technology, and worse, the technology is being used by bad actors (ie Monsanto) for pursuit of short term profit instead of wise action.
Case in point is the breeding of Bt into crops. While on the surface this doesn't seem quite as terrible as their breeding in roundup-restistance into crops, it is still very short sighted. With the near-universal prevalence of the bt genes in many crops, it's just a matter of a small number of years until the bugs evolve to be resistant to it, rendering not-only Monsanto's GMO seeds useless, but it also effectively removes Bt from the arsenal of pest-fighting tools for all growers of all crops, including organic growers. So Sad.
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
The biotech industry claims that GMOs are designed to increase yields as a way to feed the world but in fact the yields have proved to be far smaller than non-GM. Have you heard about the mass suicides of farmers in India? This is why. They also claim that GMOs are designed to decrease the use of pesticides, when what they have actually done is create crops that are resistant to herbicides so that they can heavily spray their product, RoundUp, several times per growing season. This has resulted in a huge increase of poisons sprayed on our food. Some of these plants are genetically modified to produce their own pesticides so no pesticide sprays are needed because they are embedded in the plant. This is what people are eating if they get their food at a conventional grocery store.
If anyone thinks that Monsanto and the biotech industry is a group of philanthropists with a primary concern about poverty and feeding the poor of the world they have forgotten the prime directive of all corporations which is profit. By monopolizing the patents on seeds and selling seeds that require heavy spraying of their own Roundup they are clearly profit motivated. If anyone thinks that glyphosate (Roundup) is safe to eat on our food I suggest that you listen to what Stephanie Seneff has to say about that. She is a medical researcher at MIT who has been researching the effects of glyphosate on all of the major illnesses. After listening to her interviews I think that you will think twice about ever eating anything that has been sprayed with glyphosate. See her interviews included below.
If you watch the link to the movie The World According To Monsanto that I posted yesterday (or you can go to Youtube and find the video) you will have an opportunity to witness and evaluate for yourself the long history that Monsanto has of lying and making completely false claims. They are liars and they have been caught lying over and over. You can check that out for yourself before you decide if you want to trust them to invent a mosquito.
In countries around the world where GMOs have been tested and linked to cancer, autism, and other diseases, they have been banned. In Argentina right now there are huge fields of GMO crops with an astronomical increase of cancers among the people living around these fields. Please dig a little deeper than what the biotech industry claims and get the real research that has been happening around the world. Here are some links to more information and I will gladly post more as more questions arise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFnqvPptcEc (Jeffrey Smith on the recent GMO apple and potato)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKmNf2Gk8rU (GMOs explained in a nutshell)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_AHLDXF5aw (Stephanie Seneff interviewed by Jeffrey Smith)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIC58VpYE4A (Stephanie Seneff interviewed by Joseph Mercola)
Global March Against Monsanto
Saturday, May 23rd, 2-5 PM
Old Courthouse Square, 3rd & Mendocino, Santa Rosa
Permitted march and rally with speakers, music, and non-GMO food.
Pay-What-You-Can Plant Sale
Free Seed Exchange (bring your extra seeds to share)
GMO Food Heroes Shoppers Guides & Free Food Samples
For more information go to https://OccupySonomaCounty.org or call 707-877-6650.
Together we can stop GMOs!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Sara S:
This is from Jon Carroll's column in yesterday's S.F.Chronicle:
(GMOs have had enormous benefits in the Third World, including increasing agricultural yields. Also, a genetically modified mosquito has decreased dengue fever, and a genetically modified cow can no longer pass on trypanosomiasis to humans via the tsetse fly. The GMO debate isn’t just about Monsanto and pesticides.)
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
Here is more information about the world concerns that have been raised about GMOs.
This video is of a mom who tells the truth about what these crops are doing to her family and village:
https://www.momsacrosstheworld.com/videos?utm_campaign=videos&utm_medium=email&utm_source=yesmaam
There are also three other videos in this link with moms talking about GMOs in their countries.
The "feed the world" hype by the biotech industry is simply BS PR.
Here is more information about Mark Lynas who wrote the article that first got posted on this thread:
https://www.alternet.org/food/uncovering-real-story-behind-mark-lynas-conversion-climate-change-journalist-cheerleader
https://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/01/mark-lynas-failed-attempt-end-gm-debate
Global March Against Monsanto
Saturday, May 23rd, 2-5 PM
Old Courthouse Square, 3rd & Mendocino, Santa Rosa
Permitted march and rally with speakers, music, and non-GMO food.
Pay-What-You-Can Plant Sale
Free Seed Exchange (bring your extra seeds to share)
GMO Food Heroes Shoppers Guides & Free Food Samples
For more information go to https://OccupySonomaCounty.org or call 707-877-6650.
Together we can stop GMOs!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by EmeraldMatra:
The biotech industry claims that GMOs are designed to increase yields as a way to feed the world but in fact the yields have proved to be far smaller than non-GM. Have you heard about the mass suicides of farmers in India?...
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
It devalues your argument when you write statements such as :"If anyone thinks that Monsanto and the biotech industry is a group of philanthropists with a primary concern about poverty and feeding the poor of the world". I have not posted, or heard anyone say anything like that, other than your post.
It's this kind of argement that's made over and over against GMOs - emotion laced falsehoods... similar to arguments against the vaccination of children. There is an ago-old fear of science, and change. The statistic that most impressed me in the article was that 68% of scientists see no harm in GMO foods. A cursory experience of the power of the internet and mass media to spread false hoods, and marginal political points of view, goes a long way in explaining the hysteria against GMOs.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by EmeraldMatra:
The biotech industry claims that GMOs are designed to increase yields as a way to feed the world but in fact the yields have proved to be far smaller than non-GM. Have you heard about the mass suicides of farmers in India? ...
Re: How I Got Converted to GMO Food - New York Times 4/26/15
In this world of accelerating science we are under pressure to do our own research. We listen to each other, we give our opinions, but in the end we make up our own mind about whether or not to trust these products.
Unfortunately, often we are not given that choice. There's a huge fight going on about labeling GMOs so that people can make that choice. If this is a safe science then why is this fight going on? ... why not label these products?
It's very similar to the vaccine controversy in that people are not allowed to exercise their freedom of choice .... though you can argue that those children who are not vaccinated can contribute to the overall danger of disease in our communities, you can not make a similar argument regarding GMOs ... I see no logical reason to suppress the labeling of these products ...
