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Pick two: 1. Feed the world 2. Produce food organically 3. Don't genetically modify foods Before the Green Revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_R

Pick two: 1. Feed the world 2. Produce food organically 3. Don't genetically modify foods Before the Green Revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution) the world was facing a truly bleak scenario that involved massive food shortages. Of course, a large part of the Green Revolution was the usage of new fertilizers and pesticides, which we now understand have significant impact on the environment. GMOs provide a way to continue to realize the benefits of the Green Revolution without all of the chemical-related downsides. Well...unless you put Monsanto in charge. The real travesty of the current state of GMOs is that things like "Roundup-Ready" plants do nothing to reduce the usage of chemicals. There's also the cautionary lesson of bt-Corn and its impact on Monarch butterflies. Learn the lessons of the Green Revolution: you can feed the world with modified farming techniques, but those techniques should strive to lessen the impact on the environment and should be implemented carefully to avoid further unintended consequences.

scott_s 10y ago
> The real travesty of the current state of GMOs is that things like "Roundup-Ready" plants do nothing to reduce the usage of chemicals. In my understanding, this is not quite accurate. The perception of "organic" farming is that they do not use pesticides, but this is not accurate. Organic farming does use pesticides, but they just happen to not be synthetic - that is, the pesticides happen to be "naturally" occurring. But that does not necessarily make them safer. So, if you have a crop which is engineered to be resistant to a very particular, effective pesticide, then it is possible that you will end up using less overall pesticides when compared to organic farming. See http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/organic-pesticides/ http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/organic-pestici...
- jballanc 10y ago
  Sure, there are many, many nuances surrounding the whole GMO debate. It turns out that while bt-Corn could pose a threat to Monarchs, in practice (in the wild) the risk is negligible. (One might also ponder how to weigh protection of an insect species against providing food for humans.) And, as you point out, the whole pesticide/GMO equation is not as simple as it might seem. Nuance, moderation, and caution are the orders of the day, but these values seem to be increasingly scarce in a world of self-selecting echo chambers...
- failrate 10y ago
  I garden organically , and I use no pesticides. What "organic" pesticides are you thinking of? Edit: changed farm to garden
  - eli 10y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/sure-that-food-has-the-governments-organic-label-but-that-doesnt-mean-it-was-made-without-chemicals/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/sure-...
  - stonemetal 10y ago
    Any chemical that is naturally occurring is considered organic. To be specific here: https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/national-list https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/national-... is the USDA's list of chemicals that can be used and still be labeled organic.
  - AngrySkillzz 10y ago
    Lots of them [1]. Anything you buy at the store labeled "organic" could involve any of these substances, among others. In addition, because organic pesticides are less effective per unit, much more is applied to get the same benefit. [2] [1] http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&idno=7#se7.3.205_1601 http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f10... [2] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogsscientificamericancomscience-sushi20110718mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogss...
  - scott_s 10y ago
    From the piece I linked to, http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&idno=7#se7.3.205_1600 http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f10... When "gardening", you can probably do just fine without using pesticides. But when you farm crops as a business, you have to do something.
    - 10y ago
rsync 10y ago
"There's also the cautionary lesson of bt-Corn and its impact on Monarch butterflies." What is/was the solution to that ? If it is indeed a "cautionary tale" there is some response that we should be involved in, which, as far as I can tell is simply the anti GMO sentiment that (100 nobels) decry. What other response has there been ?
- jballanc 10y ago
  The USDA has a good page on this: https://www.ars.usda.gov/sites/monarch/ https://www.ars.usda.gov/sites/monarch/ The "cautionary tale" is that releasing GMO crops before their full impact has been studied and assessed only adds fuel to the GMO/anti-GMO fire. When it was found that bt-Corn could pose a risk to Monarchs, those in the anti-GMO camp had all the ammunition they needed to start shouting about GMOs being unsafe. When it was later found that the risk was negligible in practice, the GMO camp had all the reason they needed to continue turning a deaf ear to the anti-GMO camp.
Chathamization 10y ago
> Of course, a large part of the Green Revolution was the usage of new fertilizers and pesticides, which we now understand have significant impact on the environment. GMOs provide a way to continue to realize the benefits of the Green Revolution without all of the chemical-related downsides. Yes, but there very well may be other downsides. A lot of the utopian ideas for GMOs basically involve creating invasive species. We here about the potential of making species that can easily grow in areas where they couldn't grow at all before. But doing so could well pose an environmental risk (if these end up growing so well in areas that they end up disrupting the ecosystem). It might seem strange to think that too many edible plants could cause a problem, but it wouldn't be the first time (Kudzu is a good example). We're also not nearly at that point yet with current GMOs, but it seems to be what a lot of people are advocating. It'd be nice if we thought of the environmental downsides ahead of time, so that we don't keep saying "we now understand the environmental downsides of the tech we were using 30 years ago; but this new tech should be just fine" every few years.
- JPKab 10y ago
  FYI, the whole Kudzu thing is completely overblown. It's mostly a myth. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudzu-vine-ate-south-180956325/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudz... It was specifically planted in many visible areas like highway banks etc, so people's perception is wrongly skewed towards it being everywhere, when it's really not.
  - Chathamization 10y ago
    Thanks, though that doesn't seem to be saying that kudzu being a problem is a myth, but rather that there have been myths exaggerating the problems with kudzu (“I thought the whole world would someday be covered by it, that it would grow as fast as Jack’s beanstalk, and that every person on earth would have to live forever knee-deep in its leaves"). There does seem to be a consensus that kudzu is a problem (you can look at the USDA page about it), and the article doesn't dispute it.
zimbatm 10y ago
4. Have less people to feed 5. Redistribute food more equally
greenshackle 10y ago
An aside: Organic farmers use Bt too. As a spray. Bt proteins are a naturally occuring substance, after all. They argue the spray is not as bad as the GM crops due to the timing of exposure. I really don't know enough about insect biology to say if that makes sense. Glyphosate is certainly not a sustainable weed control solution but it's no worse than the herbicides that it replaced. I wonder if the biggest negative impact of biotech firms is not the chemicals but on IP and patents, hindering the positive development of GMOs, and to what extent proprietary software IP and patent rulings paved the way for them.

scott_s 10y ago

> The real travesty of the current state of GMOs is that things like "Roundup-Ready" plants do nothing to reduce the usage of chemicals. In my understanding, this is not quite accurate. The perception of "organic" farming is that they do not use pesticides, but this is not accurate. Organic farming does use pesticides, but they just happen to not be synthetic - that is, the pesticides happen to be "naturally" occurring. But that does not necessarily make them safer. So, if you have a crop which is engineered to be resistant to a very particular, effective pesticide, then it is possible that you will end up using less overall pesticides when compared to organic farming. See http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/organic-pesticides/ http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/organic-pestici...

jballanc 10y ago
Sure, there are many, many nuances surrounding the whole GMO debate. It turns out that while bt-Corn could pose a threat to Monarchs, in practice (in the wild) the risk is negligible. (One might also ponder how to weigh protection of an insect species against providing food for humans.) And, as you point out, the whole pesticide/GMO equation is not as simple as it might seem. Nuance, moderation, and caution are the orders of the day, but these values seem to be increasingly scarce in a world of self-selecting echo chambers...
failrate 10y ago
I garden organically , and I use no pesticides. What "organic" pesticides are you thinking of? Edit: changed farm to garden
- eli 10y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/sure-that-food-has-the-governments-organic-label-but-that-doesnt-mean-it-was-made-without-chemicals/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/sure-...
- stonemetal 10y ago
  Any chemical that is naturally occurring is considered organic. To be specific here: https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/national-list https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/national-... is the USDA's list of chemicals that can be used and still be labeled organic.
- AngrySkillzz 10y ago
  Lots of them [1]. Anything you buy at the store labeled "organic" could involve any of these substances, among others. In addition, because organic pesticides are less effective per unit, much more is applied to get the same benefit. [2] [1] http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&idno=7#se7.3.205_1601 http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f10... [2] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogsscientificamericancomscience-sushi20110718mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogss...
- scott_s 10y ago
  From the piece I linked to, http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&idno=7#se7.3.205_1600 http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f10... When "gardening", you can probably do just fine without using pesticides. But when you farm crops as a business, you have to do something.
  - 10y ago

rsync 10y ago

"There's also the cautionary lesson of bt-Corn and its impact on Monarch butterflies." What is/was the solution to that ? If it is indeed a "cautionary tale" there is some response that we should be involved in, which, as far as I can tell is simply the anti GMO sentiment that (100 nobels) decry. What other response has there been ?

jballanc 10y ago
The USDA has a good page on this: https://www.ars.usda.gov/sites/monarch/ https://www.ars.usda.gov/sites/monarch/ The "cautionary tale" is that releasing GMO crops before their full impact has been studied and assessed only adds fuel to the GMO/anti-GMO fire. When it was found that bt-Corn could pose a risk to Monarchs, those in the anti-GMO camp had all the ammunition they needed to start shouting about GMOs being unsafe. When it was later found that the risk was negligible in practice, the GMO camp had all the reason they needed to continue turning a deaf ear to the anti-GMO camp.

Chathamization 10y ago

> Of course, a large part of the Green Revolution was the usage of new fertilizers and pesticides, which we now understand have significant impact on the environment. GMOs provide a way to continue to realize the benefits of the Green Revolution without all of the chemical-related downsides. Yes, but there very well may be other downsides. A lot of the utopian ideas for GMOs basically involve creating invasive species. We here about the potential of making species that can easily grow in areas where they couldn't grow at all before. But doing so could well pose an environmental risk (if these end up growing so well in areas that they end up disrupting the ecosystem). It might seem strange to think that too many edible plants could cause a problem, but it wouldn't be the first time (Kudzu is a good example). We're also not nearly at that point yet with current GMOs, but it seems to be what a lot of people are advocating. It'd be nice if we thought of the environmental downsides ahead of time, so that we don't keep saying "we now understand the environmental downsides of the tech we were using 30 years ago; but this new tech should be just fine" every few years.

JPKab 10y ago
FYI, the whole Kudzu thing is completely overblown. It's mostly a myth. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudzu-vine-ate-south-180956325/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudz... It was specifically planted in many visible areas like highway banks etc, so people's perception is wrongly skewed towards it being everywhere, when it's really not.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  Thanks, though that doesn't seem to be saying that kudzu being a problem is a myth, but rather that there have been myths exaggerating the problems with kudzu (“I thought the whole world would someday be covered by it, that it would grow as fast as Jack’s beanstalk, and that every person on earth would have to live forever knee-deep in its leaves"). There does seem to be a consensus that kudzu is a problem (you can look at the USDA page about it), and the article doesn't dispute it.

zimbatm 10y ago

4. Have less people to feed 5. Redistribute food more equally

greenshackle 10y ago

An aside: Organic farmers use Bt too. As a spray. Bt proteins are a naturally occuring substance, after all. They argue the spray is not as bad as the GM crops due to the timing of exposure. I really don't know enough about insect biology to say if that makes sense. Glyphosate is certainly not a sustainable weed control solution but it's no worse than the herbicides that it replaced. I wonder if the biggest negative impact of biotech firms is not the chemicals but on IP and patents, hindering the positive development of GMOs, and to what extent proprietary software IP and patent rulings paved the way for them.