6 ms·

With regards to GMOs, the green revolution (as I understand it[1], partly using GMOs to increase food production, especially in developing countries) is often d

by colah3 8y ago

With regards to GMOs, the green revolution (as I understand it[1], partly using GMOs to increase food production, especially in developing countries) is often described as saving a billion lives. On a brief glance, I can't find a detailed estimate of the Humanitarian effects, but Borlaug received a Nobel peace prize for it and that scale of impact does seem plausible. [1] See discussion below about relative importance of engineering disease resistant varieties vs fertilizers and pesticides. I only have a vague familiarity with the green revolution and could be mistaken.

aetherson 8y ago
That's not what the green revolution was. It was pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. While GMOs are not harmful and banning them is overall bad, they don't have nearly the same magnitude of impact on agricultural productivity as herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers.
- colah3 8y ago
  Thanks for the feedback - I've updated my comment to express uncertainty. As I understand it, a big part of the green revolution, especially initially, was Borlaug developing a strand of wheat that was resistant to many common diseases and had higher yields. This seems born out by a quick skim of his [wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug), although I'm sure nitrogen fertilizer, etc, also played large roles. I don't have the time to do a deep dive right now, so I've just updated my previous comment to be uncertain.
  - aetherson 8y ago
    That's legit. I think that with further reading, the nuanced view is that it's both the high-yield strains of staple foods that Borlaug developed and the high-input farming style, in combination. But my point is actually that modern GMO plants, the Monsanto ones that people are currently freaking out about, don't revolutionize yields. They improve them on the margin, but it's not another green revolution, at least so far.
  - kickout 8y ago
    Its mostly well accepted in plant breeding circles that the improvement in crop yields in North America in the last ~30-40 years can be 66% attributed to genetic progress (i.e higher yield, more disease/pest tolerance, better adaptation, etc.) and the remaining 33% can be attributed to agronomic factors (i.e earlier planting, better/more precise equipment, better soil/nutrient management, etc.)
- cbsmith 8y ago
  Norman Borlaug would disagree with your characterization of the green revolution. Much of the Green Revolution involved the plant breeding.
- cyphar 8y ago
  I completely disagree. Quite a lot of the work done during the Green Revolution was breeding plants that were more hardy and resilient to the environment. For instance, Norman Borlaug worked on strains of wheat that were resistant to stem rust (something that had caused starvation in Mexico several years earlier). Pesticides, herbicides, nor fertilisers help with stem rust. GMOs also allow the breeding of plants that have higher yield, which is something we need if we want to feed the world. You also have things like Golden Rice, which help people who have vitamin A deficiencies and don't have access to vitamin A sources to be able to get vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiencies kill almost a million children under 5 each year especially in South-East Asia. It is only practical to solve this problem through GMOs. (Greenpeace also protested Golden Rice, meaning they protested against programs that can save tens of millions of children. Whether or not you hold that against them is up to you, but if they want to play the "blood on your hands" game I don't see why I shouldn't.) To be clear; pesticides, herbicides, and fertilisers are very important to agriculture and many more people would be starving without them. But the same is true of GMOs -- they are more than just "not harmful"; they are necessary.
  - kurthr 8y ago
    Breeding (even hybridizing) plants is not considered GMO or all carrots, corn, and avocados would be considered the same. I'm a supporter of GMO, but directly modifying (or inserting) genes is different from selective breeding and even cloning. I don't particularly like breeding plants that are (more) tolerant of high doses of proprietary pesticides (insect=animal killers) or even herbicides, because like overusing anti-biotech at low doses for feed lot weight gain it is a recipe for eventual disaster.
    - cyphar 8y ago
      > Breeding (even hybridizing) plants is not considered GMO or all carrots, corn, and avocados would be considered the same. It is a different technique, but the purpose is the same. [1] gives a good overview over why discriminating between the "more natural" genetic modification techniques and the "less natural" ones is not a reasonable middle-ground. Healthy skepticism around particular GMOs (meaning particular plants) is completely fine (and should be encouraged -- like all skepticism), but skepticism around all plants produced by a given group of techniques doesn't make much sense imo. Regarding proprietary pesticides, there is a legitimate issue there (as there is with the patenting of biotech -- or patents in general) but it has been hijacked by anti-GMO protests making claims that farmers were sued because of cross-contamination from other farms and similarly false statements. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcbTVEr3_X4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcbTVEr3_X4
petre 8y ago
I'm sure Monsanto and the GMO lobby's objective was saving lives in developing countries, not profits. When they pushed GMOs bundled with pesticides and herbicides they did so aided by the corruption in these countries, where the farmers were doing quite fine replanting seeds. Now they're abusing a BASF product to ripen tomatoes overnight.
- azernik 8y ago
  Who gives a shit about motivation? Do you care if your take-out food was made in the expectation of a financial return, or does it need to be made out of the restaurant owner's sincere love of feeding strangers?
  - toofy 8y ago
    Considering what motivates someone can often be useful. People can behave and make drastically different choices based solely on motivation. People will often pick and choose what information they choose to share or choose to hide based largely on the motivations that are driving their project. Motivation can drastically alter the way an idea is presented to the audience in which it is being presented. Obviously we would prefer to have one hundred percent accurate information to base all of our decisions on but sadly, we don’t —- considering the motives of those who are selling us whatever they’re selling is wise.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Motivations here as are complex as the players involved. It's entirely reasonable to expect that researchers who invented e.g. golden rice were thinking about the lives it'll save. It's also entirely reasonable to expect companies to support development and deployment of it because it's profitable for them. On a less extreme end, companies sure want crops with improved resistance to pathogens and insects for profit reasons, but this is the case where their incentives somewhat align with public good.
      - toofy 8y ago
realusername 8y ago
> the green revolution (as I understand it[1], partly using GMOs to increase food production, especially in developing countries) is often described as saving a billion lives. This argument is moot, industrialisation saved those lives, not GMO, GMO only provides a 5% increase to crops in the developed world. Tractors, fertilizers and proper agricultural techniques saved the developed world (just like it did in the current developed one) not GMO.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  Furthermore, currently, world-wide more people die from the "side effects" of too much food; not enough is not the challenge. We have the food. It's just "unevenly distributed." Furthermore, my sense is, the argument for the world needing GMOs is based on the animal protein heavy diet. Such animals are resource / feed intensive. Shift the diet to less meats and more plants and the fact is you feed more. I'm not here to make a case for zero meat. Only the the pro GMO argument is based on a myth, a myth that I've seen plenty of reasonable people buy into.
  - CompelTechnic 8y ago
    I think as the developing world grows economically we will continue to see higher demand for meat. Eventually the only thing stopping higher meat consumption will be the fact that the price has been pushed higher and higher by limited worldwide production capacity intersecting with high demand.
    - chiefalchemist 8y ago
      I don't disagree. But the "need" for so much meat is a myth. The level of. First World meat consumption is bad for the planet, and bad for those who consume it. Health, ethic, eco and moral downsides. Yet we're sooo blinded and confused.
  - collinmanderson 8y ago
    Isn't there a chance GMOs will be able to allow the crops to be (chemical) pesticide free, so that way you can avoid putting cancer-causing chemicals on the food in the first place. That seems like a huge win to me.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
Like others have commented below GMOs (well, GMO crops specifically) were not the main driver of the Green Revolution. So the question remains- what are the harms that can come about by not using GMOs? My understanding is that, at this point in time, the harms are primarily financial. For instance, when the EU imposed a moratorium on GMO crops, the reaction was primarily for countries that, until then, sold GMO crops to EU countries, to complain to the WTO about trade agreement violations- in other words, their financial interests were damaged. As to issues of food security and feeding the people of developed nations, as I understand it, there is an ongoing debate on whether GMO crops are really needed to achieve this, or whether better management of existing agricultural resources, or better distribution of current food production, can do the job. In other words- GMOs may be beneficial, so not necessary, therefore not using them would not lead to harm.
- bluGill 8y ago
  No, the harms are environmental. Spraying weed killers (ie glyphosate) uses much less carbon than the mechanical methods. Tractors pulling something through the soil need a lot of fuel. A sprayer running over the same field spraying a gallon of glyphosate uses much less fuel. If you have any concern about global warming you should demand that only GMO crops be grown. Note that I work for John Deere. We sell to farmers who are both for and against GMO so I'm not supposed to have a bias, but I still need to make this connection clear.
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
As a separate comment, since it's a bit of a digression- the Green Revolution has not been all good. High yield agriculture has an -I believe- uncontroversial effect on the environment, including habitat loss and reduced crop biodiversity, but apparently also carbon emissions (because it relies on fossil fuels). There's a discussion of the environmental impacts on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution#Environmental... This includes an ominous note about reliance on non-renewable resources: Dependence on non-renewable resources Most high intensity agricultural production is highly reliant on non-renewable resources. Agricultural machinery and transport, as well as the production of pesticides and nitrates all depend on fossil fuels.[73] Moreover, the essential mineral nutrient phosphorus is often a limiting factor in crop cultivation, while phosphorus mines are rapidly being depleted worldwide.[74] The failure to depart from these non-sustainable agricultural production methods could potentially lead to a large scale collapse of the current system of intensive food production within this century. In other words, the Green Revolution may not be much more sustainable than the Industrial Revolution and may prove to be just as harmful further down the line, exactly because it allowed us to feed an additional 5 billion mouths or so. I guess the argument is that it doesn't really scale that well.
- neolefty 8y ago
  including habitat loss It's not quite that simple—in many places increasing yields means using less land. In particular, leaving marginal land fallow. But the factors are pretty complicated, in the US especially dominated by policy: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919217305560 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030691921... On the other hand, how much land was exhausted and then left fallow? How much was taken over for other uses (such as urbanization)? And if we hadn't had yield increases, would we be using more land now? Or just eat less meat? Edit: While worldwide agricultural land has increased, in the US it decreased from 63% to 51% of the total 1949-2007 according to this survey, which draws from USDA data: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature-how-is-land-used/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature...
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
ageofwant 8y ago
Saved a billion ~human~ lives, perhaps. It caused the death and destruction of many billions of non-human lives. It massively reduced bio-diversity on 90% of the earths surface. It has to be said, it has to be acknowledged, the 'progress' of man has come at an extraordinary cost to every other living thing.
- ksk 8y ago
  Do you believe that a human life should be valued more than say, a worm?
Applejinx 8y ago
Hunger is not an efficiency problem. Hunger is a political problem. Handwaving that away to propagandize for an industrial food corporation is… not good.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by colah3 8y ago

aetherson 8y ago

That's not what the green revolution was. It was pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. While GMOs are not harmful and banning them is overall bad, they don't have nearly the same magnitude of impact on agricultural productivity as herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers.

colah3 8y ago
Thanks for the feedback - I've updated my comment to express uncertainty. As I understand it, a big part of the green revolution, especially initially, was Borlaug developing a strand of wheat that was resistant to many common diseases and had higher yields. This seems born out by a quick skim of his [wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug), although I'm sure nitrogen fertilizer, etc, also played large roles. I don't have the time to do a deep dive right now, so I've just updated my previous comment to be uncertain.
- aetherson 8y ago
  That's legit. I think that with further reading, the nuanced view is that it's both the high-yield strains of staple foods that Borlaug developed and the high-input farming style, in combination. But my point is actually that modern GMO plants, the Monsanto ones that people are currently freaking out about, don't revolutionize yields. They improve them on the margin, but it's not another green revolution, at least so far.
- kickout 8y ago
  Its mostly well accepted in plant breeding circles that the improvement in crop yields in North America in the last ~30-40 years can be 66% attributed to genetic progress (i.e higher yield, more disease/pest tolerance, better adaptation, etc.) and the remaining 33% can be attributed to agronomic factors (i.e earlier planting, better/more precise equipment, better soil/nutrient management, etc.)
cbsmith 8y ago
Norman Borlaug would disagree with your characterization of the green revolution. Much of the Green Revolution involved the plant breeding.
cyphar 8y ago
I completely disagree. Quite a lot of the work done during the Green Revolution was breeding plants that were more hardy and resilient to the environment. For instance, Norman Borlaug worked on strains of wheat that were resistant to stem rust (something that had caused starvation in Mexico several years earlier). Pesticides, herbicides, nor fertilisers help with stem rust. GMOs also allow the breeding of plants that have higher yield, which is something we need if we want to feed the world. You also have things like Golden Rice, which help people who have vitamin A deficiencies and don't have access to vitamin A sources to be able to get vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiencies kill almost a million children under 5 each year especially in South-East Asia. It is only practical to solve this problem through GMOs. (Greenpeace also protested Golden Rice, meaning they protested against programs that can save tens of millions of children. Whether or not you hold that against them is up to you, but if they want to play the "blood on your hands" game I don't see why I shouldn't.) To be clear; pesticides, herbicides, and fertilisers are very important to agriculture and many more people would be starving without them. But the same is true of GMOs -- they are more than just "not harmful"; they are necessary.
- kurthr 8y ago
  Breeding (even hybridizing) plants is not considered GMO or all carrots, corn, and avocados would be considered the same. I'm a supporter of GMO, but directly modifying (or inserting) genes is different from selective breeding and even cloning. I don't particularly like breeding plants that are (more) tolerant of high doses of proprietary pesticides (insect=animal killers) or even herbicides, because like overusing anti-biotech at low doses for feed lot weight gain it is a recipe for eventual disaster.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    > Breeding (even hybridizing) plants is not considered GMO or all carrots, corn, and avocados would be considered the same. It is a different technique, but the purpose is the same. [1] gives a good overview over why discriminating between the "more natural" genetic modification techniques and the "less natural" ones is not a reasonable middle-ground. Healthy skepticism around particular GMOs (meaning particular plants) is completely fine (and should be encouraged -- like all skepticism), but skepticism around all plants produced by a given group of techniques doesn't make much sense imo. Regarding proprietary pesticides, there is a legitimate issue there (as there is with the patenting of biotech -- or patents in general) but it has been hijacked by anti-GMO protests making claims that farmers were sued because of cross-contamination from other farms and similarly false statements. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcbTVEr3_X4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcbTVEr3_X4

petre 8y ago

I'm sure Monsanto and the GMO lobby's objective was saving lives in developing countries, not profits. When they pushed GMOs bundled with pesticides and herbicides they did so aided by the corruption in these countries, where the farmers were doing quite fine replanting seeds. Now they're abusing a BASF product to ripen tomatoes overnight.

azernik 8y ago
Who gives a shit about motivation? Do you care if your take-out food was made in the expectation of a financial return, or does it need to be made out of the restaurant owner's sincere love of feeding strangers?
- toofy 8y ago
  Considering what motivates someone can often be useful. People can behave and make drastically different choices based solely on motivation. People will often pick and choose what information they choose to share or choose to hide based largely on the motivations that are driving their project. Motivation can drastically alter the way an idea is presented to the audience in which it is being presented. Obviously we would prefer to have one hundred percent accurate information to base all of our decisions on but sadly, we don’t —- considering the motives of those who are selling us whatever they’re selling is wise.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Motivations here as are complex as the players involved. It's entirely reasonable to expect that researchers who invented e.g. golden rice were thinking about the lives it'll save. It's also entirely reasonable to expect companies to support development and deployment of it because it's profitable for them. On a less extreme end, companies sure want crops with improved resistance to pathogens and insects for profit reasons, but this is the case where their incentives somewhat align with public good.
    - toofy 8y ago

realusername 8y ago

> the green revolution (as I understand it[1], partly using GMOs to increase food production, especially in developing countries) is often described as saving a billion lives. This argument is moot, industrialisation saved those lives, not GMO, GMO only provides a 5% increase to crops in the developed world. Tractors, fertilizers and proper agricultural techniques saved the developed world (just like it did in the current developed one) not GMO.

chiefalchemist 8y ago
Furthermore, currently, world-wide more people die from the "side effects" of too much food; not enough is not the challenge. We have the food. It's just "unevenly distributed." Furthermore, my sense is, the argument for the world needing GMOs is based on the animal protein heavy diet. Such animals are resource / feed intensive. Shift the diet to less meats and more plants and the fact is you feed more. I'm not here to make a case for zero meat. Only the the pro GMO argument is based on a myth, a myth that I've seen plenty of reasonable people buy into.
- CompelTechnic 8y ago
  I think as the developing world grows economically we will continue to see higher demand for meat. Eventually the only thing stopping higher meat consumption will be the fact that the price has been pushed higher and higher by limited worldwide production capacity intersecting with high demand.
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    I don't disagree. But the "need" for so much meat is a myth. The level of. First World meat consumption is bad for the planet, and bad for those who consume it. Health, ethic, eco and moral downsides. Yet we're sooo blinded and confused.
- collinmanderson 8y ago
  Isn't there a chance GMOs will be able to allow the crops to be (chemical) pesticide free, so that way you can avoid putting cancer-causing chemicals on the food in the first place. That seems like a huge win to me.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

Like others have commented below GMOs (well, GMO crops specifically) were not the main driver of the Green Revolution. So the question remains- what are the harms that can come about by not using GMOs? My understanding is that, at this point in time, the harms are primarily financial. For instance, when the EU imposed a moratorium on GMO crops, the reaction was primarily for countries that, until then, sold GMO crops to EU countries, to complain to the WTO about trade agreement violations- in other words, their financial interests were damaged. As to issues of food security and feeding the people of developed nations, as I understand it, there is an ongoing debate on whether GMO crops are really needed to achieve this, or whether better management of existing agricultural resources, or better distribution of current food production, can do the job. In other words- GMOs may be beneficial, so not necessary, therefore not using them would not lead to harm.

bluGill 8y ago
No, the harms are environmental. Spraying weed killers (ie glyphosate) uses much less carbon than the mechanical methods. Tractors pulling something through the soil need a lot of fuel. A sprayer running over the same field spraying a gallon of glyphosate uses much less fuel. If you have any concern about global warming you should demand that only GMO crops be grown. Note that I work for John Deere. We sell to farmers who are both for and against GMO so I'm not supposed to have a bias, but I still need to make this connection clear.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

As a separate comment, since it's a bit of a digression- the Green Revolution has not been all good. High yield agriculture has an -I believe- uncontroversial effect on the environment, including habitat loss and reduced crop biodiversity, but apparently also carbon emissions (because it relies on fossil fuels). There's a discussion of the environmental impacts on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution#Environmental... This includes an ominous note about reliance on non-renewable resources: Dependence on non-renewable resources Most high intensity agricultural production is highly reliant on non-renewable resources. Agricultural machinery and transport, as well as the production of pesticides and nitrates all depend on fossil fuels.[73] Moreover, the essential mineral nutrient phosphorus is often a limiting factor in crop cultivation, while phosphorus mines are rapidly being depleted worldwide.[74] The failure to depart from these non-sustainable agricultural production methods could potentially lead to a large scale collapse of the current system of intensive food production within this century. In other words, the Green Revolution may not be much more sustainable than the Industrial Revolution and may prove to be just as harmful further down the line, exactly because it allowed us to feed an additional 5 billion mouths or so. I guess the argument is that it doesn't really scale that well.

neolefty 8y ago
including habitat loss It's not quite that simple—in many places increasing yields means using less land. In particular, leaving marginal land fallow. But the factors are pretty complicated, in the US especially dominated by policy: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919217305560 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030691921... On the other hand, how much land was exhausted and then left fallow? How much was taken over for other uses (such as urbanization)? And if we hadn't had yield increases, would we be using more land now? Or just eat less meat? Edit: While worldwide agricultural land has increased, in the US it decreased from 63% to 51% of the total 1949-2007 according to this survey, which draws from USDA data: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature-how-is-land-used/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature...
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

ageofwant 8y ago

Saved a billion ~human~ lives, perhaps. It caused the death and destruction of many billions of non-human lives. It massively reduced bio-diversity on 90% of the earths surface. It has to be said, it has to be acknowledged, the 'progress' of man has come at an extraordinary cost to every other living thing.

ksk 8y ago
Do you believe that a human life should be valued more than say, a worm?

Applejinx 8y ago

Hunger is not an efficiency problem. Hunger is a political problem. Handwaving that away to propagandize for an industrial food corporation is… not good.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]