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Is this currently "only" a legal problem, or are the GMO crop companies able to produce seeds that produce sterile crops? I'm sure this has already been done t
by ohazi 7y ago
Is this currently "only" a legal problem, or are the GMO crop companies able to produce seeds that produce sterile crops?
I'm sure this has already been done to death, but... Cheesy sci-fi plot where genetically engineered crops crowd out all the reproducing ones, and then humanity starves to death when evilcorp loses their ability to produce the seeds?
Could we maybe not go down this route, please?
- serf 7y ago> Is this currently "only" a legal problem, or are the GMO crop companies able to produce seeds that produce sterile crops? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_techno... It's possible to do, but most folks say that they won't ever implement it. The UN has a moratorium on GURT use.
- bayesian_horse 7y agoIt's not about GMO, but about conventional breeding. There is a concept called hybrid breeding, both for animals and plants. The "final" product, the seed for the farmer, the piglet raised for mass production, is bred from two parent lines, one for the male part, one for the female. Both are relatively inbred so they are mostly homocygotic. Their offspring, because of Mendelian genetics, is mostly heterocygotic, but very homegeneous, which is a great thing, industrially speaking. However, a farmer can't just raise those piglets and breed them on his own. Not because of patents or licenses, but just because the offspring would be all over the map, genetically. And probably less profitable. The breeding companies need a complicated system to develop these lines and provide their customers with the best seed/livestock. That takes a lot of money and effort.
- anigbrowl 7y agoFor some functions of 'best'.
- bayesian_horse 7y agoWell, to be more specific, the farmers make more money on the right genetic material. Hybrids outperform single lines (breeds, etc) on most metrics of interest. And they are homogeneous in growth, size and body composition (animals). Which matters for industrial processing and marketing. And for the price consumers have to pay. The current agricultural mass production would just not be possible without such hybrid breeding programs. So the OSSI will need to offer seeds from similar breeding programs. There are always lines/breeds which are not hybrid-bred, but the market for that produce is limited. Higher performance also means less animals tortured, less land and water used to feed the same number of Humans. From a global perspective plant and animal breeding has to become more professional, not less. As far as I have understood it, the OSSI wants to professionalize the breeding efforts of (non-breeding-company) farmers and small scale breeding companies. Much like many open source projects got professionalized through forming organizations and legal entities.
- aitchnyu 7y agoHybrid vigour, right? https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vigour https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vigour
- bayesian_horse 7y agoHybrid vigor/vigour is part of it, yes. Another factor is homogeneity of the offspring: parent lines are very much homozygous. If one parent line is AA at one locus, and the other line is aa at the same locus, the children will all have Aa. Meaning they have both versions of the gene (which is usually good, especially in immunity and health) and all have the same status. This means you can produce a couple of hundred piglets grow to the same size in the same time which makes processing and marketing them easier and cheaper. Another factor is that some breeding goals are mutually exclusive. Piglets for example drink milk from the mother, which means she must have good milk production and other fertility related features, whereas the father can be bred more for muscle growth. And then there are other weird tricks breeders can pull. I believe in chicken there are experiments with hybrids that hatch in different colors relating to their sex, or don't hatch at all if they are the "wrong" sex.
- saalweachter 7y agoYep - "sex-link" chicks are one color for male and one color for female, at time of hatching: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-link
- turbinerneiter 7y agoI don't know about GMO, but regular crops are sterile because the are hybrids. They also are not really sterile, the seeds just don't have the beneficial traits of the original hybrid.
- Xylakant 7y agoQuite a few crop plants are actually sterile. Cavendish Bananas for example (the kind you get to buy everywhere). They don't have seeds. Sweet oranges are another example.
- turbinerneiter 7y agoGood point, I was mainly thinking about grain crops. Wasn't fully aware that the term crops also includes all the other growable fruit.
- perlgeek 7y ago> Cheesy sci-fi plot where genetically engineered crops crowd out all the reproducing ones, and then humanity starves to death when evilcorp loses their ability to produce the seeds? How would crops that don't reproduce on their own crowd out crops that do? That doesn't really sound like a realistic scenario.
- ryacko 7y agoCrops are only more successful than other species because of an artificial environment with pesticide and irrigation. There could be GMO crops that don't need anything manmade at all, but that'd be a waste of calories in plant growth.
- djakjxnanjak 7y agoI heard a similar scenario as a plan to kill mosquitoes. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to work but a lot of smart people seem to believe it’s possible.
- hobofan 7y agoIn mosquitoes this works via genes on the sex-chromosomes, so the female ones are unaffected, while the male ones become sterile. I don't know enough about plant seeds to transfer that, but I guess it's the same principle.
- bayesian_horse 7y agoWell, at the very least those producing the sterile plants have to keep fertile plants. There are actually plant lines which are more or less sterile and can't really reproduce sexually any more, because they have been (naturally) cloned. The point is that modern breeding schemes and technology is necessary to feed the growing world population. There is no margin to reduce agricultural performance. You will feel any loss in performance immediately through price hikes.
- chr1 7y agoMany seedless plants can still reproduce by other methods. So having a seedless variety of strawberry for instance would be quite nice.