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GMOs for human consumption are not necessary. Enormous amounts of plant biomass are grown to feed livestock. GMOs also have an issue of exposing the once very
by superpermutat0r 7y ago
GMOs for human consumption are not necessary. Enormous amounts of plant biomass are grown to feed livestock.
GMOs also have an issue of exposing the once very inert system to black swan events, health or environmental issues.
Similar thing happened with pesticides. Before GMOs can be used we should at least test them rigorously for a couple of generations. But yeah, that stuff did not happen with pesticides, cars or anything else that now has huge externalities.
- glastra 7y agoPlants are used to feed livestock for their energy, not their nutrients. GMOs would be used here to limit the amount of energy derived (carbohydrate) with regards to nutrient density. Also, for what it's worth, part of the plant biomass used to feed livestock is inedible by humans (think cellulose).
- superpermutat0r 7y agoYeah, but the reason GMOs started was to improve yields for livestock-feed related plants and is the reason GMOs exist today (if we ignore cotton, which is GMO-ed primarily for the clothing). I'm pretty sure soybean is nutrient dense livestock feed, not just a carbohydrate source. The only reason GMOs would exist for humans would be to improve the yields of most popular plants which are obviously not raised for nutrition but for taste. Almost every other plant in the world is produced in such minuscule amounts compared to soybean, wheat, maize and rice that there's no need for GMO.
- rajlego 7y agoI would say that enough land is spent on livestock feed that if we switched to meatless diets we would likely be able to feed everyone. There are regions only suited to food for livestock but most of the world imports food making it not an issue. The regions that don’t import food that tend to eat more meat from necessity are also likely to be the places that don’t contribute to overuse of land for livestock food.