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Europe’s Drought Might Force Acceptance of Gene-Edited Crops
- oifjsidjf 4y agoThe big pharma/food companies are pushing really hard to this. Daily reminder that the "GMO for herbicides and pesticides" actually means that they can spray the crops with SHITLOAD MORE PESTICIDES since it doesn't actually provide natural insect protection but it makes the plant more resilient to those sprays. So as the side effect of that you now eat shitload more of those insecticides and herbicides in your plants.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoThe article is about GMO drought-resistant crops. They use water more efficiently than conventional crops, which were bred for a water-rich environment.
- mburee 4y agoBut not yet the C4 cycle, right?
- lm28469 4y ago> So as the side effect of that you now eat shitload more of those insecticides and herbicides in your plants. And it fucks up the soil more, so in the long run you'll need even more modified crops or more aggressive cultivation methods. Let's continue with our half assed profit motivated solutions, I'm sure it'll work great
- trash3 4y ago
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoanti-GMO is anti-science just like anti-vax. They both rely on similar FUD and blame the bogeyman of big Pharma/Ag. They also ignore massive scientific evidence backing the safety.
- muro 4y agoCough Monsanto Roundup cough
- spywaregorilla 4y agoNot when GMO crops are being modified to survive fatal amounts of pesticide.
- Nicksil 4y ago>Not when GMO crops are being modified to survive fatal amounts of pesticide. Which GMO crops? Fatal for what/whom?
- spywaregorilla 4y agoFatal for the plants. Many GMO crops are designed by pesticide companies. They enable the farmers to use more pesticide. Which does increase yields. But now there's even more poison being thrown around.
- Nicksil 4y ago
- Roark66 4y agoNot everywhere in Europe. In Poland, despite the drought that caused various local problems as as a whole this season's harvest was a good one (I even heard it described as _very_ good in comparison with recent years). PL is a big exporter of food within EU and elsewhere.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoIowa is down 10% in estimated corn yields fwiw
- mountaintimefrm 4y agoAlternative headline from a saner and more practical world: "Europe's drought might force acceptance of landscape-wide rainwater harvesting earthworks." The effectiveness of such earthworks is pretty shocking to witness: -- https://youtu.be/8QUSIJ80n50 https://youtu.be/8QUSIJ80n50 "Lessons of the Loess Plateau" The permaculture folks have been implementing functional solutions to drought for 3 or 4 decades now, repairing large-scale damaged ecosystems and halting desertification. The problem already has a simple effective remedy, and gene-edited crops are a band-aid non-solution that does nothing to change the underlying conditions by which drought is created and perpetuated. It is widely understood that forests attract/create rainfall (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941). Large scale water harvesting earthworks attract/create forests by creating the hydrological conditions amenable to increased vegetative cover. To put it simply, here is what is do be done: an army of people use whatever earth moving equipment they have available (from shovels to machinery) to dig a network of swales and catchments across the landscape, and then plant them with early successional "pioneer" species (sun/drought tolerant, often nitrogen fixing woody shrubs). In 5 to 10 years, the soil will be holding onto to the rain for much longer periods of time , creating the conditions such that longterm forest trees will begin to establish (attracting more rain), and staple crops can be reliably grown. This a proven method, it absolutely works, and it needs to be widely implemented across the globe. Hopefully this comment get read by the heads of public works agencies of numerous governments in drought affected regions around the world.