7 ms·

> Long-term tasty tomatos are a good thing but what about impossibility to breed my own tomato seeds if GMO will win 100% of the market? That is a great questi

> Long-term tasty tomatos are a good thing but what about impossibility to breed my own tomato seeds if GMO will win 100% of the market? That is a great question and a very valid concern. Because there are two things at odds with each other: - We don't really want GMO plants (or even animals and fish) to interbreed with non-GMP plants/animals because wide-spread effects on the ecosystem could be disastrous. We've lived through a few of those with natural plants and animals as invasive species, and boy do we not want a pest-and-herbicide-resistant strain of tomatoes to take over the planet [1] - And yet we do want to let people (both hobbyists and farmers) to raise their own plants and animals. At the very least to preserve local varieties. I don't have a good solution for that. I think what may work if implemented correctly is for governments to maintain a stock of non-GMO seeds or even mandate that X% of the market must be given over to non-GMO products. [1] We already have the giant hogweed to deal with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_mantegazzianum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_mantegazzianum. Imagine that but even more resistant to everything * shudder *

eimrine 4y ago
You are talking some decent ideas but I do not agree on the Heracleum mantegazzianum point (we use to call it borschevik). 1. Any invasive specie known today is about transporting an organism, evolutionally willing to live from one place to another. GMO organism aren't evolutionally willing to live, they just genetically willing to give us better tomatoes. 2. Absence of non-GMO is not a problem at all if I still have an access to bleeding-edge reproductionable seeds as it happens today. The problem is in patent system, what if the cost of bleeding-edge seeds will be costing so much that small farmers with expensive and not yummy non-GMO will be out of market? Have you seen any vegetable before selection? Nobody needs the corn with few grains while we use to have a corn with few hundrends of grains. Even the most green-headed crackpot on the planet will not grow that in 21th century. 3. I do not believe that all plants harvested from GMO are _really_ sterile. Since they use to have a reproductive system so all kinds of mutations are possible if something with CRISPR/Cas9 goes wrong. And there are some experiments with attempt to spread some modified genes to something like all the malary mosquitoes [1] . There are some GMO even among humans, and that humans are not sterile [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31095529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31095529 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair
- illiarian 4y ago
  > Any invasive specie known today is about transporting an organism, evolutionally willing to live from one place to another. GMO organism aren't evolutionally willing to live Evolution doesn't have a concept of will. It does have the concept of survival. Survival of the fittest (yes, I know it's a simplification). Nearly every species is invasive given lack of external controls. For example, Sweden needs to kill 100 000 (yes, one hundred thousand) of moose every year because their natural predator, the wolf, has been exterminated, and moose have become invasive. If your pest-resistant, herbicide-resistant tomato that is also more adaptable to varying soil conditions is able to reproduce and hybridize, it will "willingly" take over any local plants not because it has the "will", but because it has the capacity. It will just as "willingly" take over, say, wheat, if the field is contaminated with its seeds. We use herbicides in our fields not because our plants have "no will to live", but because other plants will just take over given half the chance. > I do not believe that all plants harvested from GMO are _really_ sterile. Since they use to have a reproductive system so all kinds of mutations are possible if something with CRISPR/Cas9 goes wrong All GMO products (both plants and animals) are required to be sterile because impact on ecosystem is very hard to estimate if they aren't. And yes, it's not 100% fool-proof, and quite a concern
  - eimrine 4y ago
    How does pest-resistant and herb-resistant tomato might survive in the environments with neither herbicides nor pesticides? Especially if the primary goal for modifying the gene was to make the tomato just yummier. You are talking reasonable things but I'm talking from the position of farmer who knows how easy is to break a useful plant and how hard is to destroy any useless one with decentralized root system and easy-peasy flower which can produce thousands of seeds per one stick in few weeks and nothing more. You are writing correct things but the experience which is in my hands tells me that you are not right about properties of invasive specie vs properties of typical crop.
mrguyorama 4y ago
Or we could just use the damn anti-trust regulations on the books to actually keep markets open and competitive. There doesn't have to be a worry that Monsanto will lock down seeds if they get split into different companies and some of those companies continue to sell seeds that aren't locked down. I think any market segment without at least 10 comparably sized companies AND the option to just not transact with ANY of them is not competitive and will not benefit from any "free market" supposed benefits.
- illiarian 4y ago
  GMO patents expire after 20 years IIRC. We could argue whether it's too long, but it's a complex topic I don't know nearly enough.

eimrine 4y ago

You are talking some decent ideas but I do not agree on the Heracleum mantegazzianum point (we use to call it borschevik). 1. Any invasive specie known today is about transporting an organism, evolutionally willing to live from one place to another. GMO organism aren't evolutionally willing to live, they just genetically willing to give us better tomatoes. 2. Absence of non-GMO is not a problem at all if I still have an access to bleeding-edge reproductionable seeds as it happens today. The problem is in patent system, what if the cost of bleeding-edge seeds will be costing so much that small farmers with expensive and not yummy non-GMO will be out of market? Have you seen any vegetable before selection? Nobody needs the corn with few grains while we use to have a corn with few hundrends of grains. Even the most green-headed crackpot on the planet will not grow that in 21th century. 3. I do not believe that all plants harvested from GMO are _really_ sterile. Since they use to have a reproductive system so all kinds of mutations are possible if something with CRISPR/Cas9 goes wrong. And there are some experiments with attempt to spread some modified genes to something like all the malary mosquitoes [1] . There are some GMO even among humans, and that humans are not sterile [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31095529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31095529 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair

illiarian 4y ago
> Any invasive specie known today is about transporting an organism, evolutionally willing to live from one place to another. GMO organism aren't evolutionally willing to live Evolution doesn't have a concept of will. It does have the concept of survival. Survival of the fittest (yes, I know it's a simplification). Nearly every species is invasive given lack of external controls. For example, Sweden needs to kill 100 000 (yes, one hundred thousand) of moose every year because their natural predator, the wolf, has been exterminated, and moose have become invasive. If your pest-resistant, herbicide-resistant tomato that is also more adaptable to varying soil conditions is able to reproduce and hybridize, it will "willingly" take over any local plants not because it has the "will", but because it has the capacity. It will just as "willingly" take over, say, wheat, if the field is contaminated with its seeds. We use herbicides in our fields not because our plants have "no will to live", but because other plants will just take over given half the chance. > I do not believe that all plants harvested from GMO are _really_ sterile. Since they use to have a reproductive system so all kinds of mutations are possible if something with CRISPR/Cas9 goes wrong All GMO products (both plants and animals) are required to be sterile because impact on ecosystem is very hard to estimate if they aren't. And yes, it's not 100% fool-proof, and quite a concern
- eimrine 4y ago
  How does pest-resistant and herb-resistant tomato might survive in the environments with neither herbicides nor pesticides? Especially if the primary goal for modifying the gene was to make the tomato just yummier. You are talking reasonable things but I'm talking from the position of farmer who knows how easy is to break a useful plant and how hard is to destroy any useless one with decentralized root system and easy-peasy flower which can produce thousands of seeds per one stick in few weeks and nothing more. You are writing correct things but the experience which is in my hands tells me that you are not right about properties of invasive specie vs properties of typical crop.

mrguyorama 4y ago

Or we could just use the damn anti-trust regulations on the books to actually keep markets open and competitive. There doesn't have to be a worry that Monsanto will lock down seeds if they get split into different companies and some of those companies continue to sell seeds that aren't locked down. I think any market segment without at least 10 comparably sized companies AND the option to just not transact with ANY of them is not competitive and will not benefit from any "free market" supposed benefits.

illiarian 4y ago
GMO patents expire after 20 years IIRC. We could argue whether it's too long, but it's a complex topic I don't know nearly enough.