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> But the genetic specialization has weakened the previous genetic diversity of food. This is indeed true, but all crops we eat have lost diversity. Domesticat

> But the genetic specialization has weakened the previous genetic diversity of food. This is indeed true, but all crops we eat have lost diversity. Domestication implies selection on domestication traits, which means that there will be a drop in diversity. This is why we eat corn and not teosinte, large delicious tomatoes rather than tiny tomatoes, etc. We have selected on variability for certain traits to give us better crops. > Rendering our food supply more brittle, because we've created plants which need a very precise, artificial environment filled with external inputs. This is just farming. Agriculture by definition is changing landscapes by adding external plants, and tendering them. This has not made our food supply more brittle, but has allowed a degree of specialization that has allowed us to feed more mouths with less inputs. > Now, we've added GMOs, which have decreased genetic diversity even more. (Massive monoculture plantings all with the same genes, with even more artificial needs.) GMOs have nothing to do with diversity. You can breed varieties, crossing wild populations with domesticated ones, and then add in a transgene at the end. This doesn't undo the diversity you've added through wide crosses beforehand. We grow monoculture crops because we need consistency for consumers. Look at apples: sure we could have apples that are all genetically different in an orchid. But traits like flowering time, color, taste, texture would be all different. Consumers would eat less apples because many are just gross, and this would lead to huge wastes in agriculture. There's a reason we do monoculture. > The reason sexual reproduction succeeded was it creates as diverse of a genome as possible. By reducing that process, and substituting what we think of as "better", and then making it so 80% of our food supply shares the same genome, we're really setting ourselves up for a fall. See above. But also, all organisms experience such risks. Even diverse ones. This is why extinction happens. Modern molecular breeding techniques greatly alleviates this because we can see which varieties confer resistance to a pathogen or pest, and then breed in those select traits. We maintain consistency in product but add borrow diversity from resistance loci. Borlaug's success was very simple: no GMO, just simple breeding techniques. He bred for semi-dwarf traits, which allow most of a plant's energy to go towards creating grain rather than vegetative mass. How is this inefficient? Why would it be more optimal for us to dump fertilizer and use agriculture space and have it go towards vegetative mass rather than something that feeds people? I agree agriculture is not great for land, but our best option is to make it as efficient as possible. I suggest you study breeding and agriculture if you wish to argue on these topics. These incorrect views spread very harmful misinformation around.

burningion 13y ago
My point is that things aren't so cut and dry. We're breeding out genetic diversity. We're also substituting a more brittle ecology for the development of our food. We can both agree upon that. My point is, let's not pretend that technology has solved the riddle of how to feed people, or that genetic modification solves the problem. There is a whole discussion to be had, beyond just "throw technology at it". And as for the dig suggesting I study breeding and agriculture, I have a fair bit. I've created a genetically engineered organism, worked doing agriculture in the developing world, built water filtration systems in the developing world, done agriculture in the United States, grew up using herbicides and pesticides, saved my own seeds, and have a fairly diverse viewpoint. I understand that genetic engineering is just a technology, and the cat is already out of the bag. Please don't bring up credentialing as a way to get around providing specific arguments with references.
- dmooray 13y ago
  I think you're a fucking liar, asshole.
- vsbuffalo 13y ago
  You didn't really address any of my points, and you continue to make rather dubious claims. > We're breeding out genetic diversity. There's nothing magical about having a genetically diverse crop. Most mutations that have accumulated are mildly deleterious, especially when our goal is to make varieties for agriculture. Maize is a good example; there may be much diversity that allowed wild teosintes to grow in Mexico that we've removed when we grow it in Wisconsin. This is just selection, and natural selection removes diversity too. So since all crops are the product of selection, and selection removes diversity, of course we're breeding out diversity — that's our goal. But again, there's nothing bad about this. Breeders maintain huge germplasms that are full of diversity, and they leverage these all the time. For example, modern wheat was very susceptible to Ug99, a particularly nasty stem rust. Breeders found resistance gene Sr35 in their broad germplasm in Triticum monococcum, and used a transformation to insert it in hexaploid wheat. How does this leave us worse off? Now vast amounts of wheat that would have been low-yielding due to rust or worse has been solved by technology. We can still have bread and pizza with the desirable milling and taste traits because we inserted the single gene, rather than having to spend years and years backcrossing (meanwhile huge amounts of crops, and their inputs are lost). Borlaug proved that technology can be used to feed people. But additionally no plant biologist would argue that breeding is the only technology that matters in feeding people. Everything from agricultural market efficiencies to post-harvest storage needs to be improved, and bettering technology is the best way.

burningion 13y ago

My point is that things aren't so cut and dry. We're breeding out genetic diversity. We're also substituting a more brittle ecology for the development of our food. We can both agree upon that. My point is, let's not pretend that technology has solved the riddle of how to feed people, or that genetic modification solves the problem. There is a whole discussion to be had, beyond just "throw technology at it". And as for the dig suggesting I study breeding and agriculture, I have a fair bit. I've created a genetically engineered organism, worked doing agriculture in the developing world, built water filtration systems in the developing world, done agriculture in the United States, grew up using herbicides and pesticides, saved my own seeds, and have a fairly diverse viewpoint. I understand that genetic engineering is just a technology, and the cat is already out of the bag. Please don't bring up credentialing as a way to get around providing specific arguments with references.

dmooray 13y ago
I think you're a fucking liar, asshole.
vsbuffalo 13y ago
You didn't really address any of my points, and you continue to make rather dubious claims. > We're breeding out genetic diversity. There's nothing magical about having a genetically diverse crop. Most mutations that have accumulated are mildly deleterious, especially when our goal is to make varieties for agriculture. Maize is a good example; there may be much diversity that allowed wild teosintes to grow in Mexico that we've removed when we grow it in Wisconsin. This is just selection, and natural selection removes diversity too. So since all crops are the product of selection, and selection removes diversity, of course we're breeding out diversity — that's our goal. But again, there's nothing bad about this. Breeders maintain huge germplasms that are full of diversity, and they leverage these all the time. For example, modern wheat was very susceptible to Ug99, a particularly nasty stem rust. Breeders found resistance gene Sr35 in their broad germplasm in Triticum monococcum, and used a transformation to insert it in hexaploid wheat. How does this leave us worse off? Now vast amounts of wheat that would have been low-yielding due to rust or worse has been solved by technology. We can still have bread and pizza with the desirable milling and taste traits because we inserted the single gene, rather than having to spend years and years backcrossing (meanwhile huge amounts of crops, and their inputs are lost). Borlaug proved that technology can be used to feed people. But additionally no plant biologist would argue that breeding is the only technology that matters in feeding people. Everything from agricultural market efficiencies to post-harvest storage needs to be improved, and bettering technology is the best way.