Monsanto and Genetically Modified Crops

[Sinister]

This is a thread inspired by another member. But it is a good idea and one to which I would be interested in seeing the reaction.

Various Agricultural Conglomerates(of which I'm almost afraid of naming for fear their lawyers would dare) such as Monsanto(based in Missourri) have taken to genetically modifying crops. It started out in the interest of human needs but...

Many people challenge the idea that GM(Genetically Modified) crops are safe to eat. I won't get into the messy technicalities of Transgenic and Intragenesis mods and why complex Transgenic mods can be a bit tricky, or that of Genetics in general. But safe to say that the court is still out on whether or not they are harmful. There is even talk about specifically modified corn either producing chemicals that will kill a human's liver or combining with certain pesticides to produce it.

Also of concern, is the process of patenting living creatures and sueing for infringement. The aforementioned Monsanto created a Round-Up Resistant gene in Canola plants and as of today 90% of Canola plants have this gene. Canola growing in the wild can be found to have this gene. This gives rise to a huge problem for farmers.

Many farmers rely on economic tricks to survive and one is the reseeding of crops. If the plant is patented, like Monsanto's Canola GM is, then reseeding is patent infringement and is actionable. Monsanto has taken extreme measures to bring action against all farmers who reseed canola. Farmers, who often do not have a steady and great income cannot compete with the court costs and these lawsuits are usually settled out of court.

Some of the farmers sued had gone to great and expensive lengths to make sure their crops did NOT possess the aforementioned patented gene. They were sued for encouraging others to patent infringement. These lawsuits were settled out of court. Monsanto even sued a milk company called Oakhurst for claiming their milk did not possess Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone.

Monsanto as a company has produced numerous pesticides proven to be harmful over the years and even produced the infamous Agent Orange of Vietnam Fame and Aspartame.

Their ethics are questionable...their budget for lawsuits is considerable and many former Monsanto employees now hold official office. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was once one of the many crack lawyers Monsanto employed. He has ruled in favor of Monsanto on occasion. There are many more which you can find in a cursory search on Wikipedia or through the documentary Food inc.

This is the company that is spearheading GMs in our Agriculture. The ones producing them, patenting them and making ungodly amount of money from them.

With all this considered, can you still support Genetic Mods... Or atleast support them in our Agriculture?

-Sin

[smurphy]

It is extremely hard to justify the existence of modified plants when the corporations involved in the development and distribution seem to have as accurate a moral compass as Adolf Hitler. Despite the warnings about how they may or may not affect humans they would indisputably be a force for good in solving food shortages in the third world if used properly. Though tough chance of seeds reaching the third world as that would not line the pockets of a few select capitalists.

My main concern is this. Despite the amount of control the corporations have over the crops themselves and the distribution what happens if as a result of their tampering a mutation occurs in the crop which wouldnt have occurred otherwise. If this mutation renders the crop inedible or another negative takes hold if would go a long way to damaging agriculture. Like is mentioned in the OP Canola with the modified gene managed to spread further than expected in spite of the extreme measures taken so what happens when a crop no good to man nor beast which is extremely resistant thanks to modification does the same. It would be a ticking timebomb.

[Sinister]

I'm taking courses in genetic engineering the next semester and could maybe contribute better to this discussion, then. But from what I understand, smurphy, this is a legitimate concern. Claiming you have a hold on something as vast as an organism and it's environment, is claiming a lot. Whether it mutates or even a mundane error in the engineering goes wrong, a lot can detrimentally affect the industry.

But then, imagine the best case scenario, being on the threshold to unlocking all the secrets of genetics and using it to our benefit. The only thing you would have to watch out for, is the extent to which that benefit could be exploited by a major corporation.

-Sin

[smurphy]

In regards to patenting a living organism, although the case of modified crops is relatively new, maybe we should try and find precedence. I think I may have found a good benchmarker. Although Fleming never issued a patent when he founded penicillin pretty much every discovery since of a new antibiotic is patented by its discoverer for a set number of years. Im having trouble finding a decent resource but this might show where GM crops are headed. Apparently these patents are filed under " intellectual property".

The continued use ( or more like abuse) of many antibiotics has rendered them ineffective due to the targeted virus/bacteria gaining immunity through a mutation. Not a good omen then.

[Heartless Angel]

I don't see much of a problem with the genetic alteration itself. Main problem here lies with lawsuit-happy douchebags, but then, welcome to America <.<

Most people are aware that there are alot of unknowns with eating genetically modified food, so as long as they can tell that the product contains GMed food, they eat it at their own risk.

[Alpha]

[Fuck. Don't you hate when you write a massive post, and then do something stupid to make it disappear? This time, I pressed 'Quote' on smurphy's post without copy-pasting first. Smart cookie. No use crying over spilt milk.]

I see the advent of GM crops as an extension of the Green Revolution, so I'll start there.

The outcomes of the Green Revolution are generally seen as mixed. Certainly, agricultural output has risen. However even this fact requires a footnote, for the 'one-size fits all' ethos meant that some places saw spectacular productivity gains, while others couldn't use high yielding varieties (HYVs) at all. For instance, HYVs of rice in Asia worked best in combination with irrigation, but not so well in places that are more rain-fed. Thus, the benefits of such HYVs were concentrated in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and less so in places such as Thailand, where traditional varieties are still more prominent.

However the issues are more extensive than unequal benefits. Another issue is the increased reliance on fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides, due to the greater susceptibility of foreign HYVs to local pests and climatic conditions than traditional varieties, which have more natural resistance. This has made farmers more reliant on global agribusiness corporations who sell chemical inputs and places farmers at risk of shifting currencies and prices where they were not before.

Increased use of such HYVs lends itself to increased use of pesticides. Combined with poor health and safety practices and poor quality (and often dangerous) pesticides, many of which are produced by but banned in developed countries (some seriously questionable ethics), there have been many studies confirming links between pesticide/herbicide/fertiliser use and acute and chronic health impacts. If you'll excuse me for citing an academic reference (I'm going there!), Jeyaratnam (1990) found that pesticides caused 28 per cent of of all reported cases of acute poisoning in Indonesia in the 1980s. Indonesia is a big country. That is a lot of poisonings. To be fair, a number of these poisonings, here as elsewhere (for example, Rao et al., 2005) are from cases of intentional self harm; but the relationship is still clear.

This modernist, top-down, technocentric mindset established in the early Green Revolution has not abated in the mainstream, which is why I began with the early manifestations of the Green Revolution before reaching this point. The latest, and most controversial, manifestation of the Green Revolution is to genetically modify seeds (which replaces seed breeding), to create (arguably) more productive and resistant varieties. Critics are concerned tat the new GM seeds are oriented more towards profits for international agribusiness corporations than boosting incomes of small farmers. As evidence, consider that much GM research is around the development of HYVs that are herbicide resistant, which means farmers can apply more herbicides to their crops without fear of killing them. This boosts agribusiness profits as they own not only the GM seeds, but the specific complementary herbicide, while potentially having deleterious effects on the health of farmers and of the environment.

One of the main outcomes of the advent of GM crops, in my view, is the erosion of self reliance by rural farmers. Where they once were not, they are now dependent upon international markets for pesticides, fertilisers and seeds. While economically empowering (though more so more men rather than women), the process has been unconcerned with specific local needs, and thus socially disempowering, as local knowledge of seeds, crops, pests and sustainability have been disregarded as generic HYVs and associated chemical packages are encouraged.

[Feels good to catch up to where I was -- but I swear it's impossible not to feel as though the previous version was superior :/]

In regards to patenting a living organism, although the case of modified crops is relatively new, maybe we should try and find precedence. I think I may have found a good benchmarker. Although Fleming never issued a patent when he founded penicillin pretty much every discovery since of a new antibiotic is patented by its discoverer for a set number of years. Im having trouble finding a decent resource but this might show where GM crops are headed. Apparently these patents are filed under " intellectual property".

Though it's not exactly where you're taking this, this made me think of so-called 'biopiracy'.

Biopiracy (also known as bioprospecting) refers to the theft of biological knowledge from indigenous communities by private corporations, universities and governments who patent the knowledge for their own gain. A bioprospector may meet with indigenous communities to learn about their specific traditional strains of a given plant (for produce or for medicine, most commonly). A patent is then taken out, not on the plant itself (which is impossible), but on specific chemicals and compounds within the plant -- which the indigenous people have been taking advantage of without being aware, and which the bioprospecting process has simply identified specifically. The patents may also be taken out on a ‘cultivar’ – a new variety of the organism in which the properties of the original have been enhanced (perhaps combined in some way with other strains of a plant identified in a similar fashion).

The Convention on Biological Diversity states that ‘developing’ countries that are rich in biodiversity , but poor in biotechnology, are entitled to a share of the profits commercial organisations fain from such patents. However such contracts are often grossly unfair, if they exist at all, and very often the community that possesses (and realistically discovered) the crucial knowledge sees none of the proceeds from the subsequent patent, and in some cases ends up paying a global agribusiness for the outcomes of the knowledge that was stolen from them!

But then, imagine the best case scenario, being on the threshold to unlocking all the secrets of genetics and using it to our benefit. The only thing you would have to watch out for, is the extent to which that benefit could be exploited by a major corporation.

I stumbled (Shiva, 2000; Alter, 2000 -- if you'll forgive me for linking an "eco-socialist" journal, and I'm not sure if you'll be able to access it) across an interesting example in the preparation of this post (which I’m really enjoying, which is why I didn’t really mind having to re-write half of it). Did you know that, in the Philippines, since the beginning of the Green Revolution, farers have abandoned approximately 3,500 indigenous rice species for just eight HYVs, across the entire country. Many of the indigenous varieties have been completely lost, while others are held in seedbanks pending further research and genetic manipulation. Further, the commercialisation of indigenous farming has seen a reduction in the amount of land devoted to subsistence fruit and vegetable plots, which were significant sources of vitamins. Vitamin A deficiency (associated with blindness in children) is now a significant health concern in the Philippines.

The response of the ‘benevolent’, ‘socially responsible’ agribusinesses is to develop a new variety of HYV rice that is genetically modified to be high in beta-carotene, which provides Vitamin A.

However the Vitamin A deficiency was caused by the agro-corporations in the first place, and now they are trying to profit from a solution to the problem they created! They are the ones to whom blame needs to be apportioned for promoting homogenous rice varieties and farm specialisation.

Not only this, but the apparently ‘new’ GM organisms, offering such benefits as being high in Vitamin A, are often bio-pirated from the seedbanks that house traditional indigenous knowledge, and then sold to them as the agribusinesses' solutions.

[/Quite possibly the most comprehensive post I have ever written]

[Sinister]

Your post was very informative, Alpha and I agree with your opinion on the effect on farmers. They now have more partners and more expenses.

But I do have one major problem... You spend most of the post talking about HYVs and the Green Revolution? I'd like to make clear to everyone that HYVs are not GMs. HYVs are the result of various careful and selective breeding programs. This is my fault as I should've explained. GMs are the result of using genetic engineering techniques such as using a centrifuge to extract a ring of DNA out of a bacterium called a plasmid, severing the ring via chemicals, inserting your own code and then carefully injecting it into the organism to be modified.

HYV-are just plain varieties. They're the result of breeding/hybridizing in desirable traits, particularly the trait of frequently producing high-yields. That's actually what I'm doing now in lab, now that we're talking about it. I'm breeding an inermis variety of Maclura pomifera of the Moraceae family. We're already to the F1s and most have got axilary buds producing spines, I'm sorry to say. If it is eventually finished and we get a bonafide cultivar(cultivated variety) out of it...it will be a huge success. But not a GM. Hope that helps?

And the Green Revolution which certainly sets down a precedence for utilizing GMs...has little to do with it other than the Agribusiness' far too eager attempts to modify the already in-place HYVs from the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution was a triumph, I'm sad to say that few endeavors in Agriculture have been as successful, particularly in Norman Borlaug's area of great hope(GMs).

Granted that most studies have found that GMs are not hazardous to eat and in fact some have been imbued, as Alpha has said, with nutritional additions. All of the info is not in yet and it is far too soon to tell. These GMOs have only been available since the 1990s. In my opinion, twenty years is far too soon to evaluate all the potential hazards to world agriculture and sustainability on planet Earth.

Also, while a plentiful number of GMs are, as I believe Alpha's post mentioned somewhere, attempts at making plants herbicide resistent. Such as the Canola product, that Monsanto produced. Not to mention that these are the GMs of concern. Let's take a look at Round-Up Canola? What is round up? It's one of the most common herbicides on the market otherwise known as glyphosate... One of Monsanto's famous home brews. Let's have a peek at what Monsanto has opened us all up to? Hmm?

•Symptoms of exposure to glyphosate include eye irritation, blurred vision, skin rashes, burning or itchy skin, nausea, sore throat and difficulty breathing, headache, lethargy, nose bleeds and dizziness.
•In lab tests, glyphosate and herbicides containing glyphosate caused genetic damage to human and animal cells.
•Studies of farmers and other people exposed to glyphosate herbicides link this exposure to increased risks of cancer, miscarriages and attention deficit disorder. Additional laboratory tests have confirmed the results of these studies.
•Laboratory evidence indicates that glyphosate herbicides can reduce production of sex hormones.
•Application of glyphosate herbicides increases the severity of a variety of plant diseases.
•Studies of glyphosate contamination of water are limited, but new results indicate that it can easily contaminate streams in both agricultural and urban areas.
•Glyphosate herbicides cause more off-target damage incidents than all but one other herbicide — 2, 4-D.
•Glyphosate herbicides cause genetic damage and harm to the immune system in fish. In frogs, glyphosate herbicides cause genetic damage and abnormal development.

Hazards of the World

Yes, they just made it easier, via GMs, for our consumable items to be bombed with this. Now sadly, in my experience...the only eco-minded people who routinely refuse to use herbicides and pesticides are Greenhouse owners. And even these are rare. Sadly, most people who refuse such boons are walking public service announcements.

GMOs are the Undiscovered Country, as of yet. But we are seeing glimpses filled with wonderful promises, terrible pitfalls and glittering prizes. The truth is, GMOs are uncharted territory... Or, inactuallity territory we are only twenty years deep in. The potentiality for screwing up something on a profound scale is always increased considering the duration and extent to which it is risked. We are fated to explore further, and in my career I intend to help...hopefully navigate some of the more careless corporations with eye towards global sustainability... But I admit I'm still not comfortable with GMOs used in Agriculture, even though that may be it's greatest application.

-Sin