No to GMO?

What's your views on it please?

Pakistan have just said no: http://www.mintpressnews.com/pakistan-says-no-to-gmos/193269/ and I think the French have banned one of them.

Does it cause cancer? https://uk.news.yahoo.com/monsanto-...inking-gm-maize-cancer-104901281.html#On1x1Ai

Or should we embrace it? http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7282b50e-005c-11e4-a3f2-00144feab7de.html#axzz36EBlFkBx

I think no, nature has done a pretty good job so far. MONEY MONEY MONEY...

 

I must be honest i don't know ,

 

If GMO means modifying plants so everything else can be sprayed out with Roundup, the seeds are expensive to buy, any seeds produced are sterile (or can 'contaminate' nearby non-GM crops), and perhaps some other stuff, then No.

If GMO means being able to grow much heavier cropping plants in places that would otherwise have been unsuitable, but would require loads of expensive chemical fertilizers, then probably No.

But if GMO meant disease resistant varieties, then maybe perhaps worth researching. Be honest, would you be tempted to buy some GM tomato seeds if the plants were guaranteed not to get blight?

It's a shame that's what drives research into cures for/prevention of diseases, rather than altruistic reasons/government(s) funding (although nothing might happen if the latter was the case).


P.S. My BIL studied Genetic Engineering at Uni, and after he got his PhD said no to GMO and went into something else.

 

That's the same for most things.

There are loads of improvements via GMO. Higher yielding, better disease resistant, lower fertiliser, varieties for 3rd world countries.

Population will double, before it stabilises. If we move all the surplus food to where it is needed we can feed even that number of mouths, but a lot easier to breed a plant that will grow, better, locally where the hunger is.

Lack of genetic diversity, with everything F1 and GMO, is a concern though.

 

As a generic technology is genetic engineering wrong? No.
Should it be used carefully? Yes
It can speed up and assist traditional plant breeding programmes.
As for the specific instance of herbicide resistant strains I'm not in favour of the principle. Weeds will develop resistance to the herbicide, this has already been seen. Spraying herbicides as a matter of routine doesn't do the environment many favours. It can encourage poor cultivation practices.

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/hawaii-genetically-engineered-crop-flash-point

 

Yup. Also farmers in USA have been sued for "saving" Roundup-resistant Rape seeds, which the farmer had never bought and said contaminated his land from his neighbours.

Roundup is a great chemical, for killing weeds, and is enabling farmers to grow food affordably to feed the world. Allowing the Roundup-resistance gene to escape into the wild is creating a whole new problem IMHO.

Not sure about cross-species genetic engineering - nature won't be planning to do that, on her own!!, and there are probably some Frankenstein issues lurking. OTOH amalgamating a Wheat Seed with a Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria (like Pea & Beans do symbiotically) would mean no fertiliser needed, and that would save a huge environmental problem with making the fertiliser (from oil).

I saw a journalist (Richard North, he might be retired now ... formerly with The Times I think), for whom I have a lot of respect, on a telly program years ago (when GM first starting being a Hot Topic) with Friends of the Earth (or similar) on one side, and Bioengineering Boffins on the other - no common ground at all, as you might expect! - and I liked his comment which was along the lines of : Science progresses society, scientists make (huge?) mistakes along the way, but so long as society winds up at a better place then that is for the greater good.