GE Crops: Good News or Bad?
Sanet Post, Bob MacGregor
Re: Ag, politics, biotech, and SANet
December 31, 1996
- Monsanto won't make money if the products don't work -- or fail too
soon after introduction (rBGH, Bollgard, etc.). It costs millions to develop
these products and the payback period is, I suspect, a lot more than just
a year or two.
- Any chemical means we use to control pests and pathogens
(including the purely synthetic chemicals and Bt and the other approved
"organic" controls) accelerates evolution of resistant populations. The
more widespread the use, the more rapid will be appearance of
resistance. If Bt were sprayed on ALL the cotton and corn acreage in
the US, resistance would appear pretty fast, I bet. Unfortunately, foliar
application of Bt isn't very effective against bollworms or corn ear
worms.
- The history of agriculture -- particularly in the past couple of
centuries -- is one of wholesale tinkering with genomes. It is true that
relatively little genetic material has been moved between crop or
livestock species (since the technology to do so was limiting). However,
introduction of old world crop (and non-crop) species to the new world
-- and vice versa -- have had pretty profound ecological effects in some
areas (tumbleweeds, gypsy moths, nutria, potato, wheat, rye, oats,
soybeans, rabbits, cattle, sheep -- the list goes on and on). Do we
expend the energy on verifying that new crop introductions are locally
benign that we do in assessing the risks of GE organisms?
- Bio-chemical engineering has created a lot of health problems. Or, at
least health problems for a lot more people. Many sources have
credited, in large measure, the tremendous surge in population growth
after WWII to development of antibiotics and vaccines, coupled with
mosquito control agents (starting with DDT). As these tools become
ineffective in the face of evolution of the organisms they are designed to
control, the human population can expect to be forceably re-integrated
into natural systems. Sustainability will become a necessity of life, not
just a goal or distant dream.
- Genetic engineering technology can create miracles or monsters.
The challenge -- and the risk -- is to tell which is which before turning it
loose! Just as we have with introduction of species into new
non-native continents, we will have to take some chances. Sometimes
we'll be unlucky -- failure is the best outcome in this situation;
catastrophe a less-likely but possible outcome. How tight will the
controls and safeguards be? Obviously, many participants are
convinced that USDA is the fox guarding the henhouse.
- Corporations will always be trying to produce products that make
profits for the shareholders. Do we object to hybrid corn because the
seed must be purchased each year from some multinational
seed/chemical company?
- I object to clearly anti-competitive actions of these companies. I object
to their attempts to withhold information about their products from
consumers ("Methinks he doth protest too much", is the way I react to
company disclaimers and defenses). I do not believe that the existance
of Homo sapiens is threatened in any significant way by most of the
technologies we are currently using (though we sure are mucking up the
world for the other species). I do believe that humanity's sights are due
to be reset drastically over the next two or three decades as the
worldwide striving for the western, fossil-fueled lifestyle collides with
the reality of declining non-renewable resources -- this just as world
population peaks in the 8 to 11 billion range. What is the carrying
capacity of the earth, anyway? What standard of living would most
world citizens enjoy at carrying capacity?
- A couple of definitions of sustainability were offerred. Both are
compatible. One is basic, broad philosophy, the other (Dan's?) was
more down-to-earth and practical. We have to sustain the
agro-ecosystem that sustains us. We have to capture more energy for
human use than we put into capturing it. Without either, we are doomed.
- I enjoy -- and find frustrating -- these philosophical discussions. I
find the "how-to" information-sharing exchanges most stimulating, maybe
because they usually involve a bit more sharing and less conflict/friction?
Thanks for the hearing,
BOB
