GMO Food Dangers: American Academy of Environmental Medicine's Position

[gravenewworld]

GMOs are bad bad bad bad bad. GMOs are just another way for a few companies to control almost all the food we eat. People forget that the companies who roll out GMOs are allowed to patent it. >90% of the soybeans produced in this country are now GMO and controlled almost exclusively by Monsanto. Farmers who opted not to grow Monsanto soybeans, but who have had their fields contaminated by Monsanto beans (from the other farmers around their fields who do use Monsanto beans), have been sued for patent infringement. These farmers of course can not afford to defend themselves in court against a multinational corp. like Monsanto and either a.) fold or b.) agree to Montsanto's terms and grow their GMO beans.

Monsanto has been engaging in intimidation tactics against farmers who save their seeds generated by plants that Monsanto believes to be their intellectual property. Soon farmer's won't have seeds themselves to grow, they will all have to be bought from ONE CORPORATION.

The people who come up with GMO food know that it is going to spread trhough natural means. It is quite ingenious. Contaminate the world food supply with a genetically superior crop that is patented, and then rake in filthy amounts of cash enforcing patents once the crop takes hold and dominates. Pretty soon you are going to see poor countries in places like Africa having to pay millions and millions of dollars every year to huge corporations like Monsanto because the only seeds that are left are GMO.

 

[gravenewworld]

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/mceowen/McEowJuly04.htm

The ability to obtain a general utility patent on seed technology has led to cases in which farmers have been sued for misappropriation of the technology. Because seed is reproducible, any farmer that saves seed is a natural competitor of a company that sells seed. But, for seed that is patented, the saved seed exemption of the PVPA is avoided, and the saving of seed can be prohibited. Indeed, under technology use agreements for genetically modified seed presently in use, a farmer can use the seed for one-time planting, may not supply the seed to anyone else for planting, may not save any crop produced from the seed for replanting (or supply saved seed to anyone else for replanting) and must not use the seed or provide it to anyone for crop breeding, research, generation of herbicide registration data or seed production.

Clearly, a farmer signing a technology agreement is prohibited from saving seed subject to the agreement. But, what if the patented traits are present in the crops and/or resulting seed of a farmer that did not purchase or plant the patented seed? Has that farmer illegally infringed the patent even though having no intent to acquire the protected seed or infringe the patent? So far, courts have held that the process by which the patented seed arrives on a farmer’s land is irrelevant. But, the tide may be turning.

 

[baywax]

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/mceowen/McEowJuly04.htm

The GMO producers are going to have to hire someone to stamp every seed with a ® or a © or a ™ to identify their seed as being patented. Otherwise, how's a farmer to know?

 

[gravenewworld]

The GMO producers are going to have to hire someone to stamp every seed with a ® or a © or a ™ to identify their seed as being patented. Otherwise, how's a farmer to know?

How dangerous is it to allow GMO producers to control >90% of cash crops like soy? How dangerous is it to slowly rely on almost 1 variation of seed for things like corn, soy, etc? GMOs are dangerous for reasons other than food safety.

It doesn't matter if a farmer can or can't tell if their crops have been contaminated with GMOs. GMO companies are going to try to sue the pants off them.

It still blows my mind that courts have sided with GMO companies who have filed suits against farmers who have had their fields contaminated with GM plants when the farmers intentionally didn't even plant genetically modified seeds in the first place.

 

[baywax]

How dangerous is it to allow GMO producers to control >90% of cash crops like soy? How dangerous is it to slowly rely on almost 1 variation of seed for things like corn, soy, etc? GMOs are dangerous for reasons other than food safety.

It doesn't matter if a farmer can or can't tell if their crops have been contaminated with GMOs. GMO companies are going to try to sue the pants off them.

It still blows my mind that courts have sided with GMO companies who have filed suits against farmers who have had their fields contaminated with GM plants when the farmers intentionally didn't even plant genetically modified seeds in the first place.

Apparently a Govt. of a region of Peru has foreseen difficulties in relying on one company and its uni-variety of potato.

LIMA, Peru, July 19, 2007 (ENS) - A region of Peru that is a center of potato diversity has banned genetically modified varieties of the tuber. The Cusco regional government's Order 010 - approved by majority vote on June 21 and made public today - is intended to protect the genetic diversity of thousands of native potato varieties.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2007/2007-07-19-01.asp

 

[gravenewworld]

Apparently a Govt. of a region of Peru has foreseen difficulties in relying on one company and its uni-variety of potato.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2007/2007-07-19-01.asp

I hate for this to devolve into politics since this is biology but I just found out about Iraqi order 81 which is one of good old Paul Bremmer's mandates.

http://www.trade.gov/static/iraq_memo81.pdf

It is essentially doing is doing away with Iraq's patent law of 1970 which prohibited private ownership of biological organisms/resources/etc. It is going to make it vastly easier for GMO companies to enforce patent infringement on GM seeds that are currently being introduced by the US during the current 'rebuilding of Iraq'.

Iraq has been farming grain for what, over 5000-6000 years? Clearly corporations like Monsanto know better than Iraqi farmers right? I mean Iraq is only home to some of the oldest and most types of grain known to man.

Ever heard of Abu Ghraib? It used to be Iraq's seed bank, which ended up being looted and destroyed during the Iraq War. Order 81 makes a complete mockery of the US 'liberation' of Iraq.

 

[mgb_phys]

It still blows my mind that courts have sided with GMO companies who have filed suits against farmers who have had their fields contaminated with GM plants when the farmers intentionally didn't even plant genetically modified seeds in the first place.

Ironically this is what is stopping GM crops in europe.

If you emit some pollution that damages somebody elses property you are liable. Organic farmers have claimed that if GM seed comes from your farm onto their land contaminating their organic their crops and makes them worthless - the GMO farmer is liable. So farmers contemplating growing GMO crops have had to seek liability insurance in case any seed 'escapes'. Since there is no real idea of how likely this is/how far seed can spread the insurance companies have been a bit nervous = expensive.

 

[baywax]

I hate for this to devolve into politics since this is biology but I just found out about Iraqi order 81 which is one of good old Paul Bremmer's mandates.

http://www.trade.gov/static/iraq_memo81.pdf

It is essentially doing is doing away with Iraq's patent law of 1970 which prohibited private ownership of biological organisms/resources/etc. It is going to make it vastly easier for GMO companies to enforce patent infringement on GM seeds that are currently being introduced by the US during the current 'rebuilding of Iraq'.

Iraq has been farming grain for what, over 5000-6000 years? Clearly corporations like Monsanto know better than Iraqi farmers right? I mean Iraq is only home to some of the oldest and most types of grain known to man.

Ever heard of Abu Ghraib? It used to be Iraq's seed bank, which ended up being looted and destroyed during the Iraq War.


Order 81 makes a complete mockery of the US 'liberation' of Iraq.

Over 5000 years of seed cultivation is nothing compared to 3.5 billion years of evolution. Any company that thinks it knows better how to "modify" the genetic make up of an organism than nature is making a monumental mistake... no contest.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

GMOs are bad bad bad bad bad. GMOs are just another way for a few companies to control almost all the food we eat. People forget that the companies who roll out GMOs are allowed to patent it. >90% of the soybeans produced in this country are now GMO and controlled almost exclusively by Monsanto.

The situation you describe has been the case for many crops grown in the US even before the recombinant DNA technology was invented. For example, many farmers take advantage of a phenomenon known as hybrid vigor: the fact that crossing two inbred strains can yield an offspring with many of the advantages of the parent strains, few of the disadvantages of the strains, and a crop that performs better overall [1]. When such hybrid corn became available in the 1930s, it greatly increased the productivity of farms and was quickly adopted by farmers because it was much more profitable to grow hybrid corn. (I should note that hybrid corn is not produced using any recombinant DNA technology, so they are not GMOs and likely much of the organic corn grown comes from hybrid corn.)

Hybrid corn, however, fundamentally changed farming practice in the US. Seeds displaying hybrid vigor can be obtained only from crossing the two original inbred lines; seeds obtained by crossing two of the hybrid plants would not display same characteristics as the hybrid and thus would result in a much poorer crop. Therefore, the practice of hybridization made farmers dependent on the seed companies for high-yield hybrid seed and made patenting seeds both feasible and profitable.

So, there is nothing new about patenting seeds and companies controlling much of our food. The idea that companies DON'T control what we eat is a bit absurd as it would require evoking an image of agriculture from the 19th century. Now, that is not to say that GMOs don't present unique issues. As you point out, there are valid concerns about GMO pollen contaminating other fields (and possibly other plant species), but this is an issue that must be addressed at the regulatory level. Scientists have developed means to help stop this contamination (the so called terminator gene technology which renders the GMO plants infertile), but opponents of GMOs have prevented companies from implementing this technology because it would prevent the (increasingly outdated) practice of farmers saving seed from one year's crop in order to plant the next year.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis
Note that in most cases, double cross hybrids are employed, so two crosses using four lines of inbred parents are used. The situation described above, while simplified, captures the concept well enough.

 

[gravenewworld]

The situation you describe has been the case for many crops grown in the US even before the recombinant DNA technology was invented. For example, many farmers take advantage of a phenomenon known as hybrid vigor: the fact that crossing two inbred strains can yield an offspring with many of the advantages of the parent strains, few of the disadvantages of the strains, and a crop that performs better overall [1]. When such hybrid corn became available in the 1930s, it greatly increased the productivity of farms and was quickly adopted by farmers because it was much more profitable to grow hybrid corn. (I should note that hybrid corn is not produced using any recombinant DNA technology, so they are not GMOs and likely much of the organic corn grown comes from hybrid corn.)

Hybrid corn, however, fundamentally changed farming practice in the US. Seeds displaying hybrid vigor can be obtained only from crossing the two original inbred lines; seeds obtained by crossing two of the hybrid plants would not display same characteristics as the hybrid and thus would result in a much poorer crop. Therefore, the practice of hybridization made farmers dependent on the seed companies for high-yield hybrid seed and made patenting seeds both feasible and profitable.

True, however, farmers were still allowed to save their seeds. It wasn't until 1980, after Diamond v. Chakrabarty, that the Patent Office began telling farmers that they could no longer save seed. Farmers may have been dependent on seed suppliers before to create new forms of crops, however, once they had their seeds in their possession, they could save them for future use. After 1980 farmers not only depended on seed companies to produce new crops, they began to rely on them for crops since they could no longer save seeds. Farmers across all corners of the globe for thousands of years have saved seeds. Now that a few companies are able to prevent this from happening in places like the US, India, Argentina what will happen to farmers in the future? Do we really want farmers to be entirely dependent on a seed supplier for crops? Why can't they grow their own from their own seeds? Saving seeds outdated? I will take seed saving techniques that have been practiced over the course of thousands of years mankind has existed over terminator/GMO seeds any time. The danger of GMOs isn't because of scientific issues, but more about economics. The consumer loses in a monopoly.

This website has a history of seed technology and IP issues:

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njtip/v3/n2/4/

It's pretty interesting.

 

[aquitaine]

This thread is going off topic again. All I'm going to say about this bit is the whole "heirloom seed" thing really seems to be a fabricated problem for many people. Let's see what some real farmers have to say

Despite pest and pricing worries, many Asian farmers welcome GM crops. Jia Hepeng heard their stories during a farmers' exchange programme.

Edwin Paraluman remembers the scepticism of fellow farmers when he introduced genetically modified (GM) corn to his small, three-hectare farm in General Santos City, in the Philippines, five years ago.

"But even in its early growth, the anti-insect effect of the GM crop encouraged me to persist," said Paraluman, adding that the dramatically increased crops have stunned other farmers.

Paraluman was talking during the Asian Regional Farmers' Exchange Programme, which took place in the Philippines from late August to early September this year. The programme involved nearly 40 farmers from China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

GM technology has always attracted scepticism, resistance and controversy, yet its use continues to grow in many parts of the world. According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, the total area of approved GM crops in 2006 was 102 million hectares in 22 countries — a 13 per cent rise on the previous year.

Paraluman is one of the millions of Asian farmers who are reaping the benefits. "I know there are many debates about GM technologies, but what's true is that it has increased harvests and seed qualities, and helps us improve our life," he said.

There, that's all I'm going to say about that. Just to pre-empt a probable attempt to push organic farming, I found something interesting about that

Abstract

Fatal flaws in the recent report from Badgley et al. claiming that organic agriculture ‘could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base’. Among the serious problems identified: over 100 non-organic yield studies were claimed as organic; organic yields were misreported; false comparisons were made to unrepresentative low non-organic yields; high organic yields were counted 2, 3, even 5 times by citing different papers that referenced the same data; favorable and unverifiable ‘studies’ from biased sources were given equal weight to rigorous university studies. This report is being submitted to the Editor of the journal, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, for publication and response. It is only being released in the interest of public debate and discussion during the much-touted ‘organic fortnight’.

 

[gravenewworld]

This thread is going off topic again. All I'm going to say about this bit is the whole "heirloom seed" thing really seems to be a fabricated problem for many people. Let's see what some real farmers have to say

Let's see what farmers in India to say about GM crops.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104708731

Decades ago, when the modern, chemical-reliant system of farming — the so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s — swept across his region, Sharma became one of its biggest boosters. He abandoned traditional methods and embraced synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and modern, high-yield seeds, much like any farmer in Iowa.

And for about 20 years, Sharma says, the Green Revolution worked wonders. His crop yields and his income soared. But then, things unraveled.

"The Punjabi farmer's problems had reached such levels, he wasn't making any profit," Sharma says, through an interpreter, as he walks through rows of his waist-high wheat crop. Sharma's soil was deteriorating, so he had to buy more and more fertilizer every year to grow the same amount of crops. No matter how much pesticide he sprayed, insects still destroyed large portions of his crops. Sharma says he "realized the vicious circle in which we were stuck."

In 2005, Sharma kicked the chemical habit.

Environmental groups in India estimate that more than 300,000 farmers like Sharma have switched to organic growing methods in recent years, or have started the transition from conventional to organic farming. Comparisons between India and the U.S. are difficult because their economies and cultures are so different. But consider this: India has about three times the population of the U.S., but 30 times more organic farmers than the U.S.

GM crops produce high yields, but for how long? How long will you get high yields from Round Up ready resistant seeds? We are already seeing weed resistance in my home state:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/business/14WEED.html?pagewanted=all

Nobody really knows how long GM agriculture is sustainable for. Again, this just highlights the importance of biodiversity among crops and the need for seed saving. GM use in some instances is now leading to super resistant weeds. If seed saving is 'obsolete' then why are the US, EU, and many other nations creating seed banks like this:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/25/norway.seeds/index.html
As for organic farming being able to provide enough food for the world? I dunno. Haven't read that much about it. It's a double edged sword. Either use the method that can be monopolized by a few but is susceptible to devastating shocks (like a super weed) and is unsustainable or use the other method with lower risk but may not be able to feed everyone. Maybe there are simply too many people on the planet.

 

[mgb_phys]

GM crops produce high yields, but for how long? How long will you get high yields from Round Up ready resistant seeds? We are already seeing weed resistance in my home state:

Not a problem - you just have to switch to New-Super-Turbo-Roundup(tm) and NST-Roundup Ready(tm) wheat. Obviously it costs a bit more but what choice do you have ?
Coincidentally this happens just about the same time that Roundup itself comes out of patent protection and people can start making generic versions.

You could extend this business model to pharma - make sure that cows get fed lots of your current human antibiotics so that enough resistant bacteria develop so that when your antibiotic comes out of patent it is useless and there is a desperate market for the new one.

 

[aquitaine]

Please stop mixing anti-corporatism with science.