Hi Greg

I completely agree that it takes great skill to make a living or to survive from farming.  I do not pretend to understand a tenth of what the average real farmer (not urban hobbiests) must know to compete.  This is why I always say the farmers know best and wrt biotech crops the farmers have overwhelmingly spoken.

We can never read the futrure for anything but past history of GM crops (12 years) has shown the economics , safety, environmental impact are all very good.  Now that is not to say there are not problems, there are.  One such example is over use of RR crops and the development of resistant marstail in the US.  Clearly more IPM would slow this type of problem.  One must rmember that resistance is a universal phenomenon.

I do noty agree that cheap food is the reason there are nutitional problems.  For the developing world calories are king and anything that increases calories is good.  In the developed world we can be choosy and unfortunately some of the choices have not been that good.  Fresh fruits and veggies (regardless of how they were produced) should be encouraged far more than they have been in years past.

There is no scientifically defendable reason why GM crops represent a unique threat over conventionally bred crops.  This is the opinion of EVERY scientific body in the world that has looked at this issue.

I do appreciate your questions and debating style without personal attacks.

Cheers

The farmers I know hate Monsanto but still plant their seeds.  Why?  Because the cost of changing is high.  I'll do you one better on the analogy, Greg - it's like being in a long term relationship that you know you must break off but then you think about all the stuff you'd have to do - get a new apartment, separate your belongings, find a new mate, etc. - and you decide it's just not worth it to you because your mate has one good quality in the shadow of many bad ones.  People have a great propensity for living with cognitive dissonance.   

This is why it's so important that biotech firms don't get their hands in the developing world as S.384 proposes since it will be increasingly difficult to extricate them from it later.

When you can spray a field of soybeans with Round Up and then go do something else because it will kill everything other than the soybeans, that's pretty cool from a technological standpoint but horrifying from a natural one, since we eat it.

Let's not forget that 50 years ago, we thought that smoking was good for us.  Or more recently, when rBGH, another Monsanto goodie, was all the rage.

We're obviously enamored with technology but this continuing belief that we can outsmart nature, a systems that has had 4.5 billion years to evolve, seems to me to be arrogant.  Technology has a place, to be sure, but it's place is subservient to nature, not to control it. 

David

Do you know the mode of action of glyphosate?  It targets an enzyme system that animals do not have.  It blocks aromatic amino acid production and therefore protein production in plants not animals.  It is composed of glycine(an amino acid) linked via a methyl group to a phosphate.  It breaks down into non toxic compounds like phosphate and CO2.  It does not persist it does not represent a ground water contamination issue as it binds tightly to soil on contact.  It is non toxic to vitually every animal tested from earthworms to quail to trout to us.  It is not metabolized by the body if ingested and the patent has now run out so no one company owns it. 

Your last statement is rediculous as without technology (starting fronm the plow a few thousand years ago to synthetic fertilizer to pesticides, both naturally derived and synthetic to GM crops today) there is no chance to grow enough food to feed four billion let alone the 6 to 7 today or the 8-9 soon to be on the planet.  

Oh one more point David.  According to the "father of toxicology" Dr. Bruce Ames, 99.9% of all toxins we consume daily are natural, ie the plants make them to ward off pests and we eat those same pesticides.  We have only looked a few dozen of these natural toxins and approximately half are also considered carcinogens.  Bon apetite.

Robert, I'm hurt - I don't get a "cheers"? 

I didn't know the chemical actions of glyphosate.  As you seem to be such an expert, can you tell me why the US Geological Service has found it in ground water in the Midwest or why the World Health Organization thinks its a health hazard?  Or why in some studies, it causes necrosis and apoptosis and necrosis in human embryonic cells (there's a headline for you, glyphosate is a baby killer!)? 

Look, I could play this game for hours but you're obviously a biotech guy so we should just agree to disagree.

As a food systems guy, I'll just say that food production is not the problem.  We grow enough food to feed the world twice over, so why are there 1 billion people starving, a number that continues to grow?  Because systemic issues like poverty, market inequities, nation-state instability and other problems associated with the globalized, industrial food system.  These are just not problems that a biotech crop can solve.

But we're getting away from the point of the post, which is a conversation I'm frankly more interested in.

here is an idea, give the subsistance farmers better GM seed so they can grow their own.  GRII is a perfect example but rediculous regulations have been put in place to slow its adoption.  Each year 500,000 children die which would not have if the ideological based anti GM regulations were not there.  I sometimes wonder how those responsible for these regulations sleep at night.

40% of all food grown in the world rots before it can be eaten.  Fungal, viral and bacterial resistance to save this huge amount of food are part of the answer.  Some of the resistance genes come from the same species like the GM blight resistant potatoes being field tested in europe (assuming the critics don't rip up the fields to protect us from potato genes in potatoes) while other times the resistance gene can come from far afield.  Clearly have to food not rot can greatly increase available food with no improvements to infrastructe at all.  Part of the solution to be sure.