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Terminator Gene Ban Suggested in Canada
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jun 05, 2007 11:43 AM
from the watch-out-for-those-expirey-dates dept.
from the watch-out-for-those-expirey-dates dept.
innocent_white_lamb writes "A member of the Canadian Parliament has proposed legislation to outlaw the development and deployment of 'terminator genes' that would prevent seeds from germinating after a set span of time. This practice would require farmers to re-purchase seed every year instead of saving the seeds from last year's crop. The legislation is not expected to pass due to opposition from the Agriculture Minister. 'There is also an issue with the technology, which is based on a complicated five-gene construct. It is "inevitable" it will fail and could harm biodiversity, said Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, which backs the ban. CFIA argues exactly the opposite, saying "the terminator approach provides an excellent method to protect against transference of novel traits to other crops and plant species."'"
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can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. In other words, it effectively kills any plant strains it cross pollinates with. If terminator crops continue to be planted, then they will pollinate and kill more crops, until eventually there are no non-terminator crops left.
Obviously as the terminators cannot reproduce on their own, this is only a problem if farmers continue buying terminator seeds from Monsanto and plant them.
Which is why they should stop immediately.
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually it is like DRM that not only affects the tract purchased but all your other similar tracts and all of your neighbours tracts.
I still haven't figured out why Monsanto-using farmers do not get sued by their downwind neighbours.
There is absolutely no question that Monsanto pollen harms Canadian farmers who do not have agreements with Monsanto. In Monsanto v. Schmieser the courts indirectly concluded that Mosanto's pollen constituted an airborne infection that made Mr. Schmeiser's seed crop worthless since he did not have a right to use the seeds that the source farmer had infected with Monsanto's IP. Additionally, that farmer was also responsible(*) for Monsanto being given Mr. Schmeiser's IP (his own Canola strain that he had spent 50 years developing) free of charge. In effect, the negligence of the upwind farmer resulted in not only the loss of his crop but having 50 years of research handed to a competitor.
(*) This part is arguable since that part of the judgement was unprecedented and had no apparent legal basis.
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:4, Informative)
That's because their downwind neighbours get sued for copyright infringement of Monsanto products. You can see a bunch of cases of this at the following places:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm
http://www.monsantowatch.org/
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no morality in a big/successful company. I think it's because of the whole "groupthink" mentality that's built-in to the human psyche - even though any given member of the board of directors may know that what the company is doing is against ordinary individual morals, it's the group that's doing it, and so it isn't their individual fault. This links back to the famous Stanley Milgram experiment [wikipedia.org], where people are shown to be willing to do horrific things, provided somebody lifts the burden of responsibility. Furthermore, a vote against something that will make profit (morality aside) may be perceived as a sign of weakness, possibly jeopardising the individual's career. For these reasons, the ethics which you and I live by simply do not apply to corporations, no matter how well-intentioned their founders were.
This may not sit comfortably with many on Slashdot who love to hate the "bad guys", (Microsoft, Sony), whilst pouring adoration on the "good guys" (Google, Apple), but I'm afraid it's the truth. In the world of business there is no good and bad - just money and the best way of acquiring it.
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Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
encourage a lot more herbicide use, which kills off other species of plants by `accident'
This also breeds more resistant weeds, so eventually everyone is forced to use pesticide resistant seed ... owned by a single company!
There is also disturbing evidence of the resistance genes being passed directly into weeds from the crop. The mechanism is not understood.
Parent
Re:even worse (Score:4, Interesting)
This Years crop is next years weed!
So if you plant roundup ready canola this year, and next year you want to plant corn. you can't spray your field with round up before you plant, to kill the weeds (ie your seed base form last year).
You have to use a different chemical. and you probably are using corn that is resistant to chemical X. So in year 3 when you plant potatoes you can't use roundup or chemical X.....
I new an organic farmer who tried to keep on a 10->17 year crop rotation.
Imagine a GMO farmer trying to maintain any kind of crop rotation. It would be Insane!
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:5, Informative)
But if you happen to be a farmer that likes to reuse your own seeds, and it happens that your neighbor uses a T-gene crop, and they cross-pollinate with your plants, your seeds can inherit the T-gene and next years seeds are no longer any good. The gene prevents germination, it doesnt stop pollination or production of seeds. The same issues with other genetic-modified crops have come up already and made their way through court, specifically the Monsanto RoundUp resistant rape-seed/canola plants [percyschmeiser.com].
Tm
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:4, Insightful)
Further, the whole Monsanto thing unfortunately gave Canola a bad name. Too many folks attribute Canola to being some kind of Frankenfood when it's a cultivar - it was bred not spliced or at least it wasn't spliced originally before Monsanto thought to improve on it. A friend of our family is an organic farmer and some of the things that he and other farmers are trying to do were really amazing to us and the techniques didn't require labs or millions to accomplish, just patience and breeding. Anyways, I don't think we need to be producing genetically modified foods and at a minimum our food should be clearly labelled if it is a GMO.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:5, Insightful)
I had worked for Monsanto a long ways back, and so this product was something they were developing at the time. Cross-pollination was a serious concern for them. IIRC, their solution was an insertion of 3 cis genes that all had to be present in order to work: a repressor, a recombinase, and an embryonic toxin. To active the system, the seeds must be treated with and inducer that inhibits the binding of the repressor to recombinase so that the recombinase is produced. In the absense of the chemical inducer, the terminator system doesn't work and the seeds are normal (which is how the producer makes more seeds, by not chemically treating them). If the repressor is blocked, the recmobinase excises a promoter blocker and leaves a late-promoter for the embryonic toxin which causes the embryo (seed) to arrest once it's reached maturity.
It's a pretty fragile system and if there was cross-pollination, the cassette would either transfer intact but uninduced or be destroyed through recombination or genetic silencing (the terminator genes themselves separately occur naturally in maize).
So, the danger of the technology is somewhat misstated. It's not as simple as pollen being carried to another crop -- that alone is insufficient to cause harm. The question is whether or not the traits will be transferred and then subsequently mutated through generations of natural genetic variation to develop a new system that doesn't require an exogenous inducer to activate. And, that such a system will be virulent (since sterile strains of plants occur with a certain frequency already in nature and have no ill effect on the environment -- seedless oranges, for example). No known mechanism for that exists, nor has such a thing been observed. I'm thinking that millions of these plants have been planted so far and there might be some documented evidence of this occurring (it would be fascinating if it did), but in the absence, one can only conclude it would be rare event, and it's also self-limiting (one generation only), soe the risk (probability of event x cost of event) would have to be very low.
There's risk in any agricultural operation. Out in CA there was an organic vendor of celery that had developed a crop that was so toxic, it caused welts on the exposed skin of the pickers (luckily the reaction was quick, if people had eaten it, it would have been deadly) -- and that's through organic crosses.
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:bingo (Score:5, Informative)
PCBs - check.
Agent Orange - their creation, too. Most people forget these two facts. I can pull up links if you want to ads stating that Agent Orange was perfectly safe.
GMO Corn that causes liver damage in rats(and any other mammal, actually) - yep. Many unexplained cases of pets getting sick come from this, btw. The reason they have to pump cattle and chicken full of antibiotics? Because the corn they feed them destroys their immune system and they would otherwise be dead way before slaughter. Except - cats and dogs and people live a TAD longer than cows and chickens.(the meat is evidently fine, but the stuff they pump them full of to keep them alive till slaughter is another horrifying mess and why I don't eat non-organic meat anymore)
GMO Crops that cross-pollinate so that ONLY their pesticide works - you betcha.
Crops with an 80% die-off rate that happen to easily cross-pollinate? - Just invented!
And of course, as it was previously pointed out, Microsoft-type "deals" with other nations via our government. IE - a grant or money but only if they use the "approved" products. They currently spend billions every year trying to get GMO crops into Europe and India and everywhere around the planet that they can, despite the near universal rejection. They keep pounding away regardless because in the U.S., GMO crops from Monsanto and ADM(much less evil, though equally unenlightened) make up 80%+ of all crops other than wheat(though they are trying HARD to legalize GMO wheat as well right now - Corn, Canola, Soybeans, and half a dozen other crops are mostly GMO now in the U.S. Canola and Soybeans are virtually 100%.
All in the last ten to fifteen years, no less. They don't test it, they don't care - they just make the stuff and lie to our faces like the tobacco companies did(and still do).
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:5, Informative)
Theres a story of a guy and his father who for years grow his own canola from seed they had been breeding. Then a seed producer, Monsanto, came in with a crop of these genetically altered canola next to his field. The cross pollination destroyed his crop in 2 years. The first year produced the defunct seeds. The next year the seed did not germinate.
Imagine if few dozen farmer planted altered grain near seed field. Within a few years our entire agricultural system would be wiped out except for a few select seed producers.
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/ [percyschmeiser.com]
http://www.savethepinebush.org/News/04FebMar/Perc
Parent
This is exactly Monsanto's plan. (Score:5, Insightful)
The new Canadian law is exactly this - a lobby effort targeting at domination, against our environment.
Parent
how t-gene can be harmful. (Score:5, Insightful)
It might cross breed with normal seed and terminate it. What you would be left with is nothing but what the friendly multinational has to offer each year. That might not be good for you [insnet.org].
The whole "rape seed" Monsanto insanity [etcgroup.org] is a good primer on these matters. An normal farmer in Canada was forced to destroy his crops because they were contaminated by neighbors using Monsanto seed. The US has pushed these practices onto the Iraqi puppet government [grain.org], so you can see where they would really like things to go.
There are fundamental problems with seed patents that need to be corrected. The contamination issue is one that makes the whole idea look foolish and economically harmful.
Parent
Re:can someone explain how a plant with a t-gene (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, that was a great documentary.
Insightful? ugh.
Parent
Doesn't sound like such a good idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't sound like such a good idea. (Score:4, Funny)
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Sterile (Score:5, Interesting)
If I buy a seed I should be able to plant it as far away from when I bought it as I'd like.
If you explain to the farmer that the plant cannot be used for seed it is up to the farmer and the open market to decide if that is the right approach. If the farmer cannot afford the seed then they will have to use non engineered seed and the companies will have to decide if it is worth it.
You don't leave the food supply to the free market (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sterile (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless, as has been pointed out elsewhere, your neighbor uses the modified seed. Then, due to natural processes, your crop gets cross contaminated. Then you're fsck'd.
When wind and bees take away your choice to use or not use a crop, and you end up losing a court judgement saying you're illegally using someone's patented crop, then the whole system is messed up. If it kills off all of the natural stuff by getting the t-gene into other crops, then we're left with no biodiversity since it'll all be owned by the chemical companies.
If someone wants to have plants like this, then they should be required to have their entire field hermetically sealed so that it doesn't have a chance to cross-pollinate with others who don't want it. Otherwise, everyone else in the vicinity loses their right to choose.
Similarly, a few years ago the US wanted to send food aid to Africa. It was GM corn. The normal practice would be to keep some seed for next years crop. Then, they would be planting GM crops, and their export markets to the EU would have dried up due to bans -- leaving the poor starving people with noplace to sell their corn. The request to mill the corn to prevent the problem was not readily accepted by the Americans who couldn't understand why people wouldn't want GM corn, leaving food aid to moulder -- all because they couldn't risk importing GM seeds for fear of losing next year's export market.
This stuff tends to affect loads more people than just the first farmer to do it. It's not like the people designing this stuff have figured out how to restrict it to only the approved plots of land -- it's pretty indiscriminate once it's out in the wild.
Cheers
Parent
lets not reverse nature (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:lets not reverse nature (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure if you realize this or not, but to say it explicitly:
Modern corn seeds are F1 hybrids from two parent strains that are only used to generate seed. You don't save seeds for next year because then you get a range of variable F2 progeny, and over time you just get a mess. Terminator strains were developed to keep those F1's from growing accidentally.
The image of good ol' Farmer Bob pickin' through his corn to collect seeds for next year, and being thwarted by a greedy corporation, has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of who this seed is being sold to. If Farmer Bob wants to grow his own seed he doesn't use these to begin with.
Parent
I never thought I'd see.. (Score:5, Funny)
thank god (Score:3, Insightful)
And I avoided making any reference to man-eating venus flytraps looking for Sarah Connor! Yay--er, crap.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
WTF does any part of your rant have to do with Canadian seeds? The US government is not mentioned once in the article, and you don't even attempt to establish a logical connection.
OMG Amerika sux LOL!!!11!one! (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful, my ass. It's off-topic karma-whoring. Think before you mod, people.
I wasn't whoring. This is a technology that got it's start in America. All the Canadians are doing is making sure it stays here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_gene [wikipedia.org]
Terminator Technology is the colloquial name given to proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation seeds to be sterile. The technology was under development by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Delta and Pine Land company in the 1990s and is not yet commercially available. Because some stakeholders expressed concerns that this technology might lead to dependence for poor smallholder farmers, Monsanto, an agricultural products company and the world's biggest seed supplier, pledged not to commercialize the technology.
Now you might think "Monsanto says they won't use it so they must be heroes, right?" Yeah, the same heroes who brought us Agent Orange and genetically tampered seed product.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto [wikipedia.org]
Throughout 2004 and 2005, Monsanto filed lawsuits against many small farmers in Canada and the U.S. The lawsuits have been on the grounds of patent infringement, specifically the sale of crops containing Monsanto's patented genes as a result of wind carrying seeds from neighboring crops. These instances began in the mid- to late 1990s, with one of the most significant cases being decided in Monsanto's favor by the Canadian Supreme Court. By a 5-4 vote in late May of 2004, that court ruled that "by cultivating a plant containing the patented gene and composed of the patented cells without license, the appellants [canola farmer Percy Schmeiser] deprived the respondents of the full enjoyment of the monopoly." With this ruling, the Canadian courts followed the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision on patent issues involving plants and genes.
There are certainly people out there who will kneejerk condemn the US Government and Microsoft without reading the articles.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish you'd posted this information in your original post instead of the anti-government histrionics, because it is far more insightful and educating.
Thanks for this post, BTW.
Did you mean Germinator? (Score:3, Interesting)
Monsanto is the world's largest seed company (after its January 2005 acquisition of Seminis for US$1.4 billion).
The company's 2004 pro forma seed revenues (including Seminis) were US$2.8 billion.
Monsanto's GM crops and traits accounted for almost 90% of the total GM crop area worldwide in 2004
Monsanto controls 41% of the global maize market and over one-fourth of the commercial soybean market (both conventional and GM seed).
Monsanto and Terminator [banterminator.org]
This is old news... Like 2000 old news...
Total Cost Of Ownership (Score:4, Interesting)
Option A: I buy the traditional option, I lose X% to various natural hardships, I replant the seed I keep back next year.
Option B: I buy the new version, I lose a smaller Y% to various natural hardships, I have to buy the seed again next year.
If my profit increases due to decreased loss by more than the cost of annual purchases, I buy the annual purchase option. If my profit increases less than the cost of annual purchases, I keep doing it the old way.
Cheesy as it feels to see science advance to the point where this happens with crops like it already does with other man made commodities, are the "poor farmers" really being forced in to anything worse [in terms of that business model]? They can still buy traditional seeds, right?
Now there's the bigger issue with whether we want something in our food chain that turns off the ability to reproduce (even if there's no science for it being passed on, that alone should make awesome advertising for those who don't go with it). There's also the bigger issue with this gene getting passed on to other farmers and their crops getting wiped out - unfortunately, thus far, legislation seems to be siding with the seed producers and not those who fall victim to cross polinization thanks to lobbying funds etc.
Still, in terms of the "poor farmers" - unless there's some kind of monopoly I'm missing, why can't they just not buy the product if they don't like the terms?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Option B: I buy the new version, I lose a smaller Y% to various natural hardships, I have to buy the seed again next year.
If my profit increases due to decreased loss by more than the cost of annual purchases, I buy the annual purchase option. If my profit increases less than the cost of annual purchases, I keep doing it the old way.
This is the reasoning that arises if your fundamental as
It should be crime against humanity (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine a sudden, global catastrophe that would shut down global transportation, resources or access to harvest and distribute the "designer" seed...
Corporations want to send people for downloading music or copying a movie, but they are free to put in danger the food supply, that can potentially affect the survival of millions, so that the shareholders of one or a few companies can make more money?
I challenge any politician to explain the voters how is it more harmful to society to copy illegally a cultural product than putting in danger the food supply.
The bottom line... (Score:3, Interesting)
They've already declared music, writing, artwork, and source code to be "intellectual property." Next up will be genes and molecules, followed by plants and animals, air, water, you name it. Everything will have a monetary value and a corresponding license. Don't you just love commoditization?
Crime against humanity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This should be banned.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wrong.
Parent
Re:This should be banned.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's their job.
It's the government's job to watch out for the public and slap down such reckless and exploitative practices.
Don't blame Monsanto, blame the legislators and bureaucrats who have so shamelessly violated the public trust.
Honestly, an Agriculture Minister standing up for t-genes... it's so transparently corrupt you'd swear it was American politics.
Parent
Re:This should be banned.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's their job.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
Sorry for swearing, but i see this so much here. It's not their job to rape and pillage the world for profit. Being a corporation does not give you a free pass to put money ahead of morals. That is not their job. Their job is to offer a product to a market.
It's the government's job to watch out for the public and slap down such reckless and exploitative practices.
Don't blame Monsanto, blame the legislators and bureaucrats who have so shamelessly violated the public trust.
No, blame Monsanto. Blame the government too. They are both doing the wrong thing.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, you can still blame Monsanto.... (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, if I make a decision to drive home drunk one night, that's a bad decision regardless of whether or not someone is there to enforce the law (i.e. I get caught), or even if there was an accident as a result.
no...it is not the corporate world's job to put greed above corporate responsibility
Re:This should be banned.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This should be banned.. (Score:5, Insightful)
- or -
Patent everything and enslave us all.
Choose your own future.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:scary stuff (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually.... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, he won [percyschmeiser.com], partially, and is firing back with another case due in 2008.
Tm
Parent
Re:Actually.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Monsanto's canola seed completely is immune to Roundup so a farmer can spray the herbicide over a planted field to kill all the plants growing there, but not the crop -- as long as it comes from Monsanto's seed. Schmeiser's fields were almost 80% Monsanto seeds (according to Monsanto funded studies, Schmeiser showed his own evidence that the fields ranged from 0 to 68% Roundup Ready)
Also the court judged that Monsanto owned the plants and DNA of their crop that had seeded in Schmeiser's field and thus Schmeiser can not use seed from his own field or he would be infringing on the Monsanto Intellectual property. That basically destroyed 40 years worth of Schmeiser's intellectual property and requires that he buys all new seed for his field which may be contaminated again in a couple years.
That is why Schmeiser was quoted saying "In my case, I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract. If I would go to St. Louis and contaminate their plots--destroy what they have worked on for 40 years--I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away,"
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