GMO Oranges? Altering a Fruit's DNA To Save It 358
biobricks writes "A New York Times story says the Florida orange crop is threatened by an incurable disease and traces the efforts of one company to insert a spinach gene in orange trees to fend it off. Not clear if consumers will go for it though." The article focuses on oranges, but touches on the larger world of GMO crop creation as well.
nature and consumers (Score:4, Insightful)
Nature has been genetically modifying fruit for millions of years. Genetic modifications can be good, bad, or some of each.
Just because something is "natural" doesn't mean it's good for you. Many natural things are quite deadly. Just because something is modified by humans doesn't mean it's bad for you. It might be! But you don't know that just because it's "genetically modified".
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
i think a lot of ppl dont like the idea of genetically modified foods because "humans shouldnt be playing god"
I presume you mean people like my grandmother? She and I had a conversation one day about assisted suicides. She's terribly Christian, and took the stance that even though this poor bastard had ALS and decided to end his days before the financial and emotional burdens became too much for his family, he was doing the wrong thing because "he was not letting God decide his fate".
Which is complete horseshit.
If he would have simply let God decide his fate, he would have passed long ago since he wouldn't have had any medication, or the ventilator, or other modern medical advancements to prop him up artificially.
I understand her argument, and why she believes in it, I just simply think it's hypocritical.
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It's more than just a vague feeling that humans should not "play god". A lot of this stuff is basically self-certified. The manufacturer does the research, devises the tests and administers them to show that it is safe for human consumption. The regulators don't have the resources to do big, long term trials and besides which the GMO companies are not willing to wait decades for the results.
Chances are most of it is fine, but as we have seen in the past with various pesticides and herbicides sometimes they
Re:to the moderator who modded me down (Score:4, Informative)
From your own citation [118]: "It may be that some Roundup Ready seed was carried to Mr. Schmeiser's field without his knowledge. Some such seed might have survived the winter to germinate in the spring of 1998. However, I am persuaded by evidence of Dr. Keith Downey, an expert witness appearing for the plaintiffs, that none of the suggested sources could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality evident from the results of tests on Schmeiser's crop. His view was supported in part by evidence of Dr. Barry Hertz, a mechanical engineer, whose evidence scientifically demonstrated the limited distance that canola seed blown from trucks in the road way could be expected to spread. I am persuaded on the basis of Dr. Downey's evidence that on a balance of probabilities none of the suggested possible sources of contamination of Schmeiser's crop was the basis for the substantial level of Roundup Ready canola growing in field number 2 in 1997."
In case it isn't clear: you can't be successfully sued for accidental gene transfer.
I can't tell be sure if this is wild bluster, trolling, or stupidity - but it's likely all three.
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Genetic modification is in itself neither good or bad, it's all the question of which genetic modification that is done and the effects of it.
One problem that is common today is that there's a tendency to only grow a few very high-yielding crops in large volumes, and that means that if some disease starts to adapt to a certain crop then there's a risk that it can have a big impact.
Nature itself has a tendency to adapt, it's a continuing arms race between pests and crops, but when humans are involved the nat
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Nature is full of extinction events. There is no particular reason to believe that anything that nature does will be beneficial to people; it's a wholly random thing.
The idea that nature is something uniformly beneficial is silly and naive.
Controlling the environment became the lot of man when he learned to make fire. Genetic engineering is just the latest manifestation of this.
Re:nature and consumers (Score:4, Interesting)
Nature doesn't care whether you live or die, so it is free to modify plants and animals at random even if a mutation breeds an organism that ends up killing off half the species on the planet. Humans are responsible for any harm that they end up causing their fellow creatures so it's right that we hold them to a higher standard.
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What if it's our species that we end up killing off?
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Fatality!
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You are correct, on the surface of things.
However the anti-GMO argument is not just "GMO is always bad for you". It just states, that GMO is a way to uncertain technique at this moment to blindly risk the worlds food supply.
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That story is over. GMO has been in large scale production for decades now with no negative effects. The bogeyman isn't there.
Re: nature and consumers (Score:5, Informative)
> It's taken us 100 years to realise CO2 could cause us a few problems.
Wrong. Generation of CO2 was understood to have potential for climate change LONG ago. Tyndall knew of it as early as 1862. Fourier speculated on it in 1820. Arrhenius did the first predictions of the greenhouse effect in the 1890's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect [wikipedia.org]
Science is not as stupid as you seem to think. Fundamental knowledge of physics and chemistry allows prediction rather than dependence on mass experiment to see results.
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In principle, that is correct. OTOH, leaving something powerful like genetic modification of organisms in the hands of corporations (with their well known behavioral disorders [siivola.org]) is really a very bad idea.
And one of the primary negative aspects of the startup way of advancing science and technology is that after some point companies have a very strong incent
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"Just because something is modified by humans doesn't mean it's bad for you. It might be! "
I will sure be bad for sales in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
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However the multinational corporations (and their pet politicians) currently pushing this have shown time and again that they cannot be trusted to give a shit about people's welfare. Until that changes expect GMO to be viewed with extreme suspicion.
Re: nature and consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Happens all the time between animal and bacterial species when viruses attack, and to a lesser degree with plants. A virus damages the DNA of the cell, and brings with it DNA from whatever animal or plant produced it. And there are other mechanisms that can produce similar results. See Horizontal Gene Transfer [wikipedia.org] for more info.
Re: nature and consumers (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure that applies. Spinach copies it's DNA into a foreign host using a totally different mechanism.
Is that Volcano Bicep Syndrome you're discussing?
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With the caveat, of course, that what we're doing does not necessarily have to result in a viable organism. That's the aspect of GM foods that is potentially dangerous. It would not be that surprising if some of these GM crops became sterile in a few generations, or otherwise mutated in a way that made them unsuitable for use as food crops. If that happened on a small scale with viruses, it would be no big deal, because they almost certainly would not supplant the viable variants (which would continue t
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You might want to take a look at how much of your DNA you share with a banana before asking for examples of plants having animal and fish DNA. Plants don't have to modify themselves with DNA from animals because a lot of that DNA is already there. Yay for evolution and common ancestors.
Re:nature and consumers (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to take a look at how much of your DNA you share with a banana before asking for examples of plants having animal and fish DNA
Funny that you mentioned banana's. Ever notice how banana flavoring tastes nothing like a banana that you can buy? Thats because the banana that tasted like that (the Gros Michel) were wiped out [youtube.com] by Panama Disease. We now eat Cavendish bananas, which is also at risk from the same disease.
Gros Michel [wikipedia.org]
Cavendish [wikipedia.org]
Panama Disease [wikipedia.org]
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Re: nature and consumers (Score:2)
Artificial banana flavoring is synthetic isoamyl acetate, amyl acetate and other compounds, whereas actual bananas likely contain hundreds of distinct flavor compounds. Isoamyl acetate by itself is often described as tasting like banana and pear, or Juicy Fruit. My guess is that artificial banana flavoring just isn't as complex as what bananas produce (no pun intended).
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
What? You can't do it? How about wheat? Or potatoes?
ALL of our current crops are genetically-manipulated wild types that usually can't survive in the wild.
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Not as much as ancient tomatoes did - many of those were toxic.
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...and is as tasty as any modern tomato.
WTF are you talking about? Modern tomatoes have been selected mainly because they ripen uniformly, are more resistant to damage during shipping, and also more disease resistant. They ripen uniformly because they have a lower sugar content and therefore a blander taste.
Compare your run-of-the-mill roma tomato with any prized heirloom variety. The roma has been so hybridized that it has certain desirable features, but taste is not one of them. A nice heirloom variety, on the other hand, will have a sweeter,
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Heirloom tomatoes are modern, just not mass produced. They are still the result of people using selective breeding to improve on what they found in nature. Wild means what grows naturally, on it's own. Consider for example wild bananas [wikipedia.org] from which people cultivated modern bananas.
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There is a BIG fucking difference between looking at a row of plants and choosing which one looks the best or tastes the best and growing that next year versus making a frankenstein monster of starfish, grasshopper, and tomato.
How about taking a row of plants, irradiating them with high doses of radiation or watering them with potent chemical mutagens and then selecting the best mutants? Cause that's how the modern cultivars are made!
Oh, and in this case you don't even need to test them - just make sure that seeds don't glow in the dark and you can sell them. With whatever induced genetic defects - like lowered protein content (modern wheat) of almost dysfunctional fat-producing genes (corn). Oh, and during these manipulations
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What if the GMO crop saved millions of lives? Golden Rice, for example, is a huge boon for poor subsistence farmers in Asiatic countries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice [wikipedia.org]
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I am fine with GMOs like golden rice. They basically added some genes to enable production of beta carotene on rice. Sweet potatoes already had beta carotene but they cost a lot more to grow. I am more skittish with the pesticide resistant genes since with horizontal gene transfer the resistance may pass to weeds and make the pesticide basically useless.
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I am more skittish with the pesticide resistant genes since with horizontal gene transfer the resistance may pass to weeds and make the pesticide basically useless.
I believe you mean herbicide.
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I am more skittish with the pesticide resistant genes since with horizontal gene transfer the resistance may pass to weeds and make the pesticide basically useless.
"May"?
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Except that ultimately, golden rice is more PR than boon [sfsu.edu].
Briefly: you need fats of some sort to absorb vitamin A and rice doesn't have any. Also, though the amount of vitamin A is enhanced, you'd still need to eat 2 kg/day of golden rice to get enough. There are plant sources that can provide enough, but rice (golden or otherwise) isn't it.
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure there are lots of scary looking methods of splicing DNA, but those are all done experimentally for research purposes. Those don't ever make it to your dinner plate.
You know the human body contains 3 complete genomes from viruses and about a hundred thousand or so incomplete ones. One of these virus genomes includes genetic material that transcribes to create a critical reproductive function that we could not live without today, and it came from some other animal. So indeed, humans themselves carry DNA from some other animal, and in fact depend on it. In fact, 8% of our genome comes from foreign sources.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/science/12paleo.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [nytimes.com]
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/14/we-are-viral-from-the-beginning/ [nationalgeographic.com]
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/10/the-lurker-how-a-virus-hid-in-our-genome-for-six-million-years/ [nationalgeographic.com]
GMO has the potential to reduce the need for farmland, which if I were an environmentalist I would be ecstatic for because that means tearing down less forest land to create farms to feed people and end world hunger. In addition, it will make food much less expensive which means your bargaining power goes up, which means less poor people.
In commercially sold GMO, all they do is modify a very tiny number of codons to make the plant resistant to glyphosate. That's it. During natural reproduction, plants go through thousands of mutations, mutations much larger than this one, and we haven't the slightest clue what these mutations do. Yet making a small tiny change where we know exactly what it does has people like you raging? Why? Especially given that the chemical composition of the food that ends up on your plate is not chemically distinct from non-GMO based foods.
I don't know what GMO did to ruin your life, but having a vendetta against it because you're ideologically opposed to it doesn't do anybody else any favors. In fact, it does the world a disservice akin to the new rise of smallpox due to the FUD campaign against vaccines. In fact I'd say it's equally destructive.
Please stop spreading FUD about GMO. Thank you.
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Imagine being suspicious of secretive multinational corporations. we all know they only have our best interests at heart after all,
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The anti-GMO movement started by opposing the Flavr Savr tomato, which was developed by a fairly small company. It continued to oppose the GMOs of not only large companies like Monsanto and Syngenta and small companies like the Arctic apple developed by Okanagan Specialty Fruits, but universities like the Rainbow papaya, NGOs like Golden Rice, and government bodies like the wheat developed by CSIRO in Australia that some Greenpeace thug destroyed. By and large, the anti-corporate angle is nothing more tha
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Well first of all, no, I am not a paid Monsanto shill. I know, shocker. No, I'm a network engineer who recently came down with kidney disease due to a freak allergy condition, and in that process have done all kinds of research about proper nutrition (I have to baby my metabolic system as part of managing my chronic kidney disease.) In addition to that, I have a very diminished ability to work, so my wallet is tight. Therefore, I have a vested interest in nutritional food being available on the cheap.
Beyond that, I have no dog in the agriculture industry. None. I'm not invested in any company, I own no stocks, I don't work for any food related business, I don't have any friends in the business, and I don't have any relatives in the business. Zero ties, period.
First, nearly all of your claims have been pretty well established as false, especially the ones about terminator genes:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/top-five-myths-of-genetically-modified-seeds-busted [npr.org]
Do I think Monsanto is in it to end world hunger? Nope. They're in it to make money, just like any other business. However through their developments, the farmers are able to grow crops at a reduced overall cost per yield in addition to higher yields in general; in other words your food costs less and there is more of it. This is why Monsanto products are sought after. Do we use more glyphosate based pesticides? Probably. Given that we have created a situation where the plants we want are immune to them, and it kills the plants we don't want, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that we now make more of them. Why, did that surprise you? If it did, that doesn't say much about your intelligence. Glyphosate doesn't end up on our dinner plates in any significant quantities, so it's not a problem.
The organic industry hates Monsanto because now they have to compete with their prices. And it sucks for them particularly bad because organic farming has otherwise very high profit margins, but its costs will never go down, even though it is already scientifically proven to offer zero health or taste benefit over any other form of farming. You know why the costs for organic will never go down? Because it is technologically capped - i.e. there are strict limits on what kinds of technologies they can use for their farming. Worse is that the organic crops will continue to adapt to the pesticides they use, which means they'll always need to use larger quantities of them as time goes by since they can't use synthetic pesticides (which is why modern farming uses far less pesticides than organic already.)
The organic industry isn't suing Monsanto because they want to protect you from bad food, they're suing because they want to protect their revenue stream long term. How you like that one? Whole Foods is in it to make money as well. And what do you know, I don't shop there because I can't afford their food. I've found that a wal-mart strawberry tastes the same as a whole foods strawberry, only costs about half as much, so I shop there. Does that anger you? Makes me happy to be honest, because as the saying goes: A penny saved is a penny earned.
Fun fact: Since the 1950's, the food yields from American farms has increased 300% while the landmass required to produce them has only increased 12%. Not true of Organic though - organic farming requires increased landmass at a closer to linear scale. And as if that isn't enough, organic farming will continue on that trend. Contrary to popular belief, organic farming is unsustainable.
The anti-GMO movement in my mind equates to the following:
anti-vaccine movement
9/11 conspiracy theorists
moon landing hoaxers
chemtrail fearmongerers
Yes, it being anti-GMO is every bit as unreasonable and even harmful as all of the above things to me. To me there is no difference, all of these people conveniently ignore any evidence that they
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
It does happen in nature... For example the sea slug learned to incorporate plant DNA and thereby became photosynthetic.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16124-solarpowered-sea-slug-harnesses-stolen-plant-genes.html#.UfVDwY1wqPA [newscientist.com]
The GMO head in sand types vastly underestimate the mobility of DNA in nature.
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Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Informative)
"Show many ANY time in nature where plants have modified themselves with ANIMALS and FISH and then and ONLY then will I buy your bullshit, because in case you ain't been keeping up on current events they have been mixing everything from starfish to grasshopper into plants to increase yields and make them grow larger."
Challenge Accepted.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23166508 [nih.gov]
Bdelloids!
Of ~29,000 matched transcripts, ~10% were inferred from blastx matches to be horizontally acquired, mainly from eubacteria but also from fungi, protists, and algae. After allowing for possible sources of error, the rate of HGT is at least 8%-9%, a level significantly higher than other invertebrates.
They haven't had sex in 80 million years. 8-9% of their genome is made up of sequences captured from all of the above sources. They've got plant DNA right in the middle of their animal DNA, and they've got the DNA of multiple other microinvertebrates mixed up in there, too. They're also enormously resistant to radiation.
I believe this satisfies your criteria. But speaking to the larger point, you need to get over the idea that your DNA is some kind of pristine paradise. It's more like a hoarder's paradise shot through with fragments of viruses, bits and pieces from other species, and vast swaths of code that don't actually *do* anything -- they're just there. The degree of genetic bloat in a species varies enormously, the Norway Spruce has a genome of some 20 billion base pairs (we have just 3 billion). We both have the same number of protein-encoding genes -- about 30,000.
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With the current blight threat to Cavendish bananas, the last GMO related action was to splice some pepper genes into them. If I remember correctly, two of three tested genes didn't modify flavor, while the third added a peppery taste and was dropped. That sounds as though the researchers there are not "shotgunning" genes around. It's hoped the two remaining pepper genes will armor the plants against the current threat and at least some others. The real solution is probably to get several different blight r
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That's the Naturalistic Fallacy. Just because something doesn't occur in nature (I'll concede the term "in nature" as meaning "not done by humans") doesn't mean its bad, and just because something does occur in nature doesn't mean it's good.
Your exact argument could be applied to anything artificial: show me ANY time in nature where animals have harnessed electricity to build general-purpose information-processing device
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Bees are mostly weak to nerve toxins designed to kill insects, a big surprise I know.
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People have been cross breeding animals and plants since agriculture was first invented, always trying to get better traits. Mules are the most commonly known example
Minotaurs are the second.
Re:nature and consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
All of you are forgetting something, very rarely these days are things done to help or save people. In todays world, if something is made, it's only because someone thinks they can make a lot of $ with it. Consequences are an afterthought.
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Yes, and it's well known that selling poison disguised as food produces both goodwill in the market and many repeat sales...
No, the people modifying food aren't saying "we don't care how many people our product kills, so long as we make a metric buttload of cash".
What t
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Also, jeez, you sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Stop saying that like it's a bad thing. To those who've been in a position to actually learn a few things, it makes you sound like a brainwashed idiot.
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Wrong.
Go take yourself a trip to the Citrus State Park in Riverside, California, and go learn about the history of the orange, which came from Brazil.
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In the same way a Granny Smith apple is "made by man"?
I was always under the impression that citrus was similar to apples in that, yes, very specific cultivars we have now were selected by man for their useful traits, and those cultivars have been grown since discovery; however, it was not man that "made" the fruit, Mother Nature made the fruit and we simply selected and continued cultivating the varieties that we liked.
Calling that "man-made" seems disingenuous.
"improperly tested" (Score:3)
"new and improperly tested food"
What the hell does that mean?
New GMO food is tested out the wazoo. Existing GMO food has been tested now by hundreds of millions of people with no ill effect.
The jury is in, has gone home, and written the tell-all book. GMO food is safe and it's madness not to support making food safer and healthier in this way.
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Natural toxins tend to degrade in the environment
As a researcher that has a past in investigating the fate of natural products from common cultivars, allow me to say that no, not all of them do. Not to the degree that we demand new pesticides do, anyway. Or they do, but the degrade into something even worse. Or they leach into the ground water before they ar
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Even if you are correct, you're not going to get people to agree with you (that is your goal, isn't it?) if you act like a smug know-it-all douche nozzle.
The trolling bit stems from how you present your argument. Spewing xenophobic trash at people is a good way to get labeled "troll" or "flamebait", because that is what you are doing.
When I read your comments, I'm picturing a caricature of Woody Allen, arms flailing, walking around in circles just looking for someone to bitch at. Interestingly, I briefly
Popeye meets Anita Bryant (Score:4, Funny)
No. Cannot and Will Not go there.
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GMO is scary... for now. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Orange juice sucks anyway (Score:5, Informative)
Once you understand how commercial orange juice is made I guarantee you'll never want to drink it again.
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Really, all you had to do was read the article to find that nothing nefarious is going on:
So, they get a bunch of unflavorful juice from one variety in the spring, store it, then mix it with fl
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It's a bit more than just that. Look at the "Not From concentrate" section of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice [wikipedia.org]
and you'll get a better idea of what's done, though there is more explicit information available if you're interested.
The "Flavor Packs" they use are technically "natural" since they're derived from oranges, but the whole process sounds pretty nasty to me. I'll continue to just eat in-season fresh oranges or squeeze them myself for juice, and eat different fruits when they're not in
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Orange juice is so sugary that you shouldn't be drinking enough of it to affect your health one way or another. I had some today because someone made us breakfast. I don't know where it was made and I don't care - it was a rare and tasty treat.
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I only eat natural foods.. (Score:2, Insightful)
You know the kind that have been selectively bred over thousands of years and would never have happened by chance. The kind that are now grown in huge monocultures that are all susceptible to the same diseases like these oranges. I don't want people messing with my food!
Symptom of monocropping (Score:4, Insightful)
As stated by others, this is a natural phenomenon and is only a problem for modern industrial agriculture practices, especially those based on the mass monocropping of a few select breeds to feed the world. Putting all of our eggs in a few baskets is just ignorant. An ecosystem requires diversity to survive.
This smells like a scheme to make GMO crops more acceptible to the public, suggesting only science can save the oranges and therefore we'll just have to get use to the idea of GMO crops, as if there were no other viable alternatives.
Here's an alternative - replace monocrop orchards with polyculture farms (i.e. food forest) that are based on the same principles of natural ecosystems. Their diversity is what has allowed them to survive just fine without human interaction for longer than we've been around to fuck up the works.
Re:Symptom of monocropping (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA:
“In all of cultivated citrus, there is no evidence of immunity,” the plant pathologist heading a National Research Council task force on the disease said.
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But the basic premise of agriculture conflicts with a diverse ecosystem. Farmers could plant a jungle, but their yield would be far lower & subsequently costs would be a lot more, I doubt it would be possible to sustain 7 billion people that way.
And all that to prevent using GMO crops, which are totally harmless to our health.
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Monoculture is important. (In an earlier post I made this very point.) But almost equally important is rapid transportation. This allows infective organisms to spread world-wide VERY quickly.
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But almost equally important is rapid transportation.
What do you mean by rapid? Ships, even sailing ships, are plenty fast enough to spread all sorts of agricultural pests.
Wouldn't have monoculture without GMO fears (Score:2)
replace monocrop orchards with polyculture farms
The ironic thing if scare-mongerers like you were not drumming up fear of GMO foods, every orchard would probably have many different varieties of even a single crop, each with a different GMO variant to test out some new flavor or ability.
GMO fears are what is leading to monoculture, because you are blocking scientific progress on any possible changes that can be made to food crops.
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People are spooked at GMO, just as people are spooked at lots of stupid things. The answer to mass hysteria isn't to play along with it. People don't want to consume MSG or artificial sweeteners, even though these are well studied to have no effect on our health. Fat is terrible and we should eat as little as possible to be healthy, only it's the building block of human hormones, many nutrients need fat to be absorbed, and meta-studies don't show any relation between cardiovascular health and getting too
A balance has to be achieved (Score:2)
nature has variation (Score:4, Insightful)
>"Florida orange crop is threatened by an incurable disease"
And perhaps that is because they plant millions of the same species/strain with no natural variation? Haven't we learned yet how bad that is?
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>"Apparantly the orange industry isn't on speaking terms with the banana industry."
LOL!!
OK, that isn't quite what I meant, but very funny
show me an orchard without disease (Score:2)
Somebody has to speak for these oranges. You all got on this website for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I’m asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make oranges...better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.
Don't like GMO? Look at the alternative (Score:2)
No oranges.
The idiots that oppose protecting a worldwide food crop from certain extinction because they're scared of science ought be ignored flat out in this case.
Not a result of monoculture: (Score:5, Interesting)
Quoth TFA:
“In all of cultivated citrus, there is no evidence of immunity,” the plant pathologist heading a National Research Council task force on the disease said.
Deal with it: there's no all-wise Mother Nature who has arranged for the perfect harmony of all beings. Species evolve taking advantage, in spite of, or in a mutual-benefit relationship with other; and then sometimes because the other simply isn't around. Previously isolated species may meet, and whole taxa may thrive or perish.
Citrus greening disease [wikipedia.org] has been around for a century across species, and it's incurable. The alternatives are 1. eradicating the pathogen (good luck), 2. eradicating the vector (even harder, and craptons of pesticides are required), 3. making the vector immune (read: genetic manipulation), or 4. making the plant immune (again, genetic manipulation). Pick your poison.
Fortunately... (Score:2)
Not clear if consumers will go for it though.
Fortunately most of them will never know. :p
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Not clear if consumers will go for it though.
Fortunately most of them will never know. :p
Why is that fortunate? Do you fancy yourself part of a technocratic elite that always knows best? Label the stuff and let people decide for themselves.
GMO Oranges? Altering a Fruit's DNA To "Save" It (Score:2)
H.I.F.T.F.Y.
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Diversify (Score:2)
Or they could, y'know, plant several varieties of orange trees to hedge against a narrow epidemic. Like, say, a parasite that his spinach really hard...
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Or they could, y'know, plant several varieties of orange trees to hedge against a narrow epidemic. Like, say, a parasite that his spinach really hard...
Great idea. If only it was a narrow epidemic. But its not, so know what?
This particular disease affects every single citrus plant out there. Not just all varieties of orange, but also lemons, limes, grapefruit. Doesn't matter what you plant, if its citrus this disease will kill it.
The Problem With GMO (Score:2)
The problem arises in not requiring or possibly even being able to conceive the mid or long term consequences.
An example is a story I read a few years ago... basically an ecosystem had collapsed because of the elimination of wolves. The strange part was that the system was co
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This is happening all the time in nature, so that's nothing new.
The big problem is that humanity has been influencing the crops that we grow for such a long time now to obtain higher yields that some other parts like disease resistance has been put on hold.
Re:And when the new orange dies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but the big problem is monoculture. This results in an entire crop being (nearly) genetically identical. THIS results in all plants being susceptible to the same invasive organism...of course it's also what makes the taste, shape, etc. so predictable, and until the invasive organism arrives, that's quite advantageous.
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Wish I had mod points today... because you've hit the nail on the head. Monoculture is the fundamental problem here.
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Re:Genetic Roullette (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with your point, but to be fair Round-Up (glyphosate) is an herbicide and not a pesticide. I know, sounds like semantics, but making good arguments but messing up the details makes your point less salient. Glyphosate is also one of the safest herbicides in wide spread use, numerous studies have shown little if any long term adverse side effects and while acute toxicity is a possibility it is extremely rare and almost certainly an issue of a accidental extreme exposure. Natural resistance to glyphosate is the REAL reason to not want it used so widely. It is an extremely useful herbicide and to apply it when MANY alternatives exist because it make life easier than those alternatives is poor agriculture.
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Round-Up (glyphosate) is an herbicide and not a pesticide
Herbicides are pesticides [wikipedia.org]. Pesticide is a very broad term. You may be confusing it with insecticide.
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Basically I agree with your points. My feeling, however, is that new GMO products should be treated the same as new drugs. One can argue that the controls should be tighter, as they expose more people to the change. Often the changes created by a new GMO organism are greater than the change in a new drug (which is often just tweaking to preserve patentability).
I think this means that I'm in favor of tighter controls on GMO organisms than you are, but I'm not sure, as I also favor looser controls on new d
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Nonsense. Roundup Ready technology REDUCES pesticide use. Furthermore the active ingredient in RoundUp is perhaps the least toxic to mammals of any pesticide ever developed.
http://foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=16&sc=129&id=484 [ksu.edu]
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They may be evil moustache-twisting gene splicers, but they're not idiots. If there were a wild citrus species which was immune, they'd be mining it for genes.
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are the real issue. If you plant 1000's of acres if one thing you are likely to have your crop wiped out by one disease that easily spreads. Use spacer crops to avoid spread of such diseases
Well it managed to spread to florida from ascia so if an ocean and a continent wasn't enough of a space I'm not sure what a field of pears is going to do.