Overuse of Bioengineered Corn Gives Rise To Resistant Pests 259
An anonymous reader writes "Though warned by scientists that overuse of a variety of corn engineered to be toxic to corn rootworms would eventually breed rootworms with resistance to its engineered toxicity, the agricultural industry went ahead and overused the corn anyway with little EPA intervention. The corn was planted in 1996. The first reports of rootworm resistance were officially documented in 2011, though agricultural scientists weren't allowed by seed companies to study the engineered corn until 2010. Now, a recent study has clearly shown how the rootworms have successfully adapted to the engineered corn. The corn's continued over-use is predicted, given current trends, and as resistance eventually spreads to the whole rootworm population, farmers will be forced to start using pesticides once more, thus negating the economic benefits of the engineered corn. 'Rootworm resistance was expected from the outset, but the Bt seed industry, seeking to maximize short-term profits, ignored outside scientists.'"
Well evolution at work (Score:2, Informative)
I wonder when will we learn that fighting the Nature is not the best path to survival.
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Plant a certain percentage of GMO crop toxic to rootworm along with unmodified, so the rootworm have an environment where they can live and reduce the selective pressure to become resistant. It will lower the yield but you can still avoid pesticides.
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But in a natural world, you don't have the big feast of hundreds of acres of food for a single species
Actually forrests often grow that way. If not a single species of tree then a small number of species all in close proximity. Actually... better yet, how about grasslands? Yes, I'm sure there are multiple species of grass in there but there have to be many many of the same species in close proximtiy across the whole area.
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It means we should find what eats or infects rootworms, what "is in rootworm business" and work from there.
I think the Simpsons have shown that this is a very bad idea.
Creationists (Score:3, Funny)
Are those bioengineers creationists who didn't think nature would adapt to those new genes? crazy.
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No. I'm sure they were counting on it. Or more accurately their employers are. Patents last too long but they still don't last forever!
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The most damning aspect of this affair (Score:5, Insightful)
is this: agricultural scientists weren't allowed by seed companies to study the engineered corn until 2010.
surely with the help of our corrupt lawmakers.
How in the hell can scientists NOT be allowed to study IN DETAIL, and from the get-go, something as fundamentally groundbreaking and new as genetic engineering applied on a planet-wide scale for the first time ever in the history of life itself?
We need a revolution to overthrow the current government structures the world over, and sooner rather than later, if only because some day, Something Bad[tm] will happen that'll cause genuine harm to humanity.
Re:The most damning aspect of this affair (Score:5, Insightful)
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What about focusing the greatest minds and resources on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections ?
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I saw a researcher who was doing good research into the negative aspects of nicotine easily lured away by a tabacco company for 10x the salary.
So you say you want a revolution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think you will get something better and what is wrong with George Washington's ideas in the first place that another revolution is required to replace them?
Why do you think it will turn out better than what Egypt is dealing with now?
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I think it *could* work better than the Arab spring has. The major reason being Americans still have a vague cultural memory of what Washington and Jeffersonian democracy looked like.
If they ever do remove the blinders enough to see what is really going on in the first place, it won't be as easy to sell them a Plutocracy or Military dictatorship gussied up to look like a Republic at least not right after their brothers, sons, and daughters have just got done bleeding for freedom again.
Most people here are
I strongly doubt it (Score:2)
Which is why I tried pointing out to the above poster that a revolu
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You are more likely to get a Putin than a Gorbachev, and there are many more Ted Cruz-like asshats out there than there are George Washingtons.
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Ukraine just had a revolution. Look what happened? Woe to you if you live in Crimea. You are now Russian with Putin spies all over and will dissapear if you do not watch what you say or act carefully. Sounds better under the corrupt Ukraine dictatorship if you ask me.
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George Washington's revolution? Yeah, he started it, he lead it and he shaped the ideas that came out of it. All by himself! And over 200 years later those ideas are still what our government today runs on!
May I buy you a history book?
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The trouble is these things come with what amounts to a EULA. Look how things worked out for that farmer who bought GM soy from a grain silo and tried to use it for seed: law suit city.
I am sure the farmers were forbidden from furnishing the plants to anyone who was not going to be using them for animal or human consumption. So its not that nobody could study it but that there would have been nothing but pain associated with doing so. As soon as they went to publish or even just talk about it, they would
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If legitimate, this "scientists weren't allowed" statement is indeed alarming. However, it was also given without details, basis, or evidence. I am a scientist, and I don't give a damn about what my industry wants me to study. Who are these pansy agricultural scientists that ask companies for permission about what to study? Was a scientist actually sued? Can anyone document any details of a possible threat, even a subtle or implied one? How did these companies manange to distribute these seeds so widely to farmers while completely preventing all scientists from obtaining a single sample? Come on, evidence please! Until then, I really want to be inflamed by this story. Can anyone with some real details help me out?
Here's the explanation. There was no Grand Consipracy to prevent scientists from obtaining and studying the seeds. What wasn't allowed was for scientists to have access to the fields where the plants were being commercially grown.
They *could* have obtained the seeds, planted them, and done their studies on those crops. But they couldn't possibly reproduce the sheer scale of Mega-agrobusiness. Since evolution involves lots of random chance, there would be a lot more chances for resistance to develop in t
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Our corrupt government allows corporations to poison our food in order to poison the bugs that eat it.
The bugs evolve to resist the poison, making the poison pointless.
Our government allows corporations to continue poisoning our food because the corporations have become dependent on the income the poisoning provides.
We are still being poisoned, and will continue to be poisoned.
Yet genetically altering our food is somehow still considered a good thing by the clueless. Sadly, the clueless are the ones making
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The Tea Party is counter revolution of more corporate control and less goverment and liberalism.
The Tea Party is winning. Expect more corruption and more power to the big boys and the citizens are all brainwashed and in line thinking less government is really for them lol
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Of course the reverse of this is less corporate control and more government control.
Please tell me, whats the scarier proposition, bunches of really big and wealthy companies that we can often choose to deal with or not, or a huge massive government that has many times the resources of these companies and can jail you or worse?
It boggles my mind that someone could actually argue that the solution to us having too many powerful companies is making our massively powerful government even more powerful.
As count
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You seem confused about how the government works:
1) A big government is what keeps companies in check. More regulations = bigger government. Fewer regulations = big companies have more power. Read up on the Square Deal and President Theodore Roosevelt and see what happens when there are not enough regulations. Monopolies are very, very bad.
2) Copyright and patents came about because it protects the artist/inventor who could be run out of business by someone copying his own creation. The fact that IP law abu
Feature, not bug (Score:5, Funny)
We need to start outsourcing our problems to Nature. How about we genetically engineer corn which can only be eaten by organisms which excrete efficient batteries, BitCoins and flying cars?
A bit slanted? (Score:3)
Okay, I can be pretty dense when it comes to reading between the lines, but even I notice a heavy dose of agenda in this summary. It's a good thing the anti-GMO folks have a crystal ball to see the future clearly.
I guess we need our daily dose of propaganda though.
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Okay, I can be pretty dense when it comes to reading between the lines, but even I notice a heavy dose of agenda in this summary. It's a good thing the anti-GMO folks have a crystal ball to see the future clearly.
I guess we need our daily dose of propaganda though.
I'm pro-GMO but I think this is one of the legitimate issues. If you engineer something to resist a pest the pest is going to evolve a response, we've learned that lesson countless times with anti-biotics but the pests evolve faster than human nature.
Re:A bit slanted? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, I can be pretty dense when it comes to reading between the lines, but even I notice a heavy dose of agenda in this summary. It's a good thing the anti-GMO folks have a crystal ball to see the future clearly.
I guess we need our daily dose of propaganda though.
I'm pro-GMO but I think this is one of the legitimate issues. If you engineer something to resist a pest the pest is going to evolve a response, we've learned that lesson countless times with anti-biotics but the pests evolve faster than human nature.
Perhaps I am missing something but I fail to see the issue? it was completely expected for the pests to overcome it, GE corn was never going to be a solution forever, it doesn't negate all the years of use they got out of not having to use a heap of chemicals to kill the pests. Now they have to go back to chemicals again though, at least until they find the next method to counter them.
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So previous to this seed we use pesticides to combat rootworms because farmers grow the same crop year after year permitting rootworm populations to rapidly grow. The seed is introduced which the corn produces its own pesticide. The seed is used, once again year after year. The rootworms become resistant. Farmers are now required to use pesticides once again.
We've returned to where we were about five years ago and about the worst thing you could say happened is that this particular modification of corn to c
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My problem isn't with the information provided, my problem is how they are framing the summary. It comes across as an emotional plea rather than actually providing knowledge/data. The message is getting lost in the rhetoric, imo.
Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
Years ago (10 years or more)? There was a study about the arms race in agricultural pest control. The subject of this study was a genetically engineered crop that made its own poison, but that was not really relevant to the outcome of the study. Traditional spraying would have the same effect.
It was discovered that poison did not only fight pests, it also helps pests. The non-resistant pest bugs were killed, but the resistant pest bugs were given a predator-free environment. This was important, because the poison resistance often comes with lower chances of survival in non-poisoned environments. For example, one poison had an impact on the nerve system, paralysing non-resistant bugs. Resistant bugs had a nerve system that worked much slower, so they would be a "sitting duck" in a natural environment.
the study showed that if a certain portion of the land (recommended was 15% to 20%, which sound like a lot, but is peanuts compared to the 60% loss often found due to resistant pests) was planted with non-poisoned crops, the whole arms race could actually be stopped. The bugs would move between plants, and if they came on a poisoned plant they would be attacked by the poison, and if they came on a natural plant, they would be attacked by their natural predators.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, it's called refuge. And that's why you will find, today, that the recommendation is to do exactly as you say. You'll even find Monsanto, BASF and Pioneer telling you to do that, and even selling the seeds for both. If you find a farmer that doesn't know that, he's not paying attention.
Now, good luck finding people that know this unless they have farmers or agronomists in the family.
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In Iowa, refuge rows are required. I forget if it is 10% or 20% refuge rows, but anyway, they are required by law. I guess this is not a requirement in other states?
Does this mean pesticide works better now? (Score:3)
So there was a switch to rootworm resistant corn, which I'd assume came with a declining use of pesticide. If the rootworms overcame resistance to the resistant corn, does this mean they may have lost some of their resistance to the pesticide?
Or are these resistances somehow retained or overlapping so that we have rootworms with high resistance to both?
Other than the nasty concept of pesticide use generally, it sounds like maybe this would allow for a switch back to pesticides which the rootworms may have lost resistance to.
Or will my cynicism be correct, that farmers will use both the resistant seed AND pesticide and develop a super-rootworm with strong resistance to both?
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as long as they have little S symbols on their chests so we can easily identify them.
Re:Does this mean pesticide works better now? (Score:4, Insightful)
buy hey! (Score:3)
evolution isn't real, right? adaptation to environmental stresses just a theory...
tell that to these farmers.
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Who needs evolution when you can use Intelligent Greed Design.
Well, let's eat the root worms instead (Score:4, Funny)
Yummy.
As long as the bottom line was good for a quarter (Score:2)
or two, it was well worth the experiment, at least to the CEO and shareholders. The CEO got his bonus and the shareholders got their bump in the price and that's all that matters.
When the CEO lays off all the genetic engineers because of this "problem" the shareholders will reward him with another bonus for being so proactive.
I don't know why you guys are getting so upset. It says right there in the Bible that God gave us all the plants and animals to do with as we see fit.
So this is a bad why? (Score:4, Insightful)
"1996. The first reports of root worm resistance were officially documented in 2011"
So we got 15 years of pesticide-free corn? And the downside is we have to return to what we used to do, until we get another variety?
If it's 15 years for that one too, I suspect we can out engineer the bugs continually.
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Although I agree, the critical question really becomes: Did we get value for that corn over that timescale, enough to justify changing over to it.
Did the cost of not having to use pesticide X scale in comparison to the cost of finding new pesticide Y within 15 years (which, let's face it, is largely a random number determined by genetic mutation chance) and deploying it?
How much do farmers have invested in this? How much profit/loss would they have made just using the old pesticide or even suffering losse
GM species behave exactly like any other species (Score:2)
There is noting weird and baleful about GM species that causes them to behave differently from non-GMOs in the environment, including how other species co-evolve in response to them. There was an early belief that transfer of genes between species was special manmade magic, until it was found that this happens in nature too: http://davesgarden.com/guides/... [davesgarden.com]
Genetic engineering is nothing but a precisely targeted way of accomplishing changes that used to take generations of cross-breeding and culling.
But it's the panacea! (Score:2)
This is the whole thing with GMO (Score:2)
It doesn't exempt itself from evolution. So the question we need to be asking ourselves is, WHEN pests evolve to thwart GMO "innovations" what might those pests be able to DO how BAD will THAT be and how are we going to deal with it and how quickly can we react what happens to the food supply if we CAN'T?
Evolution Surprisingly Still Works (Score:2)
More on this unexpected development later.
John Brunner wrote that (Score:2)
Either in "Stand on Sansibar" or "Sheep looking up" I think the latter one. Well at his time it was considered SF. However it was plausible. And I'm not surprised that it indeed worked. Now lets wait for the worms to really mutate and become nasty :D
Re:O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
YA RLY
And the corporations selling this stuff cannot care less about it, all they care about is that we transition to patented and sterile seeds so we perpetually depend on them. All the fuss surrounding GMO is about this.
Needless to say, the corporations should be prosecuted as fraudsters unless those buying the seeds sign a contract which clearly states they assume all responsibility for what the seeds do to their environment and the nearby fields. Because if something bad happens it's the fault of either one.
Re:O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
unless those buying the seeds sign a contract which clearly states they assume all responsibility for what the seeds do to their environment
Well, I might not have the same perspective on "muh freedom", but you shouldn't be allowed to sign such a contract at all, because the scope obviously surpasses you. In an ideal world with an ideal justice system, such a contract should be void and both those who sold and those who used the seeds are responsible for the damage.
Sterile seeds have little to do with that, by the way, as they have been easy to produce and have been used for a long time already (sterility can be either desired or undesired depending on the crop, but usually it's just a side effect from hybridisation).
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It's their business model. Now, with the altered pests, they'll make another type of corn, and sell it for the next 5 years. And keep at it until the corn becomes too poisonous for humans or livestock to consume or the farmers/government wiseup.
Re:O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called OVERuse for a reason. If you use these technologies in reasonable ways, you can control pest populations while maintaining the effectiveness of the toxin. If you ONLY use this corn and it's this effective, you are basically breading the corn rootworms for resistance.
If you stupidly sprint at the start of a marathon you burn up your resources too quickly, and the same thing is happening here.
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If the farmers used more sustainable (organic, biodynamic, whatever) techniques it would never have become a problem in the first place!
Re:O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
The deeper problem, of which all this is a direct consequence, is allowing short term economic considerations of a tiny minority to outweigh the mid to long term environmental and health consequences (with associated dollar cost, of course) for society at large.
FTFS:
The corn was planted in 1996. The first reports of rootworm resistance were officially documented in 2011, though agricultural scientists weren't allowed by seed companies to study the engineered corn until 2010.
Same thing is happening around fracking, companies are disallowing scientists to scrutinize the many chemicals they're squirting down into the earth, because trade secrets.
In a democracy, everyone is responsible and accountable when, decade after decade, private profits are allowed to trump public well being, time and time again.
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But but but ... that might mean more government interference and then where would my Libertarian nonsense be? Shouldn't the free market sort this out? /sarcasm
Re:O RLY (Score:4, Interesting)
In your Libertarian nonsense, there are no public goods, or Commons. Everything is owned by somebody, including your grandmother. Every bit, byte, and nibble has a price. We have actuaries and accountants to keep track of it all, yep, even the data has a price, those actuaries and accountants do not work for free. In a Libertarian utopia, we'll all have Air Measures installed in our teeth and a monthly bill for how much air you breathe. And you'll have all the firearms and rocket launchers you need to prevent anyone from stealing from your pile of loot. And you'll need them too since not everyone will feel blessed in the Libertarian Paradise.
And when you die, don't forget to settle up or your heirs will be inheriting much more than your mold and spore collection.
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While on the opposite end, everything is peaceful, everything is a public good, there is no price tag for anything, and people are randomly executed for anything. A single entity other than yourself control your life and your destiny. You can find one such country (Hint: it is located on the Korean Peninsula.)
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Free Market COULD sort this out. This is a matter of courts. IF you can prove the harm, and you should be able to, then we can use the courts to sue the corporations and their boards and CxOs for liablity, toss them in to Pound me in the ass prison, and confiscate their wealth, and finally, after all is done, give the shareholders absolutely nothing by revoking the corporate charter (including subsidiaries). THIS would create a free market result that things that are harmful are not done, because it isn't p
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I'm glad you made reference to the "Corporate / Government" complex since this is the problem. Our government is completely corrupt since corporations can buy whatever laws they need to keep their profits. Corporations buy politicians who make the laws which benefit corporations.
I don't really agree that "it is more profitable for government to allow for this crap" since government doesn't make a profit but the politicians who make our laws certainly can benefit from making laws to benefit corporations or f
Re:O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the dystpoian oligarchy, where the only thing which matters is corporate profits, and where you assume it's safe until someone proves otherwise -- all the while making it impossible for people to study it enough to find out.
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The deeper problem, of which all this is a direct consequence, is allowing short term economic considerations of a tiny minority to outweigh the mid to long term environmental and health consequences (with associated dollar cost, of course) for society at large.
Hey, hey! This is America!
Re:O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
YA RLY
And the corporations selling this stuff cannot care less about it, all they care about is that we transition to patented and sterile seeds so we perpetually depend on them.
my biggest concern is that they start creating what can only be described as "generation time-bomb crops", in a pathologically-insane effort to further save money. "time-bomb crops" would be those which you plant once, they grow, seed, plant twice, they grow, place a third time and they FAIL.
now imagine such insanely-dangerous crops pollenating and cross-pollenating world-wide and it's not so hard to imagine a scenario in which world famine occurs within a five to eight year period in which all food crops world-wide completely fail.
i was actually pretty shocked when i first heard of sterile seeds that even have a *single* generation planting. there's no guarantee that nature will not, through its own process of DNA evolution, *accidentally* come up with generation time-bomb crops.
i've said it once and i'll say it again: genetic modifications to crops are so insanely dangerous that i'm beyond understanding why people do not understand this. if there was even the *slightest* risk of killing 7 billion people *why would you even contemplate it*?
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Re:O RLY (Score:4, Insightful)
"and also seem to be conflating what the GMO industry is doing right now with the underlying technology."
There's a lot of that going around. Isn't that what pretty much every anti-GMO person does?
Evolution take care of that (Score:2)
Re:Evolution take care of that (Score:4, Insightful)
Seed with limited number of generation, simply kick themselves out of any gene pool which has no such limitation.
While in the long run this is true, in the short run the effects of this can be ruinous to an environment.
In a natural setting, such self-limiting organisms would never be able to get a strong foothold; when they inevitably die out, the rest of the plant kingdom easily makes up the slack. Unfortunately, due to human intervention it is quite possible for these suicidal genes to spread far, far beyond what their 'natural' reach. Thus, when plants infected with these genes inevitably die off, the gap they will leave behind could be much larger than would be otherwise expected. Ultimately, there will be other plants - either those never infected with the "suicide" genes or mutants that bypass this repressive bit of DNA - that will take over the rolls played by those limited by their genes. But in the meantime, the plants and animals (including humans and their civilization) would have a rough time of it as their food source suddenly shrivels up and die.
Yes, we - like the rest of the animal kingdom - would eventually adapt. But pity those caught in the period of disruption, no matter how "short-term" it is in the overall scheme of things.
It is like the argument against global warming. Yes, the planet has weathered periods where it was both warmer and colder than it is now, and yes, life will continue if the current conditions change. But our species - and our civilizations - have adapted to current conditions and the transitory periods would bring great hardship. It's all well and good to say "life will go on" but that ignores all the pain and suffering of those living during the transition, which is sort of contrary to the whole point of having a civilization to begin with.
We have the wisdom and ability to avoid these disruptions - whether caused by mismanagement of our seedcrop or the pollutants from our industry - and ignoring the dangers these cause simply because /life/ will surely survive the changing conditions is foolish. It's not just life that is important, but individual lives. It is all the more ridiculous since we are charging recklessly ahead with these dangerous technologies simply with the aim of increasing the shareholder value of a corporation.
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The whole terminator gene concept was designed to ALLAY fears that a GM species would get out into the environment and "take over" in some way, presumably evolving a mustache and a devilish laugh.
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my biggest concern is that they start creating what can only be described as "generation time-bomb crops", in a pathologically-insane effort to further save money. "time-bomb crops" would be those which you plant once, they grow, seed, plant twice, they grow, place a third time and they FAIL.
now imagine such insanely-dangerous crops pollenating and cross-pollenating world-wide and it's not so hard to imagine a scenario in which world famine occurs within a five to eight year period in which all food crops world-wide completely fail.
Sorry but you don't understand even the complete basics of genetics. Time-bomb crops wouldn't be that dangerous in the wild even if they actually existed. It's extremely unlikely that a significant portion of normal crop population would become contaminated by time-bomb genes in just a few years. And two plants with both normal and time-bomb genes still have 25% chance of producing completely clean offspring.
Also, the chance of infertile hybrid turning into multigeneration time-bomb is practically zero. It'
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I think the plan is to kill only 5 or 6 billion people.
Re:O RLY (Score:4, Funny)
Because they are the biggest, and they invented it. Also everyone knows how big a bunch of cunts they are.
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You're right - I did miss-read. /tin foil hat Monsanto bought the paper?
Re: O RLY (Score:3)
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
Presumably there are other ways of reducing the pest population and ways of delaying resistance to this and to pesticides. Consider crop rotation, for example. Gardeners know that some plants shouldn't be planted in the same place year after year because the pest population increases over time (and because of the effect on the soil, and sometimes other reasons). I'm sure farmers know this, too. But if maize is the best paying crop and someone offers you these seeds as a way to continue to plant maize on a heavily infested area, what are you going to do?
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Diversity is the key. (Crop rotation is just one example.) The whole "mega-scale, mono-culture" approach to farming is flawed, and these GMO tweaks are just prolonging its inevitable demise. The future lies with smaller-scale, multi-species farms which more closely mimic the patterns found in nature.
For example, put multiple crops in a single field, alternating several rows of each (depending on what equipment you're using), and interspersed with "islands" of other species whose purpose is to provide habitat for the predators of your pests. You might not get quite as much yield, but if you don't have to spend a dime on pesticide, you'll still come out ahead.
It's a lot more sophisticated than I can explain here, but there are plenty of people doing this already, and it is growing in popularity. There are many different methods being developed, most of which fit under the umbrella of "permaculture" or "holistic management". Look at what Joel Salatin is doing at Poliface Farm in Virginia, or what Colin Seis is doing with "pasture cropping" in Australia, as just a couple of prominent examples.
There are better ways to produce our food and fiber, it's just going to take a while to revolutionize the entire industry.
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with this model is, it's not friendly to automation. You can't harvest from a complex ecosystem with a petrol driven combine.
But you can build custom forests that are filled with massive diversity of food crops, and it's not really any more work to gather your food from one than it is to go to the grocery store.
These forests deliver way, way more food per acre than any conventional farming method, by a huge margin.
Because they're built using perennial plants that will propagate themselves, once they're up, you never have to dig, and you never have to plant the earth.
Because you fill all the available ecological niches with food bearing plants, you never have to weed, and you never have to use pesticides.
Because they are stable ecosystems, once you put them together, barring fire or catastrophic weather events, they'll continue to abide for many generations of man.
All these ridiculous claims about how the Earth is overpopulated are based on the assumption that we will continue to use existing farming techniques.
The truth is, if we transitioned to this method of food production, we could completely abandon oil, increase our population into the trillions and the worlds ecosystems would not only be healthier than they are now, but they would be healthier than if mankind weren't around in the first place.
But, for it to work, people need to stop thinking of food as something that comes from the store, and start thinking of it as something that comes from the forest. People need to go pick their food themselves.
It's not more work. It won't take more time out of your day than the way you gather food now. It's just a change of lifestyle, and the quality of the food you eat goes up, and your health improves as a consequence.
Regardless of what the rest of you do, it's my intention to build such a forest, build a home within it for myself, and another for my daughter and each of my future children. But it would be a much better world for all of us if you were inspired to do the same.
I'm not saying you should download "The Complete Geoff Lawton Permaculture DVD Collection" off the pirate bay or anything, you should definitely buy a legitimate copy... but everything you need to know to get the ball rolling is in there ;)
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You can't harvest from a complex ecosystem with a petrol driven combine.
Depends on what system you use. Pasture cropping, for example, is well suited to standard row-cropping equipment.
increase our population into the trillions
Hm... I think you're exaggerating a tad there. ;-) Certainly we can easily support the current projected population growth with these methods.
download "The Complete Geoff Lawton Permaculture DVD Collection" off the pirate bay
I already did that a couple of years ago. ;-) If you haven't yet, get over to his website [geofflawton.com] and sign up for his latest videos. He's been coming out with a new one each week for the last few months. Good stuff! (You'll have to provide an email address, but
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Yep, I'm on there.
I don't think I'm exaggerating. There are 36.7 trillion acres of land on earth.
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Because 9.3% of the world's land area is considered arable. You may want to shift that decimal place over to the left, as you're an order of magnitude off.
Also, many people enjoy eating plants year round. They're not likely to find your food forest idea very appealing.
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Does your "36.7 trillion acres" figure include all that wonderful arable land in Antarctica? Is that where you're building your food forest?
No, I'm not intending to build a food forest in Antarctica, smartass.
I asserted that we could support trillions of humans.
If we had 3 trillion people, that would mean 12.2 acres of land to feed each person. You should easily be able to thrive on one acre.
I helped build an urban farm using these principles in an abandoned lot next to a hospital, and last year that farm fed everyone who volunteered, and produced 2 metric tons of food for the food bank, and produced fresh fruit and vegetables for the various
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However, your numbers are simply misleading. There are 36.7 trillion acres of land area on this planet, sure. However, that does include Antarctica, the Himalayas, the Sahara, and other locations generally considered to be unsuitable for agriculture. Of course, you can grow food crops in these locations, but there's a reason why your food forest
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So, where shall we compromise? Does half a trillion people work for you?
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There are 36.7 trillion acres of land area on this planet, sure.
First, it's actually 36.7 BILLION acres, not trillion. (That's been bugging me through this whole thread, so I finally checked the math...)
Still, ShieldW0lf's basic idea that the earth could support a lot more than the current population holds true... just a few orders of magnitude less than he thinks.
Of course, food can be grown on the other 11 acres, but at great cost.
It all depends on how you manage the land. As Allan Savory has shown [youtube.com] it's possible to reclaim a whole lot of land that had previously been written off as non-arable. And as a side-benefit, reversing desertific
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But, for it to work, people need to stop thinking of food as something that comes from the store, and start thinking of it as something that comes from the forest. People need to go pick their food themselves...It's not more work. It won't take more time out of your day than the way you gather food now.
Uh, right now I can buy a found of steak in shrink-wrap. How exactly is walking through a forest supposed to be easier than that? I can buy enough food for a week in 30min of shopping.
And where is this forest going to be? Are we going to just plant it in the middle of our suburban housing developments? Will my neighbor mind me spearing some antelope in his back yard? If it is going to be in some designated area, then how is accessing that going to be easier than going to the local supermarket? If the
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But, for it to work, people need to stop thinking of food as something that comes from the store, and start thinking of it as something that comes from the forest. People need to go pick their food themselves...It's not more work. It won't take more time out of your day than the way you gather food now.
Uh, right now I can buy a found of steak in shrink-wrap. How exactly is walking through a forest supposed to be easier than that? I can buy enough food for a week in 30min of shopping.
And where is this forest going to be? Are we going to just plant it in the middle of our suburban housing developments? Will my neighbor mind me spearing some antelope in his back yard? If it is going to be in some designated area, then how is accessing that going to be easier than going to the local supermarket? If the food is unpreserved, then you'd need to basically go there daily.
I don't think the solution to the current ecological problems is to return to a hunter-gatherer state.
I pointed you right at the answers to your questions. It's a new concept to you and you clearly haven't investigated the resources that would answer these questions for you. Which makes me curious; why do you think you're qualified to have any opinion on the feasibility of the concept?
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There's actually quite a bit you can do in urban and suburban environments. Check your local regulations, of course, but basically anyplace you can put a garden is viable for permaculture. Here's a video [youtube.com] that documents a suburban yard transformation in Australia. It's quite detailed.
There's also a movement to do "edible landscaping" on school grounds and campuses. We already invest a lot of resources to maintain plants to make these places look nice, why not spend the same amount and get plants that look ni
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"It's not more work. It won't take more time out of your day than the way you gather food now."
Sounds very nice, but this is easily falsifiable. I order my groceries online (takes about 5 min per week), and receive them by delivery (about 2 min to unbox and put in the fridge). That's less time than it even takes to get dressed to go outside.
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Unfortunately, most people can't even recognise a carrot when it's in the ground. This is a good thing, because any big upset to the food supply and all the people that can't take care of themselves will go bye-bye.
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Funny)
Stop right there ! There's no such thing as evolution. Pests didn't evolve defense, God created new resistant pests. All those farmers who used GMO crops are obviously gay and are punished for it. *That's the only explanation.*
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"Plant evolves defense."
Stop right there ! There's no such thing as evolution. Pests didn't evolve defense, God created new resistant pests. All those farmers who used GMO crops are obviously gay and are punished for it. *That's the only explanation.*
Did you know, intelligent people are capable of designing systems that evolve?
Here's a tutorial for you:
http://www.gp-field-guide.org.... [gp-field-guide.org.uk]
The correct response to the whole "God hates Fags" controversy is to simply point out "If God didn't hate Fags, he wouldn't have Created Evolution to weed them out of the gene pool. He dealt with it already, so shut up about it."
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So you're suggesting he's incompetent and homophobic and that this somehow was the motivation for him 'designing' evolution? Yeah, that sounds persuasive...
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"Male Homosexuality Study: Gay Men Have Evolutionary Benefit For Their Families, New Research Suggests"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/why-are-there-gay-men_n_1590501.html [huffingtonpost.com]
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Even if the hypothesis were true, it is irrelevant to the point. A gay mans sister successfully reproducing does not propagate that gay mans DNA.
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I did not suggest that gay people were going to be wiped out as a whole. I simply stated that a gay person is not going to successfully propagate themselves. I'm not trolling at all. I'm simply trying to cut through the politics and mumbo jumbo and lay out the facts so we can move past the endless politically motivated conflict. I don't hate homosexuals any more than I hate women who have had hysterectomies. I feel a sense of compassion for their circumstances.
Besides, do you know how much fun it is wh
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Naturlly, It takes a lot longer.
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> dousing the entire countryside
Countryside?! They had trucks driving around cities and towns fogging it on everyone.
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Scientists can't even lead themselves (hence how they always get tricked into destroying the world for money) what the hell makes you think they can lead the world let alone a country?
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An interesting factoid about the irish potato famine is that while the potato crops were failing 75% of farmland was being used for food exports. During the years of the famine Ireland was exporting ever more food, including meat and butter, to England. The Brittish actually sent troops to guard the food in case any serfs got uppity and tried to feed their children.
In the end the potato crop failure didn't cause the famine, it was just the conveinent excuse. What caused the famine was the greed of the wealt