This Idea We Have to Spend Billions of Dollars

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I actually don't like that argument and think that people shouldn't use it. I think it's more honest if we have a more informed conversation about how crops are developed.

Maize is the result of a freak mutation and horizontal gene transfer in two grasses native to south america. We are only now unwinding how that worked. And after that mutation, centuries of selective breeding, cross pollination, random mutations, etc. The initial mutation may have been the result of naturally occurring radiological events, or just a lucky strike by a cosmic ray.

Golden Promise barley - used in the production of chiefly english beer and some whiskeys - was developed in the "Hey Bill! Lets see what happens when we shoot some ray-dee-ation at this!" era of experimentation. So was calrose rice, which is the variety you get in your bowl at a chinese or japanese restaurant.

Seedless watermelon and iirc all edible bananas are a result of chemically induced mutation.

In chemical and radiological mutagenic crop development, tens of thousands of base pair mutations are induced, thousands of seeds germinated, followed by the culling of plants that have no desirable traits, and many generations of breeding and culling of plants which have desirable traits.

Cross-pollination also involves the the alteration of thousands of genes at once, and this is usually done with both natural and mutated crops, several generations over and over, until a desired crop is achieved. It took Gary Johnston almost 30 years to develop the Yukon Gold potato this way.

His entire life's work. For a potato that is a bit yellow. Not that i don't appreciate it.

And then there are cases like Simplot's new "White Russet" cultivar, which is a russet potato in which the expression of 11 genes have been attenuated by the insertion of rna interference.

By expression here i am referring to epigenetics. We have learned in the last few decades that not all of your genes are doing work - "expressed" - at inception. How this works is not fully understood but there is a lot to understand. For example there are chili peppers which are not hot until the fruit has been physically damaged, and some of these strains of chili pepper will then breed hot peppers for a few generations and then go sweet again. This is epigenetics.

So in simplots new tater, they bred a potato they liked using traditional breeding methods, and then they hindered the expression of 11 genes, with the result that the flesh is almost pure white, there is slightly less sugar in the flesh, and the flesh resists bruising. And as a side effect of this, there is slightly less acrylamide produced when they are fried.

The point? A higher quality potato for frying, and a higher quality potato for shipping and storing, because it doesn't get those black spots when it's knocked around.

Roundup Ready soy was developed by using a gene gun. Yeah literally shooting pieces of DNA into seeds and crossing fingers (and then verifying results).

There is a new method of cut/paste in genetics called CRISPR. I'll spare you the details, but it is cheap and easy. Undergraduate students are accomplishing in a couple semesters what used to take full professors years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. You can set up a CRISPR lab in your basement or garage for a few thousand bucks, and the consumables are on the order of $20/gene, not $1000.

The flood gates are open. We are only 10-15 years downstream of a huge wave of new cultivars. And i look forward to this.

There is currently no regulatory jurisdiction wherein a civilian can be charged with a crime for collecting their own rain water. The guy who spreads that lie is a multi-millionaire who diverted an entire river into private man made lakes for him to jetski on.

And even he isn't in jail.

As for copyrighted seeds - they are patented seeds. And patented seeds are not an issue specific to GMOs, or exclusive of organic crops.

Patented crops have existed since 1930. There are thousands of them. For examples there are dozens of patented varieties of blueberries. The vast majority of patent crops were produced with methods that don't involve directed genetic manipulation, and most of them can be produced "organically".

The majority of organically grown crops in stores are patented cultivars.

Regardless of the freedom aspect of planting a patented crop, most commercial farmers prefer to buy rather than save seed for two major reasons.

1: The second generation of seed may not produce as high of a quality of crop as the first generation, due to cross-pollination and other genetic factors. Lots of natural hybrids don't produce a reliable seed.

2: If the crop fails due to the seed quality, they can sue the company that produced the seed. Unless they produced it themselves.

I would also like to point out that "better" is a relative measure.

Better for what? For whom?

At the current rate of global population increase, it is apparent that over the next 50 years we will need to produce as much food as has been produced since the dawn of cultivation.

Yeah really. Though admittedly i don't know how some factors, like meat consumption being a multiplier of crop consumption, figure into it.

It will have a huge impact on the use of land and resources. Small producers will be a big part of it, but large producers will also be a big part of it.

It seems to me that currently most GMO crops are crops of convenience. But as the demand for food continues to increase, we will need more salt tolerant crops. more drought tolerant crops. Crops that are less wasteful in their use of nutrients and solar radiation. And on and on.

"organic" crops are already a boutique item for people who are, from a global perspective, fairly well off. I expect that their market segment will get tighter over the next century. Because there simply isn't enough arable land to produce all of it using those methods right now, let alone the needs of 50 or 100 years from now.

Certainly not at current rates of consumption.

It's much more than just being a boutique item. Organic crops taste better than the others. Food made from organic crops taste better than other brands.
You are not factoring Aquaculture into this, btw.

In some countries, that might be all there is, organic crops grown by local farmers.

The world's current population is only sustainable due to modern fertilizers, pesticides, mechanization, and modified crops. If the world inexplicably went back to growing crops the way Great Grandpappy used to do it, billions would die of starvation. Not millions. Billions, mostly in what were once known as Third World countries.

I've seen more vicious notions put forth in this forum, but not often.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

That would solve the imaginary overpopulation problem.

organic food is grown without pesticides. some food, like apples, tend to transfer lots of pesticide residues to people, so those i will buy organic. i would never, however, buy an organic banana, as the pesticides come off with the peel. there are also benefits to the environment with organic farming compared to conventional farming. for that reason, if i were rich, i'd by lots of organics.

Okay, that worries me. It also sounds pretty cool.

So all that stuff DIDN'T modify genes?

Your arguments are not "information." They are uninformative drama.
Monstrous??
My "experiment in social engineering." WTF??

Your exact arguments could be used for anything at all.
Meaning if we applied your "tests" we would need to be terrified of virtually everything.
Anything that anyone made money at.
Anything the government regulates, taxes, or might check.
Anything that's ever gone to any court, even SLAP suits.
Anything that's ever been in the news or had a press release.
Anything any politician has ever commented on.

THAT is nothing short of paranoia. All your logic is suspect. All your motivations dangerous.

You guys have all these reasons for why it is so great but refuse to label it, it's about deception and ultimately protecting the profits for big agriculture. If there is such a stigma then they can charge less money, it's not the responsibility of US government to protect their market share. There is a straight up incestuous relationship between business, lawmakers, regulatory agencies, and the judicial branch; this is the economics of fascism. People have the right to know, they have the right to make their own decisions.

This is not true.

Organic crops are grown with pesticides. Sometimes with more and more toxic pesticides than GMO crops.

The worst example is Rotenone, which until very recently was legal for use on "USDA Organic" crops in the USA, and which is still legal for "Organically Grown" labeling on imported foods.

It's pure and natural and extracted from the stems or vines of certain plants. Or was, it's probably cheaper to synthesize it, since it's a nicotinoid and sourced from china, and nicotinoids are dead easy to synthesize.

It's toxicity is 50mg/kg in rats, 2.5mg/kg in mice. It's also commonly used to kill fish, and by that i mean, to kill all of the fish in a given lake, pond, or river. Until recently, this was the most popular "USDA Organic" pesticide. It's still the most popular used outside of the USA.

Compare that to Malathion, an evil synthetic organophosphate world-killing poison with an LD50 of 290mg/kg in rats, 190mg/kg in mice.

There are others, like Bt, aka Bacillus thuringiensis, which is a bacterium.

Bt may sound familiar because many GMO crops have genes that allow them to manufacture, while growing, small quantities of Bt toxin.

If you're afraid of Bt toxin, you should be aware that it has been used as a pesticide since the 1920's, grown in vats, dried, powdered, and dusted on fields, like with aircraft flyover.

It is certified "USDA Organic" and is very commonly used in organic agriculture inside and outside of the united states, in vast quantities (millions of tons).

There is actually far more Bt toxin in and on an "organic" ear of corn than there is on and inside an ear of Bt corn of the same weight.

The good news is that unless you are an insect it doesn't do a damn thing to you.

We should refuse to label it because all the label would do is instill irrational fear, and promote the profits of big organic agriculture.

You're asking the government to put a scary warning that has no basis in science and has no bearing on the actual risks of consumption on one product to promote the sale of another product.

All methods of crop breeding modify genes. Actually, all methods of cultivation result in the modification of at least some genes - even banana clones (all edible bananas are clones) are prone to the odd chemical or radiological mutation.

But it is disingenuous, and in my opinion harmful to the cause, to try and equate direct, selective manipulation of DNA with other methods of genetic manipulation.

And keep in mind, I'm in favor of direct, selective manipulation of DNA in crops. Ever see the old Time Machine film? I'm full on morlock.

And i don't think that this "same-same" argument will calm the eloy.

I admit that trying to explain morlock things to eloy may be pointless.

You want to coerce people into eating GMO food, I believe in freedom. If it is a superior product then it can survive in the market fine with proper labels and you're argument could be used against all types of labels.

I don't think i argued that GMOs are superior products. Other than simplots new taters.

GMO crops are equivalent products. If they weren't, people might have noticed by now.

The genetic makeup of a plant, and how it got there, is not ultimately relevant to it's suitability as food.

I don't believe my argument - that mandated labels are, according to law, used to notify consumers of a known health concern associated with the contained food - could be used against any current mandated labels.

We put "May contain nuts" on labels because there are people who might die if they eat nuts. There isn't anyone who might die if they eat any of the approved GMO crops.

It would be inappropriate for any government agency to mandate labeling that strictly serves a political, philosophical, or emotional concern.

I do fully support the concept of a voluntary and regulated "Non-GMO" label - and if those products are superior, surely they will excel in the market with that labeling.