The great GM debate

[Colin Miles]

What is GM food? I have just bought a pack of Grapefruit from Tescos. Am pretty certain that it is a variety created in the 50's by irradiation.

[Johnboy]

Hi Tony,
I understand what you are saying and certainly engineering can get fairly complicated but genetics is infinitely more difficult to understand than engineering.
Certainly if you simply hybridize two cabbages then the resulting progeny will almost certainly be a cabbage but as to the qualities that you have actually transferred are a complete mystery unless you have the use of a laboratory where you can actually look at the gene structure. This new cabbage may be a total disaster and would be of no use to any living soul.
Back to the drawing board and you try again and again and again and still no masterpiece. That is four years of your life you have completely wasted.
With genetic engineering they know which genes they are after and it is those only that get transferred and there are no other traits transferred.
What has been very difficult with breeding a blight resistant potato through conventional methods has been getting rid of the unwanted traits from the original hybridisation which means years and years of work.
The Savari Trust have been working on conventional methods for over forty years and have made a wonderful job of it so far. What has seriously held up the proceedings has been the transfer of unwanted traits which are exceedingly difficult to breed out. I wonder had GM been available to them at the outset would they have taken this route.
We have another year of the GM anti blight potatoes trial before we will hear is that trial has been successful. Not all GM trials are as successful as everybody assumes. I sincerely hope that it is a great success and that if it is then they are allowed to be grown in the UK for general consumption.
Considering the amount of publicity the anti-GM faction have been generating and a rally to throw objects over the fencing at the trial crop hoping to damage the trial has been disgraceful.
It is about time that the British public wakes-up to the fact that there is nothing to fear from GM and that the disgraceful behaviour of those who, to me, are nothing but mindless cretins who mainly have not got the foggiest idea about genetics.
JB.

[Geoff]

Week old article on the trial, amazing what you learn on wet days.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ying-crops

[Tony Hague]

Hi Tony,
I understand what you are saying and certainly engineering can get fairly complicated but genetics is infinitely more difficult to understand than engineering

That's pretty much my point Johnboy. Well, not that genetics - as a discipline - is more complicated than engineering, but that biological systems are far more difficult to gain an engineering understanding of, which you need in order to modify them in a predictable way, than anything designed by an engineer.

If plants were built by an engineer, then ideally exactly one gene would map to exactly one trait of the plant / characteristic of the system. You would do that so that it is easy to maintain. Nature has no requirement for such a nice easy to understand 1:1 mapping.

I have mentioned before the GM rape trial, intended to produce seed pods more resistant to shattering during harvesting. The strength of the tip of the pod, where the cracking open begins, is controlled by the amount of a certain protein present. It should be a simple matter to modify the plant to produce more of said protein - but the protein also has other functions within the plant, and the result of tampering with it was a twisted and useless plant. As JB says, genetics, and plant physiology, are quite complex things. I would have thought that unexpected outcomes would be quite common.

Note that this is not an anti-GM argument, but rather an argument for cautious trials of each new GM variety. Which is current UK policy.

[Johnboy]

Hi Tony'

Note that this is not an anti-GM argument, but rather an argument for cautious trials of each new GM variety. Which is current UK policy.

I am very pleased to read your quote above.
Sadly so much has been said and published over the last ten years that what has been missing is reasoned debate but you cannot debate something when the public have been fed so many untruthful statements by amongst people who should know better are the organic faction who continue to condemn GM on a daily basis. They know very well that they are very wrong to do so but their fear is that once GM is accepted then there is no way they could ever compete and the word organic might return back to it's original meaning as a substanced composed of carbon
instead of The Soil Association with their and all their dogma.
The Soil Assotiation must be brought into the fold but I'm afraid that they would have to admit to being totally wrong and I cannot see this ever happening.
It would be great to have a genuine debate on GM but I cannot see this happening in the near future again because of all the untruthful statements that have stuck in peoples minds which is exactly what they were designed to do. Dishonesty by the Organic faction has worked so far but ultimately GM will win through and the SA will be an association of the past. Organics have taken an almighty tumble over the past two years and continues to grow less popular as the weeks go by. I count the days
JB.

[peter]

How predictable, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18140957

[alan refail]

This is where the upper-class eco-warrior, Hector Christie, lives.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ppies.html

He can probably cope with the £2,500 fine and 3 months inside!

http://www.stalbansreview.co.uk/news/97 ... _break_in/

[Geoff]

Why only three months inside? Why can't the Mental Health Act be used to detain these mentally deficient luddites at Her Majesty's Pleasure?

[Johnboy]

Hi Geoff,
I just wonder what would happen if a group of people who are against Organic Production, decided to invade organic farms and spray the crops with as many pesticdes and herbicides as they could in a lightening raid. God forbid that this should ever occur.
All that it would take is one rich man with military training to mastermind the raid and it would only have to be done once to get the organic faction to make them pay attention with the threat that for for every scrap of damage done to GM crops would result in another raid on an organic production area.
I just wonder what sentences they would get from a magistrate and I am sure that they would need to be exceedingly severe. The case of the rich organic mindless cretin that has carried out the attack on the Rothamstead Wheat Trial will no doubt get his wrist slapped and will not get what he really needs. What he really needs is 18 months hard labour breaking up rocks on Dartmoor with no remission. I doubt that my dream will be realised!
JB.

[alan refail]

St Albans City and District Council has signed an Order to restrict public access to land at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden over the weekend.

http://www.stalbans.gov.uk/council-and- ... entre.aspx

http://www.stalbans.gov.uk/Images/Rotha ... -23811.pdf

[alan refail]

Now, here's a coincidence! Can't vandalise the crops so attack the website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18236534

As the man from Rothamsted said on the news last night: "This will not destroy GM; all you are doing is destroying knowledge." To my mind a far more serious crime.

[alan refail]

Getting tough on the protesters.

GM wheat trial protected by High Court injunction

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/31/05/201 ... nction.htm

[alan refail]

British GM crop scientists win $10m grant from Gates

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18845282

See more on this story on BBC One's Countryfile at 20:00 BST on Sunday 15 July

[Shallot Man]

Geoff. Re the great GM debate.
I found the article quite interesting.

[Nature's Babe]

Besides all the arguements put forward so far all GM crops are heavily dependent on oil and we are past peak Oil. Oil is now in decline and costs are rising. The machinery, used, the fertilisers and pesticides the transport needed to continue the system using GM and yes commercial organic farming too, both are totally reliant on oil which will not be available in the future and without oil it we cannot continue indefinitely. We are headig for a crisis in food production, compounded by climate change, this years cropageddon,, and the global economic problems. Check out the BBC documentary A farm for the future.on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJMgfKqKXwY