Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7303
"Let them eat GM cottonseed!"

(21/11/2006)

GM WATCH COMMENT: Here's the gene-bashers' latest wheeze for feeding  
the poor and hungry: take the unwanted toxic by-product of a toxic  
industry, cottonseeds, manipulate the genes so that the toxins are at  
"a level that is considered safe for human consumption", and get the  
poor to eat the result!!!

Or here's a different notion. Why not set aside a proportion of land  
currently used to grow cash crops for export and give it back to the  
people to farm by sustainable methods, to feed themselves. It's known  
that farmers can easily be schooled in low-input, organic and  
permaculture methods, that can be used to vastly increase the yield  
and variety of crops grown on a given piece of ground in the  
developing world over against any high-input expensive intensively  
managed system.
http://www.members.tripod.com/~ngin/article2.htm
http://www.biotech-info.net/ordinary_miracle.html

But of course, that would put land and food back in the hands of  
farmers - the very last thing the biotech industry wants.
---

GM COTTONSEEDS COULD FEED WORLD'S STARVING MILLIONS
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor The Sunday Times, November 19 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2460161.html

SCIENTISTS have genetically modified the cotton plant's naturally  
toxic seeds to turn them into a potential food source for millions of  
people.

Researchers have found a way of reducing gossypol, a powerful toxin  
in the seeds, to a negligible level that allows them to be consumed  
by humans. At present they are thrown away or fed to cows.

Dr Keerti Rathore, a plant technologist at Texas Agricultural  
Experiment Station, which carried out the research, said enough  
cotton was already planted worldwide to supply the protein needs of  
500m people.

"The exciting finding is that we have been able to reduce gossypol to  
a level that is considered safe for human consumption," said Rathore,  
whose findings will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy  
of Sciences.

Further field and safety trials are needed but if successful the  
technique could turn out to be the "killer application" that  
supporters of GM technology have long hoped for. They believe  
environmentalists would find it hard to object to a crop with the  
potential to reduce world hunger on such a scale.

Gossypol is not just toxic but is also a powerful natural male  
contraceptive. The sperm of men who eat foods containing gossypol  
become deactivated.

Cotton plants secrete the toxin into their stems, leaves and seeds  
because it affects pests in the same way, inhibiting their breeding  
and reducing their numbers.

Rathore and his colleagues got round this problem using a relatively  
new technique known as RNA interference, or RNAi, to suppress one of  
the key genes involved in producing gossypol. "Very few people  
realise that for every pound of cotton fibre the plant produces 1.6lb  
of seed," said Rathore.

"Overall, the world produces 44m tons of cottonseed each year  
containing about 22% high-quality protein."

Scientists have created cotton plants without gossypol before,  
through conventional breeding techniques, but they were attacked by  
pests. Rathore's method strips gossypol from the seeds only, leaving  
the rest of the plant protected.

For farmers there will be a potential surge in the value of a crop  
that can be sold for food as well as clothing. Environmentalists,  
however, remain sceptical. They point to similar claims made for  
crops such as golden rice, which was genetically engineered to  
contain vitamin A. It subsequently emerged that people would need to  
eat huge amounts to gain any benefit.

Sue Mayer, the director of GeneWatch UK, urged caution. "Poverty and  
hunger are complex problems caused by bad government, poor economies  
and war," she said. "It is not just a matter of finding a new wonder  
plant."
---

"Low-tech 'sustainable agriculture,' shunning chemicals in favour of  
natural pest control and fertiliser, is pushing up crop yields on  
poor farms across the world, often by 70 per cent or more...

The findings will make sobering reading for people convinced that  
only genetically modified crops can feed the planet's hungry in the  
21st century... A new science-based revolution is gaining strength  
built on real research into what works best on the small farms where  
a billion or more of the world's hungry live and work... It is time  
for the major agricultural research centres and their funding  
agencies to join the revolution." - New Scientist editorial, February  
3 2001