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market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] GMO's (I Prefer TG's Transgenics)

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  • From: "Brigette Leach" <avalonfarmshomegrown AT earthlink.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>, market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] GMO's (I Prefer TG's Transgenics)
  • Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 15:20:52 -0500

Thank you so much for what is obviously a well informed response from a truly informed author. Although I have not had the opportunity to hear you speak, I do know something of your reputation. I would appreciate learning more about the science and why you prefer TG, Hopefully, others on the list would welcome the lessons as well.
 
I am also curious about the book that you are working on, please share the "topic" if you don't mind.
 
Brigette Leach
avalonfarmshomegrown AT earthlink.net
Avalon Farms Premium Homegrown
Climax MI 49034
Have you checked out our "Share of the Farm"? Contact us for more information.
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: shepherd ogden
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: 3/7/2004 5:06:32 PM
Subject: [Market-farming] GMO's (I Prefer TG's Transgenics)

Bridget --

Let me weigh in on this GMO (I prefer TG) thing (I will be happy to supply details on any of the assertions below from my book research but don't want to bog down the list):

Is it
because you feel that you have no choice about GMO's being in the
environment, and therefore your food supply?

Yes. I once asked a guy in town who owns a gun store, and who was one of the most active anti-nuke activists around how he reconciled those two positions. He said "A gun only kills the person you aim it at." Agree or not that is a critical distinction, and it is critical that we have no choice in the TG situation. Think second hand smoke.

Is it because some entity
will
generate profit from GMO's?

Yes, but the details matter. First it is not "some entity" but a multinational corporation, with a proven track record (in the case of Monsanto) of having acted dishonorably. Also, there are economic imperatives that will force this technology in negative directions. Details? I have been in business thirty years and written a number of business plans. Monsanto has one; it has certain operating ratios in it; given the cost of developing their particular products, and the size of the target market, they absolutely HAVE TO get market share up in the 70-90% range for the return to be sufficient. This means lowered diversity in the seed stocks on which our food system depends, and when (not if IMHO) the board of directors starts to feel that returns are insufficient, they will exit the food business as quickly as they entered it, having forced by their actions a series of consolidations both in genetic diversity and in the number of businesses extant so that the food system wil l be that much less stable and sustainable.

Is it because you do in fact understand the
science?

Yes, to a reasonable extent. I am writing this from the home office of a college friend cum venture capitalist who is now working raising the capital for a billion dollar biotech research center; my old roomate is head of R&D for another. We have reasonable differences of opinion for sure, but I am not allowed flaky ideas. Which part of the science would you like explicated? The supposed precision of the methodology? The supposed "substantial equivalence" with tradition forms of plant and animal breeding? The likelihood of genetic drift? The likelihood of persistent effects on extant ecosystems? I do believe that the science counsels caution, but that the money counsels full speed ahead, and scientists work and support families just like everybody else. Pick one of the above and I will be happy to elucidate.

Is it just part of your personality or behavior to oppose what
the
mainstream accepts?

Pesonality no; astrology yes! <G> I sure wish I could fit in.

Are GMO's more dangerous to our environment that
petrochemicals?

This is not a straightforward question, and much too complex for quick answer, but let me offer one observation: petrochemicals degrade over time. While genetic effects MIGHT also, they also might increase...but in any case they have the ability to persist that substances don't. Substances are not alive and don't evolve; organisms do.

Do hungry people really care how their food was grown?

Let me answer this one with  a question: is Roundup Ready corn being grown to feed hungry people? Do you realize that the Golden Rice was developed to fight a nutritional deficiency that was caused by the first generation Green Revolution rice because the varietes bred had a parent that confered the dwarf habit they needed for mechanical harvest but also carried a gene for poor iron uptake? And that it drove out the local varieties which provided more than just calories, and changed the patty system so that less protein was produced locally?

If we examined other inventions, other modern day advances, such as the
automobile for example, in the same framework and by the same
standards,
would the automobile be a positive or negative impact on our culture
and
our environment?

One of the other posters noted that the Precautionary Principle would be helpful in this case. It is precisely such things as the automoble, as developed in the free market, with its demands, and its management (think the auto companies lobbying Los Angeles government to disassemble its street car system) that should make us leery of broad new introductions without sufficient up front, non-private non-profit thought FIRST.

And cars don't evolve.

I, for one, have a lot more to say on the subject (see the suject line) but let's see first how much stomach the list has for this kind of thing.

Best

 

Shepherd Ogden 




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