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permaculture - Re: [permagriculture] Plant lists for the tropics + comment on gmo

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  • From: Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permagriculture] Plant lists for the tropics + comment on gmo
  • Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 12:35:32 -0600

Dear Lawrence,
You have misunderstood my comments gravely, and unfortunately put a bunch
of words in my mouth.

I did NOT say permaculture was "not ready for prime time farming on any
scale". To clarify, I said permaculture is in need of a lot more time to
refine it's approach before it can have a significant impact on "large
scale" agriculture. And, there is a lot more to say about that. The main
thing being the assumption that permaculture *should* be trying to measure
up with large scale ag, as if large scale ag is at an appropriate scale to
begin with (in my opinion it's not), but that's another long conversation.

As for my stance on GMO crops to date, I'm against it. My stand on the
technology of Genetic Engineering? It could be used appropriately, in the
right hands, if needed. My extensive experience with insitu plant breeding
on both large farm and garden scales has shown me too much hybridization
inter and intra species that I can't buy into the "it's unnatural"
argument. I've also had extensive conversations with some of the best
organic classical plant breeders in the world in regards to this. In my
first comment I made sure to suggest classical plant breeding should be
used at all costs before considering GE. There is however, no way to get
poison ivy to fruit mangoes via classical plant breeding, even though they
are both anacardiums, and I'm not willing to ignore that possibility.

I just can't write something off entirely without considering it fully. I'm
not dogmatic enough. And believe me, I have been and probably will be
protesting GMO crop introductions well into the future. So don't worry, I'm
not on the side of GMO's or Monsanto if that's what concerns you. There is
WAY too much potential with classical plant breeding to jump right to GE
technology.

Jason

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