Genetically Modified Crops

Thanks for the info about the difference between GM and selective breeding, nanado. That has helped my understanding. However, I think there's still a case (Monsanto shenanigans aside) for saying that the principle of improving yields – through drought-resistance or reducing the need for pesticides, for instance, by GM, or by selectively breeding from good milk cows – is the same in both cases. Would you agree? The question is open to everyone else, of course.

The principle of altering the course of nature by selective breeding or GM is the same - we are changing how things would naturally be for our own benefit. We have always done it and always will - we need the knowledge to distinguish between the good and the bad.

It is not enough to be afraid of GM on the basis of a non-interference principle. Because we fear it does not mean it is wrong - what we need to do is to understand the benefits and the dangers and use it wisely.

Is selective breeding really any better than GM?

Watched Crufts lately?

Or been to a county show and seen what's happened to Fresian Holsteins?

Faye Hardly anything that we eat can be described as Natural. All our fruit, vegetables, cereals and animals have been changed by selective breeding until they would be unrecognisable to our distant ancestors. It may not be GM but it is still not necessarily good for us. Look at the amount of fat produced by domestic cows and pigs compared with game. Any change to an organism, whether by GM or selective breeding is liable to produce unwanted side effects.

Around a billion people are undernourished and millions of people die each year due to starvation. Apparently cattle consume enough grain to feed 8.7 billion people. Food shortages could force the world into going vegetarian scientists have warned. Maybe the outcome will have to be a lot less meat so there is enough food for everyone.

Lecture by Mark Lynas who used to campaign against GM, and why he changed his mind. Worth a read.

With no cattle there could be an increase in the amount of artificial fertilizer needed, so that needs to be factored into the equation.

And another article from The Society of Biology blogroll.

Nobel laureate bats for GM crops

Try again. August 2015 - Scotland to ban GM crops - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-33833958

Announcement by rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead.

(First attempt didn't work)

I think more correct reporting is that he is going to attempt to ban GMOs in Scotland. He's going to make a request. I don't think the Scottish govt can just ban them off its own back.

The usual eagerness of reporters to tell us what may happen as though it will happen.

Good for Scotland.

@Colin_McInnes: Swift apt today "whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together".

www.ewg.org/agmag/2015/03/claims-gmo-yield-increases-don-t-hold

Most of the research that says GMOs increase yields is done by companies like Monsanto.

Why we'll all learn to love genetically modified salmonella from The Conversation.

And increased yields done by Monsanto are not a good thing because people don't like that company or because increased yields that prevent people from starving are not a good thing? Which? If the first, does that mean even when Monsanto does something useful and good it's being bad?

Chekc out Norman Borlaug. He was in at the start of finding routes out of starvation.

Can you tell me why this is necessary, because I cannot see it.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/08/farm-grown-fish-oil-a-step-closer-following-gm-crop-trial

Wasn't the point of my previous link that Monsanto roundup ready GM does not increase yields?

Perhaps it was. You tell me, dj, what the point of your post was. Clearly, whatever the point was, was not obvious or I would have got the point, which I er... obviously didn't.

It's in the link title, bags.

Claims of GMO Yield Increases Don’t Hold Up

Re your post of 20:17, I should think a vegetable source of omega-3 fatty acids that are normally only available in oily fish, which not everyone has access to and which some people don't eat even when they do have access to such fish, could be a good thing for quite a lot of people.

Define unnecessary. Bet you've got loads of, strictly speaking and depending on one's definition, unnecessary things in your life. So have I and I don't feel a single scrap of guilt about them. "Our basest beggars are in the meanest thing superfluous" (King Lear; apologies for mistakes to Shakespearian scholars). That something is regarded as unnecessary by some does not make it a bad thing nor even a useless thing.

I don't read all your links. Some I do. Don't suppose you read all mine either.

Reading further down about the GM fish-oil plants, it seems the oils are to feed to fish in fish farms because they need them to be healthy but being raised in farms do not have access to the marine algae that 'manufacture' them.

Then, presumably, people who eat the farmed fish will also get the benefit of the fish oils.

So, an improvement in farm fish living conditions and a benefit to the human animals and cats and whatever else eats fish. Two plusses so far in my book.