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Question: I have many concerns about GM but the greatest are: 1. The potential effects on ecosystems by way of altering the genetic makeup (carefully engineered by nature) of other species; I think you have to some extent addressed this already; and 2. The prospect of more, and more extensive, monoculture and the resulting damage to ecosystems/biodiversity. We have already lost much of our biodiversity due to the move away from mixed farming and towards monoculure. As I see it, any increase in the use of GM will exacerbate this. Would the epxerts care to comment. Thank you.
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jamesskinner commented on :
I would say that the response to the first point is dangerously complacent. There is already plenty of evidence of how GM plants growing outdoors can spread very easily. There is not enough evidence to be able to judge the dangers of uncontrolled GM proliferation which may result.
On the second point it is misleading to say that monocultures are more productive in practice than mixed farming. The most productive AND sustainable farming systems are those where there is a high level of diversification (including plants, animals and fish). These farms are as near as possible to being closed systems. They may require more input of human energy than industrial agriculture but we are not facing a shortage of human energy! Rather the reverse – we need to find more jobs and agriculture can provide them. Industrial agriculture is highly energy intensive and involves great quantities of imported inputs (good news for those who make them). In terms of actual food production however a traditional Chinese farming system, which has survived on the same land for millennia, requires minimal amounts or nil artificial imported inputs and is able to produce a greater net quantity of calories per hectare than a monocultural system. Industrial agriculture may appear to be more productive than other farming systems if the productivity is measured in terms of gross output. The result is very different if evaluation is based, more realistically, on the net energy return on energy invested.
In addition we have to take into account the fact that modern industrial agriculture is almost entirely dependent on easily available supplies of cheap energy in the form of oil. This is unlikely to last because we have almost exhausted supplies of cheap “easy oil”. We also need urgently to stop using oil because of climate change. As energy becomes more expensive and unemployment continues to be a major problem it makes more sense to make better use of humans and animals, which continually reproduce themselves, rather than rely on finite resources.
The science which is needed for low-energy, low-input, low-carbon faming is very different and more complex than just looking for chemical pesticides and fertilisers, regardless of ecological consequences. Sustainable farming depends on understanding the local ecology of each farm. This involves scientific research into understanding the properties of plant, animal, insect and bacterial life. The kind of technologies that are required are those that are designed to recycle nutrients, conserve water, enrich the soil and encourage biodiversity. Unfortunately there is no money for the big multinationalls in this kind of farming. They want to maximise the range of inputs they can sell to farmers, whereas high prouctivity, low energy, sustainable farming aims to reduce imported inputs to the absolute minimum. There is therefore a clear conflict of interest between the big corporations and sustainable farming prcatice. Unfortunately few politicians seem to understand this. They tend to be highly susceptible to the lobbying of wealthy companies anxious to maximise their sales of “silver bullet” technology such as GMs. Scientific research into sustainable farming systems can only expect to obtain finance from charities or Governmental organisations. The lobby for sustainable farming does not have the money that big corporations have and so they have to rely on the goodwill of those people and charities who understand what they are trying to do, in order to fight their cause and raise the research money they badly need. If that money cannot be found we will have cause for regret as industrial agriculture becomes increasingly expensive and unsustainable.
This is why GM is irrelevant for the majority of farmers in the world who are anyway unable to afford to pay for the inputs required for modern industrial agriculture. The science that they require to help them increase agricultural producitvity to feed more people is mostly much more basic, but much more complex, than is required for chemical farming. Basic because it is concerned with the eternal relationship between humans, animals, plants, fish, soil and water, but complex because it calls for intimate knowledge and understanding of the ecology of each individual farm.
Jules commented on :
And yet we see the latest from India that farmers are benefiting from this technology. The latest edition, published on 2 July, of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provides a long-term analysis of the agronomic and socio-economic impacts of GM pest-resistance (Bt) technology in cotton production in India over the period 2002-2008.
Headline findings of the study are that Bt adoption caused a 24% increase in cotton yield per acre through reduced pest damage and a 50% gain in cotton profit among smallholders. These benefits are stable; there are even indications that they have increased over time. The study further demonstrates that Bt cotton adoption raised household consumption expenditure, a common measure of household living standards, by 18% during the 2006–2008 period.
The study’s authors conclude that Bt cotton has created large and sustainable benefits, which are contributing to positive economic and social development in India
pheed commented on :
@jamesskinner “plenty of evidence of how GM plants growing outdoors can spread very easily” care to link to evidence?
The rest of your point is very interesting. I am not sure that intensive industrial agriculture can be written off – if you consider the economies of scale, it makes more sense (and takes up less wild land) to have several big farms feeding a city than lots of traditional farms that consume more energy in toto and can only feed half a village each.
(‘slash and burn’ agriculture is also traditional – just cause it has traditionally worked in the short term doesn’t mean it’s expandable to widespread use or sustainable.)
It is also not that great in terms of employment for your ‘human energy’ providers- ask seasonal fruit pickers,
Totally with you on ecology research and the commercialisation of GM – Norman E. Borlaug would roll in his grave at gene patenting.