What do you think about GMO Food?

[William Wallace]

Environmentalists out here in CA are trying to get a label GMO products initiative on the ballot. I'm not convinced it's a good idea. What do you all think?

 

[GuineaPig]

I'm fine with them.  Much of the concern about them stems from pseudoscience or ignorance.

Besides, we wouldn't be able to feed the world without them.

[William Wallace]

I'm fine with them.  Much of the concern about them stems from pseudoscience or ignorance.

Besides, we wouldn't be able to feed the world without them.

That's what's most comical about the whole thing. The people behind the GMO restrictions usually swoon over issues like food security.

What do you think about crops that are designed to produce their own insecticides, like those discussed here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jat.2712/abstract

[Scheavo]

There's a lot of kinda of GMO food. Some of them I think are fine, and some of them I think we need to be more careful with. There's a lot we don't know about genetics still, and we shouldnt be messing touch with a system we don't know about. Using genetics to spice rice with various versions of itself is amazing, splicing rice with sea slugs may have consequences we dont realize or aren't realized till later.

Also, why should you lot like information being available? I have no problem with labels.

[antigoon]

I must admit I'm really creeped by the whole thing. I would welcome labeling.

[William Wallace]

Also, why should you lot like information being available? I have no problem with labels.

Because it's being pushed by people who think GMO=bad. There's little evidence for that, and the best route seems to be a cautious move forward with the technology, as you suggested. The labeling stirs up controversy where there shouldn't be any. What's the average shopper going to make of a "this product has been genetically altered" label when he buys tomatoes at the grocery store?

[Scheavo]

Whatever that person wants to think. Isnt that the point of the market? Unless its extreme in the labeling. We label sugar, but that ain't stoppin anybody

[William Wallace]

Whatever that person wants to think. Isnt that the point of the market? Unless its extreme in the labeling. We label sugar, but that ain't stoppin anybody

Legislative mandates aren't the market at work, though. And how do we label sugar? The nutrition and ingredients are listed, but I don't think there's some special label on cane sugar.

[Adami]

I don't see the big deal.


It's just being honest, what's wrong with that? I think it's a market failure that it took the government to make a company be honest.


Also, if people stop buying GMO food because of what it is, then that's just how things are.


If merely being honest about what it is stops people from buying it, then that's the market, with or without government assistance in promoting honesty.

[Super Dude]

If, as the article suggests, there's no real need to worry about whether a food is GM or not, then why worry about the labels? It's not like it's going to change your procurement choices.

[The King in Crimson]

As long as they're objective, I see no problem with labels.

More information is almost always a good thing for the consumer.

[Scheavo]

Whatever that person wants to think. Isnt that the point of the market? Unless its extreme in the labeling. We label sugar, but that ain't stoppin anybody

Legislative mandates aren't the market at work, though. And how do we label sugar? The nutrition and ingredients are listed, but I don't think there's some special label on cane sugar.

That wasn't my point, only that requiring information be available doesnt mean its used.

[William Wallace]

Whatever that person wants to think. Isnt that the point of the market? Unless its extreme in the labeling. We label sugar, but that ain't stoppin anybody

Legislative mandates aren't the market at work, though. And how do we label sugar? The nutrition and ingredients are listed, but I don't think there's some special label on cane sugar.

That wasn't my point, only that requiring information be available doesnt mean its used.

Oh, I know. But I wouldn't bank on that. If the information is misleading, it shouldn't be there.

[Super Dude]

What's misleading about labeling something as a GMO?

[The King in Crimson]

Whatever that person wants to think. Isnt that the point of the market? Unless its extreme in the labeling. We label sugar, but that ain't stoppin anybody

Legislative mandates aren't the market at work, though. And how do we label sugar? The nutrition and ingredients are listed, but I don't think there's some special label on cane sugar.

That wasn't my point, only that requiring information be available doesnt mean its used.

Oh, I know. But I wouldn't bank on that. If the information is misleading, it shouldn't be there.

Because corporations never do anything misleading...

[King Postwhore]

Sort of reminds me of the what I saw about hamburger in grocery stores right now called pink slime.


https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/is-pink-slime-in-the-beef-at-your-grocery-store/

[Ħ]

If labeling becomes a requirement, then corporations are going to lose money, whether GMOs are actually bad or not. Corporations are going to have raise prices to compensate, and food will cost more. Which is not good. And farmer market prices are ridiculous to begin with. So the consumer has nowhere to turn.

[Adami]

If labeling becomes a requirement, then corporations are going to lose money, whether GMOs are actually bad or not. Corporations are going to have raise prices to compensate, and food will cost more. Which is not good. And farmer market prices are ridiculous to begin with. So the consumer has nowhere to turn.

Why the hell would they lose money? It's not like they're not already putting labels on their food. They just have add a few extra letters.

[Ħ]

If environmentalists continue to make a big stink about GMOs, the very word is going to affect people's decisions.

[Adami]

If environmentalists continue to make a big stink about GMOs, the very word is going to affect people's decisions.

That has nothing to do with this. This is literally just telling people what it is. No judgments, nothing, just a label that explains what a product is. If you tell me that knowing what a product is, is bad for everyone....then I have no idea how to respond to that.

[rumborak]

I can only shake my head at the knee-jerk reactions here. A GMO label would be just another label like "organic". Supposedly GMO plants would be cheaper than regular because they take less effort to grow. So, you would just have another level of "junk food".

rumborak

[Super Dude]

I wasn't aware there was some judgment attached to something being a GMO in the first place. It really isn't a big deal: corporations won't lose money, the world is not going to end.

[Adami]

I wasn't aware there was some judgment attached to something being a GMO in the first place. It really isn't a big deal: corporations won't lose money, the world is not going to end.

I have a feeling it's only getting a bad reaction because of who is mandating it.

[El Barto]

GMO is an interesting thing to discuss.  Everybody gets so riled up about whether or not they're safe that they overlook the more intriguing issue, which is the effect that making the world's food supply patentable will have. 

[Super Dude]

They already have, and it's a nightmare in the developing and underdeveloped world.

[Scheavo]

GMO is an interesting thing to discuss.  Everybody gets so riled up about whether or not they're safe that they overlook the more intriguing issue, which is the effect that making the world's food supply patentable will have.

Remember a federal judge ruling you can't patent life or DNA.

[lordxizor]

I have no problem making companies label GMO ingredients. Those who can afford to eat food without them will. Those who can't will continue to eat them. Much like organic food right now. The more we can educate consumers about whats in their food, the better as far as I'm concerned.

[El Barto]

GMO is an interesting thing to discuss.  Everybody gets so riled up about whether or not they're safe that they overlook the more intriguing issue, which is the effect that making the world's food supply patentable will have.

Remember a federal judge ruling you can't patent life or DNA.

GMO crops are patentable. 

[AcidLameLTE]

they overlook the more intriguing issue, which is the effect that making the world's food supply patentable will have.

This is the only problem I have with GMO food.

[PraXis]

I don't trust GMO. Monsanto is evil, and they own the Department of Agriculture.

[slycordinator]

GMO crops are patentable.

Not only are they patentable, the DNA that they have is patented. In fact, many farms have gotten either sued or threatened to be sued (in which case they don't have enough money to fight against a giant corporation like Monsanto) simply because patented DNA showed up in their crops due to cross-pollination from nearby farms.

[jsem]

Yet another example of IP gone berserk.

[El Barto]

Supreme Court Considers GM Crop Patent Case

Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market? This week, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration to weigh in on the question. The Court is pondering an appeals court decision saying that such planting can, in fact, infringe patents.

In 1994, the agricultural giant Monsanto obtained a patent covering a line of “Roundup Ready” crops that had been genetically modified to resist Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides. This genetic modification is hereditary, so future generations of seeds are also “Roundup Ready.” Farmers had only to save a portion of their crop for re-planting the next season, and they wouldn’t need to purchase new seed from Monsanto every year. The company didn’t want to be in the business of making a one-time sale, so when Monsanto sold “Roundup Ready” soybeans to farmers, it required them to sign a licensing agreement promising not to re-plant future generations of seeds.

However, farmers remain free to sell the soybeans they grow in the commodity market, where most are used to feed people or livestock. Roundup Ready soybeans have become extremely popular; they now account for 94 percent of all acres planted in Indiana, for instance. Vernon Bowman, an Indiana farmer, was a customer of Monsanto who realized that Roundup Ready soybeans had become so common in his area that if he simply purchased commodity soybeans from a local grain elevator, the overwhelming majority of those soybeans would be Roundup Ready. Commodity soybeans are significantly cheaper than Monsanto’s soybeans, and they came without the contractual restriction on re-planting.

So Bowman planted (and re-planted) commodity soybeans instead of using Monsanto’s seeds. When Monsanto discovered what Bowman was doing, it sued him for patent infringement.

Continued. . .

A dicey thing.  As I suggested before, it could be a really nasty precedent to allow Monsanto or anybody else to monopolize the food supply; something it'd be quite easy to accomplish nowadays. 

Something else I'd never thought of before, is why does the court give a shit what the president thinks about something?  Either they think the case is worth hearing, or they don't.  Not sure why the political aspect is relevant. 

[Scheavo]

Well, the President is theoretically going to be more aware of how the law plays out, and perhaps what it's full implications are, than the Supreme Court.

Or there's the possibility that it's all just for politics.

[theseoafs]

GMO food's okay by me. Most people don't realize that most of what they eat is in some way genetically modified anyway, and we don't have any hard evidence to suggest that GMO food is bad in any capacity.