farming and conservation

This is from a rather old article in Farmer's Weekly (2013) and suggest that 61% of farmers would grow GM crops if they were allowed to do so.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/survey-results-what-farmers-really-think-about-gm
I'll see if I can find anything more recent.

 

Ah, it seems that post Brexit the UK may indeed be moving towards using GM crops.
https://sciencebusiness.net/news/uk-sets-out-diverge-eu-rules-genetically-modified-organisms

 

Yes, the “technology” fees make purchased patented seed much more expensive than seed saved from last season’s crop. But the advantages to the patented seed are worth the cost or we wouldn’t plant them to begin with. It’s kind of like patented drugs. The developer spends millions/billions developing a trait and then if they never see any profits from it they can not do any more development and would likely go bankrupt.

The growers understand the value of the traits and want to benefit but do not want to pay the fees. It boils down to whether the entity that invests in development of anything, even art or music, has the right to profit off their time, knowledge, effort and capital expenditures.

As costs to develop traits come down I predict this will self correct to some extent. As you have experienced, educational institutions are more willing to go open source and crowdfunding of open source is even being discussed by activists wishing to take down Monsantos of the world by destroying their monopolies. I’m fine with this. The market will solve the problem.

A lot of pushback on GMO’s came from the false reporting on development of “terminator” genes that could render seed from the first generation crop sterile. While the technology exists and it would have very viable agronomic functions (like eliminating volunteer herbicide resistant corn in the next years soybean crop for example) the downsides are huge and nobody has pursued usage of such technologies. Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s opponents of GMO’s widely reported such technologies were actually in use. Many still believe GMO’s are sterile and can sterilize crops they cross pollinate with as well. It was even reported the technology would eliminate all plant life eventually.

 

Interesting. That’s how things played out here as well. Growers accepting the tech before consumers. It was a mistake how we (US) handled rollout of the technology.

We should have marketed it to consumers by hyping the real opportunities the technology has to benefit the environment through water use efficiency, decreases pesticide use, enhanced nutrition, and ending world hunger. Instead we hyped the economic benefits exclusively and came out looking (rightly so) like greedy schmucks. It will take a lot of time to get that bad taste out of people’s mouths.

 

Hmmm. Interesting. Could give you a domestic competitive advantage, but you won’t be able to export across the channel.

 

Ah, that's interesting on the ''terminator'' seeds. I had heard of that and didn't realise it had been so dishonestly reported.
I also have heard reports about ''supercrops'' that could get out of control by outcompeting everything else and spread into the countryside taking over the ''natural'' habitat. I presume these are over exaggerated problems too?

 

Since the majority of our food exports go to Europe that could cause problems for farmers. The fishing industry is finding this out right now. Something like 70% of all fish caught by British fishermen was sold to Europe and delays caused by the extra red tape involved with being a third party nation has led to a lot of the fish rotting at the borders. European importers are looking for alternative easier sources of fish which has left a lot of fishermen with nowhere to sell their produce. The varieties of fish popular with British consumers are very limited compared with Europe. We only really buy white fish like cod, haddock and plaice.
A lot of the regulations involved with EU food production are regarded as protectionist by outsiders. While this may be true in a lot of cases they do have much higher standards on hygiene and animal welfare than most places. I think the GMO ban, exploited on safety grounds, is part of the protectionist racket.
This is partly why Trump was so pro-Brexit, as a protectionist himself he didn't like it when tariffs and regulations were used against the US.
That and some nationalistic ''Britain First'' misconception of what Brexit was all about.

 

There is enough dishonesty from both sides of the issue to fill entire threads. Yes, the idea GMO’s can take over natural habitat is far fetched. GMO’s are crops that require a lot of inputs and management from producers. If GMO’s had the ability to invade native environments and outcompete native species they would thrive unassisted in our fields. Food would be so easy to grow we would be paying consumers to take it. Furthermore no GMO crop is really hard to kill. A crop resistant to glyphosate is easily killed by other herbicides. Dicamba resistant soybeans can even be killed or severely damaged by improper formulations of dicamba.

Now, as I said the dishonesty is not one sided. Glyphosate most certainly has negative health benefits for consumers. Monsanto lies about that. It’s proven glyphosate is in much of our food now.

The problem with demonizing glyphosate is it replaced other chemical herbicides applied to crops. And those have never been tested for and analyzed like glyphosate. So it’s very possible the effects of those chemicals was worse or at least as bad as glyphosate. We will never know.

The makers of glyphosate not only lied about health consequences of glyphosate resistant technologies from ingestion of glyphosate from target crops, they misled on how glyphosate would show up in non target crops as well. That may have been an honest mistake hard to predict, but it should be admitted to now.

On the flip side again, neither the Monsanto types or the GMO haters give credit to GMO’s for revolutionizing no till, minimum till, and cover crop adoption in the US. The long term environmental benefits far outweigh the costs to human health etc. if one prefers to approach the subject from a “greater societal good” perspective.

 

Is Round Up glyphosate or is that something else?

 

Have you ever come across civet coffee? https://kopiluwakco.com/
Once an extremely expensive natural rarity now farmed more intensively with some rather dubious animal welfare standards.

 

I still have a very strong childhood memory of the smell and taste of the first time I had bell peppers on a camping holiday in the South of France in the early '70s. At the time a rather exotic and expensive food in England. The lovely smell is still strong in my mind.
The peppers now sold in UK supermarkets are almost exclusively grown hydroponically in Dutch greenhouses where they can get several crops all year around. Now if you smell a raw freshly cut one it smells of stagnant water and they have very little taste.
The farming industry can't be wholly blamed for this as they are only responding to the demand for ever cheaper all year round produce. British consumers are particularly to blame for this and in my experience the French are still prepared to pay the extra cost for better quality food. Going around French supermarkets the fresh veg is around twice the price of here in the UK but is of farmer's market quality.

 

Do you believe that people have a right to know what type of crop they are consuming?

I'm not necessarily talking about 'organic', which requires certification and a whole bunch of restrictions, but when something has been GM'ed (which is not hybridizing) and or treated with synthetic chemicals, but just as with things produced in factories (may have been processed with soy/milk/nuts) be labeled as such?

I grow as much of what I consume as I can. What is found in stores, as Adfundum mentioned, lacks flavor and texture due to early harvest (which goes hand in hand with undeveloped nutrients)and other modifications to the crop. IMO, it has become all about the profit and nothing about what food is supposed to actually do for the body.

 

Nice, and I just found out about this thread after Foolardi gave people crap for talking about farming in Smarties.

And Spring starts tomorrow morning, hallelujah...

 

Sad news about our hives. I asked Paul about them the other day to see if anyone took the honey from them.
Apparently the colonies died off in '18 when we had a particularly nasty cold stretch named the ''beast from the East'' similar to the recent polar vortex we had a month or so ago.
The colonies were never replaced although it is possible that a natural colony has moved in.

 

It’s unlikely you are experiencing negative effects of GMO’s. These are the only ones marketed in the US.

• Corn
• Soybeans
• Cotton
• Potatoes
• Papaya
• Squash
• Canola
• Alfalfa
• Apples
• Sugar beets

The hard, colorless, tasteless junk at the grocer is a direct result of Karen chewing the tail of the produce manager. Karen doesn’t want to cut a bruise out of a juicy tasty peach. She wants all the peaches to look good and be blemish free. So producers select varieties that ship, keep, and handle well at the expense of flavor. And pick everything “green”.

Even that hard green peach in the store would taste great (well, much better) if it were tree ripened.

The only “produce” type crop I grow (I grow GMO “commodity” corn, soybeans, and alfalfa as well) that is GMO is sweet corn. The hybrids I’ve had are all “triple stack” hybrids which means they have three distinct modifications—one for glyphosate tolerance, one for resistance to corn borer, and one that targets corn root worm and ear worms. I’ve had really good tasting hybrids and not so good ones. A lot of flavor in my opinion in sweet corn is associated with the maturity (early or late maturing hybrids). I think the early maturity hybrids lack flavor.

I enjoyed the information on coffee. I’m pretty ignorant on the subject as I’m not a coffee drinker (or grower LOL). It is fascinating there can be that much variation in quality.

 

Yes, the active ingredient in Roundup (the original Monsanto patented product) is glyphosate. Once the patent ran out glyphosate is sold under so many generic brand names producers have gone to just using the term glyphosate to include all formulations.

 

The biggest problem with approving GMO for domestic use before export markets approve as well is keeping GMO and non GMO crops separate in the supply chain—from the combine to the consumer. It’s very difficult and has caused a lot of grief for US producers. Usually what happens is we approve a trait, China says they will by such and such date, so we plant a bunch trusting it can go to China by fall/winter. Then they don’t approve or the approval is delayed. A few growers end up dumping unapproved crop in the “export pot”, China finds it, and heads roll. There have been a couple huge lawsuits where seed companies have had to pay growers for damages.

I hadn’t really considered the protectionism aspect. That’s good information.

 

As a consumer I'm all in favour of good labelling information. It's fairly well regulated here with country of origin a requirement that goes back a long way. Important for me as I like to keep down the food miles of stuff I buy. Allergens and nutritional information are more recent requirements and I think the one GMO we accept in the EU/UK soya has to be labelled as such.
As a chef it's a pain in the arse, we have had to list allergens for a few years now and there's pressure to start putting nutritional information on menus. Which is alright for fast food type restaurants with a fixed menu as you only have to do it once but for better quality establishments with varied and constantly changing menus it would be very, very time consuming. I already feel like I spend more time with a pen in my hand than a knife, having to record temperatures 3 times a day in every fridge and freezer and several other legal requirements such as cleaning rotas. Most places know them as lie sheets as they just fill them out and tick the boxes every few days without actually doing it properly.

 

Yes, Roundup is glyphosate.

 

Sure if consumers want that information. I’m pretty pragmatic about labeling. I think the market could solve the issue, but trade groups, check off organizations, and politicians all complicate the issue to the point it’s just constant bickering and the consumer is still not getting what they want.

There are a lot of separate issues there. Food allergies for the soy/milk/nut issue. I guess I’m not sure what percentage of the population needs to be allergic to something before labels become mandatory. I mean there is some group of indeterminate size allergic to most any product.

On the treated with chemicals I’m not sure how you define that. You’d be hard pressed to find anything not treated with a “chemical”. Even organic crops that have had vinegar applied have been exposed to acetic acid, a “chemical”. Organic growers can also use Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) as an insecticide and nobody cares or probably even knows. But if we trick corn into producing the same compound as the Bt bacteria then everyone loses their minds. Even people who are taking an mRNA vaccine that tricks their body into making virus “parts”.

You ask good questions, there just aren’t clear cut answers. It’s complicated.

You seem to understand well what GMO is and isn’t—that’s great. We would all be better off if everyone understood exactly what it is and isn’t. Above @Montegriffo and I have discussed that a little. Some before he moved us (correctly) over to this thread from another.

I grow the lions share of what I eat as well. I absolutely refuse to eat most grocery produce and all grocery dairy and eggs. But when the GMO soybeans are big plump and green in the pods I “graze” on them all day while I irrigate. I’m not a bit concerned about eating them or the GMO sweetcorn I grow. My dairy cows and goats eat GMO corn, corn silage, and alfalfa. Only one in ten have extra appendages so I don’t see there’s any need for concern. LOL. Just kidding. There are legitimate concerns with GMO’s but in my opinion the positives far outweigh the negatives.