• Home
  • Development of Heparin and HS Glycotherapeutics
  • Lab
  • People

Ferniglab Blog

The personal blog of Dave Fernig, thoughts on science and unrelated matters

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« REF: !#?! GRRRR, Aaaaaarrrrrrrgh
Vanity science update »

Genetically modified foods, capital and immigration

August 8, 2013 by ferniglab


An excellent article in the New York Times on a crisis facing citrus farmers has stirred the debate on the release of GMOs into the environment.

Humanity faces major issues with providing/distributing food, energy and education. On the agricultural front, we rely on a small number of plants, which have undergone substantial slow genetic engineering by our ancestors to produce the crops of the 1950s. This genetic modification then accelerated through the green revolution and now through modern molecular genetics.

The result is increased yields and sufficient food for all, if we overcame the distribution problem and a transition of many subsistence farmers into capital earning farmers. Not a bad thing – try being a subsistence farmer for five years and you will understand what hard work is (in comparison I would consider my standard 70 h week a luxury holiday).

Much of the argument over GMOs reflects the lack of trust in large multinational corporations. This lack of trust arises for a number of reasons, some of which are:

They may hide their data.

They can be driven by market dominance – in this respect, recall that Adam Smith considered a private monopoly far worse than a public sector one (shame our politicians haven’t read him).

They may be caught up (as many of us are) in their own logic from the 1980s-1990s: we have herbicide X, we have gene Y that confers resistance, lets put Y into crop plant and sell lots of seed and herbicide X.

They often avoid taxes (in the UK, Amazon, Google, Vodafone, Starbucks, etc., etc.) and so are divorcing themselves from Society.

The may have a less than glorious history, for example, Monsanto produced Agent Orange for the US military and have failed to look this in the face.

But… and it is a large but, recall where our food comes from: a small number of plants, that have been genetically modified over millennia. The result is that our food plants have an appallingly low genetic diversity. The lack of genetic variability in our food plants means that there is little adaptive capacity in the population. In the long term there can be only one consequence: extinction.

So the challenge we face is how to increase the genetic diversity of our food plants without losing the yield, nutrition and taste. One route is better breeding, using genomic information: the wheat genome project, for example, has been instrumental in driving recent 21st century wheat breeding.

So why would we need to insert a gene from another organism into a plant for agricultural purposes? To increase genetic diversity when this has been lost due to the millennia of breeding for yield, nutrition and taste. We have at least three crises at the moment on this front:

Oranges

Cocao

Banana, where we have a range of varieties, but problems across the board.

Personally, I love citrus, have a particular weakness for orange chocolate and at work, I run on banana fuel. So I really do not want any of these to disappear.

I have not been in favour of some of the capital-driven GMOs, because there has never been a transparent description of fact. Until MNCs become a lot more open with their data, this is unlikely to occur. Perhaps the pressure on Pharma through the #Alltrials campaign and #OpenScience will achieve this in the agriculture sector in due course.

Immigration is a good thing and is the only way to save some crops. An interesting parallel comes from engineering. Engineers use evolutionary principles for finding optimal solutions (if you don’t like evolution, you must restrict yourself to mid 20th Century technology). Engineers add immigrants (aka genetic engineering) to revitalise the genetic diversity of their genetic algorithms and avoid a local, suboptimal solution. We need to do the same with our crops. We also need to establish open access toolkits for each crop and an associated menu of likely useful genes, so we are prepared for the future.

The one thing we can be certain of is that our crops will come under continued threat from disease and in many cases, genetic engineering alongside improved agricultural practice will be the only means to save the crop. The alternative is to lose the crop. Cocao, citrus and bananas may not be staples, but they contribute to the diversity of our diet. We cannot survive on Quorn or its descendants alone.

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Food, Science process, Scientific progress | Tagged banana, chocolate, GMO, orange, Science progress |

  • Places of interest

    The one and only PhD comics, the guide to being a graduate and to mentoring.

    Improbable Research and the Ig Nobels

    Retraction Watch provides updates on retractions of articles.

    Office for Research Integrity, their video should be compulsory for all.

    Centre for Alternative Technology

    Lateral Science, has some quite stunning information - well worth a browse.

    Fascinating places that have been closed by lawyers

    Science Fraud, shut down due to legal threats on Jan 3 2013. and Abnormal Science

  • Blogroll

    • WordPress.com
    • WordPress.org
  • Funding agencies

    • Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
    • Cancer and Polio Research Fund
    • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
    • Liverpool Pancreas NIHR Biomedical Research Unit
    • Medical Research Council
    • North West Cancer Research
  • Seminars

    • Cancer Research UK Centre
  • August 2013
    M T W T F S S
     1234
    567891011
    12131415161718
    19202122232425
    262728293031  
    « Jul   Sep »
  • Archives

    • November 2022
    • July 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • May 2021
    • March 2021
    • August 2020
    • June 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • December 2019
    • October 2019
    • July 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • January 2019
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • January 2017
    • October 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • March 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
  • Follow me on Twitter

    My Tweets
  • Cloud

    American Civil War antithrombin III banana Biological imaging biotechnology Brexit Choanoflagellates chocolate chondroitin sulfate coagulation Confederate States covid19 DN Lee Education EU EU referendum Europe extracellular matrix FGF Fibroblast growth factor Food FRET sensors Gish Gallop glycosaminoglycans GMO government Graduate students heparan sulfate heparin history of science imaging Irvine Stephens Bulloch James Bulloch James Dunwoody Bulloch Liverpool microbiology Nanoparticle Nanoparticles Nanotechnology neuroscience nmr Open Access Open Data orange Parliament Peer Review PhD polysaccharide port sunlight Post publication peer review protein chemistry REF research Research Excellence Framework Research integrity Roast SARS-CoV-2 science Science and Technology Committee Science fraud Science Funding Science progress Scientific American Seminars sorbet speaking strawberry sulfation Sulfotransferase synthetic biology Teaching technology transfer Tourism Travel Universities

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Ferniglab Blog
    • Join 73 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Ferniglab Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: