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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • Greenpeace, as usual, argues against GM by jesting towards a nebulous cabal of shady globalist BigAg companies. They are endlessly malicious and no amount of benefit can ever be a convincing reason to take even one step back on this issue. This is a classic case of paranoia and it cannot be reasoned with.

    A quick reality check on some of those points. Many of them are based on a paranoid belief that the Golden Rice will somehow invade and take over. We are discussing introducing a new variety, not erasing any - farmers will continue to grow other varieties. Thus, many of the arguments about monoculture and control over seed fall apart. Syngenta have excluded smallholder farmers from paying licensing fees, so they’d get the seeds are a reasonable price. Lastly, countries which grow GM also grow organic crops - the farmers fearing losing their licenses are swept up in the paranoia. There is also no evidence of GM genes finding their way into other varieties in any meaningful amount. If this was a common occurrence, maintaining any discrete variety would be impossible (and we’ve been doing it for over a century).


  • Introgresion of the beta carotene-giving T-DNA locus into local varieties would take a decade before we can obtain a cultivar that resembles local varieties, and this is only if said local varieties are highly homozygous. If they are not, what you are suggesting is simply not possible with 2024 technology and I don’t see it becoming possible soon. Such a delay would mean large numbers of children dying and many more suffering. The Monsanto boogeyman’s profit desires are not relevant, unless you’d like to give them some credit for making the damn thing, and I’m not even sure they were involved? A company called Syngenta made Golden Rice 2, maybe you’re referring to that?








  • I’m not a liar, you just have a very simplistic view of things.

    They knew glyphosate (aka RoundUp) causes cancer and did not disclose it. This likely led to some severe exposure cases and thus they had to pay out (although I strongly believe prison sentences should also have been part of it). This is just as terrible as if I sad sold you lye and never told you it is corrosive, thus endangering you.

    None of this means you cannot use lye for making pretzels/ uncloging your sink. For those uses it is safe. Same for Glyphosate.

    I’d clarify I’m not Bayer fanboy - genetic modification for the sale of a herbicide is a poor use of modern genetic technology. But I cannot deny the measurable climate benefits of using it (in terms of CO2 emissions and soil degradation) source