Gene-edited food now legal in England

Hagar said:
It could equally provide solutions to world hunger (using exaggerated language as you have). Also in its place there is nothing wrong with capitalism.
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I think you missed my point.
OP's objection to gene editing is what if private companies take advantage of it.
Well that's already happened with conventional farming so I don't see how that's a negative for gene editing crops.
 
Nitefly said:
I’m actually not surprised - the caution is because of a lot of idiotic ‘rush it out’ attempts at this sort of thing. The most famous is probably the mess up in the 90s with the Flavr Savr tomato.

They edited some genes into tomato’s that made them ripen slower. Same food, longer shelf life, makes it cheaper. Win win win.

Unfortunately, in one of the most boneheaded examples of buffoonery in the history of buffoons, they forgot to take out the kanamycin (like penicillin) out of the edited genes - they used kanamycin for selecting bacteria on agar plates. The end result being a bunch of tomatos everywhere that had theoretical potential to create a ‘super bacteria’ like MRSA. Derp derp derp. Basically no going back from that.

Overseas, we have companies like Monsanto historically selling perfect golf lawn grass. It’s immune to everything, just dump down herbicide and it’s the only thing that will survive! What could go wrong…

… well, everything, because now you can’t kill it. Totally wrecks local wildlife and grows in all farming fields, can’t be removed - two thumbs up!

So that’s why there is so much scepticism. If they are finally allowing this sort of thing in the UK only now then I have confidence it’s been reviewed to the Nth degree (and will be going forwards).
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This is the big problem isn’t it. Our government give us absolutely zero reason to think they can regulate anything properly, so whilst it could be a benefit for everyone: cheaper food, longer lasting, less damage to the environment etc, in all likelihood its just another way for companies to make more short term money whilst people in general suffer for it.
 
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Nitefly said:
I imagine the emphasis (at the time - in class) was on it creating an issue for farmers and adjoining ecosystems, who can’t get rid of it without killing off their crop / local wildlife.
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Nobody is sowing Roundup Ready grass next door to farmers.
 
Nitefly said:
I can’t recall much other than it being a case study (in agricultural biotechnology) at university of how to ‘not do it’. My language was loose in respect of dumping herbicides, but there is definitely something there.

I imagine the emphasis (at the time - in class) was on it creating an issue for farmers and adjoining ecosystems, who can’t get rid of it without killing off their crop / local wildlife.

Hence it being deemed a case study in GM recklessness.
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From what I could find this may have been in reference to GM bentgrass. It appears to have cross pollinated with other types of grass and has spread from the original test area.

Due to how light the seeds are it appears that winds can carry it quite far, with some observations of contamination happening up to 21 km away. I wonder if those extreme cases come from the pollen or a patch of grass hitching a ride on birds.
www.newscientist.com

Wind carries GM pollen record distances

Pollen from GM grass has blown up to 21 kilometres on the breeze and affected normal grasses over record areas, a new study finds
www.newscientist.com www.newscientist.com

I'm yet to read the full thing but I found a newer article that states farmers haven't had issues with contamination with the actual crop, but GM bentgrass does love growing in irrigation ditches and appears to be clogging them up in some extreme instances.
www.hcn.org

GMO grass is creeping across Oregon - High Country News

Missteps by agribusiness giants allowed the invasion. Now they’re off the hook for cleanup.
www.hcn.org www.hcn.org
Creeping bentgrass has not created a catastrophe, as some anti-GMO groups warned it would. But it thrives in canals and ditches, where it collects sediment and impedes water flow, and it has proved difficult to control. That makes it a headache for Frahm and other growers — like the heavy snows that crushed their onion sheds last year, and the host of other weeds they already battle.
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Warren Chamberlain, who chairs the irrigation district west of Ontario, thinks the birds will bring bentgrass to him. The day after our lunch in Nyssa, Erstrom and I visit Chamberlain’s dairy farm near the two-stop-sign community of Willowcreek. “We’re going to be stuck fighting this for the rest of our lives,” he laments. “All so somebody could have green grass on a golf course.”
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@Chuk_Chuk yup nice one, I’m pretty sure it was bentgrass - it rings a (distant) bell!

Sankari said:
Nobody is sowing Roundup Ready grass next door to farmers.
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I’m fairly sure it happened to farmers in the specific case study, but that’s from a 16 year ago memory. Regardless, highly dispersive GM grass getting all over the place is (was?) a thing. Hopefully lessons learned.

Edit: it was (in the case study) probably sown nowhere near the crops, but miles and miles away because of dispersal as mentioned above.
 
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Selecting for traits has been happening in farming for centuries note size and shape of animals and yield of arable crops. ALL GE will tend to do is accelerate aspects of this. Farmers would have got there eventually by themselves.
 
Hagar said:
Selecting for traits has been happening in farming for centuries note size and shape of animals and yield of arable crops. ALL GE will tend to do is accelerate aspects of this. Farmers would have got there eventually by themselves.
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That has taken decades, centuries and millennia to do and it's not the same thing. Don't confuse the two. The fact that the law has changed to ONLY allow GE that would be possible through selection clearly shows that GE can do stuff that selection can't.

Who is going to decide what's possible though selection? Where does that end? The whole of life on Earth has developed though selection from single cells. How is this going to be regulated? Who pays for the clean-up when the inevitable happens and someone does something damaging?
 
inogen said:
That has taken decades, centuries and millennia to do and it's not the same thing. Don't confuse the two. The fact that the law has changed to ONLY allow GE that would be possible through selection clearly shows that GE can do stuff that selection can't.

Who is going to decide what's possible though selection? Where does that end? The whole of life on Earth has developed though selection from single cells. How is this going to be regulated? Who pays for the clean-up when the inevitable happens and someone does something damaging?
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Not that I totally agree with it but we are living in the world of NOW. Everything has to happen soonest, decades are too long, centuries, you must be joking. Dolly the sheep existed because it was possible however I do not see millions of dolly clones. I think that science feels it's way and discards a lot of stuff as not necessary. GE may be a boon to mankind, it may not but people will try it because that's what humans do.
 
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