Escaping Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) — What the Industry and the USDA Disingenuously Deny

29 May 2011

“Y’all can’t keep them all down on the farm!”

I addressed the problem of the coexistence of organic agriculture and GMO-farming before.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture seemed deliberately naive — read “bought” by the industries that feed politicians — about the threat to the preservation of “natural” genomes that comes with planting genetically modified crops.

Two primary problems exist:

First, the simple migration of modified plants into organically-farmed fields can pose salability problems for organic farmers. Consumers don’t see much point in paying for “organic” food that has stray GMO products in it.

Second, given the many subtle biologic ways for gene flows to modify existing genomes, no one (responsible) is yet certain that it is possible to prevent GMO genes from transferring into “natural” genomes — thereby converting organic crops themselves into GMO sub-varieties.

Science magazine did an article recently about the field’s most knowledgeable expert on the problem of “GMO escape,” Dr. Carol Mallory-Smith (Oregon State, Corvallis).

Her voyage of interest began when she tracked Scotts Miracle Grow Company’s experiment with Roundup Ready® (glyphosate-resistant weed-killer) bentgrass.

Contrary to Scotts’ expectations, the bentgrass traveled at least 20 (12.4 miles) kilometers beyond its alleged confinement. That’s quite a hike:

Much of this gene jailbreak probably happened on one day in 2003, when an unexpected windstorm blew away swaths of seed that had been left out to dry at the Scotts research facility.

Mallory-Smith says this event should not have been a surprise, because freak weather is a natural part of farming: “This is what happens in production agriculture.”

That episode cemented Mallory-Smith's reputation as an expert on migrating transgenes, especially in the Willamette Valley.

When sugar beet seedlings turned up in topsoil that was sold at a garden supply store in Corvallis, residents brought them to Mallory-Smith for testing. The seedlings turned out to be glyphosate-resistant.

Last fall, farmers in eastern Oregon noticed that some grass in their irrigation ditches seemed immune to Roundup. They, too, sent samples of the grass to Mallory-Smith, who confirmed that the grass contained an inserted glyphosate-resistance gene.

She also flew out to take a look for herself. “The plants have obviously been there for a while. They're large. They've gone to seed. My guess is, they're 3 or 4 years old,” she says.

Scotts had to pay a trivial fine.

So some people (hopefully) were clued in the hard way, about what they should have known before the mess began

Dr. Mallory-Smith concluded what anyone with a reasonable plant and genetics background would have predicted:

These experiences convinced Mallory-Smith that USDA regulators haven't fully understood the dynamics of gene flow, at least when it comes to turfgrass.

“They knew a lot about corn, soybeans, and cotton. But now we're dealing with a perennial, with lots of relatives. And it's weedier; it does survive outside of cultivation. They didn't have an understanding of that kind of cultivation,” she says.

Generally, she says, regulators and biotech companies have been overly confident that they can prevent modified genes from spreading.

“When you put them out there, you have to accept the fact that you're not going to contain them; you're not going to retract all these genes,” she says.

“So why isn’t the USDA clued in, are they all stupid?”

Probably not. But take a guess at where most of the money in agriculture is.

Money slants our ability to reason. And it definitely slants our ability to tell people the truth. When money buys politicians (who in turn own Executive cabinet heads), guess which sorts of scientific evidence gets conveniently “lost in the mail.”

In view of our inability to motivate ourselves to adequately regulate the criminally damaging financial industry (which impoverished and continues to impoverish virtually all of us), it should not surprise us that the USDA’s and agricultural sector’s less visible duplicity goes undetected.

After all, “They’re farmers, ain’t they? — Where’s the harm in that?”

By the way, I’m not anti-GMO at all

I’m not against genetic manipulation for constructive purposes. Agriculture has traditionally been one arena where altered genes and genomes have beneficently blessed humanity. I’m also someone who will be glad when we genetically modify ourselves out of the medical ailments that plague so many of us.

I do not agree with anti-GMO advocates who seem to think that God blesses conventional hybridization, but Evil is solely responsible for genetic manipulation that use the more direct biochemical techniques that humankind is in the process of developing.

From a scientific perspective, it is very difficult to make a logically principled case that distinguishes these two methods of changing "natural" organisms.

I am, however, opposed to lying, obscurant stupidity, and the plutocratically-motivated government manipulation of truth that people are entitled to hear

A government that lies, or is filled with people even stupider than the rest of us, is no government at all.

“Genes are gonna flow, once y’all let them loose outside”

Facing the reality of gene flow is the key to intelligent decision-making.

I suspect that much of organic farming, as it is done now, is probably going to evaporate. Genes flow, and the GMO lobby has Congress’ and the USDA’s ears.

Unless concerned American consumers step into the fray.

There is, however, much less evidence for concern being the case in the United States, than in Europe, where people reportedly care more about what’s in what they eat.

PeteFree.com

Escaping Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) — What the Industry and the USDA Disingenuously Deny