What Role Can The Combination Of GM Technology And Organic Farming Methods Have In Sustainable Agriculture And Protecting The Environment?

Please find below a representative sampling of submissions since this discussion was active from November 2000 - February 2001. Some submissions have been edited for length. Submissions which were not accompanied by a name, location, and valid e-mail address and those that did not pertain to the topic or used profanity were omitted.

Sustainability in farming means several things. It means sustaining the quality of the natural environment. It means sustaining the quality of human life. And it means sustaining incomes for farmers. In my opinion, the natural environment is not likely to benefit from continued use of round-up (produced by Monsanto) - which is what GM crops such as soya entail. Round-up is an all-round herbicide that kills off "weeds" that give habitats to insects - the lowest part of the food chain. Soya was vulnerable to round-up until it was genetically modified. The developing world has seen it as a valuable cash crop and so will inevitably use soya crops resistant to round-up as a means to increasing yield. However, this is unlikely to feed people in the developing world as it is grown for export on large farms and not for domestic consumption. Therefore, for the developing world which represents two thirds of the world's population, there is little sustainable benefit out of GM crops.

Also, higher yields can spell disaster for farmers. The boost in coffee production on large plantations in Vietnam, India and Brazil over the last two years has destroyed agricultural economies dominated by marginal farmers in El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, etc. They are literally starving because the glut in the world coffee market has dropped prices below farmers' cost prices. The only way governments can deal with these gluts is by stock-piling (which is impractical for perishable goods) or by destroying crops. Thus high yields in cash crops - which is what Monsanto specialises in - will merely impoverish poor farmers without increasing the nutritional intake of the population of the developing world.

Dan Brett
London, England
dan@danielbrett.co.uk

In a word, NO. As an organic farmer of 18 years' experience and active in organic farming and processing certification, traditional and not legal rules preclude synthetics, including transgenic organisms. In 1999-2000 about 280,000 comments were received on the proposed US National Organic Rules, the overwhelming negative response directed at excluding GM Organisms, irradiation, and biosolids from organic production. To equate organic farming and GM cropping as environmentally soft beggars the issue. Most R&D by biotech companies has been to create genetically narrow lines capable of resisting more pesticides or incorporating toxins and other resistors to pest and abiotic pressures. Organoculture supports genetic complexity and ecological management of whole agronomic systems. At least in theory >)

Marshall Chrostowski
USA
:mcfarm@silcom.com

Speaking as a farmer I can see why no reason as to why GM crops should not be used on British farms. British farming is, as most people know, in a terrible state at the moment and therefore we (farmers) need all the help that we can get. These so called 'friends of the earth' who go around trashing GM trial sites forget that we are in fact trying to find a way of growing our products: a) cheaper and with less hassle b) by using sufficiently less sprays. If GM crops are the way to go then I am all for them. My opinion is that if GM crops are put on the shelves then people can make their own choices as to if they want to eat them or if they want to eat non GM crops. We will soon see how many of these protesters are still protesting when they can buy their GM potatoes for half the price as they can buy regular potatoes for.

Matthew Thomson
Nr Wolverhampton (England)
matt_thomson70@hotmail.com

Biotechnology has been around longer than any of us alive. Nomads saved the seeds of healthy crops, farmers breed only the healthy with each other, and Mendel, the father of genetics, produced pure pea plants. This is something that has always benefitted the human race, and will continue to do so. It also lowers prices of produce because farmers won't have as many bummer crops than if they did natural selection.

Bellevue, UK
giggls88@hotmail.com

It is part of human nature to progress and develop. 50 years ago the Nazis launched the V1. Today we have the BGM-109 Tomahawk. It can level a city 2000 miles away in seconds. This is progress. GM food is a result of development in the 21st Century. There are as much toxins in a years supply of GM food consumed by one person as there is in a single cup of coffee. Is this a threat to mankind and this planet that has aleady endured so much pain.

Yours faithfully,

Jack Reeve
UK
gregory.reeve@ukgateway.net

GM technology is new now but in the future their will be many other things to worry about. In my debate the conclusion drawn where that this type of technology needs a way of showing the consumer the right info about biotechnologies, a magazine etc. But because this science is not interesting until a threat or interesting story arrives the consumer only hears the 'bad', biased opinions of the writter. The second conclusion was physcists are creating molecules that if where released by accident into the environment they would whip out the world, my question to u is why is this technology so bad? I'm studing (with an 'open mind') Bsc Biotechnology at Nottingham University and i have found no deadly 'floors' in my time reading this subject.

Thank you,

Miss L.Allmark
Nottingham, UK
stytlja@nottingham.ac.uk

The use of modern technology and it's ability to create the strain's of gentically modifed grain needed to allow our farming system's to produce the food and harvest's needed for human consumption and daily sirvival. Is a error that organic methods along with the expansion of the areas used for farm land worldwide by the creation of farm land for grazing, food crop's,tree orchards and medical crop's. Allowing any discrepancy in production total's through natural loss's, to be balenced. The overproduction of crops is to be allowed, causing a reduction in unemployment levels world wide, a reduction in food price's world wide and a stable bases for mankind to build its future on.

Ramon Nacion
London, England
ramonnacion@yours.com

I strongly feel that choice is limited in what we buy, and that non GM products are already contaminated by GM products. Do you honestly believe crop seeds won't pollinate with normal seeds just because there is a hedge in between the two fields? Are you telling me insects like bees won't carry the pollen? Mind you whats worse? GM foods or the fertilizers used in fields and sheep dip used. These are problems already in foods, so are any foods safe from our destruction. Who has the right to play god...certainly not you.

Paul
Stoke
you_beauties_uk@yahoo.com

I think it's a great idea to have something like....yeh man i am serious those don't want buy it but i am denifinately going buy it..

Linda
London, England
linda@hotmail.com

There are serious grounds to doubt Monsanto's claims that GM food will help organic farming. Not all the opposition to GM food is unfounded. Friends of the Earth and others have raised serious points about the methodology used by biotech companies, in particular over its field and laboratory trials which it deems as neither scientific nor independent. Often research appears to have gaping holes in it and many questions are left unanswered.

It is also important to point out that while Monsanto is claiming to be a pioneer of organic farming on this site, it is the producer of the hebicides that are required for its hebicide resistant crops, ie Round-Up. There are genuine concerns that GM seed technology will further the use of herbicides on crops that could not previously resist them, eg soya.

I do not simply condemn GM technology, nor do I side myself with some of the reactionary anti-science fundamentalists, such as Jonathon Porrit. But I do want GM to work properly and the research to be conducted in an open and accountable way. So far, I believe Monsanto and Aventis have acted arrogantly and carelessly, taking their profit-driven motives to an extreme. It is this attitude that has made many members of the public very distrustful of biotech companies and their products.

Dan Brett
London, England
dan@danielbrett.co.uk

I am now a plant breeding consultant, working mostly on marker assisted selection, but in the past worked on theory of breeding components for intercrops and varietal mixtures. Clearly GM procedures can have advantages it is matter of objectives rather than breeding methods. There is a role for organic food production and I am concerned that organic farmers need varieties bred for the purpose use of conventional varieties will not give optimum results. Is Monsanto or any other company breeding such varieties? I would welcome the chance to be involved in such a project on a consultancy basis, using GM or other material.

Dr Anthony J. Wright
Harwich, UK
T1112Wright@care4free.net

I think this debate is all a bit silly, every high school kid in the U.K. knows of the benefits of GM foods, and the gibberings of uneducated fanaticals, will all be a bit fruitless in the end, as the U.K. is the only country where the gm/organic debate is running, the rest of the world is looking upon us in some confusion, especially America.

People should be allowed to buy the products they wish, what the hell is the problem with that, if you don't like gm foods, don't buy them, but also why influence other people, when there is nothing wrong with the product they are already buying!!!

You are all acting like small children!!!!

Chris Roberts
North Wales
CM.roberts@ntlworld.com

We do not have all of the answers yet, the question is, do we have sufficient to allow more widespread release of GMO's into the environment and the human food chain?

With regard to the human food chain, there are appropriate measures to evaluate novel foods prior to release and these have served us well over time. My main concern in this area is the use of 'substantial equivalence' of a GM material to the conventional during the approval process. Such assessment procedures speeds up the time to gain approval, but has the potential to allow hazardous materials into the chain, especially in relation to allergic reactions and the challenges to vulnerable consumers. Therefore GMO's may not be the problem as such, but the method of approval needs to be reevaluated in terms of these types of risk. Thereafter, the appropriate authorities should make these procedures clear to the food chain and consumers in order to allay concerns.

In terms of the environment, there is a plethora of information and opinion on the impact of releasing GMO's into the environment and the impacts on wildlife, other crops and farming systems (e.g. organic certification). Much of this information, however is not backed up by sound science. This leads me to pose just two questions:

1. Assuming that we need to base our judgment on sound science, how should this be conducted and by whom? how should this be communicated? and who should then make decisions on this science.

2. The only way we have been able to prove GMO material has 'crossed' other crops is by the markers used. This has shown movement of GM material over significant distances by wind or other biological vectors. If this is the case, then crossing must have occurred between different varieties of conventional outbreeding crops over similar distances - does this mean they are impure or contaminated, does it also invalidate all previous breeding programs?

Two final points to consider, Is there really an issue of transferring genetic material between species bearing in mind that genetic material (the DNA) is universal across species i.e. the message held on the DNA to build up proteins is the same in man, mouse and mosquito!. Furthermore, everytime we eat biological material, we consume very small amounts of this material (modified or natural) and our digestive system breaks it down before absorption.

Finally, perhaps we should consider the approach of an Australian honey company when asked of the problem of GMO's and the 'perceived' safety of his products. His response was - 'not a problem, the GMO material is in the pollen, we just need to put the honey through a fine filter to remove it along with the pollen!'

Dr. R N Baines
Royal Agricultural College, UK
richard.baines@royagcol.ac.uk

Oh, Andreas: Do you know how inefficient organic farming is? Best to be informed before you rant on about the BAD, BAD people who "put genes in our food", ey? Don't forget: The genes are already there!

Oh, and BTW: Organic farmers are allowed to use biological control agents. These are assumed to be pest specific. But are they really? There have been scientific scandals where it was discovered that a control agent that was supposed to control one pest killed off hundreds of different, harmless species in a nearby woodland. Cheers!

But you certainly sound way too convinced of your own POV to ever appreciate the good that GT can bring.

Tim
London
www@fm242.facility.pipex.com

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