Thoraiya DyerGM Canola Is Not Godzilla
May 12th 2008 23:53
Two weeks ago, a four-year ban on genetically modified canola was lifted in Victoria, and farmers started planting Bayer’s InVigor brand of the happy yellow plant.
Why is everyone screaming, “Godzilla!” “It’s going to take over the world!” “You can’t put the genie back into the bottle!” when canola itself is a man-made plant?
Canadians made it out of rapeseed ( Really Long Link ) in 1968 because rapeseed oil tasted evil like mustard, looked green and contained a whole lot of erucic acid (good for industry, bad for human hearts).
Look the same, don't they?
When Dr Baldur Stefansson, agricultural scientist and “father of canola” decided to make the plant more useful, he didn’t have genetic engineering up his sleeve. He had to use selective breeding, which is what humans have used over centuries to change this:
into this:
It takes much, much longer, but selective breeding is really not much different to genetic modification.
If I had to use selective breeding to make a type of canola that could survive a blast of the herbicide Roundup (glufosinate ammonium), I would get as many different types of canola and its relatives as I could find. I would mix them all up by taking pollen from some and splashing it over others. I would spray them all with Roundup and see which ones survived – or which ones took the longest to die.
Repeat, over and over, until you have canola that doesn’t get killed by Roundup.
Then, I would plant hundreds of thousands of acres of it, spray with Roundup, and only the weeds would get killed. I would have pure canola as far as the eye could see, muahahahaha!
*continue with maniacal laughter*
And nobody would try to stop me. Nobody would protest. I didn’t do any scary geneticky stuff, so it’s all OK. I’d be using a herbicide, so I wouldn’t be able to call my crop organic, but most of the world’s canola isn’t organic, and I’m too lazy to pull out thousands of acres of weeds by hand, anyway.
I certainly wouldn’t have to submit it to the Australian Gene Technology Regulator for testing ( Really Long Link ), which found in 2003 that,
“… our rigorous independent assessment of potential health, safety and environmental impacts has found InVigor canola as safe to humans and the environment as conventional (non-GM) canola”.
Now, this regulatory body isn’t concerned with economic impact of GM crops. It doesn’t care if people with the heebie-jeebies about genetic engineering stop buying Australian canola. Its job is purely to make sure that the stuff isn’t poisonous to people or livestock, that it can still be killed if it gets out of hand, and that the levels of contamination of non-GM crops are low.
Its most important conclusion seems to me to be this one:
“InVigor hybrid canola is no more toxic or allergenic than non-GM canola.”
And why should it be toxic, anyway? Why are people afraid of a plant that has a gene from a different species, but they’re not afraid of mules (which are a terrifying cross between horses and donkeys! Stone them! Burn them! Keep mules out of Australia!)
In a country like ours, with its high standard facilities and research, its culture of zealous quarantine and awareness of mistakes made in the past, it seems unlikely to me that something truly harmful will slip through the net.
I’m not saying that we know everything, but to reject a new tool simply because most people don’t understand it and can be manipulated to fear it – that seems rather stupid.
But it’s people’s prerogative to panic, I suppose. If only they knew the dangerous genetic engineering that goes on every time a new human life is created in the womb. All those chromosomes unwinding and breaking off and mixing together. You never know what kind of monster will be created.
Why is everyone screaming, “Godzilla!” “It’s going to take over the world!” “You can’t put the genie back into the bottle!” when canola itself is a man-made plant?
Canadians made it out of rapeseed ( Really Long Link ) in 1968 because rapeseed oil tasted evil like mustard, looked green and contained a whole lot of erucic acid (good for industry, bad for human hearts).
Look the same, don't they?
When Dr Baldur Stefansson, agricultural scientist and “father of canola” decided to make the plant more useful, he didn’t have genetic engineering up his sleeve. He had to use selective breeding, which is what humans have used over centuries to change this:
into this:
It takes much, much longer, but selective breeding is really not much different to genetic modification.
If I had to use selective breeding to make a type of canola that could survive a blast of the herbicide Roundup (glufosinate ammonium), I would get as many different types of canola and its relatives as I could find. I would mix them all up by taking pollen from some and splashing it over others. I would spray them all with Roundup and see which ones survived – or which ones took the longest to die.
Repeat, over and over, until you have canola that doesn’t get killed by Roundup.
Then, I would plant hundreds of thousands of acres of it, spray with Roundup, and only the weeds would get killed. I would have pure canola as far as the eye could see, muahahahaha!
*continue with maniacal laughter*
And nobody would try to stop me. Nobody would protest. I didn’t do any scary geneticky stuff, so it’s all OK. I’d be using a herbicide, so I wouldn’t be able to call my crop organic, but most of the world’s canola isn’t organic, and I’m too lazy to pull out thousands of acres of weeds by hand, anyway.
I certainly wouldn’t have to submit it to the Australian Gene Technology Regulator for testing ( Really Long Link ), which found in 2003 that,
“… our rigorous independent assessment of potential health, safety and environmental impacts has found InVigor canola as safe to humans and the environment as conventional (non-GM) canola”.
Now, this regulatory body isn’t concerned with economic impact of GM crops. It doesn’t care if people with the heebie-jeebies about genetic engineering stop buying Australian canola. Its job is purely to make sure that the stuff isn’t poisonous to people or livestock, that it can still be killed if it gets out of hand, and that the levels of contamination of non-GM crops are low.
Its most important conclusion seems to me to be this one:
“InVigor hybrid canola is no more toxic or allergenic than non-GM canola.”
And why should it be toxic, anyway? Why are people afraid of a plant that has a gene from a different species, but they’re not afraid of mules (which are a terrifying cross between horses and donkeys! Stone them! Burn them! Keep mules out of Australia!)
In a country like ours, with its high standard facilities and research, its culture of zealous quarantine and awareness of mistakes made in the past, it seems unlikely to me that something truly harmful will slip through the net.
I’m not saying that we know everything, but to reject a new tool simply because most people don’t understand it and can be manipulated to fear it – that seems rather stupid.
But it’s people’s prerogative to panic, I suppose. If only they knew the dangerous genetic engineering that goes on every time a new human life is created in the womb. All those chromosomes unwinding and breaking off and mixing together. You never know what kind of monster will be created.
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Comment by Brad Gaylard
Movie Catcher
Mens Zen
Also, Canadian researchers have found that herbicide tolerance can be transferred from GM Canola into weed populations and persist indefinately.
Also, because of cross-contamination, once GM canola is introduced, it will be virtually impossible to guarantee other, non-GM crops will remain unaffected. In Canada, there is now no such thing as non-GM Canola, as they cannot guarantee there has been no cross-contamination. This presents a problem for people who want the choice of avoiding GM Canola.
Then you have corporate control of food crops. These corporations not only own the seed patents, but also the herbicide ones too. So farmers must then pay out the arse for technology fees to plant these crops and sign contracts to how the seeds are used.
Do we really want a farming industry where food production is dominated by multi-national chemical companies and Farmers aren't even allowed to save their own seeds?
The existance or not of health concerns aside (which is still inconclusive), there are a whole lot of other implications with GM crops.
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Comment by Thoraiya Dyer
Demented World
It's true, there are many other implications of GM crops that I haven't talked about. Farming practices will indeed change. They have to change, or else the expanding world population can't be fed. To feed everyone, we have to farm more intensively. The more intensive farming becomes, the more intervention it requires.
If we don't like it, we simply have to have less people. Frankly, that is out of Australian hands.
If you wanted to intensively farm pigs, you'd probably buy Bayer products for parasite control. That, or all your pigs would have worms. Do pig farmers panic about the terrible hold Bayer has over them?
No. The product makes intensive farming possible. Bayer has done the research. Bayer has the right to charge for it.
Farmers have the right not to farm intensively, but if they all stopped, you wouldn't be able to afford a rasher of bacon with your breakfast.
I'm not going to rage against Bayer for developing a desirable product and selling it, whether it's canola or pig parasiticides.
But I really just wanted to look at our irrational fear of the words "genetically modified" when GM is comparable to other, older plant breeding techniques (such as the ones used to develop canola in the first place) that nobody cares about.
It's all fine and dandy for a herbalist to give you dendelion leaf tea, but who has tested that to make sure it's safe? Who has tested Deb Instant Mashed Potato, or Two Minute Noodles, or tinned baked beans, to make sure they're safe?
You want decades of testing before GM products are released, but why don't you want the same level of testing for every new preservative, every new flavouring and every new colouring that gets put into food?
If you put people's tap water to the same toxin-free tests, it would probably fail.
It's all too easy to make GM seem scarier than it actually is.
Comment by Thoraiya Dyer
Demented World
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Comment by Ryan B
After knowing thoraiya for a good 23 years i have NEVER known her to eat mcdonalds.. Ever
Im guessing the funny part now is what I used to say when i was younger...
"You're the ONLY person in the whole world who has never had McDonalds! Just eat some!"
Spose i was kinds wrong? hehehehe
Comment by Teknicolor
Adventure Found
the sensual explorer
being green
Happy Trails
Makes me wonder about all the sick little bees in the Northern Hemisphere, are they getting sore tum tums from snacking on GM crops, which made them more susceptable to the virus that killed 'em in masses last year?
I'm open to GM being all things good, but would like to see more testing and certainly labelling so I can stay away until I'm happy about it.
I have read in particular about certain proteins in GM soy plants causing ill effects (read: death) in tests in mice. While that's simply one test, in the meatime of a total verdict I'd just like the choice.
Bring on the labelling, that's all I say!
Comment by Morgan Bell
Deep Pencil
Current Business News
Movie Train
Artist Quirk
its like the irrational fear of clones and robots
Comment by Thoraiya Dyer
Demented World
Teknicolor: You are right, labelling should be enforced and people should have the right to choose. If there's one thing I wish they were doing differently, it's that the onus of putting barriers in place between GM and non-GM crops falls on the non-GM farmers. I think it should be the other way around.
Although, I don't subscribe to your bee theory. The more intercontinental transport that goes on (read: humans on planes and boats), the more all the viruses of the world are going to spread and change. To cross even massive geographical barriers like the Pacific ocean, once impossible for a land animal, all an insect has to do now is sit on a boat.
More, worse viruses are coming. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up my holiday in Canada
Morgan: Poor clones and robots. We can probably blame science fiction writers for those ones
Comment by Brad Gaylard
Movie Catcher
Mens Zen
This is what has hapened in Canada - since the introduction of GM Canola, non-GM Canola farmers can no longer guarantee their crops are GM-Free..
I think the thing about the whole GM debate is that there's no black and white - it's all shades of grey. Blanket GM hysteria is unproductive, as is a blase attitude toward the various implications of GM crops.
There is a balancing act to be struck between proactively combatting world food shortages and ensuring that it is done in a safe and responsible manner. Hopefully, we will be able to have our cake and eat it too.