Comments on: Gordon Conway on Orgenics http://www.biofortified.org/2010/01/gordon-conway-on-orgenics/ Stronger plants, stronger science, and stronger communication. Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:51:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Ewan Ross http://www.biofortified.org/2010/01/gordon-conway-on-orgenics/comment-page-1/#comment-1653 Ewan Ross Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:22:32 +0000 http://www.biofortified.org/?p=1161#comment-1653 Depending on what comes out in the next 5 years it could be doable in the next 10 - the only commercial release I can think of right now that might have a chance at changing minds is drought tolerance, however academic projects on improved nutrition and disease resistance may well be able to make inroads where industrial Ag simply cannot (primarily due to the inherent distrust of industrial Ag by organic producers, but also as most things being produced in the next 5 years are either linked hand in hand with chemical useage (herbicide resistance, and HR stacked with other useful traits) or have already been on the market for around a decade and havent made any inroads yet (Bt - which if any big bio product was going to crossover really should have) Roll on golden rice (and GR2) alongside flood tolerant rice. In 40 years? Anything is possible in that timeframe, look at Ag 40 years ago compared to today, I figure that by that point breeding and biotech will be practically indistinguishable (and who knows how targetted mutational work will go - I wonder how the world would take to a gene from another organism simply being mutated into junk DNA rather than shipped in (or if you used targetted mutation to change a corn gene into a bacterial homolog in terms of the protein produced)- it'd currently completely bypass all the regulatory hurdles.) However it could also be that in 40 years we still sit exactly where we do with regards to organic/conventional Ag - perhaps it will become economically feasible to take a middle ground utilizing GMOs in an organic type setting without actually calling it organic - a combination of increased commodity prices and increased input prices may turn things this way. Depending on what comes out in the next 5 years it could be doable in the next 10 – the only commercial release I can think of right now that might have a chance at changing minds is drought tolerance, however academic projects on improved nutrition and disease resistance may well be able to make inroads where industrial Ag simply cannot (primarily due to the inherent distrust of industrial Ag by organic producers, but also as most things being produced in the next 5 years are either linked hand in hand with chemical useage (herbicide resistance, and HR stacked with other useful traits) or have already been on the market for around a decade and havent made any inroads yet (Bt – which if any big bio product was going to crossover really should have)

Roll on golden rice (and GR2) alongside flood tolerant rice.

In 40 years? Anything is possible in that timeframe, look at Ag 40 years ago compared to today, I figure that by that point breeding and biotech will be practically indistinguishable (and who knows how targetted mutational work will go – I wonder how the world would take to a gene from another organism simply being mutated into junk DNA rather than shipped in (or if you used targetted mutation to change a corn gene into a bacterial homolog in terms of the protein produced)- it’d currently completely bypass all the regulatory hurdles.) However it could also be that in 40 years we still sit exactly where we do with regards to organic/conventional Ag – perhaps it will become economically feasible to take a middle ground utilizing GMOs in an organic type setting without actually calling it organic – a combination of increased commodity prices and increased input prices may turn things this way.

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