by Karl Haro von Mogel on 26 October 2009 In the last 12 hours, the Ashoka Changemakers contest has really taken a dramatic turn for the better for Biofortified. The vote tallies are constantly changing, but at the start of writing this post, we have rocketed forward to 632 votes, leaving behind our leading opponent the Non-GMO Project, at 260 votes. During the course of the day, we have gained about 570 votes to their 100. There are still two more days left to the contest, and you never know how much things may change down the road. So today I will present another reason why I think Biofortified deserves your vote: Honesty.
Last week, a day into the final voting week, we received a comment on our entry from Megan Westgate, the Executive Director of the Non-GMO Project. I will reproduce it in full:
Biofortified Pro GE?
Although you say here you are not pro GE, on your own homepage there is a link to “Other Pro GE Blogs” implying that yours is one, too. And there is no link to anti GE blogs (which would be a requisite if you really were committed to balanced representation). You even have a link to “Monsanto According to Monsanto” (the industry blog), but no link to the powerful documentary “The World According to Monsanto.” Given these facts, how can you really say that you are offering both sides? Your entry here doesn’t seem honest.
Anastasia and I both pounced on the comment, pointing out that nowhere in our entry to we “say we are not pro-GE,” and asked her to retract her statement and pledge not to engage in dirty politics. Making stuff up is totally not acceptable tactics (misreading isn’t very good either). Later that day, she did just that, which I applaud her for. Let the contest be about who can gather the most support over the internet, not who can misunderstand the other side the most.
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 3 September 2009 Note: This one is a little old, it took Anastasia’s recent post on food selling laws to remind me to post it.
In the discussion about the food safety bill, HR 875, there are many urban myths going around. From our friend Stephen Lendman’s characterization of it as a “GMO proliferation bill,” to the claim that it will ban backyard gardens, many of the myths seem to follow a similar pattern. And almost no one who promotes these myths has even bothered to read the bills.
Point of fact – if you read the text of the bill, there is absolutely nothing in it about genetic engineering, so where do they get this idea?
Nevertheless, myths such as these have traversed the intertubes and the lack of fact-checking combined with the sensationalism (and perceived plausibility?) of such a bill have put it on youtube, blogs, and some news sites.
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 2 September 2009 Nature News has just published a long article by Emily Waltz about the sometimes harsh scientific debates and battles that are waged over genetic engineering in agiculture: GM Crops: Battlefield. Papers suggesting that biotech crops might harm the environment attract a hail of abuse from other scientists. Emily Waltz asks if the critics fight fair.
The article is pretty good, and it discusses a 2007 paper about Bt corn negatively affecting caddissfly larva when compared to non-Bt corn. “Toxins in transgenic crop byproducts may affect headwater stream ecosystems”, by Rosi-Marhsall et al. You can access the paper here, and also read Anastasia’s commentary about the paper with Even Scientists make Mistakes at Genetic Maize.
Waltz’s article doesn’t focus so much on the paper itself so much as the responses to the paper, with implications for the culture of scientific debate following controversial results. If someone comes along with a preliminary result that is based on a study with some problems, and there is a danger that it could be used politically to everyone’s detriment, what is the proper response? Shoot it down with all your guns blazing, snipe the problems at a distance, or politely suggest a more rigorous examination? Will the latter response prevent it from being used to make policy decisions?
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 14 August 2009 This is a first. While browsing the news recently, I came across this article in Farm Weekly, an Australian site: GM silver bullet could shoot farmers in foot. In the short article, a representative from Network of Concerned Farmers, Julie Newman, says that conventional wheat farmers need to be protected – from being outperformed by genetically engineered wheat. I have to post the whole thing because I can’t figure out what to leave out:
THE introduction of a Genetically Modified (GM) wheat variety with frost tolerance could potentially flood the world wheat market and drastically lower its price and profitability, according to Network of Concerned Farmers WA spokesperson Julie Newman.
“Our competitors will actually fare much better if we bring in GM wheat, because we can grow frost-tolerant crops now but they can’t because of the cold snaps,” she said.
“If you invent a GM wheat variety that has frost tolerance, it will open up all of the rich farming area in Russia and the Ukraine, and there will be a major glut of wheat on the world market.
“It would almost double global production and that means our wheat would be worth a fraction of the price.”
She said a clear set of rules needed to be established to ensure non-GM farmers were protected and retained their right of choice to not grow it.
“The reason you grow a crop is because you want to sell it, but if you can’t sell it, why grow it?
“There’s not much point growing GM wheat if it can’t be sold, because you will make a loss.
“Now that wouldn’t be so bad if it only affected the growers who choose to grow it, but the losses will also be forced upon the other farmers who don’t want to grow it.
“Bringing in GM wheat will force losses on everyone who grows conventional wheat.”
Let me get this straight: Julie Newman is worried that if a variety of wheat is genetically engineered to resist frost, then previously wheat-free northern areas would be able to grow this staple. And this is bad?
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GE to cause food prices to go up?
Only a day after my last post about a bizarre argument against GE wheat that argued that Australian non-GE wheat producers would need to be protected from prices being lowered by a hypothetical frost-free wheat, the opposite is reported in the UK. The Daily Express reports that GM crops could send food prices rocketing. Wha?
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