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Thread: Would you buy GM potatoes?

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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Question Would you buy GM potatoes?

    Quote Originally Posted by BBC
    A chemical company has asked for permission to grow the first trial crop of genetically modified (GM) potatoes in the UK.

    It says they would be resistant to late blight disease, meaning no need for spraying fields with fungicides, and could save millions in damaged crops.

    But environmentalists say consumers do not want GM potatoes even if it means cutting back on chemicals.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5277152.stm

    As consumers do you agree with that statment, or would you buy GM potatoes given the benefits in terms of lack of fungicides etc.?
    Last edited by kalniel; 23-08-2006 at 01:13 PM. Reason: Added link to article

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    If there's nothing really wrong with the food (in terms of health, what benifits there are, etc), yeah I wouldn't mind having it.

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    Never. I wouldn't touch any GM food with a barge pole. The environmental contamination as GM enhanced plants mix with normal plants has been considerable in tests around the country. We can't even say what the results of these contaminations will be in the long run but one short term feature is superweeds - weeds that are resistant to fungicides and natural diseases that would keep them in check. Argentina which has long been a firm believer in GM foods is having a dreadful time keeping these super weeds under control having to develop stronger and more harmful chemicals to combat them.

    I could argue further but the bottom line is that there is no need for GM foods. There is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone but it's just unequally distributed.
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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Interesting - I've not heard about superweeds before, I'd love to read some more if you've got some links.

    Idealistically of course we would have better food distribution but I'm not sure that can solve the problem - you have to have either pesticides/fungicides, or GM, in the case of potatoes at least. You cannot grow potatoes in Britain otherwise, because of blight (so much so that you're actually allowed to use chemical fungicides in 'organic' potatoes).

    Of course food distribution contains it's own environmental concerns as well.

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    Right now I dont care. Unless I see unbiased data suggesting that Potatoes do actually cross polinate with completely different species and in the process pass on their resistance to certain chemicals to them.
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    The way I see it , we have been Modifying the taste of various plants for centuries. GM is just a way to accelerates that process. As for
    cross pollinate with completely different species , how do that work ? It is like try to cross breed a cat with a dog.

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    Superweeds article in New Scientist

    Old article but relevant

    Interesting article on GM in general

    Do a Google. It's amazing the amount of information out there.
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    Lucca Der Tuv (LCD) mart_haj86's Avatar
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    Doesnt bother me one bit, if its on the plate ill eat it, besides carrots were originally purple before they got modified and can you find purple carrots now? is anyone bothered?

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    Quote Originally Posted by HyeongSeong
    The way I see it , we have been Modifying the taste of various plants for centuries. GM is just a way to accelerates that process. As for
    cross pollinate with completely different species , how do that work ? It is like try to cross breed a cat with a dog.
    The difference is that GM produces unexpected results that can be harmful to the environment. It's not a slow natural process, it's a fast, quick fix for commercial purposes.

    Cross pollination works. Don't ask me how but it does. I think plants are different from cats and dogs
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    Quote Originally Posted by mart_haj86
    Doesnt bother me one bit, if its on the plate ill eat it, besides carrots were originally purple before they got modified and can you find purple carrots now? is anyone bothered?
    Carrots weren't GM modified though. Dutch farmers favoured orange carrots and selectively bred them so that only orange ones were produced. There's a difference between selective breeding and gentically modifying something! And the reason no one remembers them is cause this happened in 17th Century.
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    That Superweeds article in New Scientist is very misleading , From my understanding of the article : Super weeds are Oil seed rape as well and the only reason they are consider to be weed is because they are not in season any more. That is more or less to do with human error then cross pollinate.

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    Quote Originally Posted by HyeongSeong
    That Superweeds article in New Scientist is very misleading , From my understanding of the article : Super weeds are Oil seed rape as well and the only reason they are consider to be weed is because they are not in season any more. That is more or less to do with human error then cross pollinate.
    Good point but what's being said is that three or four different types of GM oil seed rape corss pollinated together to produce one type of oil seed rape that was resistant to four major weed killers instead of just one each. A weed is an unwated plant thoughand if you don't want oil seed rape growing in the middle of your barley field then you've got a problem here!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bluecube
    There's a difference between selective breeding and gentically modifying something!
    True.. with selective breeding you are modifying up to over 30 genes with no knowledge of what genes you are modifying or what they actually do. In just thirty years we have tripled the size of meat chickens. It's no more natural than GM, but less controlled.

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    Sure but it's by a perfectly natural process and one that has been used down the ages. Chickens are still chickens no matter how obscenely big they are. GM is the manipulation of DNA at the molecular level, a process which no one really knows too much about outside the laboratory and is certainly not ready to be released into the wild no matter how much the biochemical companies insist that this is the case.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bluecube
    Sure but it's by a perfectly natural process and one that has been used down the ages. Chickens are still chickens no matter how obscenely big they are. GM is the manipulation of DNA at the molecular level, a process which no one really knows too much about outside the laboratory and is certainly not ready to be released into the wild no matter how much the biochemical companies insist that this is the case.
    WTF Arsenic is natural. Cyanide is natural. Cancer is natural.
    Why is something that is natural inherently better?
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    Cause Ma Nature doesn't insert rat genes into plant genes cause it makes for a supposedly better plant. Neither does Ma Nature sell farmers GM crops that don't produce seed so farmers have to buy seed from the biocorps every year.

    And no I'm not providing links. Google is your friend!#

    And BTW why is something artificially produced inherently better than the natural equivalent?
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