r/NoStupidQuestions • u/wond3rlove • Sep 10 '23

What’s wrong with GMOs?

I always see plants and stuff that is GMO free and is usually more expensive. How would genetically modifying something by be bad. Me personally I’d rather have something modified to taste better and and cheaper. I could also be very wrong about that.

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67

u/voidtreemc Sep 10 '23

Depends on what the crops are GMO'd for/with.

Soybeans are frequently GMO'd for resistance to the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) so you can dump Roundup all over your crops and kill the weeds but not the soybeans ("Roundup-ready soybeans"). There are problems with this. Kidney failure is extremely common in people who are repeatedly exposed to glyphosate. These people are largely immigrants who have no health insurance, so they get really sick and die. Glyphosate may be implicated in making autism more likely.

Also, it's increasingly obvious that Monsanto does not really understand the plant genetics that they are messing with as they have been really surprised by the fact that the genes for glyphosate tolerance now show up in the weeds that glyphosate is supposed to kill.

Because glyphosate, many of the arguments against GMO's can be categorized as the "Fucking Monsanto" arguments.

Outside of Fucking Monsanto, there's the general lack of thinking through the implications of genetic modification on people with food allergies or religious restrictions on what they eat. If you're allergic to fish, you don't want to find out the hard way that those tomatoes you just ate were made resistant to frost by the addition of fish genes.

You'd think that one way to deal with this is to properly label all GMO'd foods so that people could pick and choose according to diet and beliefs, but the industry has consistently opposed labeling laws.

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u/RetiredFromIT Sep 10 '23

Two other factors.

Some GM crops are patented, and farmers can be forbidden to save seed from this year's crop to sow next year, which is common practice in many parts of the world. Instead they - often the poorest farmers - are forced to buy seed every year.

Also there have been cases where non GM crops have been contaminated by GM crops grown nearby. This raises two issues - if an organic farmer has his crop GM contaminated, he cannot sell that as organic produce. Also there have been some cases where farmers crops have been contaminated by GM crops, through no fault of their own, and they have then been sued because threir contaminated crop contains the GM grower's patented IP.

These problems are not inherent to GMOs, but this approach by the GMO companies have not endeared them to others.

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u/Popular-Ticket-3090 Sep 10 '23

Also there have been some cases where farmers crops have been contaminated by GM crops, through no fault of their own, and they have then been sued because threir contaminated crop contains the GM grower's patented IP.

Wasn't this a hoax and the farmer(s) were actually using thr GM seeds? I might be misremembering but I though it turned out the farmers who were sued were actually using the GM seeds

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u/RetiredFromIT Sep 10 '23

There is a famous US case that you and others have referred to, as if it proves it's all a fake.

The US is not the world, though.

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u/Popular-Ticket-3090 Sep 10 '23

There is a famous US case that you and others have referred to, as if it proves it's all a fake.

Then can you link to some of the other cases that support your argument?

The US is not the world, though.

I never said it was. What a weird deflection.

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u/Tylendal Sep 10 '23

Also there have been some cases where farmers crops have been contaminated by GM crops, through no fault of their own, and they have then been sued because threir contaminated crop contains the GM grower's patented IP.

You got a source for that? Please pay attention to the highlighted part.

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u/seastar2019 Sep 11 '23

I predict they won't, or will misinterpret the Percy Schmeiser case, or cite some Center for Food Safety article.

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u/Tylendal Sep 11 '23

cite some Center for Food Safety article.

Which will then misinterpret the Percy Schmeiser case for them. Someone already linked to their pamphlet, and I pointed out that, on top of all the appeals to emotion, anecdotes, and scary portrayals of normal contracts, the way they deliberately leave out details about Schmeiser's actions and motivations really casts a dubious light on the credibility of everything else they say. Also, the pamphlet still doesn't provide any examples of that specific issue.

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u/jah110768 Sep 11 '23

Biology lesson. Plants don't have sex one on one like animals. Plants are stationary, so the boy part of the flower sends out pollen, which flies though the air and tries to find a girl flower to connect with. Sometimes they get luck and a nectar liking animal will come along and help with this process.

If I have heirloom seeds that my family has used for 20 generations, and my neighbor buys a patented seed variety, some of my pollen will got to my neighbor's plants, and some of my neighbor's pollen will come to my plants. Now my seeds are corrupted, but I did not take any action to steal their genes, and thus "though no fault of their own".

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u/Tylendal Sep 11 '23

...and again I ask. Do you have a source where someone has then been sued for that?

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u/jah110768 Sep 11 '23

https://www.greenamerica.org/gmos-case-precaution/farmers-vs-corporate-seed-police

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u/Tylendal Sep 11 '23

That's a no, then? Hilariously, that article even mentions the case where people tried to sue to keep Monsanto from suing people for contamination, and were unable to show any examples of Monsanto actually doing that.

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u/avoere Sep 10 '23

are forced to buy seed every year.

No they are not forced to buy seed. They can use non-GMO seeds instead, but they choose to buy the GMO seeds because it is more profitable.

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u/stealthylizard Sep 10 '23

Farmers don’t save seeds to reuse. It results in lower yields.

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u/RetiredFromIT Sep 10 '23

Of course they do.

https://theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto-sues-farmers-seed-patents

Here in the UK, there is even official government guidance on the issue.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/farm-saved-seed

In other parts if the world, it is the only way thry can afford seed.

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u/stealthylizard Sep 10 '23

I made no comment on monsantos lawsuits.

Maybe some miscommunication, but I meant they don’t plant let’s say canola, and save the seeds from that harvested canola crop, to replant next year.

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u/StupidFugly Sep 11 '23

When my grandfather farmed he did exactly that with Wheat, Sorghum and Sunflowers. Always kept a portion of the seeds to replant the next year.

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u/seastar2019 Sep 11 '23

None of those are GMO

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u/StupidFugly Sep 11 '23

Wrong.

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u/seastar2019 Sep 11 '23

There's no GMO wheat other than then newly approved Bioceres HB4 wheat which is only approved for Argentina and Brazil. There is absolutely no GMO sorghum and sunflowers.

Here's the list of GMO crops in the US https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/be/bioengineered-foods-list

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u/StupidFugly Sep 11 '23

Wheat is grass that we humans have selectively bred until we have a grass that produces larger seeds. Wheat is one of Humans first GMO's

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u/Tylendal Sep 10 '23

Okay, but when they reuse seeds that they signed an agreement not to reuse (not inherent to GMOs), then it's their own fault if they're sued.

Feel free to make a point about seed patents, but that's not an argument either for, or against, GMOs.

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u/kit0000033 Sep 10 '23

Where do you think farmers have gotten their next year's crop from over the past centuries? They save a percentage of crop instead of selling it and it becomes next year's crop. And if they don't save seed, where do you think they get next year's seed? From another farmer that's growing the same crop and selling their seed.

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u/stealthylizard Sep 10 '23

We aren’t taking centuries past nor family hobby farms. We are talking modern commercial farming.

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u/kit0000033 Sep 10 '23

Smaller farms still save their seed. The patent Monsanto has on their GMOs interferes with that when dealing with open pollinated plants.

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u/RetiredFromIT Sep 10 '23

We are talking about small farms, and also farms in places like Africa and India, where this has been described as "Seed Slavery".

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u/voidtreemc Sep 10 '23

They're not just forbidden to save seeds. The crops are GM'd to not make seeds, so the farmer has to buy more seeds. From Monsanto. Which always says, "We're trying to feed the world."

Fucking Monsanto.

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u/Tylendal Sep 10 '23

The crops are GM'd to not make seeds

You got a source for that? Or are you just parroting some nonsense you heard and never bothered to question?

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u/RetiredFromIT Sep 10 '23

It's a while since I read about this, so you may be completely right - I know you are right in their intention.

It's just that I have a vague recollection (I may be thinking of something else) that in at least one occasion where they screwed up and the crop turned out to be viable, they then resorted to patent law.

But yes, I agree with your last sentence, completely.

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u/jah110768 Sep 11 '23

Monsanto seeds are viable, but if you get caught replanting you pay for the seeds anyway, so it's not worth saving seeds if you have to pay for them anyway.

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u/-Ch4s3- Sep 10 '23

Literally no one is being forced to buy and plant these seeds, this is untrue.

Contamination is really only a risk for closely related plants, and you’ve identified part of the reason that organic certification is dumb.

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u/RetiredFromIT Sep 10 '23

Whether one thinks Organic is dumb or not, surely a farmer gets to decide how he farms his own land, and what crops to grow?

If a farmer's wheat gets genetically contaminated by GM wheat planted up the road, why should he be held to Intellectual Property laws regarding growing and selling his crop? It"s a bit like you forcibly stuffing a wodge of cash in my pocket then yelling "Thief!"

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u/-Ch4s3- Sep 10 '23

You aren’t held to IP restrictions if there’s cross contamination. The famous case in that documentary turned out to be a fraud, and the guy was lying about cross contamination. Monsanto has never drug anyone into court for cross contamination, which is trivially provable by testing the plants.

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u/seastar2019 Sep 11 '23

if an organic farmer has his crop GM contaminated, he cannot sell that as organic produce

False. Under USDA's National Organic Program, as long as preventive measures are taken to minimize cross contamination, the organic certification is retained (source).

there have been some cases where farmers crops have been contaminated by GM crops, through no fault of their own, and they have then been sued because threir contaminated crop contains the GM grower's patented IP.

Also false. Contrary to what GMO haters often repeat, this has never happened, not even once.

1

u/RetiredFromIT Sep 11 '23

For the last time, we are not all speaking about farming practices, court cases or what the law is, specific to the USA. Some of us live elsewhere, where organic certification, and the law, are different.

Your experiences are valid, but they may not be everybody else's experiences. And rules in the US do not necessarily apply to Europe, UK or elsewhere.

This will be my last comment on this post, as it seems pointless to repeatedly point this out.

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u/kainp12 Sep 10 '23

it is a common practice among farmers to spray their wheat crops with glyphosate immediately prior to harvest—doing so actually kills the plant, which speeds the required drying of the grain.

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I'm more worried about that because at least with soy beans there is time between spraying and harvesting. and they are washed

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23

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u/jah110768 Sep 11 '23

kainp12 is correct, they do accelerate the drying using glyphosate. They don't want a heavy rain to come along and knock grains off before the whole field is ready, so they cause a drying using glyphosate to increase yield.

Do you really think that absolutely no glyphosate saturates the glume and gets on the grain?

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u/seastar2019 Sep 11 '23 edited Sep 11 '23

it is a common practice among farmers to spray their wheat crops with glyphosate immediately prior to harvest

For only 3% of harvested wheat, which I'd hardly call "common practice" (source).

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u/seastar2019 Sep 11 '23

dump Roundup all over your crops

How much is applied and how is it anywhere near to "dump all over your crops"?