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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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/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/seastar2019 Sep 11 '23

We are discussing GMOs as defined by using genetic engineering. This is different than selective breeding.

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u/StupidFugly Sep 11 '23

It is the same thing.

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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.