EMBO Reports (Nature Publishing Group) just published an article about why scientists need to let go of their worries and further pursue the viability of GM food crops.
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v13/n6/full/embor201259a.html Torbjörn Fagerström, Christina Dixelius, Ulf Magnusson and Jens F Sundström claim the real stumbling block to making GMOs work is public concern - which is based on erroneous data. They say there's not enough evidence to show "negative impact" of cultivating GM foods. All the while there's a great deal of opportunity being lost catering to the naysayers ("lost revenues for farmers, breeding companies and consumers, brain drain and lost technology innovations, reduced agricultural productivity and sustainability, foregone health benefits, especially reducing malnutrition"). They claim that risk assesment research over the past 15 years (spanning 130 research projects and 500 independent research groups) hasn't proved biotechnology any worse than conventional breeding practices. One of their assumptions is that breeding must continuously develop resistance traits.
I realize I am part of the public concerned with the industry of GMOs. While I understand very little factually, of what it threatens or why it's valuable. Somewhere down the line I've picked up this viewpoint that GM crops are evil and should be resisted. Reading Vandana Shiva or something. I realize I can barely have an opinion on the matter because I know so little. All I have to operate from is my gut feeling.
You can call me a primitivist but any industry that demands a severe amount of financial or material resources cannot offer a long term solution. Continue to breed your resistance traits all you want, after all the human capacity to problem solve is remarkable. The authors of this report are calling for more investment, more money, more time, more enthusiasm. To increase revenue for farmers and breeding companies, more productivity, less malnutrition. But if the only leg they have to stand on is that "biotechnology is not any worse" I'm not convinced investing more in biotechnology is a good move. Because conventional methods - therefore - are no worse - yet (I feel) require less resources. It's how people have been making do for so long. Although, yeah, we're in a crazy population boom world affairs and gotta figure out how to feed everyone.
The question should be - how far can we go with as little as possible? And how can we ensure people "feed themselves"?
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