[extropy-chat] GM Food [was: World map of human ES cell and nuclear transfer policies]

Tue Dec 6 21:14:23 UTC 2005

I've changed the subject because this isn't really related to human stem
cell engineering.

It relates to arguably one of the most significant extropic problems we
currently face and its solutions.

First, hunger and starvation are significant causes of entropy -- every year
killing from 10 to 36 million people [6].  This is highly unextropic because
all of the energy, matter and time that went into creating, growing and
teaching those human beings is completely lost!

For references see [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

For comparison purposes this is approximately equal to crashing a 747 full
of people (more than 70% children) into the side of a mountain every 30
minutes.  Another way of looking at it is that the death toll is equivalent
to more than 6 911's every day. This goes on day after day every year.

Now one use for GMO is to enhance the nutritional value of the foods.  This
has been achieved (and scientifically proven) with iron-enhanced rice
recently [7,8].  Previous developments included "golden rice" enhanced for
vitamin A.  Researchers are working on zinc and vitamin-E enhanced rice as
well.  If you read [6] carefully you will find that the people who funded
the development are unlikely to be filing patents which would prevent it
from being used by people in poorer nations.  (Not that many
"less-developed" nations respect the patent (or copyright) laws of many
"developed" nations anyway... but that's another discussion.)  In the case
of "golden rice" the Rockefeller Foundation funded much of the development
research [9] and Monsanto gave away its patent rights [10].

Part of the global problem is one of basic nutrition (which can in part be
solved by GMOs as the previous paragraph shows).  This is one of the things
which makes accurate numbers of deaths caused by poor nutrition difficult.
One might die from cholera but the actual cause could well be a poor immune
system due to nutritional deficiencies.

Another use of GMO is to increase the production of and shelf life of those
foods which are produced.  Estimates of food production lost to non-human
consumption (mostly insects) and spoilage (in part fungi or bacterial
consumption) range from 10-45% (more authoritative estimates seem to be from
15-25%). More food translates into cheaper food (if the basic principles of
economics are applied).  Cheaper food means people are more likely to
consume sufficient vitamins, minerals, amino acids, carbohydrates and fats
which prevent starvation, promote brain development, allow the maintenance
of a robust immune system, etc.  I.e. More (cheaper) food is a highly
extropic goal.

Now, in the developed countries the use of GMO could certainly be questioned
since we don't really need more food (obesity is significantly contributing
to premature deaths).  But this gets into the politics of agricultural
production, farm subsidies (which I believe are as bad or worse in Europe
than they are in the U.S., etc.).  I strongly doubt that one could present
an argument that engineering organisms to produce compounds/materials which
are more efficient energy sources (esp. since they take their carbon out of
the atmosphere) is a bad thing.  The anti-GMO backlash was in part fueled by
farmers (esp. those in Europe) who did not want increased production as that
would lower crop prices still further and drive the smaller (less efficient
[family]?) farms out of business.  As many U.S. farms are largely
industrialized "businesses" there was much less resistance in the U.S. than
there was in Europe to GMOs.  The governments did not want GMOs either as
that would result in pressure to increase subsidies to the farmers.  This
tended to be more balanced in the U.S. because agricultural products are a
significant source of export revenues.

The "health" value of non-GMO (organic) foods have little or no scientific
standing (and should not be promoted by Extropians who believe in "rational
thought").  You can justify preferring them on the basis of wanting to
support small family farms which is an personal choice argument.  You might
justify them on the basis of the environmental reasons but the debate is
quite complex.  Just don't try to justify them on a "health" basis.  Bottom
line is that sometime in the next 10-15 years we are going to be able to
engineer "bio-gruel" which can be grown in solar ponds, makes highly
efficient use of solar energy, has a completely balanced and healthy mixture
of vitamins, minerals, amino-acids, fats and carbohydrates, is relatively
resistant to other organisms which might consume it and is based on GMOs
(consider it to be a highly engineered form of the lactobacillis found in
"live" yogurt crossed with spirulina).  This will be significantly
"healthier" than any "natural" food now found on the planet.

Regarding corporations & patents -- I've seen programs that the genetic
engineering of crops used in Africa *is* taking place in Africa.  The idea
that all GMOs are being produced by Monsanto, ADM or other corporations and
being withheld from the third world derives from  debates of the mid-90's
and isn't a valid argument anymore.  The rice genome started out with a
private effort but was rapidly transcended by public efforts [11].  The rate
at which information is becoming available is too fast to be concerned with
corporations locking down significant fractions of it.  Nature has evolved
different solutions for many problems and locking down one of them doesn't
give you a 20 year exclusive on any of them anymore.

Regarding growing crops that manufacture drugs in addition to their natural
mixture of compounds (many of which are probably "poisons" to prevent
consumption by insects) the probability is low for this.  To efficiently
engineer GMOs to produce most drugs there has to already be an enzymatic
process somewhere in nature that produces that molecule.  Aspirin and most
antibiotics are examples of this.  But if it is a "novel" drug which doesn't
closely resemble molecules which can be found in nature then the engineering
of the enzymes to produce it in plants or animals is likely to be
prohibitively expensive.  It also isn't likely to lower the drug costs much
as one still has to deal with things like purification and manufacturing
specific doses.

Supporting GMOs to reduce deaths due to starvation or poor nutrition [12] is
probably the second most extropic thing one can do -- after supporting the
correction of the human genetic program to eliminate deaths due to aging
(and age related diseases).

Robert

1. http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm
2. http://www.bread.org/hungerbasics/international.html
3. http://www.thp.org/
4. http://www.napsoc.org/
5. http://www.starvation.net/
6.
http://old.developmentgateway.org/node/130622/bboard/message?message%5fid=497640&forum%5fid=139988&mode=m
  (good discussion of conflicts in the quoted numbers)
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/overview/famine.pdf
  (another good discussion)
7. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov05/rice.iron.ssl.html
8. http://www.irri.org/media/press/press.asp?id=115
9. http://www.developments.org.uk/data/09/goldeneye.htm
10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/865946.stm
11.
http://www.genoscope.cns.fr/externe/English/Projets/Projet_CC/organisme_CC.html
12. One could argue that there are lots of political activities that could
reduce these categories (famine, starvation & poor nutrition) of deaths as
well but the arguments quickly become complex due to trade offs between
benefits to oneself, benefits to ones family, benefits to ones "tribe",
benefits to humanity, etc. so I'm not including them here.
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