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My argument to balance off economics with GMO policies is that good GMO
would indeed increase<br>
basic food volumes but control over the IP of medicinal and complex
bioproducts would create a cash<br>
value which would replace farm subsidies as GM farmers using HACCP ,
GPS, automated equipment and<br>
on-farm GMO germplasm production would be given by the market
sufficient resources and profit margin<br>
as to guarantee TQM. The basic food would be a worthless by-product
which could be given away<br>
to every person in the world so as to generate the healthy warm bodies
needed to maufacture the consumer goods<br>
based upon natural resources and bio-products. The energy in and out
part of agriculture however must<br>
be signifiantly modified before this entire scheme has long term
sustainability.<br>
<br>
I remember a fellow in 1975 who developed a wheat that manufacured 85%
of its own Nitrogen fertilizer<br>
requirements. He was employed by Agriculture Canada at the time.
Within a year of publishing this work<br>
he was hired by Esso/Imperial Oil and no further published work ever
came accross my path.<br>
<br>
This was before "peak oil" and all that stuff but demonstrates that
there is much dormant work out there<br>
that could be revived if the economics and players with the power to
fund projects decided it was<br>
a priority.<br>
<br>
So I ust beg to differ and say that indweed it is the 3.3 trillion
dollar health economy that has the money<br>
to pay for GMO bioreactors. <br>
The strategy is to use food crop non-food relatives though.<br>
I have seen for example rather than use medicago-alfalfa, a feed crop
as a bioreactor the close relative medicago-medics is targeted.<br>
Same biochemistry without cross-contamination of gene pools. I'm also
in favor of converting numerous tree<br>
species to bioreactors as they are perennials.<br>
With environment, water and inputs poplars grow 110 ft mature trees in
4-5 years. <br>
A GMO tree that can grow without as many inputs and much less water
could revolutionize biomass production<br>
and yield extractable high value bio-products.<br>
<br>
As well, converting certain ruminants like sheep to bioreactors and
extracting rumen manufactured bioproducts<br>
is a totally novel meshing of food and GMO industrial products.<br>
<br>
Just put a PHD in every farmyard and you won't believe your eyes what
will happen next.<br>
<br>
MFJ<br>
<br>
<br>
Robert Bradbury wrote:<br>
<blockquote
cite="middeaa866a0512061314p73c607a9ude4ba884ffbaec0c@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">I've changed the subject because this isn't really related
to human stem cell engineering.<br>
<br>
It relates to arguably one of the most significant extropic problems we
currently face and its solutions.<br>
<br>
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! <br>
<br>
For references see [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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].<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
Robert<br>
<br>
1. <a
href="http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm">http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm</a><br>
2. <a href="http://www.bread.org/hungerbasics/international.html">http://www.bread.org/hungerbasics/international.html</a><br>
3. <a href="http://www.thp.org/">http://www.thp.org/</a><br>
4. <a href="http://www.napsoc.org/">http://www.napsoc.org/</a><br>
5. <a href="http://www.starvation.net/">http://www.starvation.net/</a><br>
6. <a
href="http://old.developmentgateway.org/node/130622/bboard/message?message%5fid=497640&forum%5fid=139988&mode=m">http://old.developmentgateway.org/node/130622/bboard/message?message%5fid=497640&forum%5fid=139988&mode=m
</a><br>
(good discussion of conflicts in the quoted numbers)<br>
<a href="http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/overview/famine.pdf">http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/overview/famine.pdf</a><br>
(another good discussion)<br>
7. <a
href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov05/rice.iron.ssl.html">http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov05/rice.iron.ssl.html</a><br>
8. <a href="http://www.irri.org/media/press/press.asp?id=115">http://www.irri.org/media/press/press.asp?id=115</a><br>
9. <a href="http://www.developments.org.uk/data/09/goldeneye.htm">http://www.developments.org.uk/data/09/goldeneye.htm</a><br>
10. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/865946.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/865946.stm</a><br>
11. <a
href="http://www.genoscope.cns.fr/externe/English/Projets/Projet_CC/organisme_CC.html">http://www.genoscope.cns.fr/externe/English/Projets/Projet_CC/organisme_CC.html</a><br>
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.<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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