POLL: Genetically modified jellyfish potato

Remove all ads!

In order to reduce watering needs for potato crops, scientists have spliced jellyfish genes into a new variety of potato. The plant glows fluorescent green under black light when it needs to be watered, and uses jellyfish survival mechanisms to keep growing even when water is scarce.

The technology is obviously one way to reduce the problem of overwatering food crops, which is a serious problem given that the world's usable water reserves are dwindling. So this is a good and admirable thing.

On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons that people (myself included) think that GMO plants pose potentially major hazards to the environment over the long term. Many health-conscious people are worried about the dangers of eating these foods. From the Jewish perspective, this makes the potato inedible because jellyfish are treyf like pork.

So here's the question: How do we as a society approach GMO foods? Ban them outright? Allow them but with mandatory labelling? Let companies decide to label or not at their own discretion? Or should we move in the other direction, towards banning all non-GMO crops and make all farmers splice jellyfish genes into all their foods to reduce water consumption?

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/jellyfish_potato.cfm

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 10 user(s) have voted.

Poll Results: Genetically modified jellyfish potato (10 votes.)

Genetically modified jellyfish potato (Choose 1)
* Ban all gene-splicing of food plants - 0% (0)
* Ban all splicing of animal genes into food plants - 10% (1)
* Allow gene-splicing but force sellers and farmers to identify such plants - 70% (7)
* Allow gene-splicing and let sellers and farmers decide whether or not to label - 20% (2)
* Work towards making all food plants gene-spliced to become more productive with fewer resources - 0% (0)
* I don't have an opinion but wanted to see the questions - 0% (0)

 

Well I imagine that I will be in the minorty here but I personally favour minimal government interference in such matters so my vote is for allow it and allow the farmers / producers / manufacturers to label if the desire. If there is false labelling that would be fraud and I would feel the government is justified in becoming involved.

However, I tend towards a free-market solution in general. If there is a demand for non-genetically modified produce then the farmers etc. will choose to label their produce as non-genetically modified to tap into this market.

It would probably end up with having the same overall effect as forcing labelling the modified produce but without having another law on the books.

Of course that brings into question of how exactly do we determine if something is non-modified. Are we going to come up with a standard genetic code for corn and check samples of corn and check to see if they fall within these parameters? I suppose in many cases it would be fairly easy to say that something has been modified (such as your jellyfish-potatoe example) but it would seem pretty damned hard to verify if one weird but beneficial gene is due to human tweeking or just random mutation.

Personally, I am not really worried about genetically modified food. I think it is far more likely that much greater harm will come from all the pesticides / chemical additives / preservatives etc. that are in both the non-modified and modified.

 

Well, my experience is with salmon. The rise of farmed, genetically modified, salmon has decimated the traditional industry in both the US and Canada. That in and of itself is sad but not reason to prevent it imo.

However, there is more to it than just that. Canada is now allowing farmed salmon. Many of the farmers prefer to raise Atlantic Salmon to native Pacific salmon (the most highly sought salmon are sockeye, king, and coho/silver which are pacific salmon but apparently the atlantic salmon farm more easily.) What happens when Atlantic escape into the wild? Also, for example, farming creates a higher danger of disease. In 2001 in B.C. over 900,000 farmed salmon with a dangerous viral infection had to be destroyed. What if they escaped into the wild? Alaska is terrified of the potential disaster farmed salmon poses and will not allow it but Canada does and Canada could destroy the wild fishery for everyone - that is why initially farmed operations were kept in areas further away from the wild salmon runs.

The Universtiy of Indiana did a study to try to determine the effect of escaped farmed salmon on the wild population. See, farmed salmon are larger than their wild brethren because of their modification and diet. Fish are attracted to larger salmon as their mates on the theory they must be able to obtain more food for themselves. Farmed salmon however do not have the survival ability of wild salmon but still the wild salmon mate with them. Then you add in the risk of infection etc. When the U. of I. plugged their algorithms into their computer it crashed. They tried to figure out what they'd done wrong so they rechecked it and ran it again -- again it crashed. After a while they figured out that it was because the population dropped to zero which they hadn't planned on.

Then, you add in of course that farmed salmon is injected with color (otherwise it would be grey and not red) and that it isn't as healthy as wild salmon (they lack omega 3 fatty acids which make farmed salmon so healthy) yet gains the benefit of the reputation of wild salmon and you may start to think about the appropriateness of some type of government inclusion in the process. You would hope the market could take care of this but because of the nature of the wild salmon industry this is less likely to be the case. See, noats are individually owned and each salmon fisherman is like a small business owner - they don't have the financial clout to advertise etc. The traditional processors have been forced out of the market (Wards Cove, once the largest American seafood company in the world has ceased salmon operation which was the cornerstone of its business for a century for example) or they are involved in the farmed market themselves and have no incentive to advertise and hurth their own product.

So, with regards to salmon there is reason for concern and the traditional players in the industry do not have the clout to label their product, market it etc so that others become aware. Small steps have been made by the goverment by funding the AKMA/Surefish quality program which includes marketing but it is probably too little to late. I'm unfamiliar with other types of genetic crops but I suspect there are analagous concerns.

 

@BTA: I hadn't noticed the bit about the fluorescent potato being used as a marker plant rather than a food. Good catch. Maybe this article wasn't the best opener for the topic after all but I've been looking for one that would capture imagination and provoke responses and this one looked promising in that department. Certainly, it's not a scientific article and may contain factual errors about the process itself. In any case, my question in this poll is not about whether gene-splicing in food products is right or wrong (although you probably know where I stand on that ) but how, as a society in which there are perfectly good arguments on both sides by different individuals, we can approach a solution that best serves the common good.

As for the Jewish law question, it's a sticky and controversial issue. For the Orthodox, agricultural laws are extremely strict where plant hybridisation and even intercropping are concerned. You can't even plant certain types of things in the same field for fear that they might accidentally cross, much less do it deliberately in a laboratory. Reform and Conservative Jews tend not to worry about agricultural practices much but on an emotional level are usually very squeamish and repulsed where seafood and pork are concerned, even if it is just one gene. I believe various rabbinical councils have OK'd GMO foods regardless of the source of the gene, but as with any religion there is often a large discrepancy between the rulings of committees and the feelings of the laity.

Here is an interesting analysis of the religious issues: http://www.bio-integrity.org/Halakha.html

And here is a story about a lawsuit against the US government, by the author of the first article and backed by his synagogue, on the grounds that GMO foods violate Freedom of Religion: http://www.global-reality.com/biotech/articles/news126.htm

 

Personally I don't think that genetically modified food is a solution for farming problems, and in the end I don't really think it's evcen cheaper. It's just about business. And there are the environmental risks. What happens if gen-mod salmon escapes and mixes under the local population? It is modified to be extra "fertile" so it might easily devastate populations of local domestic salmon.

Reportedly african farmers aren't that happy about Bush's plans to "help" them as they see the sterile gen-mod corn lobbyied in washington as a step into dependency ... they'd have to buy new seed every year, in the US.

Anoter example: Gen-mod cotton is produced industrially in the US with high-tech mashinery and high-tech seed production - and it is more expensive than hand harvested "standard-issue Nature (tm)" cotton from west-africa. But thanks to intense lobbying the US gvt pays subventions to the farmers, ruining the market for the africans. More on that in the links below.

Not that the EU wouldn't pay subventions as well, but we are more careful with "progress". The US accusing us of lobbying our markets when opposing gen-mod food here and in africa are kinda dishonest.

I always have a bad feeling about "Frankenstein Food", but that's perhaps an unjustified distrust. In any case, the EU does well being careful with such a stuff instead of risking to mess up nature with careless actionism for the sake of profit. IMO the US are a little too tech happy there.

Bad enough with "normal" plants from other continents or animals that overwhelmed whole ecosystems. In my area we have Bisam rats, originally from america, they occupy the nearby river. The population is a result of WW-II, when a fur-farm was hit in an airstrike.
They are relatively harmless, however, when animal right maniacs released american minks from a fur-farm into "freedom" the minks wiped out the majority of rare birds in a wildlife resort in a "blitz" - beeing a little too agressive and lacking natural enemies in this place. Oops.

We have enough environmental trouble already and there is no point in increasing it by risking the release of some of our own creations in the wild.

The links are from the Christian Science Monitor, IMO a pretty informative, alternative news site:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0806/p01s03-woaf.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1113/p12s01-woaf.html

 

Well, I have deep concerns about messing with biology. Yes it is true, we manipulate since thousounds of years genes of plants and animals, so that they suit are needs. But two incidents come to mind, mad-cow desease and the great potatoe famine. Both were accidents. And the the great potatoe famine was a sort of messing with nature. Bringing the potatoe over to Europe was a great idea. But that it would bring a parasite, which had no natural enemy here, would be able to breed and destroy nearly the whole potatoe harvest over 3-4 years all over the continent and lead to a giantic famine which caused the starvation of millions, no one could have forseen that. So, messing with biology is a difficult thing and a bunny plague in Australia is one of the more harmless outcoms. I am pretty much against it and allowing GM-food without proper signalement on the market is a crime in my view. I do not want to eat that, I do not want to support that. How can I chose, if it's not signaled ?

Yes, it's not the only problem, there's pesticide and antibiotic abuse, so...

And how long did they have to figure out, that asbest is a health-hazard ?