How much more fertilizer and water input is needed to realize these results? As these two resources become scarce, we should start thinking about yield per unit input rather than simply yield per acre.
Is this new crop safe for humans and animals to eat? How do we know?
The increased rate of nitrogen extraction, together with the higher rates of photosynthesis (which needs water to provide the hydrogen for reducing carbon dioxide, nitrates and sulfates) and of carbon dioxide reduction lead to a higher productivity.
Unlike for some of the other genetically-modified crops, from the description there does not seem to be any reason to worry about eating such a rice, as the genetic modification does not seem to have any qualitative effects, but only quantitative effects, resulting in higher rates for the same chemical processes as in non-modified rice, obtained by multiplying the reaction sites.
Such side effects can also happen when using more traditional methods, i.e. selection of improved cultivars from plants that have suffered spontaneous random mutations or random mutations caused by mutagenic agents.
On the other hand, when you insert a foreign gene in the plant genome, e.g. with the purpose of making it pest-resistant, the results are far more unpredictable then in cases like this, where an already existing gene has been duplicated, in order to increase its activity.
As food, rice is mainly an excellent and easy to transport and store source of energy, with up to 80% of its weight being starch, more than in most other cereals.
All the other nutrients are present in a quantity so small that their contribution is negligible. Rice can cover all of the energy needs of a human, but it must be accompanied by other food for enough proteins, vitamins and minerals.
And sunlight is one of the biggest inputs which is free and constant.
(Assuming you didn’t modify it to produce novel proteins, etc)
The solution to dependence is to have multiple suppliers. One can always use an older variety of seed. If the complaint is that the benefits are going to the company that made the seeds rather than the farmer, then how is that different from any other patented technology? The farmer is never going to be worse off, since he can always just use older varieties if the cost > his benefit.
Perhaps your actual argument is that this will reduce food prices, driving out producers who don't keep up with the latest advances. But again, how is that different from any other improvement in agricultural technology? Is this just more European objection to the steamroller of US industrial agriculture?
First of all, copyright isn't the applicable IP; patents are.
Second, no farmer has ever been sued for accidental contamination with patented GMOs. There have been cases where farmers deliberately tried to concentrate trace contamination, but the courts properly recognized the deliberate nature of that.
These urban legend arguments are one of the reasons I view the entire anti-GMO movement with a very jaundiced eye.
Yes, deliberate use of the patented gene/interaction. That's still suing small farmers, doing farmer stuff, for IP infringement.
So it's not bullshit.
> Your argument here is like blaming a homeowner for catching a burgler.
Nah, burgling doesn't work like IP rights. The analogy is hopelessly broken.
He definitely violated the patent but it doesn't make it a good thing that the patent works that way, and it doesn't make suing him a good thing.
Your hole is deep enough, it's time to stop digging.
Artificial selection is a normal farming activity. At the very least it's thousands of years old, that part isn't what the patent is about.
Look, let's get back to the original post maybe? "Suing small farmers for copyright infringement isn't very nice." It was a different kind of IP infringement, otherwise nothing is factually wrong about this statement. We have some conflict about how patents should work in a situation like this, but that's not really the point here.
Yes, let's get back to that original nonsense post. You are objecting to a patent holder defending their rights under the patent, taking deliberate and knowing violators of the patent to court. That position is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Note that no farmers have even been sued for accidental and involuntary contamination of their crops. Nor will they be, since they'd have an excellent defense there in the absence of any intention on their parts to violate the patent. The courts are not stupid on this sort of thing.
If I think a law is flawed, then proof of violation is not going to change my mind!
> You are objecting to a patent holder defending their rights under the patent, taking deliberate and knowing violators of the patent to court.
For this very specific type of violation.
I personally think certain kinds of copyright related to distribution are garbage and should not exist at all. I think it's bad if a company sues over them, even if the party being sued is very guilty.
> That position is bullshit.
Criticizing a law is not bullshit.
Criticizing a lawsuit over a violation you think isn't worth it, even if the violation is extremely blatant, is not bullshit either.
I'm not even saying the initial comment is on the correct side, just that it's a reasonable position.
Herbicide resistant GM crops used to get slathered with more herbicides than non-GM crops, so you probably were getting less exposure to these herbicides with non-GM conventional crops vs. GM conventional crops (I guess you could argue this falls into business practices, but it is the point of these GM crops). But, Ag schools, at least in the US, have been promoting using herbicides like glyphosate and Reglone to desiccate crops immediately prior to harvest[1] to avoid having to mow the crops to get a low uniform crop moisture content for harvesting equipment. So, conventional non-GM grains, oil seeds and legumes may also have high herbicide residues. Of course, buying organic avoids both sources of herbicides.
[1] https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/m...
BT is sprayed on some food crops, but with GM food crops, it is contained within every cell of the plant, and cannot be washed off. You are consuming BT toxin, if you eat GM BT crops (the US EPA requires BT crops to be registered as pesticides). Putting poison in contact with mucus membranes seems, at the very least, 'possible' to have negative long-term health consequences.
Non GM conventional crops can use systemic pesticides (the irrigation water contains the poison and/or the seed is pre-treated. This also incorporates the pesticide within plant tissues so it cannot be washed off). These systemic pesticides are usually neonicotinoids. Presence of systemic neonicotinoid use in conventional agriculture does not negate concerns about GM BT crops.
My point was that GM, as it exists today, makes conventional agriculture's issues of pesticide exposure and low genetic diversity in our staple food crops worse, not that conventional agriculture doesn't already have issues.
No we didn't, we have been conducting artificial selection for centuries, farmers just pick among the best varieties available to them. By your logic the act of buying GMO seeds is what modifies their genes rather than their production process.
I think the answer is more that we have no reason to believe that these modifications introduced harmful proteins, and we tested it on animals and humans, and they were fine.
The problem I have with GMOs generally speaking is the business model of patenting, selling sterile seeds that put farmers on mandatory subscription model - and that frequently the only genetic modification is to make the crop resistant to pesticides and herbicides so you can soak the fields, sterilize them and kill everything else. Or all 3 at once, like RoundUp Ready corn and soy.
What you said also applies to hybrid varieties, yet they don't receive nearly as much pushback. Furthermore, what's wrong with a subscription model? GMO seeds costs money to develop and that has to be recouped somehow. The alternative is paying some sort of upfront fixed cost, which is probably even worse on a farmer's finances and gives large scale operations even more of an advantage (they have easy access to capital).
A subscription isn’t in and of itself a bad thing, but the expectation is a little strange given that the plants themselves spread and grow in places that cannot be regulated by the developers. Thus someone could subscribe once then cancel but still grow the crop. Further, people who didn’t subscribe could end up having some of the crop spread onto their land then could unintentionally grow it without permission. This has sometimes led to attempts to either force people to pay for services they didn’t agree to or to destroy something growing on their own land through no fault of their own. In those cases, non-customers are actively penalized for their non-participation rather being left alone or being incentivized to try product through positive means.
1. As mentioned before, what isn't applicable to hybrid crops. If you try to collect the seeds of hybrid crops and try to plant them, you'll get the seeds of the parents, which aren't going to have the attributes you're looking for.
2. I take it that you're also against copyrights? After all, you can theoretically buy a blu-ray once, and copy it infinitely.
>Further, people who didn’t subscribe could end up having some of the crop spread onto their land then could unintentionally grow it without permission. This has sometimes led to attempts to either force people to pay for services they didn’t agree to or to destroy something growing on their own land through no fault of their own. In those cases, non-customers are actively penalized for their non-participation rather being left alone or being incentivized to try product through positive means.
Source for this? It's been often alleged that monsanto engages in this behavior, but according to wikipedia[1] they've only gone after farmers that were intentionally trying to reverse engineer/breed their seeds.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#As_plaint...
Developing countries must import seeds which forces them to export something to maintain balanced trade. Most developed nations are fighting currency wars against each other and developing countries which means they can at best export natural resources like oil, gold, raw copper or diamonds.