Posted on 11/10/2016 8:36:09 AM PST by JimSEA
A global ban on genetically modified crops would raise food prices and add the equivalent of nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, a study by researchers from Purdue University shows.
Using a model to assess the economic and environmental value of GMO crops, agricultural economists found that replacing GMO corn, soybeans and cotton with conventionally bred varieties worldwide would cause a 0.27 to 2.2 percent increase in food costs, depending on the region, with poorer countries hit hardest. According to the study, published Oct. 27 in the Journal of Environmental Protection, a ban on GMOs would also trigger negative environmental consequences: The conversion of pastures and forests to cropland -- to compensate for conventional crops' lower productivity -- would release substantial amounts of stored carbon to the atmosphere.
Conversely, if countries that already plant GMOs expanded their use of genetically modified crops to match the rate of GMO planting in the United States, global greenhouse gas emissions would fall by the equivalent of 0.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide and would allow 0.8 million hectares of cropland (about 2 million acres) to return to forests and pastures.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
If you dump GMO’s (something I personally favor) that means no more no-till farming.
If you have to till fields you have to expend energy with some kind of machinery.
It’s Logic 101.
There is virtually no farm grown produce or livestock that isn’t genetically modified. Corn is entirely GMO. There is no such thing as “wild corn”. Cows have been genetically modified to resist disease and produce more milk and meat. I get a kick out of ignorant hippies demanding that we eliminate GMOs from our diet.
I can make a computer model to prove anything you want.
I understand the fear of GMOs, but has there ever been a study directly linking GMO foods to disease in human beings?
I just don’t know. Don’t keep up with it.
What voodoo crap!!
Are you speaking of selective breeding or tweaking with DNA in a lab? Very different approaches, in my book. If you do a little research on GMOs and what Monsanto and others have done, it’s hard to have a positive view of the DNA-based approach.
I love it when facts require “progressives” to start swallowing their own tails.
And I can make a computer model that proves your computer model is wrong...
;-)
Sorry, I’m not sure I see the difference. I don’t see a path to creating a monster plant with all the testing and the profit motive behind the production. There simply would not be enough food production without the insect and drought resistant plants.
Selective breeding would logically be equally or even more likely to come up with a “bad” plant. In fact that has happened.
Don’t see a difference in selective breeding, picking the strongest and carrying them on, and splicing jellyfish DNA in with your kitty-cat? One of the DNA changes in corn to take out the worms that attack it was a change that basically destroyed the digestive tract of the pest. Okay, makes sense on paper. Now: long term, what does eating that corn do to the digestive tract of the human? Answer: we don’t know! We haven’t been eating it long enough to know. But does it take a lot of imagination to wonder that it might not be good for us? Go do some research to find out the heavy-handed tactics the big ag companies did to push the GMO crops on farmers in the US and Canada and the vile things they did to punish those that would not go along. Like take you to court if THEIR crop showed up in YOUR field !!! Through no fault of your own. How would you like to be denied acccess to your own farm because their Frankenfood got away from them? We had an initiative (failed, by the way) to label GMO foods in WA here and I did some research on it. What I found shocked me. Europe doesn’t want GMO, and I think I can understand why.
More than I intended to type, but an important topic, I think.
So you prefer the randomness of selective breeding to getting the exact traits we want through gene splicing? Modern methods of genetic modification get us where we want to be much faster and more accurately. Why anyone would be against that defies science and common sense.
Eating that corn does nothing to the digestive tract of the human. However, eating the mycotoxins produced by the corn borer has killed an untold number of people and has been proven to cause a variety of cancers (brain, liver, kidney).
Some people miss the good old days when eating corn could kill you. Me? Not so much.
Nothing.
Answer: we don’t know! We haven’t been eating it long enough to know.
If it caused damage, how long would it take to discover?
Go do some research to find out the heavy-handed tactics the big ag companies did to push the GMO crops on farmers in the US and Canada
Providing a superior product that farmers freely bought. Terrible!!!
Like take you to court if THEIR crop showed up in YOUR field !!!
Horsefeathers.
We had an initiative (failed, by the way) to label GMO foods in WA here and I did some research on it. What I found shocked me.
Liberal BS often shocks less intelligent people.
But can your program prove that my program worked without the use of any input data?
Sounds like a fallacy of composition to me ...
My point is that you are equally likely to get problems by selective breeding without the testing that GMO undergoes. Granted even evolutionary changes without human meddling frequently causes other species problems.
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