And I would like to see impartial data - impartial being the operative word- guaranteeing the safety of GMO and GEO organics.
I’m not a scientist - not even a college graduate, but it seems to me that altering food sources in such a way that they are able to tolerate over spraying with Roundup should at least be questionable. I certainly don’t want to ingest it.
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What happens if weeds develop resistance to Roundup? Will farmers have to resort to stronger herbicides, say, in the way stronger antibiotics are needed to treat antibiotic resistant infections in humans?
What pollinates those crops which have been over sprayed? Where does the pollen go that is collected by those insects to bring into the hive as protein to feed to their young?
Some of it may wind up in my hives, in my honey.
Do you require impartial data for all of the food you eat? Because, in a very real sense, it ALL is genetically modified. Until recently, no one ever cared whether the genetically modified food that they have consumed for their whole lives is safe.
Farmers thousands of years ago began to genetically modify food by selectively breeding genetic mutants that had favorable qualities. They also discovered how to artificially force plants to breed with each other that would never naturally mate, and came up with all kinds of results. Those early methods of genetic engineering were crude and unfocused; anything could happen. The way plants use their genes could be altered in unpredictable ways. Our modern methods allow us to change just one gene--instead of all of them. It's far more controlled, and we can predict exactly what the result will be.
A natural tomato is a tiny red berry that is about the size of a nightshade berry (tomatoes are, in fact, a species of nightshade). If you eat one of those giant purple streaked bumpy monstrosities that are sold as "heirloom" tomatoes, are you worried over whether that mutated tomato has been tested for safety before being sold on the market?
I'm not a scientist - not even a college graduate, but it seems to me that altering food sources in such a way that they are able to tolerate over spraying with Roundup should at least be questionable. I certainly don’t want to ingest it.
Roundup works by stopping the function of a single enzyme, a protein, that plants require to survive. The molecule glyphosate, the active ingredient of Roundup, attaches to the enzyme and stops it from working. The Roundup resistant plants have had a bacterial enzyme gene inserted in place of the plant enzyme gene. The bacterial enzyme gene is as natural as the plant enzyme gene, and the enzyme works the same. The only difference is that when the glyphosate molecule attaches, it sticks in a way that does not block the enzyme function. So the plant does not die. If you want to read the original scientific article that explains how Roundup resistance works, it is here.
Disclaimer: I am a scientist. I've spent more years in university studying the molecular basis of living processes than I care to think about (Ph.D.). I actually do medical research, but the basic processes of life are pretty much the same among all living organisms.
The What happens if weeds develop resistance to Roundup? Will farmers have to resort to stronger herbicides, say, in the way stronger antibiotics are needed to treat antibiotic resistant infections in humans?
Resistance is a problem. Pests will always develop resistance, and we will always be looking at new ways to combat the pests. The advantage of Roundup is that it allows farmers to control weeds without overly damaging the soil. Without Roundup, if no substitute is found that is as safe for animals as Roundup is, then farmers will have to go back to the soil-damaging ways they used before Roundup.
What pollinates those crops which have been over sprayed? Where does the pollen go that is collected by those insects to bring into the hive as protein to feed to their young?
Some of it may wind up in my hives, in my honey.
The pollen from plants that have been engineered to use the bacterial enzyme instead of the native plant enzyme will be used by the bees exactly the same way as the pollen from plants with the plant enzyme. When bees consume the pollen from either source, their digestive systems chop up the proteins to make amino acids and chop up the DNA to make nucleotides.