[Ma8ee]

Why do you think it is the anti-GMO groups and not the other way around? I’m naturally more suspicious of the groups that have the most money invested, in the same way tobacco companies had more investments at stake than medical researchers funded by government grants, and big oil and coal have more (money) to lose than climate scientists.

Of course Monsanto et al have invested a lot of money into research that shows that GMOs are safe. That is of course not in any way proof that there is anything wrong with that research, but it definitely makes me more careful in interpreting the results.

[arrosenberg]

I can understand not trusting Monsanto, Cargill, Bayer, etc., but humans have been genetically modifying plants since the dawn of agriculture, we just have tools to do it with way more precision now. Borland and others have used Mendelian genetics to create rust-resistant wheat, golden rice, and other "miracle" crops. With modern tools, you can test genetic variants more intentionally without relying on random selection each generation.

There is nothing inherently dangerous about doing this, and it has the potential to do a lot of good for humanity. It's important not to conflate the demagoguing of massive agricorps with a useful scientific technique.

The bigger scam is that, despite producing more calories than we could possibly use, they've continued modifying crops for calorie yield and chemical resistance, which has made a lot of crops less nutritious (per kg eaten), less tasty, and more dependent on advanced human intervention to successfully grow.

[Ma8ee]

The most common use of the concept GMO exclude simple breeding, which is what we have done for thousands of years. We didn’t use to transfer genes between species or even between kingdoms.

I’m not that worried, but I’m not that fast to exclude the possible that something goes dangerously wrong somewhere, say some crop with new genes that make it spread uncontrollable through a whole ecosystem, in the same way invasive species sometimes do.

And then of course the issues you bring up in your last paragraph. The technique is in general not used to help humankind or the world, but to maximise revenue for the corporations. At least in the industrialised world, it is now more important to increase biodiversity than to maximise yield.

[arrosenberg]

> say some crop with new genes that make it spread uncontrollable through a whole ecosystem, in the same way invasive species sometimes do.

You don't need to worry about GMOs for that. We already have Kudzu vines.

[Ma8ee]

You mean, we don’t need GMOs to worry about that? Maybe it’s great if we don’t have to worry about some GMOs in addition to the problems we already have.

[fsflover]

>Why do you think it is the anti-GMO groups and not the other way around?

How about checking the research papers cited in Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_cont...

[Ma8ee]

The ones funded by Monsanto and Cargill? Don’t you see the problem?

[fsflover]

Not all of them are funded by those companies.

[DenisM]

There are agri businesses that use GMO and those who don't. Naturally they would try to use what they can - real studies, fake studies, activists, etc.

Point being, there is money to be made on both sides.