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[Dude Abides]

The WSJ is one of the most respected news sources in the world, and their opinion section is highly regarded. Even Obama has written an opinion piece in the journal.

No, their opinion section is not highly regarded. It is generally a broadsheet for cranks and loons. Their news reporting is still ok, though it is becoming increasingly Murdoch-ized.

 

[Leunam]

Explain the fallacy of sticking with what is known to work? Humans have been tending to land for thousands of years. We've been using man made chemicals for under one hundred. One is time tested, the other is not. I prefer a known quantity over an unknown.

One hundred years is a pretty good time period for determining if something is "time-tested," and there are regulating bodies that determine what man made chemicals are acceptable.

We owe a lot more to advancements in agricultural technology than you think. Without these advancements in pesticides and crop yield, we would be paying far more and growing a lot less and famine would be a valid concern instead of a thing of the past. In those thousands of years that humans have tended to land as you say, there have also been many disastrous crop failures that have cost millions of lives. Can you even imagine that happening today given the technology we have?

Also, you're deluding yourself if you think that your "organic" food contains no man-made chemicals whatsoever.

 

[Stet]

Even in the USA, foods labeled as organic are prohibited from using GM ingredients.

Yes, my point is that the "organic" label is bullshit, because "GM ingredients" and "selectively farmed ingredients" are reaching the same conclusions via different means.

 

[mavs]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. How is a monopoly a danger in GMO, and how would heavy government regulation prevent that?

The obvious case would be that one type of GMO becomes dominant and everyone uses it, and "free" varieties become difficult to source as a result. The regulation that would cure that situation would actually be less regulation: weaken patent protection. But there is another way that patents create a harmful monopoly.

The companies that create the GMOs own the plants and their genes. Farmers may only source those plants from the companies that own them, they may not grow their own. If a GMO spreads or cross-pollinates with plants on a neighboring farm, one owned by a farmer who did not purchase that particular organism from the company that owns it, that farmer may not harvest and sell any crops containing the genes that are protected by patent.

Of course that farmer will have no idea that the GMO crops have spread onto his land. So the companies can buy some of his crop and test it for any genes that they own, and if any turn up they can blackmail use the legal rights they are afforded under the patent system to force the farmer to pay damages or start buying their crops.

 

[Kurdel]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. How is a monopoly a danger in GMO, and how would heavy government regulation prevent that?

Imagine, if you will, a world where a single corporation has the complete control over the entire developped worlds agriculture. By making GMO sterile, we are exposed to the risk of being fully dependant on a private entity. Such a corporation would have unlimited political power, bending policy to it's will, seeing it would have the ultimate barganing chip, the survival of billions of people.

It is improbable, but a possible outcome. If governmental anti trust policies can protect us from such a dystopia, then we would know the system works. People worry about tech patents, wait til the food patent wars kick in...

But, as I said, this is the only real risk of GMOs in the medium term. Provided they turn out to provide us with the miracle foods we keep hearing about and we become fully dependant on them.

Otherwise no worries here!

 

[mavs]

Yes, my point is that the "organic" label is bullshit, because "GM ingredients" and "selectively farmed ingredients" are reaching the same conclusions via different means.

They probably aren't the same conclusions, though. The most famous GMOs, Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" line, get a gene from a bacteria. It's not impossible that a selectively bred plant could acquire the same gene, but it would be less common (and if it did, it would actually be via the same means.) In GM plants that would be the primary source of new genes.

 

[BorkBork]

Even if we could pull this off, we will never get there by turning our backs on genetically modified crops and holding up "organic" food as the new gold standard of safety, purity and health. Organic production is all the rage in the rich West, but we can't "feed the world with this stuff," he says. Agricultural productivity with organics is too low.

Focus on local Agroecological farming techniques has the potential to feed the world, reduce climate change, and reduce farmer dependency and poverty.

Small-scale farmers can double food production in a decade by using simple ecological methods, according to the findings of a new United Nations study released today, which calls for a fundamental shift towards agroecology as a poverty alleviation measure.

“To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available,” says Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report, entitled “Agro-ecology and the right to food.”

“Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live – especially in unfavourable environments,” he added.

Agroecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural systems that can help put an end to food crises and address climate-change and poverty. It enhances soils productivity and protects the crops against pests by relying on the natural environment such as beneficial trees, plants, animals and insects, according to the study.

“To date, agroecological projects have shown an average crop yield increase of 80 per cent in 57 developing countries, with an average increase of 116 per cent for all African projects,” Mr. De Schutter says. “Recent projects conducted in 20 African countries demonstrated a doubling of crop yields over a period of 3 to 10 years.”

Conventional farming relies on expensive inputs, fuels climate change and is not resilient to climatic shocks, notes the study, which is based on extensive review of existing scientific data.

“It simply is not the best choice anymore today,” Mr. De Schutter stresses. “A large segment of the scientific community now acknowledges the positive impacts of agroecology on food production, poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation – and this is what is needed in a world of limited resources.

“Malawi, a country that launched a massive chemical fertilizer subsidy programme a few years ago, is now implementing agroecology, benefiting more than 1.3 million of the poorest people, with maize yields increasing from 1 ton per hectare to 2-3 tons/ha,” Mr. De Schutter writes.

The report also points out that projects in Indonesia, Viet Nam and Bangladesh recorded up to 92 per cent reduction in insecticide use for rice, leading to important savings for poor farmers.

“Knowledge came to replace pesticides and fertilizers. This was a winning bet, and comparable results abound in other African, Asian and Latin American countries,” the independent expert notes in the report presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

He adds that the approach is also gaining ground in developed countries such as the United States, Germany and France. “However, despite its impressive potential in realizing the right to food for all, agroecology is still insufficiently backed by ambitious public policies and consequently hardly goes beyond the experimental stage,” he points out.

The report also identifies measures that States should implement to scale up agroecological practices.

“Agroecology is a knowledge-intensive approach. It requires public policies supporting agricultural research and participative extension services,” Mr. De Schutter says. “States and donors have a key role to play here. Private companies will not invest time and money in practices that cannot be rewarded by patents and which don’t open markets for chemical products or improved seeds,” he adds.

The UN brief is here

 

[Metaphoreus]

Imagine, if you will...

OK. Personally I find the scenario(s) listed by mavs to be the more likely source of monopoly--and there I think the solution would be to weaken the patent rights (which are government-granted monopoly rights) of the companies releasing GM products into the market. In contrast, a sterile product seems particularly vulnerable to (a) non-GM foods or (b) non-sterile GM foods--either of which could be provided by a competitor.

 

[Stet]

They probably aren't the same conclusions, though. The most famous GMOs, Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" line, get a gene from a bacteria. It's not impossible that a selectively bred plant could acquire the same gene, but it would be less common (and if it did, it would actually be via the same means.) In GM plants that would be the primary source of new genes.

Getting "a gene from bacteria" doesn't somehow make the product partly bacteria, though. Humans share a number of genes with bananas, but that doesn't mean we have anything in common with those bananas except a few amino acid chains. We could easily have bred those bacteria's characteristics into plants over hundreds of years and then compared the genetic structure after the fact to find that, holy shit, they have a gene in common, but that would be hundreds of years of wasted time.

I'm not going to defend Monsanto, because the major problems with genetically modified products are the business principles behind them, but so-called "frankenfood" is complete bull.

 

[SUPREME1]

The WSJ is one of the most respected news sources in the world, and their opinion section is highly regarded. Even Obama has written an opinion piece in the journal.

It once was, yes. That went out the window when it became another outlet for NewsCorp.

 

[venne]

One hundred years is a pretty good time period for determining if something is "time-tested," and there are regulating bodies that determine what man made chemicals are acceptable.

We owe a lot more to advancements in agricultural technology than you think. Without these advancements in pesticides and crop yield, we would be paying far more and growing a lot less and famine would be a valid concern instead of a thing of the past. In those thousands of years that humans have tended to land as you say, there have also been many disastrous crop failures that have cost millions of lives. Can you even imagine that happening today given the technology we have?

Also, you're deluding yourself if you think that your "organic" food contains no man-made chemicals whatsoever.

I guess it's closer to 40 years, but I digress.

http://nature.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html

So instead of some people starving in the US, we have some people eating themselves to death. Seems like two sides of the same coin. I guess you could consider it an improvement, but only marginally so.

I am under no delusions that organic food isn't tainted, but I do believe I am exposing my body to much less of it than if I were to eat at McDonald's or buy Wal-Mart sourced produce.

 

[Sirpopopop]

It once was, yes. That went out the window when it became another outlet for NewsCorp.

The WSJ's opinion section was always poorly regarded.

Even before News Corp. took over.

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestle#Controversy_and_criticism

Have at it. That's the abridged version, diving into it would take hours.

Wow. I never knew that Nestle was despicable.

 

[SRG01]

I think the author is more or less on the ball when it comes to assigning some sort of price to water, although there is the slippery slope towards commercialization.

Let's put it this way: water, especially fresh water, is a scarce resource. The problem is that many companies -- especially oil and gas production, agriculture, etc -- use this resource for free without impunity. Same with wasteful domestic use. I live in Alberta, where oilsands development basically pumps and dumps water all day long.

The biggest problem facing water scarcity is that we're not exposed to this problem every single day, compared to developing countries around the world. Most of us aren't educated as to how much money it actually takes to purify and transport water to our homes.

Is water a right? Yes, it is. But it's also not a license to use it wastefully and it must be conserved. The easiest way is to affix some sort of price. The harder way is to simply develop technologies to purify water for everyone for free (a la Fallout 3).

 

[ixix]

Normally when a person starts talking about how genetically modified food is safe to eat and so how could people have a problem with it they're just demonstrating a remarkably poor grasp of the issue. When the CEO of Nestlé starts talking about how nobody has died from eating genetically modified food and therefore it is perfectly okay he is clearly being actively disingenuous. And then when he parlays this disingenuous argument into a traditional "Private industry is the locus of all human advancement! Get government outta my way!" screed he's being hopelessly uncreative to boot.

 

[mavs]

Getting "a gene from bacteria" doesn't somehow make the product partly bacteria, though. Humans share a number of genes with bananas, but that doesn't mean we have anything in common with those bananas except a few amino acid chains. We could easily have bred those bacteria's characteristics into plants over hundreds of years and then compared the genetic structure after the fact to find that, holy shit, they have a gene in common, but that would be hundreds of years of wasted time.

I'm not going to defend Monsanto, because the major problems with genetically modified products are the business principles behind them, but so-called "frankenfood" is complete bull.

I'm just saying selective breeding is nothing like modern GM methods. Also it would not be anything like "easy" to breed those characteristics into a plant. It might never happen even if you introduced the bacteria to the plant and waited hundreds of generations.

 

[Kong Fisso]

Thanks for sharing your opinion Satan.

Don't put Satan down like that, apparently he makes great arguments.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

And that is the Appeal to tradition fallacy.

The industrialization of agriculture began over 3 hundred years ago. When exactly is your time tested method? Is it before that, when people died of malnutrition? Or is it before GMO, when corporations just crossbred the shit out of plants to create "unatural" plants that posses the characteristics desired?

GMO allows for more surgical selection, giving more control on the possible outcome.

Guess what 99% of the wheat grown in the world today is.

 

[Terrell]

The outrage over genetically-modified crops is RIDICULOUS. Farmers have been doing it since FARMING FUCKING EXISTED, they just didn't have the science to do it as FAST as we can now.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/2541-Feeding-Edge

Srsly.


As for the OP, I always saw biofuel as some sort of appeasement by government to say how we're relying less on oil. Which is a crock of shit, and biofuel the way we're making it now is so much waste and inefficiency that it doesn't make any sense to do it, just like was stated.

 

[Kurdel]

Guess what 99% of the wheat grown in the world today is.

I don't get the point you're trying to make here...

 

[Al-ibn Kermit]

Imagine, if you will, a world where a single corporation has the complete control over the entire developped worlds agriculture. By making GMO sterile, we are exposed to the risk of being fully dependant on a private entity. Such a corporation would have unlimited political power, bending policy to it's will, seeing it would have the ultimate barganing chip, the survival of billions of people.

It is improbable, but a possible outcome. If governmental anti trust policies can protect us from such a dystopia, then we would know the system works. People worry about tech patents, wait til the food patent wars kick in...

But, as I said, this is the only real risk of GMOs in the medium term. Provided they turn out to provide us with the miracle foods we keep hearing about and we become fully dependant on them.

Otherwise no worries here!

There isn't just one company developing them though, in fact it's predicted that within 3 years about 40% of gm foods developed will be in Asia.

Also, private companies only focus on crops that there is a market for (corn/soy/etc). But rice for example, which is a mainly grown by subsistence farmers that eat most all of the food that they grow, there is not much of a profit to be made developing new rice strains. However, my brothers professor at UC Davis was explaining how her lab is working on new GM rice strains specifically for those types of farmers.

I would hope that patent law adjusts to the market though so that there's actual competition.

 

[remnant]

I understand as what I said goes some against many economic principles developed over last few centuries. However, hedge funds, investment banks, and "speculators" never invested anywhere near amounts they have into commodity markets as they had even just a decade ago. Going against Wall Street hivemind does not necessarily make one wrong.

Doesn't make you right either. Raising taxes on hem would do nothing but create slightly higher tax revenue for governments. That's it. As long as you are subsidizing production it won't stop growing.

Not every problem in the world can be solved by attacking Wall Street.

 

[Seth C]

Doesn't make you right either. Raising taxes on hem would do nothing but create slightly higher tax revenue for governments. That's it. As long as you are subsidizing production it won't stop growing.

Not every problem in the world can be solved by attacking Wall Street.

That doesn't mean we should give them yet another commodity to gamble with, as this article advocates.

 

[RJT]

Thanks for the article. A lot of interesting points there.

EDIT: Oh boy, what a shitty discussion. This should be about food and water, not about Nestle. No one has yet made a valid point against anything that was said in the article (one guy tried to defend organic food, but then posted an article against fertilizers, not GMOs...)

 

[RJT]

That doesn't mean we should give them yet another commodity to gamble with, as this article advocates.

Water for agriculture can't be easily transported from one place to the other, and therefore would never be a commodity you could gamble with.

 

[Pachterballs]

And yet Nestlé is one of the largest suppliers of commoditized water in the world. Go figure.

some times, its nice to drink liquids that isn't tainted by flavourants + sugar + sweetners + agents.

and no one is forcing anyone to buy bottled water. Everyone knows you can go to a bubbler bring a bottle. People buy bottled water because they want to.



btw. great article.

 

[Al-ibn Kermit]

For water, it sounds like he basically wants something loosely similar to cap & trade carbon policies. He says that water for personal use (cooking/cleaning/etc) has to be essentially free as it is now but the other 98.5% of water production that goes into industrial and agricultural uses should be given some value so that member of those industries actually have to think pragmatically about how they use the water and that will hopefully lead to conserving water in the long run.

Thanks for the article. A lot of interesting points there.

EDIT: Oh boy, what a shitty discussion. This should be about food and water, not about Nestle. No one has yet made a valid point against anything that was said in the article (one guy tried to defend organic food, but then posted an article against fertilizers, not GMOs...)

Yeah I put in the title that it was a wsj opinion section and that it was from an interview with Nestle's chairman to have full disclosure but I am pretty disappointed that people got more excited about the moral and political angle than the scientific and economic arguments he makes.

 

[jorma]

Thanks for the article. A lot of interesting points there.

EDIT: Oh boy, what a shitty discussion. This should be about food and water, not about Nestle. No one has yet made a valid point against anything that was said in the article (one guy tried to defend organic food, but then posted an article against fertilizers, not GMOs...)

Meh. Not letting spokespersons for Montsano and/or Nestle set the topics of discussion seems like a good idea to me.

 

[Funky Papa]

Yeah I put in the title that it was a wsj opinion section and that it was from an interview with Nestle's chairman to have full disclosure but I am pretty disappointed that people got more excited about the moral and political angle than the scientific and economic arguments he makes.

Let's invite Halliburton to talk about the wonders of privatisation while we are at it.

Nestle is an amoral corporation that engages in cartel practices and has a impressibly shady history of human rights abuse. Its chairman's opinion should be automatically disregarded considering both Nestle's interests and awful business practices.

 

[travisbickle]

I watched a documentary about bottled water a while back.

There was a CEO from Nestle on the program, he looked and sounded like an evil Bond villain.


He also said "It is our moral duty to provide alternatives for consumers of bottled water in the developing nations." ( this was in response to other shitty companies selling their bottled water in countries that would benefit greatly from more investment in the infrastructure for running water.)


Fuckin' "moral duty", what an arsehole.

 

[venne]

Thanks for the article. A lot of interesting points there.

EDIT: Oh boy, what a shitty discussion. This should be about food and water, not about Nestle. No one has yet made a valid point against anything that was said in the article (one guy tried to defend organic food, but then posted an article against fertilizers, not GMOs...)

If you're referring to my article, it does go into GMOs. GMOs and pesticides go hand in hand because many varieties are made specifically for their resistance to pesticides. Here's the part outlining potential risks:

'So far, field research as well as predictions based on ecological theory, indicate that among the major environmental risks associated with the release of genetically engineered crops can be summarized as follows (12):

The trends set forth by corporations is to create broad international markets for a single product, thus creating the conditions for genetic uniformity in rural landscapes. History has repeatedly shown that a huge area planted to a single cultivar is very vulnerable to a new matching strain of a pathogen or pest;

The spread of transgenic crops threatens crop genetic diversity by simplifying cropping systems and promoting genetic erosion;
There is potential for the unintended transfer to plant relatives of the "transgenes" and the unpredictable ecological effects. The transfer of genes from herbicide resistant crops (HRCs) to wild or semidomesticated relatives can lead to the creation of super weeds;

Most probably insect pests will quickly develop resistance to crops with Bt toxin. Several Lepidoptera species have been reported to develop resistance to Bt toxin in both field and laboratory tests, suggesting that major resistance problems are likely to develop in Bt crops which through the continuous expression of the toxin create a strong selection pressure;

Massive use of Bt toxin in crops can unleash potential negative interactions affecting ecological processes and non-target organisms. Evidence from studies conducted in Scotland suggest that aphids were capable of sequestering the toxin from Bt crops and transferring it to its coccinellid predators, in turn affecting reproduction and longevity of the beneficial beetles;

Bt toxins can also be incorporated into the soil through leaf materials and litter, where they may persist for 2-3 months, resisting degradation by binding to soil clay particles while maintaining toxic activity, in turn negatively affecting invertebrates and nutrient cycling;

A potential risk of transgenic plants expressing viral sequences derives from the possibility of new viral genotypes being generated by recombination between the genomic RNA of infecting viruses and RNA transcribed from the transgenic;

Another important environmental concern associated with the large scale cultivation of virus-resistant transgenic crops relates to the possible transfer of virus-derived transgenes into wild relatives through pollen flow.'

 

[RJT]

If you're referring to my article, it does go into GMOs. GMOs and pesticides go hand in hand because many varieties are made specifically for their resistance to pesticides.

I wasn't, I was talking about BorkBork.

Meh. Not letting spokespersons for Montsano and/or Nestle set the topics of discussion seems like a good idea to me.

Let's invite Halliburton to talk about the wonders of privatisation while we are at it.

Nestle is an amoral corporation that engages in cartel practices and has a impressibly shady history of human rights abuse. Its chairman's opinion should be automatically disregarded considering both Nestle's interests and awful business practices.

Well, I usually prefer to have a discussion with people I disagree with than with whom I agree. But I usually discuss the merits of ideas and arguments, and not the merits of the people discussing. Maybe that's just me though...

 

[tino]

The point is not whether Nestle is a humanitarian company. The point is whether or not his arguments in this article have merit. Providing "proof" that Nestle is bad doesn't change that it's an ad hominem.

Well if the guy is evil then he must be ploting something. The point is linking his article won't spark any healthy discussion.

 

[Funky Papa]

Well, I usually prefer to have a discussion with people I disagree with than with whom I agree. But I usually discuss the merits of ideas and arguments, and not the merits of the people discussing. Maybe that's just me though...

This is not about discussing with people you disagree. The point is that awful corporations like Nestle shouldn't get to set the talking points.

I'm ok with debating this topic with independent experts and scientists, maybe even corporations if they have a good track record, but Nestle's opinions should be automatically disregarded.

 

[CrunchyB]

The outrage over genetically-modified crops is RIDICULOUS. Farmers have been doing it since FARMING FUCKING EXISTED, they just didn't have the science to do it as FAST as we can now.

No. It has only existed for about 30 years and is very different from classical crossbreeding. Foreign or new genes can be introduced and the results can be surprising.

I'm not saying it is inherently dangerous, but it could be. So some caution is appropriate.

 

[Bulbo Urethral Baggins]

No. It has only existed for about 30 years and is very different from classical crossbreeding. Foreign or new genes can be introduced and the results can be surprising.

I'm not saying it is inherently dangerous, but it could be. So some caution is appropriate.

Its been shown to be safer than traditional breeding.
The irrational fears over it are a result of pure ignorance.

 

[Al-ibn Kermit]

No. It has only existed for about 30 years and is very different from classical crossbreeding. Foreign or new genes can be introduced and the results can be surprising.

I'm not saying it is inherently dangerous, but it could be. So some caution is appropriate.

I have no problems with GMO's having extra regulation but some governments want to ban it from ever being used. That's the problem.

 

[pedrothelion]

I hate that there is so much ethanol in gas. It lowers a cars MPG and contributes to increased corn prices in one fell swoop.