Science generally makes things better than it makes them worse, except when it does make them worse. -- Michael Lipsey

Since the advent of corn, soy and cotton that are resistant to glyphosate (Roundup), the use of herbicides has reached stratospheric quantities – with around 8.6 billion kilograms (19 billion pounds) of the herbicide sprayed around the world.

"Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy" - Matthew Evans

I have a professor who wants me to write a pro-GMO crops article, and like... I'm skeptical of GMOs but I don't know enough to have a solid opinion. But it keeps coming up so I think that'll have to be the next deep dive I do.

Mostly yelling into the void here, but:

We (as in, the world population) are eventually gonna have to be okay with either GMO crops or food riots.

I’m not saying they’ll happen this year or anything like that. But our trends of rising income (increasing meat/non-staple grain consumption) and decreasing farmlands (climate change, soil exhaustion) are going to conflict sooner or later. We fundamentally need to crank out 50+% more food on less farmland under worse climate conditions.

And while I’d love to say we can do with traditional breeding methods, we can’t. It takes half a decade or more to breed one trait - like resistance to a novel disease, for instance - into one crop. We can do that in a year with a GMO organism - and then we can also make that crop use less fertilizer, grow faster, and be more heat tolerant within that same year. It’d be insane to toss that sort of advantage aside at any point, much less during a time when crops are simply not improving fast enough to keep up with demand.

There will come a point where people either eat GMOs or they don’t eat enough. There’s no way around it.

(Safety sidenote here: if you’re in the US and you eat meat from non-specialty stores, it’s a virtual certainty the animal you’re eating was fed GMO crops. We know they’re not harmful to eat. Our refusal to consume them is bizarre.)

(Food security sidenote here: I understand frustrations about commercialized industrialized farming, and I understand that GMO crops are not going to make that situation better. On the other hand, the median human being in an industrialized developed nation currently spends a tiny fraction of their time trying to acquire the calories required for survival and can still easily do so. This has never occurred before in human civilization.) (No, seriously, it hasn’t. (see Smil, Energy and Civilization, 2017: ‘No traditional agriculture could consistently produce enough food to eliminate malnutrition. All of them were vulnerable to major famines’.) You can argue that developed nations stumble on the distribution aspect, sure - and I’ll agree with you; while the US doesn’t really get famines, much less major ones, the fact that ~10% of the country faces malnutrition is a travesty - but that’s not the production side causing problems there. Modern commercial agriculture is a machine for turning energy into calories, and it’s dammed good at it. What’s next is getting our shit together enough to make it even better.)

Rolling up to the plant nursery asking for their gmos specifcally.

Some believe I think I am nadeko fan number one because I believe I’m the number one nadeko fan(a falsehood and unquantifiable). I am actually fan number one because I’m the first one they printed(limited edition).

like i fully Get that among communities and your peers, working to live in a more environmentally connected way IS valuable! in those cases its definitely an oversimplification and also cynical to rattle off statistics about how individuals cannot actually meaningfully contribute to reduction in carbon emissions specifically but like

just because thats true doesnt mean corporations or even businesses in general can be let off the hook lol letting this kind of attitude normalize is dangerous

can popeye and wendie and five guy please leave my highstreet i just want wimpy and nando and gregg

GMOs Under the Microscope: Separating Fact from Fiction on Climate Solutions

In recent years, the biotech industry has touted genetically modified crops (GMOs) as a panacea for the global predicament of climate change. While the promises may seem alluring, a closer look reveals a complex and often contentious relationship between GMOs and environmental sustainability.

Understanding Genetically Modified Crops

Genetic modification involves altering the DNA of organisms to achieve desired traits. In agriculture, this process is employed to enhance crop yields, resist pests, and withstand harsh environmental conditions. The initial allure of GMOs lay in the potential to revolutionize global agriculture and address food scarcity.

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Atomic Gardening refers to a mid-20th-century scientific technique that involved exposing plants to radiation in order to induce mutations and create new, potentially improved varieties. The idea behind atomic gardening was to harness the mutagenic effects of radiation, such as X-rays or gamma rays, to induce random genetic mutations in plants. Scientists believed that some of these mutations might lead to desirable traits, such as improved yield, disease resistance, or other beneficial characteristics.

This approach was explored as a method for crop improvement and was part of broader efforts to increase food production in the post-World War II era. The hope was that by exposing plants to radiation, researchers could generate genetic diversity more rapidly than traditional breeding methods, allowing for the development of new and improved crop varieties.

The term "Atomic Gardening" gained popularity in the 1950s and 1960s when various countries, including the United States, conducted experiments in which crops like wheat, rice, and barley were exposed to radiation. However, the technique eventually fell out of favor as researchers better understood the complexities of genetic mutations and the potential risks associated with ionizing radiation. Modern genetic engineering techniques have largely replaced atomic gardening in contemporary agricultural research. However, it remains popular in the Asia-Pacific region.

*Photo | Rio Star Grapefruit: https://historycollection.com/atomic-gardening

I’m kinda glad I spent so much time looking at crop science this term bc turns out it’s unbearable and I couldn’t actually do this like I was considering. Progress!!

Stalemate On GMO Crop Policies: A Barrier To Agricultural Advancement

A Amarender Reddy GEAC’s Recommendation and the Promise of DMH-11 The government’s Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has recommended the environmental release of transgenic Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11) for testing in farmers’ field crops and seed production. If testing in the fields gives greater yield and other intended benefits and without negative implications, the mustard…

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Agricultural researchers study how plants sense and acclimate to stressful conditions, and then try to develop crops with enhanced tolerance.

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

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