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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:35
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Here's an amusing consequence of the hippy paranoid mindset infecting people who can't well afford it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/30/i...ica/30ANGO.html
Angola's Plan to Turn Away Altered Food Imperils Aid
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: March 30, 2004
JOHANNESBURG, March 29 — A United Nations effort to feed nearly two million hungry Angolans, most of them former war refugees, is imperiled because Angola's government plans to outlaw imports of genetically modified cereals, officials of the World Food Program here said Monday.
Most food assistance from the United States, which at last count provided more than three-quarters of United Nations aid to Angola, consists of genetically modified corn and other crops that apparently would be barred under the new rules.
That includes 19,000 tons of genetically modified American corn now bound for an Angolan port. The corn — roughly a month's supply for the United Nations feeding program in Angola — must be cleared for unloading by Wednesday, said Mike Sackett, the World Food Program's director for southern Africa.
It remains unclear whether the new ban on genetically modified foods, issued March 17 but not yet formally put into effect, will prevent the unloading of the shipment, Mr. Sackett said.
Angola follows four drought-stricken southern Africa nations — Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique — in refusing foreign donations of certain genetically modified foods despite widespread malnutrition and even starvation among their citizens.
Zambia has barred genetically modified foods outright, saying their safety is unproven. Other nations, including Angola, are insisting that cereals and seeds be milled first so that they cannot germinate in local soils and therefore potentially alter the genetic makeup of local crops.
The United States, which provides well over half the food aid in southern Africa and the vast bulk of genetically modified foods, has accused governments of placing political and theoretical concerns above the survival of their own people.
Both the United Nations and the Americans have sidestepped the bans elsewhere by milling grains before they are delivered to needy nations, a costly process that reduces the amount of food donated.
Angola's case is unusual, Mr. Sackett said Monday, because the suddenness of the government's prohibition leaves no time to mill grain intended for Angola before it is shipped. Mills are so scarce inside Angola that it would take 11 weeks, using every mill in the nation, just to grind the 19,000-ton shipment of American corn now under way.
Furthermore, international relief donations to Angola are dwindling because the government is widely perceived as deeply corrupt — awash in oil revenues that it refuses to spend to feed its own people.
Angola is second only to Nigeria among Africa's oil-producing states. But the watchdog group Human Rights Watch charged in January that from 1997 to 2002 alone, $4.2 billion in oil money — one-fourth of the total — was unaccounted for.
The World Food Program feeds 1.9 million Angolans, or about one in eight. About 1.5 million of that total are former war refugees trying to resume their prewar lives.
Last edited by Sikander on 02-04-2004 at 18:14
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Sandman
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Sinister Penguin
Aug 2001
time: 05:35
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quote:
So, because direct genetic modification works more quickly and effectively...
... it's bad? |
I never said that.
quote:
Of course we have. Selective breeding and cross-pollination ARE genetic engineering on a massive scale. |
If it is, then demonstrate it.
Selective breeding:
Relies on random mutations.
Takes a long time.
Is imprecise and unpredictable.
Does not require advanced technology or knowledge of genetics.
Genetic engineering:
Can splice any gene from any lifeform into another lifeform.
Only needs one generation to have an effect.
Is very precise.
Requires advanced technology and knowledge of genetic science.
The Babylonians weren't splicing strawberries with fish, or humans with pigs. The ability to change lifeforms probably didn't even suggest itself to them, since selective breeding happens regardless of whether the humans are encouraging it or not. In fact, given that it relies on random mutations, it's got far more in common with natural selection than genetic engineering.
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Actually, even without farm subsidies, the US and maybe Europe would easily succeed. US agricorporations are incredibly efficient mass-producers of food. |
They're incredibly efficient harvesters of subsidies. Sorry, but I fail to understand why 'incredibly efficient' agri-businesses that would 'easily succeed' without subsidies need them in the first place.
Subsidies go to politically or strategically significant industries that can't compete, but can't be allowed to go out of business. They don't go to efficient, competitive businesses.
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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Sandman
Selective breeding:
Relies on random mutations. |
No it doesn't. Do I have to explain how a sperm cell fertilizes an egg to you?
Depends on the timescale.
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Is imprecise and unpredictable. |
Not really, no.
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Does not require advanced technology or knowledge of genetics. |
So? Genetic engineering of animals requires more advanced knowledge then we have today. Does that make it not "genetic engineering"?
quote:
Genetic engineering:
Can splice any gene from any lifeform into another lifeform.
Only needs one generation to have an effect.
Is very precise.
Requires advanced technology and knowledge of genetic science. |
So it works fast and well. Your point?
quote:
The Babylonians weren't splicing strawberries with fish, or humans with pigs. The ability to change lifeforms probably didn't even suggest itself to them, since selective breeding happens regardless of whether the humans are encouraging it or not. In fact, given that it relies on random mutations, it's got far more in common with natural selection than genetic engineering. |
Well, several of your premises are wrong, but anyways, whether they intended it or not, what they were doing was genetic engineering - they were engineering the genome. Just in a makeshift, indirect way.
quote:
Subsidies go to politically or strategically significant industries that can't compete, but can't be allowed to go out of business. They don't go to efficient, competitive businesses. |
They also go to industries that could do fine without them, but wield enough political clout that it's politically impossible to remove the subsidies.
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Sandman
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Sinister Penguin
Aug 2001
time: 05:35
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No it doesn't. Do I have to explain how a sperm cell fertilizes an egg to you? |
Rightrightright. So wolves carry all the DNA of all the breeds of dogs ever. The spotty coats (and poor hearing) of dalmatians were NOT a result of random mutation, but there was a fully formed dalmatian genome hiding inside the wolf just waiting to get out.
Exlplain how all the different breeds of dog came about without mutation. You can't, because you're wrong.
Selective breeding happens in the same way as natural selection, just quicker. Random mutations are selected (whether knowingly or unknowingly) and are allowed to reproduce.
quote:
Depends on the timescale. |
It takes longer than genetically engineering something.
It involves the reshuffling of countless genes, rather than just a select few. The desired trait may be linked to another, unwanted trait, and may be difficult to shake off. For example, high rates of deafness in dalmations or low intelligence in afghan hounds.
quote:
So? Genetic engineering of animals requires more advanced knowledge then we have today. Does that make it not "genetic engineering"? |
Now you're just being ignorant. You can't possibly have failed to notice the media coverage given to genetically engineered animals, for example, glowing mice and fish with jellyfish spliced into their DNA.
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So it works fast and well. Your point? |
Genetic engineering is a different from selective breeding as farming is from hunter-gathering.
quote:
Well, several of your premises are wrong, but anyways, whether they intended it or not, what they were doing was genetic engineering - they were engineering the genome. Just in a makeshift, indirect way. |
By that logic, if a lion kills a gazelle with a mutation that gives it inferior speed, that lion is doing genetic engineering. Just in a makeshift, indirect way.
quote:
They also go to industries that could do fine without them, but wield enough political clout that it's politically impossible to remove the subsidies. |
I doubt that's the case with Western farming interests. Wheat and dairy, possibly. The US sugar, cotton and peanut industries would simply vanish overnight though. The US exports cotton at 37 cents a pound, even though it costs 86 cents per pound to produce. There's no way they could compete with the lower labour costs and superior growing climate of the developing world.
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MOBIUS
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Prifysgol Caerdydd
Dec 1999
time: 15:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
No, but neither has posting inanities on the internet been proven 100% safe. You seem determined to be the first to fall to this hitherto unknown peril. |
Ah so you think questioning the safety of GM is inane, but rushing headlong into its production and trusting these profit motivated companies with your health isn't?
Asbestos, DDT, Thalidomide, CFCs all were deemed wonders in their particular fields, people said they were safe yadda yadda and guess what...?
Hindsight is a beautiful thing but its not like we can suddenly roll things back if a problem eventuates...
As for the Africa GM thing, why can't the US simply supply what these countries want - Angola is different cos they only suddenly changed their minds, but then as your own article states this is a country awash with corruption so they don't exactly have their own populaces best health at heart. So frankly their stance on GM is unlikely to be one about their fear of it and therefore an irrelevant, indeed inane argument...
Maybe it is you that needs to consider your own priorities, cos from where I'm sitting the only mug round here appears to be you...
Last edited by MOBIUS on 03-04-2004 at 23:26
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02-04-2004 17:59
I believe you are deliberately missing the point. Certain people in this thread have demanded all GM crops be proven to be 100% nonharmful before any can be planted or used. This is impossible to do with anything and you know it.
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