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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 30, 2014 13:02:22 GMT -5
I have a question regarding the food produced from this technology; are they less healthful? We eat radish and we eat broccoli. The mixed genetics messes up the chemistry/biology of the plant enough to cause it to be male-sterile. I'm not aware of any studies that have been conducted to document what other biochemistry might get messed up inside the plant. I suppose that the differences are well within a human body's ability to assimilate. It's not like BT corn where a poison is being deliberately introduced into a food. Indirectly: Cybrid plants are less healthful to the insect life in a field because they fail to produce pollen. Plants without pollen are less attractive to pollinators. Fewer pollinators in the ecosystem leads to lower yields and higher costs of production. Scarcity and higher costs make high quality food less available. Therefore, I think that cybrids are unhealthful because - it seems to me like - they harm the ecosystem which harms my health. |
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Post by billw on Mar 30, 2014 13:16:24 GMT -5
Of course, most farms would never allow these crops to flower anyway, so I'm not sure there is much of a practical difference.
Sterility only matters to people who produce their own seeds. Did the practices or the products that encourage the practices come first? Either way, once one exists to reinforce the other, breaking out becomes a challenge.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Mar 30, 2014 18:45:31 GMT -5
Certainly we can all see that if CMS gets loose...say my neighbor is planting all CMS veges and I'm saving all OP varieties, it wouldn't be long before all my seeds were sterile. I have to disagree with you there Holly. CMS crops cannot do what you just said, because they are sterile. A plant that produces no pollen cannot spread its genetics from your neighbors field to yours. The only way for CMS to get into your seed is for you to plant CMS crops in the presence of fertile plants that will pollinate them. So if you don't grow any CMS plants, you won't have any CMS in the resulting seeds. I find natural CMS much less troubling than Joseph does. I can see why a sub-population of any plant species might find it beneficial to become CMS, it maximizes genetic recombination in a population since any seed a CMS plant produces must be an outcross. I also do not believe that cell-fusion CMS plants are biologically dangerous or in any way a danger to the vegetable eating public. I DO NOT see the technology as in keeping with the true ethics of organic agriculture, and I view it as another dangerous development in the corporatization of the seed industry and the theft of our agricultural commons by agribusiness. CMS crops are inherently proprietary. They don't have to sue a farmer for saving seed from their patented genetics, it is biologically impossible. The logical endgame to the vertical integration of the food system is corporate neo-feudalism with us as the serfs. Cell fusion CMS is one more tool towards that end-game. |
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Post by donald on Mar 31, 2014 10:11:19 GMT -5
Hi all, My fields are still thawing which is why I have had the time to look into CMS cell fusion hybrids as cisgenic GMOs. This is Monsanto's CMS cell fusion hybrid cisgenic market. www.monsanto.com/products/pages/vegetable-seeds-science.aspxand this article tells of the customer and wholesale buyer demand www.wired.com/2014/01/new-monsanto-vegetables/All are patented seeds. I just cann't call Cisgenic CMS cell fusion hybrid seeds patented by the Big Six Seed companies as "substantially equivalent" to conventional/traditional non CMS cell fusion hybrid seeds. I seem to recall Monsanto winning that dialogue with their transgenic cell fusion GMO seeds with the USDA in the 90's. Also, All these hybrids rely on a fragile CMS source and patented seeds limit plant reseserchers reach. Isn't that a deadend for farming? And as for IFOAM , I am not sure if it is a recommendation for CMS cell fusion to be banned because I cann't find the IFOAM document that says it is banned. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 31, 2014 10:38:04 GMT -5
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Post by donald on Mar 31, 2014 14:39:28 GMT -5
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Post by donald on Mar 31, 2014 14:42:20 GMT -5
When I asked a EU certifying body if CMS cell fusion is GM this is their response: Dear M Sutherland According to European Organic regulation (REC N° 834/2007), the definition of a GMO is as follows : the definition of ‘Genetically modified organism (GMO)’ is that given in Directive 2001/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 March 2001 on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms and repealing Council Directive 90/220/EEC (1) and which is not obtained through the techniques of genetic modifications listed in Annex I.B of that Directive; The Annex IB of the Directive in question concerns precisely cell fusion and mutagenesis : Techniques/methods of genetic modification yielding organisms to be excluded from the Directive, on the condition that they do not involve the use of recombinant nucleic acid molecules or genetically modified organisms other than those produced by one or more of the techniques/methods listed below are: (1) mutagenesis, (2) cell fusion (including protoplast fusion) of plant cells of organisms which can exchange genetic material through traditional breeding methods. So according to standard EC regulation, an organism obtained by mutagenesis or cell fusion is not a GMO. Sincerely <image001.jpg> Stéphane LEROYER Expert Technique Technical Expert Ecocert SA - BP 47 - 32600 - L'Isle-Jourdain - France T +33 (0) 5 62 07 66 17 - F +33 (0) 5 62 07 1167 stephane.leroyer@ecocert.com - www.ecocert.com |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Mar 31, 2014 19:12:20 GMT -5
Donald, welcome to the forum. I'd actually like you to clarify your position on cell-fusion CMS. Are you in favor of these types of organisms being certified organic or not? You've linked to a lot of stuff, but to me you haven't made your own opinions clear.
Johnny's has pretty much lost me with the utility patents. For a very long time they've been one of my favorite seed companies. Great seed quality, unsurpassed customer service, even an appealing company structure with employee ownership. But I cannot forgive them the utility patenting of their breeding work. It is such an appalling moral transgression. I cannot forgive them.
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Post by jondear on Mar 31, 2014 20:12:14 GMT -5
Of course, most farms would never allow these crops to flower. That's what I was thinking too for things like turnip and broccoli... I am really not comfortable with messing with a plants genetics other than things that can be done in nature, such as cross pollination. Not trying to make it political, but I can see to a certain degree not wanting to spend a lot of money and time developing a "superior" strain, hybrid or whatever only to have someone else buy some seed, reproduce it and market it. I think people spending the time should be rewarded somehow for the effort. I see how much effort you guys and gals on this site put into the beautiful varieties you're creating. I respect the passion you all are showing to your projects. But I see that you aren't doing it for just money. It makes so much sense that the varieties you are coming up with do well for you, on your farms and in your gardens under your conditions. Maybe that is reward enough. |
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Post by donald on Mar 31, 2014 20:39:50 GMT -5
My farm is USDA certified Organic. That said we try to use only organic seeds both OPs and Hybrids. And when we cann't find an organic crop we want USDA NOP allows a the non-organic version of that crop. We have only been farming for four years and every year we learn something new. My opinion on CMS hybrids is there is a need for science and agriculture to help small farmers stay profitable but when seed saving and sharing are taken out of the business model as, CMS Hybrids with patents have done, then the personality of farming has changed. GMO genetic drift contamination and the Supreme Court siding with the polluter has also changed farming in the same industrial patent protection model that the Big Six Seed companies have imposed with CMS hybrids. None of us are perfect but I prefer OP seeds if there are enough of them around. And the more I research CMS cell fusion hybrids in the Big Six Seed companies with the big technologies (direct mutagenesis, zinc fingers, etc) the more I see the Cisgenic CMS cell fusion hybrid seed market as the next GMO taking diversity and freedom from small farmers.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Mar 31, 2014 21:58:08 GMT -5
Not trying to make it political, but I can see to a certain degree not wanting to spend a lot of money and time developing a "superior" strain, hybrid or whatever only to have someone else buy some seed, reproduce it and market it. I think people spending the time should be rewarded somehow for the effort. My personal view is that intellectual property law has no place in plant breeding. I know I'm in a minority on that one. But we already had a system for rewarding and protecting unique plant breeding work, the PVP. Utility patents are a completely different ballgame. One of the patents Johnny's has states "The patent was granted for the Red aphid(Nasonovia ribisnigri)resistance in all of these varieties." In essence it is illegal to breed a lettuce for red aphid resistance until Johnny's patent expires. oldmobie wants to breed a red, white, and blue popcorn. I could breed one first, take out a utility patent and prevent anyone else from breeding a red, white, and blue popcorn. You can take a utility patent out on plant breeding IDEAS, at least with the PVP system the protection was specific to the variety in question. Utility patents on plants are theft of our agricultural heritage. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 31, 2014 23:29:20 GMT -5
I think people spending the time should be rewarded somehow for the effort. I send royalty payments to the individuals that played a significant role in developing the varieties that I grow. 5% seems about right... That's an amount that is easy for me to let go of, but it adds up for the developer. |
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Post by rowan on Apr 1, 2014 0:43:19 GMT -5
I also don't agree with patenting plant genetics and any varieties I develop are available to anyone as long as they keep my name for it, but I do still honour the wishes of those who do want to earn a royalty or stop just anyone from using their efforts for profit.
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Post by jondear on Apr 2, 2014 20:18:58 GMT -5
I wasn't aware of utility patents. The more you know....
I am glad to be learning some of this stuff before I start farming.
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Post by mjc on Apr 14, 2014 14:58:01 GMT -5
I'm more concerned about the steady conversion of the culmination of thousands of years of public domain plant breeding into patented, licensed, corporate-owned products. The lawyers and politicians are more toxic than any plant that we're likely to create. I'm pretty close to bill here. I disapprove greatly of GMO technology given its current direction, but I can see a place for it if it was used carefully and responsibly for the benefit of mankind. Some of the anti-GMO rhetoric would have you expecting triffids to start marching out of the corn fields any minute. The use of intellectual property law as a bludgeon to enslave the producer and vertically integrate the food system is a very scary aspect of the conversion to GMO crops which gets much less attention than it should. The lawyers are here, and they are here to bury us. And here's another voice of support for that particular point. |
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