What are your views on growing transgenetic crops?

Question

To address hunger of poverish people scientists are breeding transgenetic crops that will be drought and pest ressistant and will also have other traits. They will also have higher yield.

Answer 1

This is the first time that I have seen this question asked without an obvious negative connotation.  I believe that the Golden Rice controversy is a perfect example of what you are asking here.  Golden Rice, a genetically engineered form

of the crop capable of producing 23 times more pro-vitamin A (beta carotene) than regular rice. However, rather than celebrate the potential of this breakthrough to alleviate suffering and reduce the number of deaths caused by

malnutrition—in the millions, many of them children in developing countries— Greenpeace greeted the development with claims that Golden Rice is “not effective”

and “superfluous”.

Organizations like Greenpeace rightly see this advance as threatening their anti biotechnology campaign, which lacks a

scientific basis and has relied mainly on the manipulation of people’s perceptions.  There is a great potential in genetically engineered crops that we need to let scientists work out the advantages and disadvantages of. Activist organizations and politicians need to let the people who know what they are doing work it out.

Answer 2

very good

Answer 3

Bohemian_garnet stated exactly what I was thinking.

Answer 4

I don`t like it very much,however it is useful but it maybe will be harmful in the future.

Answer 5

Personally I am very much against this new trend.  They are trying to turn third world countries into the slaves that American Farmers have become.  

They will convince these people to abandon crops they have been growing for thousands of years, which are well suited and adapted for their loacation.  They will "help them" by giving them seeds to crops they hold patents on.  Eventually the companies will also be selling them fertilizers and pesticides just so these crops will germinate.  The people will find saving the seeds from the year before to often be useless, since terminator genes will be added as well.

Impoverished people all over the world will have to come begging for seeds from big companies, instead of retaining their heritage seeds as they have done for a milenia.

Scientists who develop these new crops are often very short sighted.  They sent off a new trangenetic wheat to be grown in India.  It grew more quickly, and provided more food for the people.....everyone should be happy, right?

Problem was the new trangentic wheat only grew to be a foot high, instead of three feet high.  The native people used the three feet of straw left by their native wheat to feed their cattle.  Suddenly they had almost no fodder for the cattle.  Cattle and goats were starving to death.  In many cases they lost their cattle which would have pulled the plow  to plant next years crop.  Now they had to do everything by hand, and with their own strength.

The miracle promised to them turned out to be a signifigant nightmare for them.

If instead we helped them improve their water canals, and distributed vitamins to them, the farmers in these third world countries would be much better off.  Or perhaps a steel plow and some vitamins, instead of their wood plow.  

There are things we can do, which will actually improve the lives of people in third world countries....transgenetic crops are not one of them.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years