I've been attacking the US ethanol program for ages [prior posts]. It's one of the worst examples of corporate welfare, environmental destruction, market distortion and human impoverishment in agricultural policy history.
And it just got worse.
You see, most US ethanol is made from corn, and a lot of corn (80 percent in 2008!) is genetically modified to increase yield. GMO corn may be bad for us to eat, but it would be particularly bad if it contaminated non-GMO crops with "invasive genes."
Turns out that GMO corn does do that. This week's Nature reports [pdf] that GMO corn contaminates neighboring corn. The result confirms an earlier, controversial result.* That's science for you -- confirming those hypotheses!
That's bad because we need to have many varieties of corn to maintain the genetic health of the species. If traditional varieties are contaminated, then we can't use them later, when global warming, a new disease or pest, or nutritional characteristic is desired.
Bottom Line: We are going to have to regulate GMO corn (and other GMOs?) to make sure that it doesn't destroy our crop genetic diversity.
* and this study confirms that GMO corn reduces fertility in mice. (Maybe we're limiting our damage by limiting ourselves?)
14 November 2008
Ethanol Sucks MORE
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11 comments:
Ethanol is a farce, to be sure, but I would not be so quick to condemn GMO crops. The technology has huge implications for drought resistance, and has already produced marked benefits in the form of safer weed and insect control.
Less developed countries frequently fail to enforce the rules governing GMO crops, (and antibiotics, and pesticides, etc.). In passing, I notice the article stated that farmers in Mexico were saving GMO corn to plant the next year's crop. This is both illegal and poor practice. All modern (post 1940, at least) corn varieties are true hybrids, so saving the seed produces a freakish, unreliable plant; yet many farmers in poor countries follow this practice out of perceived necessity.
On a midwestern tour, I was struck by the number of brand new ethanol plants, in states like Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska. driving through those states is a tour of soybeans and corn, but strikingly more corn than usual.
Interestingly, in those states, plus Missouri, you see 'Plus' gasloine cheaper at the pump than 'Regular'. I was told by cashiers at the stations that their states are subsidizing the pump price of the Plus, because it has ethanol, and the corn is grown in their states, and the ethanol plants are in their states.
There stands to be a great struggle between the politics and the science of corn. Once anyone gets a taste of a subsidy, they cling to it like a drug addict to their junk.
What you really have a problem with is US government subisdies to maize, not ethanol per se. There is nothing inherently disruptive about making biofuel. There is something very disruptive about US farm subsidies.
Actually, the ethanol plants are subsidized also. Check this out:
http://www.ksgrains.com/ethanol/regcredits.html
The refiner gets far more in subsidy than the grower. Obviously they go hand-in-hand.
From the end of the article:
"However, the new paper
doesn’t confirm an important
conclusion from the original
Nature paper — whether the
transgenes had been integrated
into landrace genomes
and passed along to progeny plants."
which seems to contradict the thrust of your post.
@Tom -- good point. I'm happy to weaken my "conclusion" from GMOs are bad for biodiversity to GMOs are likely to be bad for biodiversity :)
It's also useful to remember that gene splicing is not utterly unnatural. Viruses and bacteria have happily been borrowing bits of each others' DNA since life began. Even in higher life forms, one can find anomalies like Malacosteus ( a species of dragonfish) that produces chlorophyll in its eye (for a purpose not related to photosynthesis); the result of a gene transfer from a symbiotic algae.
What scares me more about GM is what some psychopath or terrorist might dream up with the technology. That cat is already out of the bag, and tens of thousands of labs around the world are tinkering, unregulated; not for evil purposes, one hopes.
There's a documentary ("The Future of Food") that talks about how Monsanto's GMO corn got mixed into some other poor farmer's corn, and since Monsanto patented their corn they started suing, etc.
Haven't seen the documentary, but it seems extremely unlikely that 1) GMO seed corn accidentally got mixed into another variety, at least in any quantity and 2) if that were to have happened, Monsanto would bother suing over the incident. They or the state agricultural authorities would simply destroy the crop, and the farmer, if an innocent victim, would be compensated by insurance or otherwise. That is far less expensive than lawsuits. Monsanto will sue people who illegally save GMO grain and try to use that as planting seed. The Rolling Stones sue people who steal their music, too. Anyone concerned about gene flow and safe use of GMO crops should applaud such actions.
Monsanto is not some paragon of corporate virtue. They have taken some aggressive marketing positions that ticked customers off, and in the case of rBGH (the milk hormone) backfired on them. People who don't want to buy their products need not do so.
The GMo-mixing/lawsuit story is notorious. Read Percy News here.
1. I was refering to the subsidized nature of the ethnol plants, as well as the growers. Not to mention the idiotic US tariffs that keep out cheaper Brazilian sugarcane-based ethanol. What I'm saying is that the whole complicated system of gov't support for ethanol distorts the market. A far better idea would be to simply tax petroleum at a higher rate (i.e. a carbon tax), and let all alternative fuels compete equaly with oil.
2. The Monsanto case you are refering to is Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser, which went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, before Mr. Schmeiser won. He then counter-sued Monsanto and won that case too.
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