

Genetic Weapon Against Insects Raises Hope and Fear in Farming - mhb
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/business/energy-environment/genetic-weapon-against-insects-raises-hope-and-fear-in-farming.html?hp&_r=0

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lublublub
I get the rather cynical impression that Monsanto may need to rethink the
nature of the problem. Unless I'm mistaken this strategy is still going toe-
to-toe with evolutionary biology and ends up causing individuals who are not
succeptible to this target to flourish.

I also don't like the idea of spraying stuff around that is built to silence
genes--I'd like to have some mention on how specific the targeting is i.e. are
you knocking out specific codons, frame rewrite or transposons, and if it's
that general how is it contained/delivered?

It's the vast crop monoculture that is the problem, not the "pest" who evolves
and then takes advantage of it.

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mjt0229
I presume the RNAi described here targets regions of DNA of about ~20
nucleotides. Off-target effects are par for the course, but if you pick your
20 nucleotides carefully, you can get pretty precise. Common off-target
effects also come from an orthogonal RNAi pathway that would would affect
particular endogenous RNAs sharing the first ~7 nucleotides in that sequence.

Your argument about "toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology" is a little
misguided. Everything about agriculture and pest control is going toe-to-toe
with evolutionary biology. You either let evolution run all over you, or you
try to keep up. Monoculture _is_ a problem, but crop diversity wouldn't
eliminate the evolutionary challenge - it's just another mitigating strategy.

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lublublub
Informative! thanks!

Though I never ment to suggest that the evolutionary challenge would be
eliminated--it just changes the approach to the problem, rather than looking
at specific pests and targeting them individually, (which is actually an
endless fight--but may provide continued revenue for Monsanto) look at the
systemic relationships and the patterns they create as they persist. If you
eliminate one pest, you still have broad homogenous crop, which is a natural
draw for all sorts of similar 'pest' problems.

In any case I see it as being symptomatic of our highly optimized food system
--which has problems in all sorts of places (input/output and stderr), as I
think we are optimizing for the wrong thing in the long term.

Slightly circular, and OT--sorry.

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mjt0229
You're absolutely right about that.

------
exit
if anyone feels like indulging the fears this provokes, i recommend reading
the windup girl by paolo bacigalupi

 _> The Windup Girl is set in 23rd century Thailand. Global warming has raised
the levels of world's oceans, carbon fuel sources have become depleted, and
manually wound springs are used as energy storage devices. Biotechnology is
dominant and mega corporations like AgriGen, PurCal and RedStar (called
calorie companies) control food production through 'genehacked' seeds, and use
bioterrorism, private armies and economic hitmen to create markets for their
products. Frequent catastrophes, such as deadly and widespread plagues and
illness, caused by genetically modified crops and mutant pests, ravage entire
populations. The natural genetic seed stock of the world's plants has been
almost completely supplanted by those that are genetically engineered to be
sterile._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl)

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amalag
The next glyphosate?

Thats nice, we have glyphosate resistant Superweeds, now we need insecticide
resistant Superbugs.

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wehadfun
Genetic pesticide No.

Some sort of contraption built by Google Boston Dynamics with "Weed OCR"
software that yanked weeds and smashed bug called the Weedernater. Yes.

~~~
AJ007
Ending monoculture would be another option.

~~~
cracell
Yes! Is there anyone in the industrial farming industry that's actually
pursuing industrial scale polyculture technology?

Monoculture is not nature and is not just not how plants evolved to grow. We
can continue to force it as we have been but that obviously isn't working all
that well.

~~~
araes
Actually, the Chinese, who naturally have serious concerns about feeding a
billion+ people, have been looking at this for a while. They actually had some
fairly promising results for test farms and plots. However, its still pretty
small scale by industrial standards.

Official paper:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6797/abs/406718a0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6797/abs/406718a0.html)

Full text alt: [http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Rice-Diversity-
Yield.htm](http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Rice-Diversity-Yield.htm)

Polyculture ag. production's not a bad idea, and it obviously can improve
yields under the right conditions, but to be widely adopted it either needs
top down advocacy from a larger body (Gov) or be so compelling economically
that individuals / companies push for and adopt it at the personal level.

Yields are one thing, but there is also the additional logistical difficulty,
and cost, that comes from planting many different crops. Particularly tough
when you're talking about some midwest, intensive crop farming, where
machinery, layouts, and storage have been designed and optimized for
monoculture operations over literally millions of acres. Adapting those
operations while maintaining economies of scale is one of the greatest
hurdles.

Also, while folks sometimes decry our farming, America isn't as bad as we
often make it out to be, and many areas do significantly mix crops. Example:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crops_Kansas_AST_20010624....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crops_Kansas_AST_20010624.jpg)

Shows fields of wheat, sorghum, corn, and sections left fallow that are fairly
well mixed in Kansas.

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ensignavenger
This is the most excellent comment on this thread! Thank you for the links! To
add to the last part, living in rural Southwest Missouri, I see a great deal
of diversity among our local agriculture- from rice to wheat to cows and corn,
and trees (Black Walnuts are a major part of my local economy).

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b0rsuk
Ultimately, it's not for us to decide. Things like these are always decided by
economic viability and lobbying.

It's really hard to create an outrage strong enough that people will just stop
buying it, and go to a competitor. But this is the only message big
corporations understand.

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adrianN
Wouldn't a highly specific pesticide also be susceptible to quick resistance?

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leobelle
Yes, and that was brought up, a previous modification is facing resistance:

"Corn growers need a new tool. For a decade they have been combating the
rootworm by planting so-called BT crops, which are genetically engineered to
produce a toxin that kills the insects when they eat the crop.

Or at least the toxin is supposed to kill them. But rootworms are now evolving
resistance to at least one BT toxin."

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throwwit
The advancements in genetic technologies are dangerous because they deal in
creating inherently extreme solutions. A lot of evolutionary stability is
dependent on a statistical distribution of genotypic/phenotypic traits that
have roots in a complex reservoir of genetic material. Personally I feel one
cannot simply hinge an entire 'solution' on one inserted gene. The process can
probably be considered analogous to 'monkey-patching' the genome IMO.

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leterter
Evolutionary incompatible approach like this will lead to defeat in the end.

Co-existence is the only way that is compatible with evolution.

~~~
rsync
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal)

