Radically rethinking agriculture with genetic engineering
January 29, 2010 | Length: 00:02:18
Many consider genetically engineered food controversial, but to Pamela Ronald a UC Davis professor, it could be the answer to feeding the world. Twenty five percent of the world's rice is grown in areas that are very prone to submergence, and after three days rice will die. Ronald's lab has genetically engineered rice to help the plant be tolerant to stress and disease. The varieties her team has developed can survive for two weeks underwater and are expected to improve the livelihood of millions of farmers in developing countries.
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Radically rethinking agriculture
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RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
Some parts of the world would experience the opposite problem!
I like the approach of the Land Institute because with perennial crops the soil is protected from erosion and the root system is able to develop further! I reckon a deeper and intricate root system will be able to manage more efficiently water and nutrients from the soil.
Could we engineer our food to grow on trees, or engineer the plants into tree like organisms?? How did trees evolved to become trees?
carlinuxlearner
Now, even though this sounds great, we need to know what effect does it
have on the actual rice?
Is it any less nutritions? Can our bodies still digest it and use it
like they do "normal" rice? What are the side effects? Just because it
is "stronger" and is able to resist water for longer doesn't mean it's
good for US.
Those are the things we need to know, because if the rice is no longer
what it used to be, growing tons and tons of it, won't help.
Congrats for the prowess but skeptical
Is it garanteed that this new rice won't replace "regular" rice in Western markets? (GM sugar beet did replace regular sugar beet in N. America which is utterly outrageous and dangerous).
Are we sure this GM rice won't affect our own DNA over time (over generations of feeding from same rice)?
Until these questions don't get scientifically-backed independant answers, I'll remain very skeptical.
RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
Look at their focus. Monsanto sued and pressed farmers who refused buying thier GM seeds. Once seeds are GMed they are patented. No single farme is allowed to keep GM harvest for next year, they are forced buying all the time for next seasons.
Look how wins here?
That is all conditioning of what people have to eat. With the food they will control your health=future. Think what you eat and what you choose twice. Wake UP!
The human race is too smart to survive...
RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
While feeding the world is a laudable goal, foodstuffs that turn out to be toxic in the long-run must be avoided at all costs. It is my understanding that no controlled, independant, long-term human health study has ever been done on the impact of GMO foods. Seems foolish when all our lives may depend on it.
I also agree with the posters who pointed out that these seeds are used to monopolize markets, and drive out competition (read up on Percy Schmeiser versus Monsanto).
I think we have taken the wrong approach. We assume these modified organisms are safe, until proven otherwise ... then prevent the research to allow proof to be made. We should assume these GMO's are dangerous, and force proof of their safety.
... And label each and every one, so that people in the grocery store can vote with their wallets!
Direct genetic modification of food plants is a bad thing in the long run
Case is point is Montasano and their wheat and corn products. They failed to account for spread of their product through normal fertilization and destroyed many farmers by their thuggish, Orwelllian and totally unfair prosecution of those farmers. Additionally, these genetic manipulations are crossing over into the wild, producing super weeds which even the enhanced plants can keep up with.
All you're doing is helping to over populate the planet.
RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
in the effort to harness genetics for the good of ALL
mankind... the end of starvation ~ ?
RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
The fear and threats about genetic modification is hugely overblown. The nature is doing genetic modifications all the time. Still, natural species have to be protected. That is already being done, for example by seed banks.
RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
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RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
RE: Radically rethinking agriculture
Radically rethinking agriculture
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Transcript
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>> My name is Pam Raymon assumed spelling I'm a professor at the University California Davis and I study the role that genes play in the response to the environment.
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>> I am very interested in the natural world and very interested in food and the world's food supply so rice is a very important staple food for half the people on this planet. 25% of the worlds rice is grown in areas that are very prone to submergence and we think of rice as growing in water which it does but if it's completely submerged for more than 3 days most rice varieties will die. My laboratory works on tolerance to stress and disease and so we have many different plants in the greenhouse, most of them are genetically engineered rice plants that carry different genes that we have identified that we believe can help the plant be tolerance to stress and disease. We use modern molecular approaches to isolate the gene encoding that trait and then the group in the Philippians used breathing approach to introduce that gene into varieties that are favored by farmers in Bangladesh and India. So those new varieties that were developed survive for 2 weeks under water and this is very important and it's expected to affect the livelihood of millions of farmers in these areas. We certainly need to radically rethink agriculture as it is today. We are still using too many toxic inputs and we still do not have fantastic ways of controlling losses to diseases, pests, and stresses so really the future of food is to provide seeds and farming practices to those farmers that are going to be feeding the world.
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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====