Gary wrote
Can someone please explain to me why we need intensive farming methods, GM crops to improve yield, cloned livestock ( I really don't understand this one - what's wrong with the traditional method of producing baby animals???) etc,
Hmm, depends what you mean by GM. Most of the GM work to date is not about improving yield of traditionall grown crops in traditional pastures, but rather improving disease resistance or improving growth in harsh conditions. Imagine a crop in Africa that has a 5% reduction in the amount of water it requires to grow, or a chemical expressed in it that makes it taste noxious to locusts. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
Most people use the term GM to mean 'altering DNA'. Unfortunately this is exactly what breeding does. New techniques just allow us to do it faster. Selective breeding is a type of genetic manipulation. Dogs are the classic example - selective breeding for traits of interest such as agressiveness, or looks, or ability to farm sheep. The same technique is used to breed cattle to increase milk yield, and pigs to increase meat yield. They are all types of genetic manipulation. The Frankenstein aspect is merely an extension of this. Instead of breeding via traits and hoping good genes are passed on, we now know the gene that causes the trait and can select on its presence or absence to increase yield.
What poeple seem to object to is the 'playing god' aspect. Whether this is uncertainty about the technology, a fear of something new or the worry that by eating genetically engineered corn you are suddenly going to develop the urge to face the sun is unclear. Some noteable failures from the industry such as inability to prevent cross pollination (as well as some successes - Dolly the sheep for example) dont necessarily make the technique all bad.
Agreed, applied to todays modern farming methods in the Western world there is little need for further intensification of farming. Apply it to the third world where a 5% reduction in water requirement for a crop can make a huge difference and the situation changes. Of course, if you just apply it to the Third world and biotech companies are accused of peddeling modified crops or using poor countries as a testing ground for unsafe technologies. Apply it to the Western world and you are accused if over intensive farming, profiteering and playing God. Bad press either way.
Cloning is an extreme form of GM if you like. The recent cases in the News, starting with Dolly the sheep, are really a newly developed technique that allows a new offspring to be developed without the requirement for two parents. Reactions range from disgusting to wow, depending as much on your own moral viewpoint as anything else. Scientists are not cloning sheep to get more sheep for the sake of it however, as you say nature can do that. The cloning aspect is partly about making identical copies (something Nature cannot do repeatedly) and treating human disease. Cloning allows replication of cells with known genetic content almost at will, and allows transplantation of those cells to a host to cure a gene defect which may otherwise be untreatable. Stem cell research is the latest incarnation of such techniques currently in the News, and although highly controversial (depending on ones moral viewpoint) do offer great promise.
Anyhow, I dont want to hijack the farming thread onto one of GM, cloning and stem cells, just simply to state that not all genetic manipulation is to boost the profits of farmers.
Steve.
