vue - Controversy over Genetic Engineering in Agriculture: The good, the bad, and the righteous
Today's farmers feed more than 7 billion people, and we can trace much of this bounty and efficiency to traditional agricultural technologies, especially plant breeding, fertilizers, and chemical management of soil and weeds — major ingredients of the first Green Revolution. However, population growth and increased demands for higher quality food will require large improvements in agricultural productivity going forward, while we minmize the undesired environmental and social effects of more intense farming systems. Direct modification of DNA, or genetic engineering, is a new tool for plant breeding that has spread at unprecedented speed over the last two decades. However, it has also come up against strong social and legal resistance in many countries, making its future significance as a tool to promote productivity and sustainability uncertain. At the Oct. 14 Corvallis Science Pub, Steve Strauss, director of Oregon State University's Outreach in Biotechnology program, will discuss the pros and cons of gene technology for agriculture. He will review what the technology actually is, how it is similar and different from conventional breeding, and how it has impacted agriculture to date. He will also discuss diverse sources of the controversy surrounding it, including the numerous myths and confusing science that pervade the online world. "Gene technology is a valuable tool, not a silver bullet," Strauss says. "It can do a lot, but it must be used with due caution and as part of integrated, ecologically guided management systems for sustained benefit." He also argues that it appears capable of providing major humanitarian benefits to the poor by improving nutrition and food security. "Despite the fears and growing legal barriers, the stakes in this debate are too high to turn away from. We must find socially acceptable ways to move forward." Strauss is a distinguished professor in the Oregon State College of Forestry and a Fellow of the Leopold Leadership Program at Stanford University. He is also the director of the Tree Biosafety and Genomics Research Cooperative at OSU that conducts research on mitigation of risks from genetic engineering in forestry.
Commentaires
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If people understood the science, I'm sure their "deep values" would change.
I don't think I've met a strong opponent of GM crops who knows what a plasmid is. A lot think all GM is the same no matter what gene you introduce.
They don't tend to care about those scientific details but I'm sure their values would change if only they knew them. It'd be much harder to think it's so dangerous if they knew what it was.
There's a strong conspiracy theorist element to the movement too. You're never going to convince those people. Focusing on education is key. I think proponents of GM crops can learn a lot from evolutionary biologists, who have had to deal with irrational opposition for a long time.
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