To return to those points – to what extent is ‘contamination’ by a transgene, or indeed by a mutant gene selected for by selective breeding (mutations may have occured naturally, or been induced by chemical mutagens or radioactivity), harmful if it does find its way into another variety or sub-species through cross pollination?

The answer isn’t obvious to me. There is no obvious advantage or disadvantage as far as I can see it if a non-crop plant were to end up containing a gene for herbicide resistance (other than the obvious benefit to the plant should it ever be sprayed with that herbicide) or a gene for producing Bt toxin (other than the benefit to the plant of not being eaten by a certain subset of insects, and the disadvantage to that sub-set of insects due to not having that particular plant to eat) – neither of these genes crossing into other plants has an obvious negative effect (other than the perceived negative of non-GM being ‘contaminated’ by GM, which if you dont want to eat any GM at all is obviously a problem within crop plants) – indeed if there were a truly negative effect then considering the estimated levels of cross contamination (cant recall exactly but I believe it is well under 1% cross pollination between the same species with 100-300m seperation) within the same species there is not a lot to worry about as natural selection against any plants containing deleterious genes would prevent ‘bad’ genes spreading (just as natural selection prevents the spread of naturally occuring ‘bad’ genes anyway) the presence of the transgenic (or artificially selected) gene in the genome of a hybrid between a crop species and a wild species, or between varieties of a crop species doesnt to my mind add to any reduction in biodiversity or to any reduction in the genetic material over and above that already caused by the addition of 50% of the genome of an unrelated/non-closely related species/variety – which never appears to come up as a concern, but in terms of things like heirloom varieties (which if memory serves are incredibly inbred lines of various species) any cross pollination with any other variety is going to be catastrophic in terms of maintaining a pure-bred heirloom.

As to the damage caused by the poisons of agriculture – the justification is not in the profit, it is in the billions of lives spared starvation from the use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides together with the most advanced breeding techniques (of which GE is but a part)

The problem with the food we already have is that we have huge problems growing enough food to meet the nutritional needs of billions of people – even in areas not plagued by drought and famine the staple crop may be great in terms of calorific intake but incredibly poor in terms of other required nutrients (cassava is a prime example, being very rich in carbohydrates but a horrible source of protein and micronutrients (aswell as being a potential toxin due to high levels of cyanide) – this is a staple crop across much of africa and south america)

While standing idly by and allowing billions to starve to death is clearly one solution to the problem of human overpopulation I dont believe that anyone can truly believe that this is even a remotely moral choice, based on the same arguements of ‘natural selection’ and ’survival of the fittest’ one would have to assume that proponents of such a solution avoid all antibiotics, never see a doctor and would willingly see their own children die of blood poisoning induced by something as simple as a splinter – I know that without the intervention of modern technology I, and every member of my family, would not have made it past the age of 20 – essentially by arguing against attempting to alleviate/solve the global food/population dilemma you condemn billions to essentially the same fate – death due to an unwillingness to apply modern technology based on a misguided idea that somehow because natural selection occurs it is in some way morally correct.

Even prior to the conception of GM foods supplements have been added to the food supply to prevent what were common ailments earlier this century – I cant see how improving our ability to alleviate suffering caused by dietary shortcomings can be seen as a bad thing – perhaps the perceived imbalance of omega3/6 oils entering the food chain due to the switch from grass fed to corn fed beef is one thing which GM tech could address (assuming the problem is a real one, I havent actually looked at any scientific data around it, just read a few popular “eat real food” type books which hold this as one of the tragedies of industrial farming methods)

Also keep in mind that the original post is about why we need GM foods. Not necessarily why we need Monsanto GM foods – Monsanto isnt the only player out there. My guess is that in terms of increasing nutrition for crops in the third world that academic research will remain the primary driving force, with Monsanto playing a role in introducing traits such as drought tolerance and nitrogen use efficiency which will play an important role in increasing yields in areas which have high water stress and low availability of fertilizers. Companies like Monsanto are more likely to play a role in increasing/modifying nutrients in crops which go into the industrial food chain – people may bemoan the fact that fast food, and processed food, is terrible stuff, but it appears to be here to stay – and if modification of the base ingredients can achieve a healthier end product then I would argue that this, while not being the best solution, at least makes the best of a bad situation.

For symbiotic microorgansims – I guess this depends on a case by case basis, and on the size of the negative effects – if the legume crops in the rodale study had just had something negatively impacting their symbiotic microorganisms on bumper years then perhaps the legume cover crops would have been at least as, and possibly less, of a source of leached nitrogen.

If symbiotic microorganisms are negatively affected.

If long-term effects of the pesticide or PIP disrupt parts of or the entire ecosystem.

From your second example, introducing ‘X’ rather than just A and B – I would assume that differential effects of herbicides utilized in ANY agricultural system would completely swamp out any supposed transgenic effect – this is because there is (to me at least) an obvious reason to believe that herbicides would impact microbial communities, either by directly harming some microbes (for instance by blocking the production of amino acids) or by indirectly changing the nutritive composition of the soil (kill the weeds, change the availability of nutrients and root networks provided by these weeds – this could work both ways, in that killing the weeds may increase available nutrition to microbes, changing the microbial population profile) whereas there is no logical reason, for the current traits on the market, to assume any effect on soil microbes purely as a result of the transgenic nature of the plants.

Essentially making this more of an organic vs conventional farming – even within organic there are surely different methodologies which massively impact the microbial populations at the field level – I cant imagine that manure fertilized vs legume cover crop fertilized systems have microbial populations which match as closely as the transgenics in the study which vary as a result of lignin (as you’d have to concede that of manure and cover crop one or the other is likely to decompose at a different rate, and that this difference appears to be the main driving force behind differences in microbial communities) – should either of these systems then be demonized as compared to each other because of an alteration of soil microbes?

Microbial Populations and Enzyme Activities in Soil In Situ under Transgenic Corn Expressing Cry Proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis

I. Icoza, D. Saxenab, D. A. Andowc, C. Zwahlenc and G. Stotzkya

J Environ Qual 37:647-662 (2008)

perhaps you’ll have a little more luck finding it (the pdf wasnt working too well for me but the html did… perhaps my link is just a bad one)

On the lignin – I’m saying that of the 5 lines tested in that paper only 1 had higher lignin content, therefore, from that paper, one would have to conclude that increased lignin is the exception and not the rule in Bt transgenics – it’d be interesting to see if these differences persisted, or if there was some other variable at work (the 4 year study, if you can access it, shows how a single year study could find differences which arent persistent and therefore may not be meaningful)

On unintended consequences – working with various different genetic backgrounds (non-GM) it is always a surprise to me (perhaps it shouldnt be, but I havent been at this very long) how different various hybrids can be when grown under controlled conditions in terms of N content, C:N ratios, growth rates, other metabolites etc – I’d argue that so long as levels of starch, lignin etc etc are within species norms not too much should be read into the differences (for instance(and purely hypothetically for the moment):- if it were shown that Bt corn of variety A reduced microbial diversity by 5% would this be important if non-Bt variety B reduced diversity by 10% as compared to variety A?)

From a 2007 review:-

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TC7-4R7M900-1&_user=1631782&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=full&_orig=search&_cdi=5163&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000053988&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1631782&md5=7ae732aa9e84e7e7f62458b73200cbf2#bib91

“Because most studies have generally indicated few or no significant detrimental effects on microbes and other organisms in below-ground soil ecosystems, more studies on the risks associated with Bt plants, at least those currently available, to these organisms are probably not indicated.”

I still read the study you linked as predominantly showing that increased lignin content changes things, not the Bt protein – there is no demonstration that the Bt protein is doing anything other than sitting in a plant which has significantly higher shoot lignin – my removal of citations was not an attempt to muddy the waters, just to make the statement a tad more readable (I note that you truncate one of the statements in your previous piece also, presumably for similar reasons?) – I assume that most interested readers will go to the source and check any statements and so dont want to expand my already overly long postings with stuff easily found in the link.

You appear to want the moon on a stick when it comes to the number of studies done. There is no reason to believe, for the transgenics currently on the market, that there would be a significant and meaningful impact on soil microorganism ecology above and beyond that found between varieties of various crops or between various agricultural practices (I have no idea if this is the assumption that was used prior to the release of the crops, or if things like this were looked at and found not be be significant – this is purely from a personal standpoint) – as studies have been done, and no meaningful, significant and persistant effects have been found my assumption appears to be well founded (albeit perhaps open to the accusation of being unscientific)