1: Who are the ELF? What are they against?
The ELF are at the extreme end of a movement passionately opposed to genetically modified food. A mass genetic experiment that's going on in our environment and in our diets.
2: Which crop was the catalyst to the GMO food industry?
Rusty Perry's livelihood was based on the papaya, a sweet-tasting fruit and one of Hawaii's most important crops. Then a lethal disease - the papaya ring spot virus - began decimating the plantations.
3: What is “the gene gun”? How does it work?
From the GM papaya to the gene gun, Cornell University was on the frontier of biotechnology. Most of its scientists were excited about the possibilities that GMOs offered.
Part 2: BT
4: Which university was the 1st to try GMO foods?
Cornell University
5: What were some of the first ideas for GMO’s?
At Cornell, a world center of agricultural science, researchers were hard at work genetically engineering crops.
6: Who are Monsanto? What did they “set out” to do?
Monsanto is an agro-chemical company, set out to build a new industry
7: What is a big risk for corn crops? What is the problem with spraying with pesticides?
Americans have come to expect cheap food, so to stay in business, Tumbleson is continually looking to technology to cut his costs - satellite navigation, the latest combine harvesters, and heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers.
8: What is BT? What does it do?
Bt crops replace pesticides, many scientists believed genetic engineering could help save the environment
9: Why was genetically engineering considered to be a saver of the environment?
Because Bt crops replace pesticides, many scientists believed genetic engineering could help save the environment.
10: When did GM foods get into the widespread media?
Losey believes more tests should have been done before the EPA approved Bt corn for widespread use
Part III: The Anti-GM Movement
11: What did the European Union vote for?
ban
12: What did the University of New Mexico researchers find out from surveys and focus groups?
At the University of New Mexico, political scientist Hank Jenkins-Smith has embarked on a major opinion survey about genetically modified organisms
13: What is your opinion on GMO’s? (Before watching the video?)
The biggest problem I see with them is the are proprietary and if they get cross pollinated with neighboring crops the land owner can be sued for copyright infringement. This has forced many farmers into financial ruin or forced them into growing an unwanted crop. Every food crop has a patent and many patent owners have caused the extinction of thousands of food crops. Lack of diversity could ultimately cause a food shortage.
14: Can someone “prove” that GM foods are safe?
We take them into our bodies. We're dependent on the producers of those foods to make sure that they're safe, that they are of high quality.
15: How are GM foods tested for safety?
To test that the GM foods are substantially the same as their non-GM equivalents, company scientists compare the chemistry in minute detail. Molecule by molecule, they analyze the GM and non-GM crops.
16: How does Monsanto test their GM foods at the molecular level?
Most of these foods that are being changed are foods we know very well- corn, soybeans and the like.
17: What does the USDA, FDA and EPA do for GM foods?
USDA: The USDA checks that they're safe to grow
FDA: FDA checks they're safe to eat
EPA: EPA also gets involved with crops
Part IV: Allergies
18: Why are people concerned about allergies with GM crops?
critics worry that in regulating GMOs no differently from traditional foods, the agencies may be exposing the public to unknown risks,
19: Why should people have confidence in GM foods?
Charles Arntzen of Cornell believe the public should have confidence in GMOs because they are based on three decades of research
20: What do the “Union of Concerned Scientists” believe should be done?
technology deserves special scrutiny. Their spokesperson is former EPA scientist Dr. Jane Rissler
21: What happened to “Starlink Corn”? Explain the events and consequences.
Starlink corn that has the bacterial toxin Cry9C in it was not approved for human consumption, only for animal consumption. We were in conversations with farmers who were telling us that most farmers do not separate genetically engineered corn from conventional corn. Given that very little of the corn is separated and there's a type of corn not approved for human consumption, I thought there is a good chance that it had made it into our food.
22: Describe the meaning of the statement, “The absence of evidence isn’t the absence of harm.”
I don't think that it demonstrates that the whole system is flawed. Clearly, this was an issue that has been a very strong lessons learned for, I think, all of us.
Part V: GM History
23: How did humans get different types of fruits and vegetables?
People think when they go to the store and buy potatoes or tomatoes or grapes that this is the way they always were in nature. In fact, that's not the case. Here we have a wild variety of potato, in fact, which very much looks like the ancestor of this modern potato. It's the same potato, except for a few genes difference that were introduced through breeding and selection.
24: What are some of the risks of natural breeding of fruits and vegetables?
It's the same potato, except for a few genes difference that were introduced through breeding and selection. This is the same for tomato. And it really is difficult to believe that using just basic selection and cross breeding over hundreds of years that you went from this ancestor to modern-day tomatoes.
25: What is the difference between “classic” breeding and genetic engineering?
Classical breeders can only cross related plants, like two varieties of potato. And a cross involves mixing tens of thousands of genes at a time.Genetic engineering, by contrast, is much more precise, moving individual genes into plants. And it can also do something traditional breeders have never managed to do: move genes between different life forms, putting not just plant genes into plants but genes from insects, animals, fish.
26: Do you believe that a single gene in a new species would change the species as a whole?
Dennis Gonsalves had to make a similar argument to U.S. regulators, that his transgenic papaya with a single gene from the ring spot virus is substantially the same as a regular papaya. For the USDA, he needed to field-test his GM papaya and prove it didn't harm other plants and animals
27: Monsanto holds ______ % of U.S. agricultural patents.
28
Part VI: GMO’s and the Environment
28: Monarch Butterflies love to eat ______________________
corn
29: What did the scientists find out about the BT Corn and Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars?
A field of Bt corn potentially makes this situation worse. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the corn puts out Bt, killing most but not all corn borers. The resistant survivors soon repopulate the field. The Bt is now ineffective against those pests.
Part VII: GMO’s and Consumers
30: What is the difference between BT Corn Pollen in the lab and in the field?
the caterpillars feeding on those leaves dusted with the Bt corn pollen, they ate less, they grew more slowly and they suffered higher mortality. More of them died than in the other two treatments. Forty-four percent died over four days, and none of the others died, the ones eating the regular corn pollen or the no pollen. None of those died over the four days of the treatment.
31: Why is it so hard to know if BT Corn Pollen is harmful to Monarch Butterflies in the field?
There's a whole series of events that have to occur to really make this a significant risk. Bt corn pollen is fairly heavy, so it doesn't travel very far.
32: If you had the choice between BT Corn and spraying with insecticide- which would you choose and why?
This has turned out to be a very complex task, and so far there are no conclusive results. However the science turns out, Losey believes more tests should have been done before the EPA approved Bt corn for widespread use.
33: What does it mean when food is “organically grown”?
"Organically grown" food is food grown and processed using no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Pesticides derived from natural sources (e.g., biological pesticides) may also be used in producing organically grown food.
34: What are the fears of using BT Corn over time?
Pesticides have never killed every last pest in a field. There's always a small number with genetic variations that resist the poison. Because these survivors eventually repopulate the entire field with resistant descendants, over time pesticides stop working.
Part VIII: Pesticide Resistance & Feeding the World
35: What has the EPA mandated against the pesticide resistance? How should this help?
At the mercy of the weather, but blighted with year-round pests and poor soil and unable to afford fertilizers and pesticides, most barely grow enough to feed their families.
36: Why is it hard to “guarantee” that foods are GM free?
Even if the refuge system works perfectly, genetically modified agriculture may pose another threat to organic farmers: pollen drift. The organic food industry prides itself on being pure, but contamination by GM pollen makes it difficult to guarantee their food is truly GMO-free.
37: What is subsistence agriculture? System of farming intended to provide a self-sufficient lifestyle for the farmer and family. Crops and livestock are maintained to support family needs with little or no excess produced for marketing.
38: Why did Monsanto invest in the sweet potato for Africa? What were the results?
Projects like the sweet potato for Africa we will never make any money from, have no expectation to. The reason to do it is several-fold. To my mind, the most important one is because we can. And it doesn't cost us that much to do it. In the longer term, as poorer farmers do better, they become richer farmers.
Part VIIII: Feeding the World
39: What is one of the biggest problems with soil in farming in parts of Mexico?
One of the biggest obstacles poor farmers face, especially in the tropics, is poor soil, loaded with excess minerals like aluminum or salt. Near Irapuato, Mexico, for example, toxic aluminum greatly reduces productivity of crops like corn.
40: Why do people resist the idea of helping people with GM foods?
The full survey results are equally clear-cut. The effect of labels is the opposite of what most people expect.
Part X: Success and Challenges
41: How much money did Monsanto donate toward the world agriculture project?
$900,000
42: What other actions have the ELF taken?
the ELF has continued its program, targeting a series of university test sites growing new varieties of GMOs.
43: The genetic Salmon have been engineered to grow ____ x larger than regular Salmon.
4
44: What is special about the transgenic Salmon?
The worst-case scenario is that transgenic salmon get loose from net pens, and that one of them happens to be fertile. Theoretically, one fish can do it. It's not highly likely, but as we have more and more fish pens and more and more escapes, the probability increases.
45: What is the “good genes hypothesis”?
an explanation which suggests that the traits females choose when selecting a mate are honest indicators of the male’s ability to pass on genes that will increase the survival or reproductive success of her offspring.
Part XI: Population Problems
46: What did the model tell us about what would happen if the transgenic fish “escaped” and ended up mating with regular fish?
Bt pollen drifting a few feet into a neighboring field, an escaped transgenic salmon can spread its new genes throughout the ocean. The FDA is expected to rule on GM fish by the end of 2002. But even if the U.S. doesn't allow it, other countries in the developing world will still go ahead.
47: What other GM products are in Explain the plans for bananas.
Because bananas are hard to engineer, he started with potatoes, then moved on to tomatoes. Bananas are next. If everything goes well, Arntzen hopes to have an edible vaccine approved for use in six years.
48: What is “golden rice” and how it is helpful? Explain.
Ingo Potrykus spliced genes from a vitamin-rich flower - the daffodil - into the rice. Because that gave it a yellow tint, it became known as golden rice. Potrykus hopes eventually his rice will supply a quarter or more of a child's nutritional vitamin A needs. But as with the papaya, there were problems with patents. Before golden rice could ever be used, Potrykus would have to negotiate licenses with a dozen patent holders, including Monsanto.
Part VII: The Future of GM Products
49: Why are biotech companies worried about “labeling” GM products?
The biotech industry is scared to death of labeling. In fact, biotech industry representatives have said putting a label on genetically engineered foods is like putting a skull and crossbones on it.
50: Why do labels reduce American’s fear of GM food?
Many people accept risks. We ski. We ride mountain bikes. Extreme sports are a big deal in the United States, so people like taking risks, but they like to choose their risks. People don't like to have others imposing risk upon them, particularly if they are imposing the risk for purposes of generating a profit.
November 2012- California voters rejected Prop 37, which would have required retailers and food companies to label products made with genetically modified ingredients.
51: In spite of the fact that people in focus groups stated that they would rather see GM foods
labeled, proposition 37 was rejected by Californians in November 2012. Voters were concerned
about the increased costs of products that would be forced to be labeled. What is your opinion of
labeling?
Compared with coal-generated electricity over its lifetime’s use, solar uses 86-89 percent less water. Compared to coal-based energy solar uses 80 percent less land. It contributes 92-97 percent less to acid rain. Solar contributes 98 percent less to marine eutrophication. Using solar has geo-political benefits since many/most of the wars we have waged are over the control of petroleum and fossil fuel-based energy. Price-fixing of oil in unstable countries often leads to food crises and other humanitarian concerns. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing uses up 127,750 billion gallons of water annually.
Conclusion:
Genetically Modified Food
We all enjoy a cold glass of milk with homemade cookies, a refreshing pop on a hot summer day, and a juicy cob of corn in the summer months. But, do we ever wonder what is really in our food? Because genetically modified foods do not have to be labeled, you will likely never know if the food you are consuming is genetically modified. As a fellow member of the Organic Consumers Association, I am eager to inform you of why genetically modified food is an issue that we must work to minimize or perhaps even abolish. I am excited to present this information to you, hopefully expanding your knowledge of genetically modified food. I hope that this conference will allow us to broaden our ideas of how to stop the wave of genetically modified foods that is sweeping our nation. With genetic engineering, transferring genes from one species’ DNA to another is just like taking a page out of one book and putting it between the pages of another book. Biotech food is not the answer to global food security, should be strictly regulated because of its various detrimental effects on human health and the environment, and humans should be educated about the food they are consuming.
When genetically modified foods were first introduced approximately twenty years ago, many saw it as the answer to world hunger. People argued that “by developing pesticide and herbicide resistant crops, farmers would be able to increase their yields and decrease their costs”. Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs were first introduced into Americas’ food supply in 1996, and there were 7 million acres of crops worldwide that were using GMO seeds. As of 2004, the crop size worldwide that uses GMO seeds had grown to 222 million acres with approximately 63% of those in the United States alone. As of 2008, more than 90 percent of soy crops and 75% of corn in the United States were raised from genetically modified seeds. As of now, in the United States, there are still no regulations to mandate the labeling of food products that contain GMOs. The United States only requires labeling of genetically modified foods if the food has a significantly different nutritional property, or unexpected allergens, or if the food contains toxins that are higher than acceptable levels.
Most developed countries throughout the world have adopted differing regulations pertaining to labeling food products containing GMOs, although with some controversy.While the mandatory labeling requirements were enacted to allow consumer choice of whether or not to purchase foods that contain GMOs, mandatory labeling in the European Union and Japan for example, has resulted in retailers not stocking genetically modified foods on their shelves due to the perceived consumer aversion to genetically modified foods. Advocates of genetically modified foods argue that consumers already have a choice in what they can purchase, whether it is processed foods with traditionally grown ingredients, genetically modified processed foods or organic foods. The consumers of these nations voiced their opinions loudly, that they had the right to know if GMOs were in the food products they were buying, and their governments listened. The article called Genetically Modified Foods, has a style that is use to grab an audience emotion while still putting some facts.
Right away in the first paragraph you will find ethos. Per Pinstrup-Anderson plays a key role in the article, he is the H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy at Cornell University. Giving Per Pinstrup-Anderson a creditability, and having the audience attention. This is the only time in the article when ethos is being used to help their argument.Pathos and logos are used. It shows some facts as well as getting into the audience emotion. The way this was done was by talking about helping farmers in developing countries produce more food, making it more affordable to buy food, as well as not harming the environment. It goes on to say, “Many millions of people do not have access to sufficient calories and many more suffer from micronutrient deficiencies”. Another quote is, “which avoided mass starvation and helped millions out of poverty and hunger”.
Notice they never gave an exact statistic on how many people are suffering from poverty and hunger, letting the audience see that it is so many people affected, and not just a specific number. It gives it more of a feel then would be given an exact number. Science is the answer to fixing the hunger. It describes action that must be taken an order to be able to start helping starving people, as well as how will science help farming, like drought tolerance, mitigation of negative climate change, and pest resistance in crops. Those are just a few of what the paragraph claims to be able to do with a little investment for the technology. The way this paragraph is phrase is by letting the audiences see the processes that have to be done in orderfor an action to start. That way the audiences may start to have an opinion.
The ELF are at the extreme end of a movement passionately opposed to genetically modified food. A mass genetic experiment that's going on in our environment and in our diets.
2: Which crop was the catalyst to the GMO food industry?
Rusty Perry's livelihood was based on the papaya, a sweet-tasting fruit and one of Hawaii's most important crops. Then a lethal disease - the papaya ring spot virus - began decimating the plantations.
3: What is “the gene gun”? How does it work?
From the GM papaya to the gene gun, Cornell University was on the frontier of biotechnology. Most of its scientists were excited about the possibilities that GMOs offered.
Part 2: BT
4: Which university was the 1st to try GMO foods?
Cornell University
5: What were some of the first ideas for GMO’s?
At Cornell, a world center of agricultural science, researchers were hard at work genetically engineering crops.
6: Who are Monsanto? What did they “set out” to do?
Monsanto is an agro-chemical company, set out to build a new industry
7: What is a big risk for corn crops? What is the problem with spraying with pesticides?
Americans have come to expect cheap food, so to stay in business, Tumbleson is continually looking to technology to cut his costs - satellite navigation, the latest combine harvesters, and heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers.
8: What is BT? What does it do?
Bt crops replace pesticides, many scientists believed genetic engineering could help save the environment
9: Why was genetically engineering considered to be a saver of the environment?
Because Bt crops replace pesticides, many scientists believed genetic engineering could help save the environment.
10: When did GM foods get into the widespread media?
Losey believes more tests should have been done before the EPA approved Bt corn for widespread use
Part III: The Anti-GM Movement
11: What did the European Union vote for?
ban
12: What did the University of New Mexico researchers find out from surveys and focus groups?
At the University of New Mexico, political scientist Hank Jenkins-Smith has embarked on a major opinion survey about genetically modified organisms
13: What is your opinion on GMO’s? (Before watching the video?)
The biggest problem I see with them is the are proprietary and if they get cross pollinated with neighboring crops the land owner can be sued for copyright infringement. This has forced many farmers into financial ruin or forced them into growing an unwanted crop. Every food crop has a patent and many patent owners have caused the extinction of thousands of food crops. Lack of diversity could ultimately cause a food shortage.
14: Can someone “prove” that GM foods are safe?
We take them into our bodies. We're dependent on the producers of those foods to make sure that they're safe, that they are of high quality.
15: How are GM foods tested for safety?
To test that the GM foods are substantially the same as their non-GM equivalents, company scientists compare the chemistry in minute detail. Molecule by molecule, they analyze the GM and non-GM crops.
16: How does Monsanto test their GM foods at the molecular level?
Most of these foods that are being changed are foods we know very well- corn, soybeans and the like.
17: What does the USDA, FDA and EPA do for GM foods?
USDA: The USDA checks that they're safe to grow
FDA: FDA checks they're safe to eat
EPA: EPA also gets involved with crops
Part IV: Allergies
18: Why are people concerned about allergies with GM crops?
critics worry that in regulating GMOs no differently from traditional foods, the agencies may be exposing the public to unknown risks,
19: Why should people have confidence in GM foods?
Charles Arntzen of Cornell believe the public should have confidence in GMOs because they are based on three decades of research
20: What do the “Union of Concerned Scientists” believe should be done?
technology deserves special scrutiny. Their spokesperson is former EPA scientist Dr. Jane Rissler
21: What happened to “Starlink Corn”? Explain the events and consequences.
Starlink corn that has the bacterial toxin Cry9C in it was not approved for human consumption, only for animal consumption. We were in conversations with farmers who were telling us that most farmers do not separate genetically engineered corn from conventional corn. Given that very little of the corn is separated and there's a type of corn not approved for human consumption, I thought there is a good chance that it had made it into our food.
22: Describe the meaning of the statement, “The absence of evidence isn’t the absence of harm.”
I don't think that it demonstrates that the whole system is flawed. Clearly, this was an issue that has been a very strong lessons learned for, I think, all of us.
Part V: GM History
23: How did humans get different types of fruits and vegetables?
People think when they go to the store and buy potatoes or tomatoes or grapes that this is the way they always were in nature. In fact, that's not the case. Here we have a wild variety of potato, in fact, which very much looks like the ancestor of this modern potato. It's the same potato, except for a few genes difference that were introduced through breeding and selection.
24: What are some of the risks of natural breeding of fruits and vegetables?
It's the same potato, except for a few genes difference that were introduced through breeding and selection. This is the same for tomato. And it really is difficult to believe that using just basic selection and cross breeding over hundreds of years that you went from this ancestor to modern-day tomatoes.
25: What is the difference between “classic” breeding and genetic engineering?
Classical breeders can only cross related plants, like two varieties of potato. And a cross involves mixing tens of thousands of genes at a time.Genetic engineering, by contrast, is much more precise, moving individual genes into plants. And it can also do something traditional breeders have never managed to do: move genes between different life forms, putting not just plant genes into plants but genes from insects, animals, fish.
26: Do you believe that a single gene in a new species would change the species as a whole?
Dennis Gonsalves had to make a similar argument to U.S. regulators, that his transgenic papaya with a single gene from the ring spot virus is substantially the same as a regular papaya. For the USDA, he needed to field-test his GM papaya and prove it didn't harm other plants and animals
27: Monsanto holds ______ % of U.S. agricultural patents.
28
Part VI: GMO’s and the Environment
28: Monarch Butterflies love to eat ______________________
corn
29: What did the scientists find out about the BT Corn and Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars?
A field of Bt corn potentially makes this situation worse. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the corn puts out Bt, killing most but not all corn borers. The resistant survivors soon repopulate the field. The Bt is now ineffective against those pests.
Part VII: GMO’s and Consumers
30: What is the difference between BT Corn Pollen in the lab and in the field?
the caterpillars feeding on those leaves dusted with the Bt corn pollen, they ate less, they grew more slowly and they suffered higher mortality. More of them died than in the other two treatments. Forty-four percent died over four days, and none of the others died, the ones eating the regular corn pollen or the no pollen. None of those died over the four days of the treatment.
31: Why is it so hard to know if BT Corn Pollen is harmful to Monarch Butterflies in the field?
There's a whole series of events that have to occur to really make this a significant risk. Bt corn pollen is fairly heavy, so it doesn't travel very far.
32: If you had the choice between BT Corn and spraying with insecticide- which would you choose and why?
This has turned out to be a very complex task, and so far there are no conclusive results. However the science turns out, Losey believes more tests should have been done before the EPA approved Bt corn for widespread use.
33: What does it mean when food is “organically grown”?
"Organically grown" food is food grown and processed using no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Pesticides derived from natural sources (e.g., biological pesticides) may also be used in producing organically grown food.
34: What are the fears of using BT Corn over time?
Pesticides have never killed every last pest in a field. There's always a small number with genetic variations that resist the poison. Because these survivors eventually repopulate the entire field with resistant descendants, over time pesticides stop working.
Part VIII: Pesticide Resistance & Feeding the World
35: What has the EPA mandated against the pesticide resistance? How should this help?
At the mercy of the weather, but blighted with year-round pests and poor soil and unable to afford fertilizers and pesticides, most barely grow enough to feed their families.
36: Why is it hard to “guarantee” that foods are GM free?
Even if the refuge system works perfectly, genetically modified agriculture may pose another threat to organic farmers: pollen drift. The organic food industry prides itself on being pure, but contamination by GM pollen makes it difficult to guarantee their food is truly GMO-free.
37: What is subsistence agriculture? System of farming intended to provide a self-sufficient lifestyle for the farmer and family. Crops and livestock are maintained to support family needs with little or no excess produced for marketing.
38: Why did Monsanto invest in the sweet potato for Africa? What were the results?
Projects like the sweet potato for Africa we will never make any money from, have no expectation to. The reason to do it is several-fold. To my mind, the most important one is because we can. And it doesn't cost us that much to do it. In the longer term, as poorer farmers do better, they become richer farmers.
Part VIIII: Feeding the World
39: What is one of the biggest problems with soil in farming in parts of Mexico?
One of the biggest obstacles poor farmers face, especially in the tropics, is poor soil, loaded with excess minerals like aluminum or salt. Near Irapuato, Mexico, for example, toxic aluminum greatly reduces productivity of crops like corn.
40: Why do people resist the idea of helping people with GM foods?
The full survey results are equally clear-cut. The effect of labels is the opposite of what most people expect.
Part X: Success and Challenges
41: How much money did Monsanto donate toward the world agriculture project?
$900,000
42: What other actions have the ELF taken?
the ELF has continued its program, targeting a series of university test sites growing new varieties of GMOs.
43: The genetic Salmon have been engineered to grow ____ x larger than regular Salmon.
4
44: What is special about the transgenic Salmon?
The worst-case scenario is that transgenic salmon get loose from net pens, and that one of them happens to be fertile. Theoretically, one fish can do it. It's not highly likely, but as we have more and more fish pens and more and more escapes, the probability increases.
45: What is the “good genes hypothesis”?
an explanation which suggests that the traits females choose when selecting a mate are honest indicators of the male’s ability to pass on genes that will increase the survival or reproductive success of her offspring.
Part XI: Population Problems
46: What did the model tell us about what would happen if the transgenic fish “escaped” and ended up mating with regular fish?
Bt pollen drifting a few feet into a neighboring field, an escaped transgenic salmon can spread its new genes throughout the ocean. The FDA is expected to rule on GM fish by the end of 2002. But even if the U.S. doesn't allow it, other countries in the developing world will still go ahead.
47: What other GM products are in Explain the plans for bananas.
Because bananas are hard to engineer, he started with potatoes, then moved on to tomatoes. Bananas are next. If everything goes well, Arntzen hopes to have an edible vaccine approved for use in six years.
48: What is “golden rice” and how it is helpful? Explain.
Ingo Potrykus spliced genes from a vitamin-rich flower - the daffodil - into the rice. Because that gave it a yellow tint, it became known as golden rice. Potrykus hopes eventually his rice will supply a quarter or more of a child's nutritional vitamin A needs. But as with the papaya, there were problems with patents. Before golden rice could ever be used, Potrykus would have to negotiate licenses with a dozen patent holders, including Monsanto.
Part VII: The Future of GM Products
49: Why are biotech companies worried about “labeling” GM products?
The biotech industry is scared to death of labeling. In fact, biotech industry representatives have said putting a label on genetically engineered foods is like putting a skull and crossbones on it.
50: Why do labels reduce American’s fear of GM food?
Many people accept risks. We ski. We ride mountain bikes. Extreme sports are a big deal in the United States, so people like taking risks, but they like to choose their risks. People don't like to have others imposing risk upon them, particularly if they are imposing the risk for purposes of generating a profit.
November 2012- California voters rejected Prop 37, which would have required retailers and food companies to label products made with genetically modified ingredients.
51: In spite of the fact that people in focus groups stated that they would rather see GM foods
labeled, proposition 37 was rejected by Californians in November 2012. Voters were concerned
about the increased costs of products that would be forced to be labeled. What is your opinion of
labeling?
Compared with coal-generated electricity over its lifetime’s use, solar uses 86-89 percent less water. Compared to coal-based energy solar uses 80 percent less land. It contributes 92-97 percent less to acid rain. Solar contributes 98 percent less to marine eutrophication. Using solar has geo-political benefits since many/most of the wars we have waged are over the control of petroleum and fossil fuel-based energy. Price-fixing of oil in unstable countries often leads to food crises and other humanitarian concerns. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing uses up 127,750 billion gallons of water annually.
Conclusion:
Genetically Modified Food
We all enjoy a cold glass of milk with homemade cookies, a refreshing pop on a hot summer day, and a juicy cob of corn in the summer months. But, do we ever wonder what is really in our food? Because genetically modified foods do not have to be labeled, you will likely never know if the food you are consuming is genetically modified. As a fellow member of the Organic Consumers Association, I am eager to inform you of why genetically modified food is an issue that we must work to minimize or perhaps even abolish. I am excited to present this information to you, hopefully expanding your knowledge of genetically modified food. I hope that this conference will allow us to broaden our ideas of how to stop the wave of genetically modified foods that is sweeping our nation. With genetic engineering, transferring genes from one species’ DNA to another is just like taking a page out of one book and putting it between the pages of another book. Biotech food is not the answer to global food security, should be strictly regulated because of its various detrimental effects on human health and the environment, and humans should be educated about the food they are consuming.
When genetically modified foods were first introduced approximately twenty years ago, many saw it as the answer to world hunger. People argued that “by developing pesticide and herbicide resistant crops, farmers would be able to increase their yields and decrease their costs”. Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs were first introduced into Americas’ food supply in 1996, and there were 7 million acres of crops worldwide that were using GMO seeds. As of 2004, the crop size worldwide that uses GMO seeds had grown to 222 million acres with approximately 63% of those in the United States alone. As of 2008, more than 90 percent of soy crops and 75% of corn in the United States were raised from genetically modified seeds. As of now, in the United States, there are still no regulations to mandate the labeling of food products that contain GMOs. The United States only requires labeling of genetically modified foods if the food has a significantly different nutritional property, or unexpected allergens, or if the food contains toxins that are higher than acceptable levels.
Most developed countries throughout the world have adopted differing regulations pertaining to labeling food products containing GMOs, although with some controversy.While the mandatory labeling requirements were enacted to allow consumer choice of whether or not to purchase foods that contain GMOs, mandatory labeling in the European Union and Japan for example, has resulted in retailers not stocking genetically modified foods on their shelves due to the perceived consumer aversion to genetically modified foods. Advocates of genetically modified foods argue that consumers already have a choice in what they can purchase, whether it is processed foods with traditionally grown ingredients, genetically modified processed foods or organic foods. The consumers of these nations voiced their opinions loudly, that they had the right to know if GMOs were in the food products they were buying, and their governments listened. The article called Genetically Modified Foods, has a style that is use to grab an audience emotion while still putting some facts.
Right away in the first paragraph you will find ethos. Per Pinstrup-Anderson plays a key role in the article, he is the H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy at Cornell University. Giving Per Pinstrup-Anderson a creditability, and having the audience attention. This is the only time in the article when ethos is being used to help their argument.Pathos and logos are used. It shows some facts as well as getting into the audience emotion. The way this was done was by talking about helping farmers in developing countries produce more food, making it more affordable to buy food, as well as not harming the environment. It goes on to say, “Many millions of people do not have access to sufficient calories and many more suffer from micronutrient deficiencies”. Another quote is, “which avoided mass starvation and helped millions out of poverty and hunger”.
Notice they never gave an exact statistic on how many people are suffering from poverty and hunger, letting the audience see that it is so many people affected, and not just a specific number. It gives it more of a feel then would be given an exact number. Science is the answer to fixing the hunger. It describes action that must be taken an order to be able to start helping starving people, as well as how will science help farming, like drought tolerance, mitigation of negative climate change, and pest resistance in crops. Those are just a few of what the paragraph claims to be able to do with a little investment for the technology. The way this paragraph is phrase is by letting the audiences see the processes that have to be done in orderfor an action to start. That way the audiences may start to have an opinion.