Re:How the global banana industry is killing the world’s fav...
by dubfan on Thursday September 11, 2014 @11:51AM
(#8303282)
This is why when you buy Bt or herbicide-resistant GMO seeds, you have to either get conventional seeds mixed in, or you must plant conventional seeds yourself in the same field. This is called "refuge" and is a regulatory requirement that both GMO seed manufacturers and the government take very seriously. And your claim that "we don't know how to properly create GMO" is incredibly dismissive.
Re:How the global banana industry is killing the world’s fav...
by realusername on Thursday September 11, 2014 @02:36PM
(#8304295)
Yes but the size of the refugee is not large enough even in theory to cover the risks and in practice, the refugee crop is even smaller due to the loss of money by doing this.
I'm not sure why you downvoted but one interesting detail is that current GMO's are not equivalent between them, unlike their traditional counterpart. There is huge differences between the same plants on the same crop and current GMO's are not stable (in the scientific term).
That's what I mean by we know how to create GMO's properly with a reliable technique. This however might change in the future.
If you create a GMO which is targeted to kill some insects or plants, there is then a huge incentive due to the large size of the crops and the lack of diversity for a new kind of insect / plant to resist to this GMO, it would have a massive competitive advantage and could spread much more quickly. There is only a benefit in the first years you are using it until the environment is adapting itself.