Fungus breakthrough...

Note I did not say "fungicide".  Nope, we're looking at a possible bioherbicide, and it's aimed at a major weed problem: kudzu.

Boyette first began studying Myrothecium (strain IMI 361690) in 1998, after Louisiana Tech University scientist H. Lynn Walker provided him with isolates from diseased sicklepod plants. In greenhouse experiments, spray formulations of the fungus killed 100 percent of kudzu seedlings, and 90–100 percent of older plants in outdoor trials. Disease symptoms—wilted leaves and necrotic stem lesions—appeared on the plants within 24 hours of infection. By 14 days, all but the plants’ roots were diseased.

How Myrothecium breaches the defenses of the seemingly indestructible kudzu is still being investigated. One telltale clue, though, may be its use of cell wall-degrading enzymes. Besides kudzu and sicklepod, Myrothecium attacks hemp sesbania—which is problematic in soybean crops of the southeastern United States—morningglories, pigweed, redvine, and trumpetcreeper. The last two are native perennial vines that typically infest cultivated and fallow fields, wastelands, fence rows, yards, river banks, swamps, and forests. [More]

This borders on the "organic"as preventative measures go, and represents a subtle shift in crop protection emphasis. If it succeeds in clearing up kudzu, it will make believers of many skeptics.

I'm reading this as good news...

While other anecdotal data suggest European resistance to GMO's is declining, at least in Germany the outlook is still adamant opposition.

The vast majority of politicians remained unconvinced. They saw no reason to support a company that uses a highly controversial technology to create a product rejected by the majority of Germans.

Lobbying work, which can be successful and reliable in markets like the United States, did not produce the desired results in Germany. Many organizations in both Berlin and the states were engaged to help generate a greater acceptance for green genetic engineering: Organizations like InnoPlanta in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, the German Crop Protection and Fertilizer Industries Association in Frankfurt am Main and Europabio in Brussels. Their members have attempted to find a sympathetic ear for the cause among members of parliament.

In January 2007, representatives of the major political parties gathered at the state parliament in the eastern state of Brandenburg to hear a group of US experts explain the benefits of green genetic engineering to them. The main speaker was American genetic corn farmer Don Thompson, while his wife, Jill Long Thompson, a former Under Secretary of Agriculture, was available to address possible "legislative issues." But lobbyists for green genetic engineering cannot claim any real successes. "We expressed our views on the issue when the Genetic Engineering Law was written," says Lüttmer-Ouazane, "but we cannot be satisfied with the outcome."

(Eds:On Jan. 25, 2008 the German parliament, the Bundestag, voted in favor of an amendment to the Genetic Engineering Law. In the future, fields of GM and conventional corn would have to be separated by a distance of at least 150 meters. In the case of organic corn that minimum distance doubles to 300 meters. The law's liability provisions continued to stipulate that farmers who plant GM crops are liable for loss of income suffered by neighboring conventional farmers as a result of the GM presence.) 

[More]

Although Germany represents a significant market for biotech corn, it is the political position at the heart of the EU and the largest European economy that gives it outsized influence.

The takeaway for me is my non-GMO premiums may have a slightly longer lifespan than I imagined.  It also suggest EU producers will fall farther behind in both productivity and experience exploiting biotech tools.

Another reason to back off...

I have long been troubled by the aggressive public posture of biotech proponents.  To be sure, the scale-up response theory of public debate was popular in other PR campaigns as well.  But if it ever had a valid moment to be used, I think it's over.

Biotech will win over the public in several ways.

1. The lack of bad news.  Its been nearly two decades since GM crops were introduced and there aren't any photos of cows staggering or mothers weeping at gravesides.  And it's not for lack of effort by opponents.
2. Generational change.  Older, more conservative and scientifically disinterested folks are being replaced with cohorts more at ease with science barely 20 years old.  It's not revolutionary if it's always been around when you were.
3. Wider benefits. The long slog to find high-impact uses for biotech in medicine is gathering payoff momentum.  Which is preamble to this story:

The US Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved GTC Biotherapeutics Inc.'s ATryn, an anticlotting drug made using genetically modified goats that live on a farm in Charlton. GTC engineered the herd to secrete a special therapeutic protein in their milk.
"It's really a milestone event," said Eric Overstrom, chairman of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who collaborated with GTC on some of its early research using goats. "This adds to the toolbox for the pharmaceutical industry."
Though ATryn is likely to have limited marketing potential because it would serve a relatively small pool of patients, the drug's approval could clear the way to produce many more drugs with genetically modified animals, an approach nicknamed "pharming."
European regulators approved the drug - and the novel production technique - in 2006.

In addition to goats, Overstrom said, drug companies could potentially use other animals, such as cows or rabbits, to produce drugs in their milk, blood, or even urine. Overstrom said animals could be particularly helpful in cultivating enzymes and other large molecules that are more difficult to produce using bacteria or individual cells. [More]

While this particular effort will not be a big money-maker, what it will do is start the process of making genetically engineered livestock more acceptable by the usual route - a slew of goat-milk jokes, serious 5-minute talking head debates on news shows; financial analysis of biotech firms in business media, etc.

Just like getting rich, maybe our scheduling for full biotech acceptance could stand some revision.  Instead of being driven by next quarter's earnings reports, we could accept a pace that allows the above factors to work and folks around us to embrace without loss of face or unease.

To push the social validation of biotech even suggests we don't believe our own claims and data. If our science is well done it will endure, and advance past false charges. In the meantime, we can save ourselves considerable conflict by simply moving ahead past the detractors to the future.

Remember, we're winning.

Another inheritance issue...

No, not estate taxes, but something even more important: trust. Although I was powerfully persuaded by Putnam's description of how we build social capital, there is some new research on the topic of where trust comes from that seems to indicate our task of rebuilding trust in many of our economic institutions will be harder than we thought.

Our trust habits are perhaps less cultural and more heritable than previously thought.

Trust has been declining in the United States as economic inequality has been rising–and
also as immigrants from historically disadvantaged (and lower trusting) groups make up a larger  share of the population.  If we worry about the decline in trust, we might pay less heed to the  waning of league bowling and dinner parties–and more to understanding why people from some cultures are less trusting than others.  And this is likely to lead back to economic inequality in the home country (Uslaner, 2002, ch. 8) and discrimination in the new homeland.
Overall, there is evidence for both culture and context.  Where you live shapes your level
of trust.  But the evidence is far stronger that where your grandparents came from shapes your  values.  Who you are seems to matter more than who your neighbors are. [More]

I'm struggling with the implications this has for our culture and economy.  It strikes me as fairly pessimistic and bordering on genetic determinism, even though I seem to come from fairly trusting stock.

 

[More] 

Part of my uneasiness may arise from approaching turmoil science is about to hand us via cheap genetic (DNA) testing. As new linkages between medical outcomes and genetics are discovered, ideas that social characteristics such as trust align with ancestry may pressure new importance on lineage, and all the dark history associated (fairly or not) with it.

Right now mendacious political activists and sensationalistic journalists could misrepresent and misinterpret genetic risk information. However, it is unlikely that such genetic risk information would be more toxic than claims that Obama is a secret Muslim. More and more Americans will learn about how to interpret genetic risks as genetic screening becomes routine and even more widely available in the next four to five years, making it less likely that such information can be abused. In any case, politicians, celebrities, and the rest of us should get ready for a world in which our DNA can be screened by anybody at anytime. [More of a superb, but disturbing article on DNA testing today]

The moral would seem to be: pick your parents well.  But it also makes me wonder what happens to these tendencies as Old World heritages become diluted.  How many generations before people like me are simply Americans, and what will our trust heritage be?

This may be an accurate analysis of social capital formation today, but my guess it it will fade very rapidly as populations intermarry and especially move about so much more than even our near past.

Big problems call for big solutions...

No sooner than the UN had issued a report of food demand in the future than one big effort appears to address the challenge.

World food production must rise by 50 percent by 2030 to meet increasing demand, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told world leaders Tuesday at a summit grappling with hunger and civil unrest caused by food price hikes.

The secretary-general told the Rome gathering that nations must minimize export restrictions and import tariffs during the food price crisis and quickly resolve world trade talks. [More]

Although I dispute the higher population forecasts being bandied about by environmentalists and demographers, the recent upsurge in food demand certainly points out even without more people, we need more food.

At the same time, I am optimistic that we have only begun to apply technology to this need. (Sounds like an engineer, doesn't it?) Now we have strong incentives via millions of newly economically empowered consumers, we could be poised for sharp jump in the productivity curves. And not coincidentally, agriculture's "toolmakers" are one step ahead.

Monsanto, the leader in agricultural biotechnology, pledged Wednesday to develop seeds that would double the yields of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030 and would require 30 percent

The announcement, coming as world leaders are meeting in Rome to discuss rising food prices and growing food shortages, appears to be aimed at least in part at winning acceptance of genetically modified crops by showing that they can play a major role in feeding the world.

Much of what is in the commitment are things the company was doing anyway, though it now becomes a formal goal.

Monsanto said it had developed its new commitment after consulting farmers, political leaders, academics and advocacy groups as to what needed to be done to increase food production to cope with a rising population and the demand for biofuels without converting more forests into farmland.

“In short, the world needs to produce more while conserving more,” the company’s chief executive, Hugh Grant, said in a statement. [More]

When I first read the goals I imagined corn at 400 bu. and beans at 120, etc. But if you dig down into the later paragraphs, the idea is to double global yields to about 220 for corn, for example. To be sure, there will no doubt be some guys growing 400-bushel corn and making life miserable for the rest of us, but the way to raise global yields is to lift the lowest producers to moderate yields.

Norman Borlaug pointed this out over a decade ago.

Yields can still be increased by 50-100% in much of the Indian sub-Continent, Latin America, the former USSR and Eastern Europe, and by 100-200% in much of sub-Saharan Africa, providing political stability is maintained, bureaucracies that destroys entrepreneurial initiative are reigned in, and their researchers and extension workers devote more energy to putting science and technology to work at the farm level.

Yield gains in China and industrialized North America and Western Europe will be much harder to achieve, since they are already at very high levels. Still, I am hopeful that scientific breakthroughs - particularly from genetic engineering, will permit another 50% increase in yields over the next 35 years.

The most frightening prospect of food insecurity is found in sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of chronically undernourished could rise to several hundred million people if current trends of declining per capita production are not reversed. Sub-Saharan Africa’s increasing population pressures and extreme poverty; the presence of many human diseases, e.g., malaria, tuberculosis, river blindness, trypanosomiasis, guinea worm, AIDS, etc.; poor soils and uncertain rainfall; changing ownership patterns for land and cattle, inadequacies of education and public health systems, poorly developed physical infrastructure, weaknesses in research and technology delivery systems will all make the task of agricultural development very difficult. [More via MR]

I think this will be done best by example, patience and farmer-to-farmer conversation rather than regulation and courts. Here in the US we have an obligation to lead, not herd others to better solutions.

However, one big holdup will be allowing our farm program to continue to frustrate global trade improvement. Trade in badly needed biotechnology for poorer producers could be hamstrung for the sake of my $25 DCP. More specifically, the new ACRE program definitely looks like a target for WTO opponents.

Trade implications. But since the ACRE program is based on planted and considered planted acres and an average of actual prices and yields, Conner lamented, "The implications are dramatic and are as great as anything we've ever done relative to trade implications. Like I said, I've lost sleep over this."

Given those program parameters, the ACRE payments would almost certainly end up in the amber box relative to U.S. WTO commitments, Conner said. [More]

The effort outlined by Monsanto is commendable and pretty dang ambitious, IMHO. Still it is refreshing to see a member of our industry looking at the future and aiming high rather than concentrating on what could go wrong.

A competition where everyone wins...

China is embracing education with vigor. And as usual with China the numbers tend to overwhelm at first glance.

University education in China is skyrocketing. In 1996 China had less than 1 million freshmen, in 2006 there were over 5 million freshmen. The freshman class is continuing to grow and university graduates, of course, are just 4 years behind. About half of the entering students are in a hard science or engineering program. As a result, China today produces 3 times more engineers than the United States and will quickly overtake the U.S. in total graduates. [More]

I agree with Alex's optimism about seeing people as brains who lift us all rather than stomachs who burden us. The tendency to underestimate the importance of a growing population is essentially the mindset of a wealthy society, which views others as those who can only take what I have, rather than people who can help me have more or better things. So while China is struggling to find enough oars for all who want to row their economic ship, places like Iowa can't come up with job recruits.

Iowa’s surplus arises from colliding trends: the exodus of young college graduates, a state economy that adds 2,000 jobs a month, low immigration and birth rates, and an image problem that makes it difficult to recruit workers from out of state. Iowans’ median age is nearly two years above the national figure, and the state is near the top in the rates of women in the workforce and workers with multiple jobs — further shrinking the pool of people who might be drawn into the market.

“It’s really a perfect storm,” said Elisabeth Buck, director of Iowa Workforce Development. Over the next decade, more than 70,000 workers a year will become eligible for retirement, with school enrollment — potential replacement workers — dropping by 20,000 since 1998, while the nationwide housing crisis makes it harder for companies to recruit from out of state, because potential employees cannot sell their homes.

Last year, the state added nearly 13,000 nonfarm jobs, in part because of growth in ethanol and wind energy, and lost 3,300 people from the workforce. With statewide unemployment at 3.5 percent, compared to a national rate of 5 percent, nearly everyone who wants to work and can work has a job. “We’re looking for ways to grow our population,” Ms. Buck said. [More]

What does this do to the argument for ethanol plants which will bring "badly needed jobs" to places like Iowa? Looks to me what they badly need are "job-fillers".

[Blognote: I have discovered from conversations with "loyal" readers, that few of you bother to read the source material I link to. Bad readers, bad! No biscuit! If you read the above, you might come to the same "well, duh!" conclusion I did: raise wages.]

The other curious linkage is the way China is investing wealth and talent in Africa.

While rising demand for commodities is one way that Asia’s economic boom helps to raise African living standards, China’s economic involvement in Africa now goes far beyond arms-length imports and exports. Chinese firms have begun investing directly in African oil and mineral producers and in roads, dams, and telecommunications infrastructure. It is estimated that annual Chinese foreign direct investment in Africa surpassed the one billion dollar mark in 2005 and has continued to rise since. Shuttered factories and mines have been brought back to life and severed roads restored. The spread of cell phone technology has allowed rural African grain markets to function more efficiently, probably improving the lives of consumers, farmers, and traders alike.

No one knows the exact figures, but hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers and entrepreneurs have also migrated to Africa in search of their fortunes. This new Afro-Chinese community—from telecom engineers to owners of small Asian restaurants and medicine shops—has been a striking new presence in my own recent travels in both West and East Africa.

Why have Chinese individuals and firms dived in when European and U.S. investors have largely shied away? In discussions with Chinese investors, it seems the key motive is simple: profit. Africa provides bountiful profit opportunities across multiple economic sectors for Chinese firms flush with cash from their boundless growth at home. Chinese investors also have a major advantage over their Western counterparts in that they know how to make money in a developing–country business environment where the rule of law is optional, corruption and bribery are the norm, and infrastructure is patchy. Their experiences at home give them a big leg up on the competition. [More]

Much of China's educational effort is pointed at biotechnology. Like here in the US, the big payoffs appear to be in medical adaptations, but the immense educational and research effort should spill over into agricultural biotech as well. It could be the eventual Monsanto competitor will be Chinese.

China's biotechnology sector will continue to grow, driven by domestic demand and global investment. There is currently a less skilled and experienced workforce for applied sciences, but with a large student population intensely interested in learning about biotechnology, the requisite skills can be learned quickly. Collaborative efforts by Chinese universities and companies will ensure a steady supply of well-trained workers for more homegrown innovation for China to join the global biomedical sector. Great opportunities are present for both US and European-trained scientists who will be essential for accomplishing the task of training and developing a biotech workforce to meet the demand in China. [More]

Coupled with their growing influence in the second largest continent and people most Americans rarely think about, it is hard not to root for a people willing to sacrifice today for a better world they will probably not live to see.

To be sure, Chinese entrepreneurs are every bit as avaricious as Western counterparts, but the billions struggling up from day-to-day existence lends this emerging power with a vitality that will add to the world of the future just as the United States did for centuries.

I imagine there will be a great deal of verbiage spilling out from media about (but not naming) the new "Yellow Peril", but I for one think it is a positive development to see imperialism (if that is the supposed threat) based on economic rather than military power.

Feel free to compare to our strategy in Iraq with China in Africa.

Don't tell me we're falling behind...

As usual, The Onion covers the news other won't touch:

PASADENA, CA—Geneticists at the California Institute of Technology announced Monday that they have developed a tomato with a 31 percent larger price tag than a typical specimen of the vine-ripened fruit. [More startling sciency stuff]

Our biotech scientists know what civilization needs.

They've got their work cut out with okra...

Scientists are using genetic information to change the shapes of vegetables. OK, this isn't at the top of the world's problems, but it does raise some interesting hopes for the future of salads everywhere.

Crop scientists have cloned a gene that controls the shape of tomatoes, a discovery that could help unravel the mystery behind the huge morphological differences among edible fruits and vegetables, as well as provide new insight into mechanisms of plant development.

The gene, dubbed SUN, is only the second ever found to play a significant role in the elongated shape of various tomato varieties, said Esther van der Knaap, lead researcher in the study and assistant professor of horticulture and crop science at Ohio State University's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster. [More]

Along the road to important biotechnology discoveries will be curiosities such as this. Ten years later a billion-dollar industry puts it to work. Laugh now, marvel later.

[via 3 Quarks]

Lighten up and lessen the resentment...

Biotech manufacturers have been relentless in their aggressive promotion of the controversial technology. And arguably, it may have been necessary to be in every face every moment to defend this nascent industry. However, without doubt, whether because of this strident clamor or despite it, it is now clear that biotech is well and truly established and flourishing.

FOR a decade Europe has rebuffed efforts by
biotechnology firms such as America's Monsanto to promote genetically modified crops. Despite scientific assurances that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe for human consumption, and a ruling by the World Trade Organisation against national import bans in the European Union, many Europeans have yet to touch or taste them. But that may soon change, according to Iain Ferguson, boss of Tate & Lyle, a British food giant. “We sit at a moment of history when GM technology...is a fact of life,” he said this week.

Mr Ferguson, who is also the head of Britain's Food and Drink Federation, argues that because many large agricultural exporters have adopted GMOs, it is becoming expensive to avoid them. Copa-Cogeca, a farmers' lobby, this week warned that the rising cost of feed could wipe out Europe's livestock industry unless bans on GMOs are lifted. Meanwhile, European agriculture ministers failed to agree on whether to allow imports of GM maize and potatoes; the decision will now be made by the European Commission, which is likely to say yes. [More]

But is hard sell the optimal public relations strategy as the tide of acceptance turns?

I would suggest (doubtless much to the horror of PR firms who feed on billable hours) that a less-intense approach could accomplish more than a continued self-promotion that amounts to little more than end-zone dancing. Finding a way for the last holdouts to change their minds as gracefully as possible by simpling toning down the ad campaign and pausing to listen thoughtfully could be the best money Monsanto, et. al. never spent.

As the Clinton campaign is desperately trying to figure out - judging by the combination of messages in the last three days - attacking a gracious winner is really hard to do successfully. Biotech is a winner and every day that passes reinforces the industry's claim to safety and widespread benefit to consumers and producers alike. Time works in our favor. I like to quietly ask especially outspoken opponents if they have seen even one of the horrifying outcomes predicted for RR beans for example. And we are well into a second decade of real world data.

Why not take the "Cal Ripken" approach: modesty? And then use the dead air time to listen to customers and neighbors for clues to where we could find our next winning strategy.

Stick with it for the last two minutes...

I'm a big Colbert Report fan, and this interview with Craig Venter show why. Notice the comment about bacteria that can generate "gasoline from sugars".



As the bugs get better and better, the yield for bioenergy rises, and many of my criticisms of efficiencies become less valid. This whole science arena is made possible by high energy consumption and expensive energy supplies. While we are concentrating on supplying the feedstock, guys like Venter will make gazillions creating the life-forms that transform those calories into fuel.

Capitalism is a beautiful thing, man.

This is a big deal...

Forget genes - we're working whole chromosomes now, baby. The world of biotech is just beginning to gather momentum, and we're one reason for it.

It's been a brave new world for genetic crops for some time now but Chicago-based researchers say they have developed a method to take crop manipulation to a higher level: the chromosome.

Creating an artificial chromosome, into which several manipulated genes can be inserted, may speed efforts to produce fuels and medicines from plants as well as boosting crop nutrition and yield.

In a scientific paper set for publication Friday researchers from Chicago-based Chromatin Inc. and the Universities of Chicago and North Carolina reported success in creating an artificial chromosome for corn plants. Through four generations, the corn treated the man-made chromosomes as if they were natural and passed them along to offspring intact at a rate nearly as high as for chromosomes native to the plants.

"This appears to be the tool that agricultural scientists and farmers have long dreamed of," said Daphne Preuss, a University of Chicago professor of molecular genetics and Chromatin's president. [More]

So, while you moan about seed costs, remember you are not stupid. If it didn't make you money, you wouldn't buy 'em. And because you buy them, more will come.

Here is the real question: do you believe that biotech will reshape your yield curve? If so, what will you bet? Whle others are fixated on whether demand (read: ethanol) will falter, some producers are guessing biotech productivity gains can lower their cost per bushel to survive when competitors bleed red ink.

Those bets are being placed in cash rent and land prices as we speak.

Do we have an ag news cycle now?...

Just like political news, any announcement that could be misconstrued by ag audiences may be now slated for release on Friday - so the media will have to take a breath or two before opining. For your consideration, this announcement today.

Dow AgroSciences LLC, and Monsanto today announced a cross- licensing agreement that breaks new ground in the commercialization of gene stack technology. The agreement is aimed at launching SmartStax(TM), featuring eight different Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto herbicide tolerance and insect-protection genes. This technology is expected to be available to corn growers by the end of the decade. [More]

I'm still wrapping my mind around this. My knee-jerk reactions:

• Traits will soon be standardized in one humongous package - try buying something without all 8 traits.
• Unless there is a battle for market share, pricing power will extract the maximum marginal revenue from seed corn buyers.
• Monsanto and Dow must be remarkably confident about US energy policy. With ethanol profits slipping and soybean prices climbing, what would an RFS expansion failure mean to corn prices and seed profits? Then again, owning the market means never having to say you're sorry.
  
• Is there no sense of panic at Pioneeer/DuPont? I realize they have been and are deeply invested in research, but can those products hit retail fast enough to make a difference? Where was management as Monsanto built the wall around them?
• Forget refuge. Given the current lackadaisical industry attitude to the supposedly serious problem of Bt resistance, I had guessed (wildly, I admit) that products were at hand that would make refuge unnecessary. This now seems to be the case. Consequently, I will be listening skeptically to bug scientists who tell me 2-3 years of "refugeless" corn growing will select for a rootworm beetle that will baffle SmartStax.
• How close to monopoly does the trait/seed market have to get before attracting government attention? Are two choices sufficient? Have we arrived at Microsoft (corn) and Apple (corn)?

Finally, if corn prices keep rising, will anybody care?

Make mine RW scotch...

While opponents of genetic modification uniformly warn of health and environmental consequences that must inevitably follow, that's not how things seem to turning out. We now have years of real-world consumption of GM products to point to as reassurance of the safety and efficacy.

In fact, one form of genetic manipulation - radiation breeding - isn't all that far removed from cartoons by anti-nuclear protestors.

Though poorly known, radiation breeding has produced thousands of useful mutants and a sizable fraction of the world’s crops, Dr. Lagoda said, including varieties of rice, wheat, barley, pears, peas, cotton, peppermint, sunflowers, peanuts, grapefruit, sesame, bananas, cassava and sorghum. The mutant wheat is used for bread and pasta and the mutant barley for beer and fine whiskey.

The mutations can improve yield, quality, taste, size and resistance to disease and can help plants adapt to diverse climates and conditions.

Dr. Lagoda takes pains to distinguish the little-known radiation work from the contentious field of genetically modified crops, sometimes disparaged as “Frankenfood.” That practice can splice foreign genetic material into plants, creating exotic varieties grown widely in the United States but often feared and rejected in Europe. By contrast, radiation breeding has made few enemies.

“Spontaneous mutations are the motor of evolution,” Dr. Lagoda said. “We are mimicking nature in this. We’re concentrating time and space for the breeder so he can do the job in his lifetime. We concentrate how often mutants appear — going through 10,000 to one million — to select just the right one.” [More]

While obviously competing with other forms of genetic manipulation, it is hardly surprising that "mutant breeders" would try to open an imaginary space between themselves and GM. But who's fooling whom?

Lagoda who irradiates plants to produce mutants is being somewhat disingenuous when he says, "I’m not doing anything different from what nature does." True, mutations occur in nature all of the time, but it seems somewhat doubtful that plants out in a field experience anywhere near the number of uncharacterized mutations produced in a lab by gamma rays.

If anti-biotechies are so afraid of genetic changes in their foods, why aren't they out protesting varieties produced by means of mutation breeding? After all, most biotech crops merely change agronomic characteristics, whereas many irradiated varieties have different nutritional profiles.

The point here is NOT that mutation breeding is inherently dangerous. Given a solid record of 80 years of safety, it's not. The point is that the more precise methods of modern gene-splicing are even safer and should therefore be subject to even less regulation than crops produced by mutation breeding. [More]

Breeders have the right to try to position themselves however they want to gain some market advantage, but it looks to me like any market advantage will be slim and temporary. GM works, and we're getting better and better at it.

Whoa - never saw a dog like that!...

What if biotech - like computers - became ubiquitous and accessible?

These facts raise an interesting question. Will the domestication of high technology, which we have seen marching from triumph to triumph with the advent of personal computers and GPS receivers and digital cameras, soon be extended from physical technology to biotechnology? I believe that the answer to this question is yes. Here I am bold enough to make a definite prediction. I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years.

What might this idea look like in practice?

Domesticated biotechnology, once it gets into the hands of housewives and children, will give us an explosion of diversity of new living creatures, rather than the monoculture crops that the big corporations prefer. New lineages will proliferate to replace those that monoculture farming and deforestation have destroyed. Designing genomes will be a personal thing, a new art form as creative as painting or sculpture. [More of a very provocative essay]

I think I have ignored this admittedly wild idea because I can grasp electronics, but struggled (like many Americans) with biology. While I have read science fiction stories about advanced cultures based on biotech vs. computers, they always seemed pretty far-fetched.

Until now.