Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just clearly mark the product as Frankenoranges (meaning GMO sourced) and let the consumers make their own choice. I think most of us are quite amenable to informed choice. Trouble is, ag businesses don't want us to KNOW how they are making their profits. They want uninformed consumers. They say "we don't want to SCARE" consumers. Imagine someone standing silently as a car is about to mow you down. And they say "I didn't want to shout and scare him". That's the validity of ag business in its fighting to keep consumers stupid. They want us to test their stuff without knowing it. Like the government did in the 50's.
I still believe that if all other non-invasive methods have been attempted to no avail, then GMO may be appropriate in order to save an important food crop species from extinction (like the papayas) or to preserve the edibility of an important food crop (like the oranges). In both those cases, conventional cross-breeding, isolation, rotation/management changes, insect control, etc. haven't been successful.
ETA: I'm not sure whether any significant efforts have been made to investigate whether intercropping (rather than monocropping) within the groves is a decent control measure. The practice of monocropping may make the farming easier, but it definitely makes it easier for infections and infestations as well.
However, I don't believe that these fruits and products made from them should be allowed to be labeled "Natural" because they aren't... the plants that grow them are created transgenically in a lab, not by any natural methods.
If the industry is concerned about negative blowback from using GMO fruit, and not labeling as "Natural" (and possibly needing to label "GMO") then a campaign to educate consumers about the seriousness of Citrus Greening and the failure of conventional control measures to manage it. Most anti-GMO consumers aren't unreasonable and wouldn't be opposed if there is a clearly demonstrated, substantial, and valid reason (other than increasing profits) to modify a crop.
They just take the easy way out. These are hybrids that were bred for a narrow range of viability. The planet has made that range obsolete. Now they want to pull a rabbit out of a lab. But if it is clearly labelled for what it is, none of us has to buy one. Anything an orange gives you is available a dozen other ways. No one has to buy these oranges they want to concoct. But with full disclosure, some people may choose to do it anyway.
Just clearly mark the product as Frankenoranges (meaning GMO sourced) and let the consumers make their own choice. I think most of us are quite amenable to informed choice.
That might have been possible 20 years ago, when the first GMO foods hit the stores, but since then the term has been so demonized that it unnecessarily scares people, despite a lack of credible scientific evidence that the fears are justified. That was the reason the Vermont rBGH labelling law was struck down in court several years ago, and it's why I'm sure mandatory GMO labelling laws will not pass court review either.
And I would argue that consumers in general are not informed on the issue. What they are is scared... scared by misinformation... scared by propaganda... scared by popular panic. Ohhhhhhh, run, the boogie-man is coming... scary-scary!
Take your use of the "Frankenfoods" metaphor, which displaces actual thinking about the issue. Carry the metaphor all the way through, as we are now seeing.. now the peasants of the village are agitated and storming the castle with torches and pitchforks... totally blind to the fact that the new creature is actually gentle and benign. They call him a monster, when he is actually sensitive to music and likes kittens. But oooohhh nooooo, science is scary-scary and new things are scary-scary, so let's go kill it!
See how ridiculous that is? And yet that's where we are today.
Yes, a majority of the public says it supports putting labels on all foods containing GMO ingredients, but without understanding what that really means, and without any demonstrated need for it. Does anybody besides me remember the old Pogo cartoon slogan? "Whatever it is, we're against it!" That's pretty much the state of the public's current position on this issue.
I suggest redirecting your efforts toward voluntary labeling of Non-GMO foods. That's legal without any changes, and that passes Constitutional muster, and within certain groups it will have a certain amount of sales appeal, such as Gluten-Free enjoys today. And since it is estimated that 75% of the foods sold in American supermarkets contain GMO ingredients, it's certainly an easier and cheaper approach.
Quote:
Trouble is, ag businesses don't want us to KNOW how they are making their profits. They want uninformed consumers. They say "we don't want to SCARE" consumers.
Right, farmers don't want consumers to be scared of the food they grow, and that's a reasonable concern, because without any real proof, opponents have unfairly made the term "GMO" = "Scary-Scary!" in the public mind.
And that is why I believe the effort to stop GMOs will eventually fail, as more and more people come to realize that the fears have been grossly inflated, and that, for example, having GMO oranges is better than having no oranges, just as having GMO Hawaiian papayas is better than having no Hawaiian papayas.
And globally, several national governments are coming to that same conclusion. Thailand, Malaysia, and several other Asian countries enacted early total bans on GMOs, based on nothing more than scary-scary fears, and are now realizing they have deprived themselves of an important tool for solving very real problems they face. So they have formed a research consortium along with India to investigate possible GMO solutions to pressing agricultural issues. But since they have inordinately restrictive laws in place at the moment, the consortium is forced to do this vital research in other countries.
"Demonized"? Really? Like Red No. 5? So what's your ideal, eliminate all ingredient labeling so that people have to gamble on what they put in their mouth? That's a great formula for people avoiding all packaged goods. Even the ones put out by socially-conscious producers. Once you get the idea in people's heads that ag business is afraid of you knowing, then you can't trust ANYTHING in the store.
No, demonized like "GMO," which people fear despite an absence of credible scientific evidence that it is dangerous.
And that was exactly the situation the Federal Court cited in overturning the rBGH labelling act. Radical activists had created a hostile environment in which the rBGH label was perceived by many as highly pejorative... kind of a modern day skull and crossbones... without any substantial evidence there was a need for it.
Quote:
So what's your ideal, eliminate all ingredient labeling so that people have to gamble on what they put in their mouth?
Not at all. I think when there is credible science behind informational labeling, it serves the public good, and justifies the expenses involved, which include costs of testing, documentation, and enforcement. Just this week the FDA issued new standards on the use of the term "gluten free." That's a good thing, because some people have authentic medical reasons to want to know this information.
But let's say that I develop a theory about food safety that is not supported by the scientific community... say that over time food raised by farmers with blue eyes is highly toxic to people with brown eyes, and that therefore it needs to be labeled as such because the public has the right to know. Don't you think it would actually be in the public's interest to challenge that assertion, and to demand compelling proof of the claim before granting it any real credibility? I certainly do.
Yet that's what the common good is up against here... activists' claims that GMO technology is unsafe run counter to the consensus of the scientific community that GMO food technology is safe. Dr. Gonsalves, the Cornell researcher who saved the Hawaiian papaya industry from total collapse by developing a GMO papaya that inoculates itself against the virus which was making the crops unsalable, says there's no reason to fear it, because "it's still just a papaya." And those papayas have been grown and eaten since 1999 with not even a whiff of any health issue resulting from the use of the technology in this specific case. And yet just this week, activists packed a Kauai public meeting demanding harsh new restrictions on GMOs... absent any clear need for them... and on the Big Island the County Council is being asked to severely restrict the use of GMOs in the papaya industry... again, without any clear need.
Quote:
Once you get the idea in people's heads that ag business is afraid of you knowing, then you can't trust ANYTHING in the store.
It's not what you know they're afraid of. It's what you don't know... that there is actually no proven reason to fear GMO technology.
citrus greening, also known as citrus huanglongbing (HLB) [translates as 'yellow dragon' in chinese], has decimated citrus production around the world, particularly in florida, which has lost billions of dollars worth of production to this disease. texas, another huge citrus-producing state, announced that they, too, had this disease in january. california is the only large citrus state left uninfected, and they are just waiting to hear the bad news. they already have the insect vector present so it's probably just a matter of time.
once a citrus tree gets this disease, there is no cure- only death in a matter of months. currently, the only control measures available are destroying the infected trees, and spraying large amounts of insecticide to control the insect vector of HLB.
there may be a long term solution, but it involves introducing spinach genes into oranges, lemons, limes, tangerines, any and all citrus, using genetic engineering:
i am just curious whether the anti-GMO contingent would rather lose citrus production in this country entirely, or begrudgingly admit to the introduction of a couple of innocent spinach genes that could possibly save the day.
would it make any difference that the evil monsanto corp. is entirely uninvolved, or does that even matter to the anti-GMO people at this point?
or have people been so terrorized by nutbar anti-science websites that they will sacrifice even their orange juice, along with the livelihoods of thousands of citrus farmers?
The bigger question is, who gets the patent to control the supply of 99% of our citrus fruits once they're engineered?
The bigger question is, who gets the patent to control the supply of 99% of our citrus fruits once they're engineered?
First, I think that's an overblown concern. Ever since the University of Kansas released their first hybrid corn seeds in the 1930s the developers of new agricultural varieties have been able to "control" the supply... meaning being able to set a price the market will bear, and being able to prevent others from stealing their work for a long enough period that they can recoup their research investment and make a profit on it. Today that translates to 20 year patents for plants. During that period you can choose to pay the related license fees and agree to the license terms, or you can choose to do something else.
Take the example of the Hass avocado. It was patented in 1935 by a Southern California postal worker who grew avocados as a sideline, and until the patent expired in 1952, if you wanted to grow Hass avocados legally, you had to buy the nursery stock from the licensed source. After the patent expired, anyone could freely propagate and sell Hass nursery stock. And today the Hass variety is the top selling kind in America. That's how it works.
Second, in an open, competitive market, it is predictable that multiple varieties might be developed by competing interests. The UHSunUp papaya that saved the Hawaiian papaya industry was developed by a single researcher with a part-time assistant and a small grant, so it's not that hard to get into the game. The citrus industry is gigantic by comparison with papayas, so there is no reason to think only one organization will be able to lock up all the possible benefits. And that doesn't even begin to address the fact that there is no such thing as a monolithic citrus industry, so one solution that is developed for one citrus variety in one growing area is unlikely to dominate all other varieties in all other areas.
If farm businesses come up with a hybrid that can't stand climate change, why save it? It is just something man made for a certain climate, and humans have managed to heat up the planet. So now because of the fossil fuels industry this hybrid, which hasn't much history (I would assume) no longer fits the climate. Why pretend it is something "precious" to save? But if you're gonna concoct something in a lab somewhere (like the new test tube meat), label it! Don't send it out and dupe people that this is the orange they've been eating all their lives. The very fact people want to hush it up is a pretty good tipoff to me they don't know what they are dealing with. They just are desperate to keep the money coming in. The world's gonna know when this comes out of the lab. And those of us who care will simply not BUY an orange at the supermarket. Which will be unfortunate for the farmers who chose to do the right thing, but that's the reality when secrecy shrouds the agriculture making the food.
What varieties of Citrus are being hit? I find it extremely hard to believe that every single variety, of every single type of Citrus Fruit, all around the world, in every single environment is being hit by this disease. This is nigh on statistically impossible. 30 seconds Google I find a list of known affected types.
No mention of Naval Oranges, Blood Oranges, or any of the other 30 varieties of Oranges commercially available, (even though several varieties like the Sweet, Sour, Trifoliate, and Mandarin Oranges are called out specifically,) but I did see where Limes and Lemons were less susceptible to the disease. In this case, there is absolutely no difference between a GMO variety, and one that is already resistant to the initial vector.
...snipped.
I clicked on your link and it was a dead link. I did try some of the other areas and I am having a hard time finding your list. Can you give another link, please ? I am interested. I have dooryard citrus trees. I thought some of your listings are flowering shrubs, such as Mock Orange, Orange Jasmine, not citrus fruit.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
