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[Africa]

It's godawful, but the article's anti-science tone makes me suspicious. The atrocity here isn't genetically modified plants (which have the potential to hugely help poor farmers in third world countries) but exploitative business practices and trying to make money off said farmers while using them as lab rats for the crops.

[Bauglir]

Yeah. I'll grant for the sake of argument everything the article says as truth, but this tells me that unscrupulous businesses are jackasses more than anything about genetically modified foods as a concept. And not only is this a horrifying event, I feel like it's going to be used as ammunition against something that stands a chance of measurably improving the world if implemented by somebody other than assholes whose view of "good" doesn't extend beyond the end of the year's profits. Meanwhile the assholes in question will be relatively unscathed, since all the attention is going to be focused on "WHAT HATH SCIENCE WROUGHT".

[Vector]

Oh, no, I'm not saying anything about GM foods.  I have mixed feelings about them, one way or another.

It's mostly the 125,000 people committing suicide part.

[Andir]

Oh, no, I'm not saying anything about GM foods.  I have mixed feelings about them, one way or another.

It's mostly the 125,000 people committing suicide part.

Obviously, GM should stick to making cars.

[G-Flex]

It's also the daily mail. Is there a more reputable source for the article?
It looks like a plain and simple hit piece to me.

An even harder question: Is there a less reputable source for the article?


Regarding genetically-modified crops, the (or at least one) problem is that, being inevitably devised, manufactured, and controlled by large corporations, they'll exist to serve the financial goals of those corporations and nothing else; if they happen to help poor people in other countries, it'll only be with that as the end goal, and I don't like the idea of people in poverty in other countries being even more beholden to and dependent on foreign corporate powers. This isn't to say that gene patents are wrong, or that genetic modification of crops is wrong, just that they have to be handled with care and that international socioeconomic problems will make it difficult for them to genuinely help anyone, at least in the short term.

[Vector]

Golden rice, though?

[Leafsnail]

So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life

I'm just amazed how the Daily Mail can pull numbers out of their asses so unashamedly.  No source.  No justification.  Just an "estimate".

By the way, the Daily Mail have a huge, irrational hatred of GM.  I'd trust www.gmfoodismadebyhitlertokillbabies.com for unbiased information on it before the Daily Mail.  So... I guess it could be true, but I'll need a source that isn't notorious for making things up and twisting the few true things in their articles to suit their own agenda (quite a few of the stories in that article sounded like GM was only a factor, or may have just been coincidental).

[alway]

It's also the daily mail. Is there a more reputable source for the article?
It looks like a plain and simple hit piece to me.

An even harder question: Is there a less reputable source for the article?

Actually, yes there are less reputable sources. Conspiracy theory echo chambers! Here are two:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread705518/pg1
http://www.naturalnews.com/032422_GM_crops_suicide.html

But yeah, I'm going to have to call BS on the story unless there is actually a reputable source for it, both because of the extreme anti-science slant of the article and because any in-article sourcing is lacking.

[Vector]

Reminder to self: start checking sources more =/

This is the second time this has happened.  Need to work on my skepticism.

[Leafsnail]

I'd recommend just putting a warning against the Daily Mail in the OP.  It seems to be one of the biggest sources of misinformation on the internet.

Incidentally, I found this PDF linked by one of the conspiracy sites which looks kindof reliable
http://www.chrgj.org/publications/docs/every30min.pdf
And it does highlight how terrible conditions are for Indian farmers and how much they're being exploited...  however, it doesn't put all the blame on GM like the Daily Mail does.  Certainly it's one of the ways in which they're being abused by multinationals, but it explores a range of factors and gives lots of different recommendations (not just BAN FRANKENSTEIN FOODS NOW as the DM would seem to be suggesting).

What I can't find in this article is any justification of the Daily Mail's 125,000 figure.  What I did find is:

It is estimated that more than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years

As far as I can tell, they must have just arbitrarily assumed that half of those suicides were caused by GM crops.

[Phmcw]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/1500-farmers-commit-mass-suicide-in-india-1669018.html
http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/05/14/why-indians-commit-suicide/

Maybe not because of GM crop alone but there sure is a lot of suicide in India. And the combination of more expensive seed and microloan seems to do the tricks. Especially since, on the report I've read, GM crop is no more efficient than traditional crop.

But I didn't know for the Daily mail, thank for the info.

[Vector]

OP modified.

[alway]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/1500-farmers-commit-mass-suicide-in-india-1669018.html
http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/05/14/why-indians-commit-suicide/

Maybe not because of GM crop alone but there sure is a lot of suicide in India. And the combination of more expensive seed and microloan seems to do the tricks. Especially since, on the report I've read, GM crop is no more efficient than traditional crop.

But I didn't know for the Daily mail, thank for the info.

Based on those links, GM actually has little if anything to do with it. It's loan practices combined with drought and a shift away from subsistence farming to farming as a business model. Poor farmers shift to crops and practices with higher costs but with a higher potential revenue, droughts and an inability to pay for irrigation lead to crop failure, and then are left with loans and no way to repay them. The water shortages, especially in the first link, are the major cause of failure, followed by unsustainable loan practices.

Even removing GM from the equation, the situation remains exactly the same. They would switch to non-native cash crops, the seeds for which would still need to be bought from foreign sellers, probably pay out even more for pesticides, offsetting any difference in cost for the seeds, the droughts would still have destroyed the crops, and they still would have been unable to repay loans.

[The Doctor]

Damn, there go my mad scientist plans.

Ah well, there's still the sentient dairy milk route!

[Vattic]

In terms of the technology the only concern I have over GM crops is potential for damage through cross pollination.

OP modified.

I like this thread even more now there are rules against the "Daily Fail".