Big Ag Offers More Genetic Modification To Solve Crisis Caused by Genetic Modification

By Brandon Turbeville

Genetic modification is now taking on a new appearance. Although if you were to read many reports announcing arrival of the new technique it would sound as if it is an entirely new and separate process.

Because plants are able to “turn off” their genes through RNA interference in order to block protein translation – researchers are now attempting to weaponize this trait and genetically engineer crops that can produce specific RNA fragments that begin the process of RNA interference to shut down a specific gene which is necessary for life and reproduction.

This RNA fragment production would be set to begin upon ingestion by insects. it would then kill or sterilize the insects who have eaten the crop. The new RNA interference modification was recently reviewed in Trends in Biotechnology in the journal’s special issue on Environmental Biotechnology.

As Cell Press writes:

RNA interference faces multiple obstacles before it could work for all major crops and their pests. On the plant side, scientists have not yet found a way to transform the chloroplast genomes of cereal grains such as rice and corn, the most direct route to producing enough RNA fragments to eliminate pests at a high rate. On the insect side, prominent pests such as some caterpillars can degrade those fragments, staving off shutdown of the target gene.

Bock and Heckel both expect RNA interference technology to be roughly 6 to 7 years away from the field, but they are cautiously optimistic about its potential to change the debate around GMO technology in agriculture. “The Colorado potato beetle is almost worldwide now, even reaching into China,” Heckel says. “With such a spread of a main pest that’s resistant to insecticides, there’s a good case for the development of a transgenic potato to try to halt that trend, and hopefully it will demonstrate enough advantages to overcome the opposition to any and all genetic modifications in crops.”

Transgenic methods are being touted as the answer to the overuse of chemical pesticides because the crop itself would be killing the pests and there would be no further need for chemicals.

Pest control through genetic crop modification has seen plants producing proteins that are toxic to insects in the past leading to questions about what those toxins are doing when consumed by humans.

This new form of genetic modification, however, does not produce a toxin – but produces RNA fragments that then affect the insects’ genes. In other words, because Big Ag has created a crisis of overuse of dangerous pesticides, Big Ag is now providing a solution. This solution is more genetic modification, however. What was once a business plan has now become extortion.

Much like the microcosm of individual farmers, we as a society are being forced to choose and forced to accept more genetic modification to address to the problems created by genetic modification.

The solution, however, does not lie in the creation of bigger and better biotechnology, but in the immediate cease of the use of biotechnology altogether.

GMOs are a cancer on the western world both literally and figuratively that have produced nothing good in terms of agriculture and the food supply. It is time to move away from biotechnology, Big Ag, genetic modification and dangerous pesticides, and back to an agricultural system of independent, traditional and organic farms before Big Ag’s products contaminate the environment so much that returning to real food is no longer an option.

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Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies,Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria,and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 1,000 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

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