That is irrelevant to the effective ban on gene-editing and CRISPR though. They can do the same thing with hybrids, etc.
Anti-GMO sentiment was able to get so big because people know that there’s something fishy going on with industrialised agriculture, and a ban was easy to enact because it’s saying “not more of that stuff” and “shut up bloody lobbyists”. It was politically possible even if misguided and not doing it would’ve been worse, not (necessarily) in terms of agriculture but politics and with that the future of agriculture: It’s high time the regime changes to an impact assessment and doesn’t only cover GMO but also conventionally bred crops, but without the current GMO rules it’d be practically impossible to enact against the agritech lobby flanked by under-informed farmers.
I do agree with some of your post though, but even efforts to control fertiliser over-use are really difficult to manage.
Fertiliser over-use is currently solving itself: Fertiliser costs lots of money and no farmer wants to use more than necessary and you can get systems that analyse a satellite image and program your machine to deposit the stuff exactly where it’s needed, and only there, off the shelf.
Of course better soil management and ending import-dependent agriculture completely is a much better idea (phosphorous mines won’t last forever and why the hell aren’t you pulling your nitrogen out of the air), but at least critters will be able to live in drainage canals. Editing nitrogen fixing into a crop would be an interesting idea. Or engineering a symbiote that can do it to get along well with the crop, that kind of thing.
Anti-GMO sentiment was able to get so big because people know that there’s something fishy going on with industrialised agriculture, and a ban was easy to enact because it’s saying “not more of that stuff” and “shut up bloody lobbyists”. It was politically possible even if misguided and not doing it would’ve been worse, not (necessarily) in terms of agriculture but politics and with that the future of agriculture: It’s high time the regime changes to an impact assessment and doesn’t only cover GMO but also conventionally bred crops, but without the current GMO rules it’d be practically impossible to enact against the agritech lobby flanked by under-informed farmers.
Fertiliser over-use is currently solving itself: Fertiliser costs lots of money and no farmer wants to use more than necessary and you can get systems that analyse a satellite image and program your machine to deposit the stuff exactly where it’s needed, and only there, off the shelf.
Of course better soil management and ending import-dependent agriculture completely is a much better idea (phosphorous mines won’t last forever and why the hell aren’t you pulling your nitrogen out of the air), but at least critters will be able to live in drainage canals. Editing nitrogen fixing into a crop would be an interesting idea. Or engineering a symbiote that can do it to get along well with the crop, that kind of thing.