Tag: Oranges

Five Tasty Reasons To Reconsider GMO Crops

Written by Steve Savage

Wine and Chocolate, Wikimedia Commons

Feeding the world may not seem like an urgent need from the perspective of a rich society with an obesity epidemic. Technologies that make life easier and less risky for farmers may not seem compelling in a society with very few people have anything to do with crop production. Developing rice to prevent blindness and death in poor countries generates vehement opposition from some elements of our wealthy society. There are, however, some threats to the future of our lifestyles that might motivate consumers to take a second look at the debate around GMO crops.
What if premium coffee, gourmet chocolate, fine California wine, bananas, or not-from-concentrate orange juice become costly or scarce? Would that matter to you?
The fact is, there are significant threats to the future production of those luxury crops.  I’ll describe those threats below. Yet, because of the influence of the anti-GMO movement, we are far less prepared to deal with these threats than we could have been. Continue reading “Five Tasty Reasons To Reconsider GMO Crops” →

NY Times on Saving the Orange

The orange groves in Florida are in trouble. A disease called Citrus Greening is destroying the fruit, the trees, and the future of the industry in the state. Scientists are turning to genetic engineering to create a solution to this problem, but will it work, and will people accept it? Amy Harmon excellently tells the story at the New York Times.

A Race to Save the Orange by Altering Its DNA

Frank-green-orange
Frank wants to save the oranges

CLEWISTON, Fla. — The call Ricke Kress and every other citrus grower in Florida dreaded came while he was driving.

“It’s here” was all his grove manager needed to say to force him over to the side of the road.

The disease that sours oranges and leaves them half green, already ravaging citrus crops across the world, had reached the state’s storied groves. Mr. Kress, the president of Southern Gardens Citrus, in charge of two and a half million orange trees and a factory that squeezes juice for Tropicana and Florida’s Natural, sat in silence for several long moments.

“O.K.,” he said finally on that fall day in 2005, “let’s make a plan.”

Fill a glass full of orange juice, and give it a good read, and let us know what you think.