[sudo-discuss] Brand SynBio Vanilla Flavor Competition

Tue Jan 28 12:31:54 PST 2014

Being an SB researcher and part of a group that funds/accelerates companies
like the one that produces the "artificial" vanilla, I am most certainly
biased. I just have to say that Synthetic Biology is here to stay and has
the potential to be an almost immeasurable force for good.

That said with every new technology there are ethical, environmental and
safety issues to consider. And contrary to ETC/FoE those discussions are
happening and are taken pretty seriously.  And while I'm sure ETC and
Friends of Earth have the best intention, fear mongering tactics like
calling things frankenilla,etc are not scientific or effective means of
discourse and will just result in people that matter not taking serious any
real issues you present.

Rather than helping someone stop a technology that they don't understand,
it'd be a much greater thing if SudoRoom helped a group used a technology
to do good.

-----
As for their stance on SB vanillin ie
http://www.foe.org/projects/food-and-technology/synthetic-biology/no-synbio-vanillaHere's
my response:

Synthetic biology vanillin poses several human health

Vanillin or any compound produced via synthetic biology is the same as the
"natural" compound. That's the exciting thing about the technology. You no
longer need hectares of fertile land to grow agro crops. You can produce
the compound you want minus all the biomass waste. You also can cut the
shipping expenses(and pollution) by growing it onsite.

> environmental and economic concerns for consumers, food companies and
> other stakeholders.

More resource efficient food that uses less arable land,water, fertilizer,
pesticides or fuel seems like a good thing for all parties including the
environment.

> Synthetic Biology vanillin could speed rainforest destruction and could
> harm sustainable farmers and poor communities across the world.
> Natural vanilla farmers protect intact rainforests by growing the high
> valued vanilla orchids which depend on these tropical forests. If the
> demand for synbio vanilla reaches an industrial scale, it could lead to
> rainforest destruction in two ways.

This might be their only quasi-viable point. But it's not an issue with
synthetic biology. It's an economic one, every time there's an advancement
in technology. See the evil car manufacturers putting poor horse ranchers
out of business.

> First, synbio vanilla will masquerade as "natural" and could displace the
> demand for the natural vanilla market. Without the natural vanilla market
> adding economic value to the rainforest in these regions, these last
> standing rainforests will not be pro-tected from competing agricultural
> markets such as soy, palm oil, and sugar.
>

If you have the technology to produce Vanillin in yeast why are you going
to grow crops to get Soy or Palm oil or Sugar (or even lumber)? You're not.
So yes, this might put vanilla orchid farmers out of work, but that always
happens when introducing new technologies. And people adapt.  Also see
Costa Rica and Ecotourism as a better alternative to protecting the rain
forest without dinging the local economies.

> In addition, the demand for sugar needed to feed the yeast engineered for
> synthetic biology could result in clear cutting tropical forests in Latin
> America, Africa and South East Asia for more sugar cane production. These
> problems will be exacerbated as this and other synthetic biology
> applications using yeast scale up to meet increasing demand and replace
> current production of natural and artificial flavors and fragrances,
> including vanilla.

No, just no. It's almost like these people don't actually know what is
going on in synthetic biology. You can produce sugar using bacteria, using
only CO2 + Light to produce sugar [
www.techtransfer.harvard.edu/technologies/tech.php?case=3763]. Which would
eliminate the need for sugar cane not just as a feed stock for other
synthetic biology processes but also for meeting sugar demand. {as an added
environmental bonus where do you find a high concentration of CO2, you
guessed it fossil fuel burning power plants}

On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 12:14 PM, mattsenate at gmail.com <mattsenate at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Hey Ali,
>
> I'm skeptical given the lack of cited references that can help us
> determine if there are detrimental elements or aspects worth further
> investigation of this new vanilla. I will say I have great respect for some
> of the work of Friends of the Earth (we can also thank them for our board
> room table, wall-mounted steel cabinets and a few other items of furniture
> that Tracy, Marina, and my brother retrieved), and if Patrik's assessment
> is true, I would be very much inclined to get back in touch with them and
> help build a better pipeline for assessing the environmental threats and
> impacts of new technology developments and corporate maneuvers.
>
> This being said, I would be more inclined to engage in creative work as
> resistance of:
>
> (A) Proprietary, exclusive knowledge of the building blocks and patterns
> of life.
> (B) An exploitative practice that directly and negatively affects workers.
> (C) An unfair abuse of the commons.
> (D) The use of genetic modification to fuel industrial farming that limits
> biodiversity, maintains corporate exclusive rights regimes (enforced in the
> courts), and introduces large-scale changes in the practice of agriculture.
>
> I believe in these circumstances, private interests unjustly are held
> above that of the commons and of the people of Earth.
>
> // Matt
>
>
> ----- Reply message -----
> From: "ali" <ali at riseup.net>
> To: <sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org>
> Subject: [sudo-discuss] Brand SynBio Vanilla Flavor Competition
> Date: Mon, Jan 27, 2014 15:39
>
>
> hey everyone,
> i'm very new to the worlds of the sudo room but i thought that there might
> be interest in this design competition on this listserv.
> http://www.etcgroup.org/vanilla-competition
> unfortunately the deadline is in 5 days, but hey, grants have been won in
> less time!
> best,
> ali
>
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-- 
Cheers,
Jacob Shiach <http://jacob.shia.ch/>
founder: Brightwork CoResearch <http://brightworkcoresearch.com/>
program director: SynBio axlr8r <http://www.synbioaxlr8r.com/>
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