Grain Farmer Claims Moral Victory in Seed Battle Against Monsanto
Percy Schmeiser’s decade-long legal odyssey has finally come to an end - and he’s got a cheque for $660 to prove it.
The 77-year-old Saskatchewan farmer and his wife, Louise, became international folk heroes for their legal struggle with agribusiness giant Monsanto Canada Inc., after the company sued them for violating its patent on genetically engineered canola seeds in 1997.
Although the Schmeisers eventually wound up losing their court battle with the St. Louis-based company in a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2004, the couple have now earned a moral victory that they hope will encourage others to carry on their cause.
Yesterday, Monsanto agreed to pay the Schmeisers $660 to settle a small-claims court case they brought against the company for costs associated with removing the patented Roundup Ready canola from their field in 2005.
“After 10 years, finally justice has been served,” Mr. Schmeiser said in an interview last night. “I really feel that if a farmer is now contaminated, he has a right to go after Monsanto for liability and to clean up the contamination. By settling out of court, Monsanto now realizes the seriousness of the liability issue.”
Monsanto agreed to pay the costs associated with removing the canola back in 2005. However, the Schmeisers refused the offer because the company insisted the couple sign a release stating they would never talk about the terms of the agreement.
“That release form they sent us was a gag order,” Mr. Schmeiser said. “We could never talk to anyone for the rest of our lives about what the terms of the settlement were. There was no way we were going to give up our freedom of speech to a corporation.”
Several other Western Canadian farmers have agreed to sign Monsanto’s standard release form, including 16 in 2007, according to a statement issued by the firm yesterday. The Schmeisers’ deal does not stop them from talking about the terms of the settlement.
“Although we are pleased Mr. Schmeiser finally approached us and agreed to settlement terms, it is frustrating that he essentially accepted the same offer we put before him in 2005,” Monsanto public affairs director Trish Jordan said. “This entire matter could have been resolved more than 2½ years ago and Mr. Schmeiser would have saved himself some legal costs.”
The Schmeisers became international causes célèbres because of the David and Goliath nature of the case. Mr. Schmeiser has been invited to speak at universities and parliaments all over the world, and appearance fees have helped to pay for much of the couple’s court costs. In December, they were awarded the Right Livelihood Award - unofficially considered to be the alternative Nobel Prize.
The Schmeisers’ saga began more than 10 years ago, when Monsanto sued them after plants grown from genetically modified canola seeds were found on the couple’s farm near Bruno, Sask., about 90 kilometres east of Saskatoon.
The company said the Schmeisers violated its patent on the seeds, which had been genetically modified to resist Monsanto-brand herbicide, and that the couple knowingly planted them without paying the technology fees. Monsanto’s claim sought damages totalling $400,000.
But the Schmeisers denied using the Monsanto seeds, arguing that the seeds blew onto their property from a nearby road or neighbouring farms.
In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favour of Monsanto, stating that plant genes and modified cells can be patented. Although the Schmeisers lost the case, the court ruled they did not have to pay damages.
The following year, more of the genetically modified canola appeared on the Schmeisers’ farm. They pulled it out themselves and sent Monsanto a bill for $660.
Mr. Schmeiser doesn’t grow canola on his farm any more, only wheat and oats, and he rents out most of the land to other farmers. Although he said he’s looking forward to spending more time with his family, he hopes the fight to bring awareness to the issues surrounding genetically modified foods will continue.
“This is a great victory for farmers all over the world,” he said. “Now they have at least an opportunity to have some recourse on a corporation when they are contaminated.”
© 2008 The Globe and Mail
Good for them!!! It’s about time somebody was able to stick it to Monsanto. Congratulations to the Schmeisers (but they’re owed a lot more than a measly $660).
The scary implication is that a private concern can control the genetic coding on a food product in a manner akin to a feudal lord. Even scarier is their pursuing the Schmeisers even when their own sloppiness led to the whole mess. The “moral” of this tale is, one code for corporations, one for the rest of us. Welcome to corporate feudalism.
I hope that Mr. Obvious and other GMO appologists are paying attention. The paltry sum is less important than the ruling and the precedent it sets. With enough little tiny cuts we can bleed this monster to the death it so richly deserves.
AWESOME!
WOW! IT IS SO DAMN RARE TO SEE SOMEONE REALLY STAND UP FOR HIS OR HER RIGHTS…”..THERE WAS NO WAY WE WERE GOING TO GIVE UP OUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH TO A CORPORATION..”
FUCKIN A DUDE! THAT MAN SHOULD GET A CITIZEN BRAVERY AWARD..AND MONSANTO SHOULD GET SUED BY EVERY FARMER WITH A BLADE OF..”COPYRIGHTED” GRASS ON THE LAND HE OWNS..
A LITTLE SIDE NOTE..THE SEED VAULT IN SWEDEN(?) IS BEING INVADED BY CORPORATE GIANTS WHO ARE TAKING SEEDS THAT HAVE BEEN COLLECTED FROM SOURCES THAT INCLUDE LONG STANDING FARMING COMMUNITIES AND THEN COPYRIGHTING THEM..NOW THE LITTLE BUG IN THE OINTMENT HERE IS THAT..UHH..SO WHO GAVE THEM THE RIGHT TO SAY..”OH, GEE LOOK AT THIS AMAZING STRAIN OF WHEAT FROM CENTRAL MEXICO…WOW! THAT’S REAL GOOD AT GROWING IN LOW MOISTURE ENVIRONMNET..LET’S OWN IT..” BUT UHHH..WHAT ABOUT THE FARMERS WHO SPENT THE LAST 500 YEARS..OR MORE…DEVELOPING THAT STRAIN? AND NOW WHAT? THEY ARE GONNA GET SUED BY A CORPORATE FASCIST FOR COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS..FOR SEEDS THAT THEY DEVELOPED? YOU BET THEY ARE..
THIS IS A CRIME OF THE NEW ERA THAT IS REALLY SCARY..THE..COPYRIGHTING OF…FOOD AND LIFE..INCLUDING ANIMAL LIFE..THIS IS ONE OF THOSE DEVELOPMENTS THAT I PERSONALLY FIND…SIMPLY INCOMPRHENSIBLE..AS IN “HOW THE HELL IS THIS BEING ALLOWED..BY ANYONE..????” I KNOW A CONGRESSMAN IN MY DISTRICT WHO GROWS “HEIRLOOM” TOMATOES IN HIS BACKYARD GARDEN FOR RELAXATION…WE ALL HAVE SOMETHING TO LOSE BY THIS…AND WHEN YOU BRING IN GENETICS OF ANIMAL LIFE…THEN YOU REALLY ARE LOOKING AT BLADERUNNER OR MUCH WORSE…REALITY…LIFE..OWNED…GEE..THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD IDEA…WHA’ THE FUUUUU’ ARE THEY THINKING…??
I SAY..RESIST..SIMPLY GROW AND DISSEMINATE THE “COPYRIGHTED” SEEDS TO THE FOUR WINDS…THAT IS IF THEY ARE SAFE..AND THEN LET THE FARMERS AND LAND OWNERS WHO’S LAND THEY TAKE ROOT IN SUE THE GADAMN SCUMBAGS WHO THINK THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH COPYRIGHTING LIFE…SUE EM UNTIL THEY GET THE MESSAGE THAT “…LIFE WILL OUT…” AND CANNOT BE..”CONTAINED” AND THEREFORE IS NOT A “PROPERTY”
AND TOO..WHERE ARE THE “CHRISTIAN RIGHT” TYPES IN THIS CRISIS? I MEAN OWNING “GODS” WORKS? GEE..REALLY SHOWS THEIR CARDS…CONTROL..NOT “SPIRITUALITY”..SIMPLY CONTROL…THAT IS ALL THEY ARE INTERESTED IN…ANYWAY..I DIGRESS..
LASTLY..REMEMBER…TO NOT DECLARE IN APRIL OR..ANY TIME…DO NOT PAY FOR THE WHOLE CROOKED GAME..DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED BY “PREDATORY COERCION” (LOOK IT UP, IT DEFINES OUR CORPORATE FASCIT THEOCRACY TO A ‘T’…AND DO NOT PAY…OR BE COMPLICIT IN THE WHOLE EVIL GAME…PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS..IF 10 MILLION DON’T PAY…THAT MIGHT BE ENOUHG..AND IT’S “NON-VIOLENT” AS PROTEST GOES…SO…DO…NOT…PAY…
This is a really scary subject. These corporations want total control over all food seeds. What they did to the Schmeisers was criminal. They destroyed his life work spent developing his own strain of canola seed stock, and then charged him with stealing their franken-seeds. If I had been the judge Percy Schmeiser would own Monsanto now.
Monsanto is a monster GMO foods are killing people for thier bottom line. Never buy processed or any GMO food….time to kill the beast.
Poet-As I posted elsewhere on this site, my fields were contaminated with RR canola through adulterated fertilizer. My local co-op who sold me the fertilizer helped out for 2 years, now I take care of it myself. There are always potential pitfalls to watch out for, it’s all very human, and as the commercial says, “The mind is a terrible thing…”
Witches were accused of causing crop failure, animal deformations and disturbing society. Genetic scientists do this for real. Where’s a good Witch Finder General when you need one?
i don’t believe there’s any shortage of people willing to fight these gluttonous goliaths. finding courts which will apply the same standards to all parties is the real problem.
Science is corrupt, if you look at it outside the rules of science you see it very clearly.
Sorry Treefrog, SCIENCE is just an organized way of expanding knowledge based on repeated testing and peer review. Nothing could be less corrupt. It’s the piecemeal use of that knowledge by PEOPLE who are corrupt that creates monstrous ideas like those from the good people at Monsanto, may their genes terminate.
The Schmeisers deserve a lot more than $660 for the battling they have done on behalf of us all. Order of Canada, anyone?
Maplefudge
It is a linear process that excludes anything but peer review and it is destoying the natural world. Look around you, you don’t see clear cutting as the end product of science but it is, you don’t see what is lost in clear cutting a forest because it didn’t go extinct before your very eyes. You are not looking…
The sad part is that you will never know about trees. That is what you lose. I don’t want you to agree with me, I want you to be able to see what you are doing.
Its good thing that Percy is now on tour, so he can pay back Monsanto for selecting their gene using Round-Up. If he was not intentionally stealing seed, he needs some lithium. Why else would he spray Round-Up on canola, which dies without Monsanto’s gene. How is he going to tend his 1,000-acre farm while on tour? How is he going to continue to sell seed while presenting his song and dance?
Treefrog
Clear cutting is the end product of greed and mismanagement. There are countless science-based reasons NOT to clearcut (which is why I locked my head to logging equipment back in 94).
Please don’t malign science when you mean to malign greed or corruption. Science is the best thing besides music that we’ve come up with so far.
The state of North Dakota has passed a ban on GM crops. Fascinating article at the link below.
Marjie
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/171/
Maplefudge
Greed and corruption are a result of science, it’s linear. To bad you can’t lock your head around nuclear waste and do something about it… or genetically modified trees. Science is how you define the world take a good look at it.
We have been poisoning our food for 40 years with synthetic chemicals, children now excret these chemicals in thier urine, babies are born with these chemicals in their blood. We pass laws that require flouride (a poison) in the water we drink. Don’t question where all this came from and who it was that told you it was a good thing.
Treefrog,
Greed and corruption are human emotions/behaviors. They are not caused by science. Science is actually an inherently circular endeavor that requires examination, reflection, and conversation. Science is a tool. In the hands of capitalists it has become a tool of destruction. Without science you would still be living in the Dark Ages where life was short, brutish, and nasty. I am sorry, but it is you who is unable to “lock your head around” the issues.
Those who chose to reject science are free to do so. But if you do, then you can chose to live a live free of sanitation, modern medicine, food security (if you grow your own…), any type of housing more substantial than a mud hut, etc. I kinda like being clean, relatively well fed, disease-free…
Treefrog
“Greed and corruption are a result of science, it’s linear. To bad you can’t lock your head around nuclear waste and do something about it… or genetically modified trees. Science is how you define the world take a good look at it.”
Nonsense. Utter, blithering idiocy. Greed and corruption are the result of greedy and corrupt men. Greedy and corrupt men don’t go into science because there isn’t enough money in it for them.
You are using the fruit of someone else’s education, discipline, and application of the scientific method to post your dismal non-understanding of a process. A process is neither progressive nor regressive. It’s not Republican, Democrat, male, female, good, bad, or indifferent. It simply is.
Feel free to be a hypocrite and use the fruits of the process (your computer and all the telecommuncation infrastructure it is attached to, not to mention the electrical power generation grid) to criticize it.
Whether or not, the process is corrupted by corrupt men is irrelevant. The discovery of the process stands out as one of the greatest achievements of mankind.
I didn’t say reject science, I said, “look at it is for what it is”…step outside of social science, police science, political science, and look. Life did not begin with science…neither did sanitation, and modern medicine well I don’t think you want to use that as an example.
And feel free to make all the personal assumptions you can think of without any personal knowledge.
And there is no scientific link between smoking and lung cancer…
kelmer - Your analogy about witch hunts is great. The Anti-GMO crowd fits right in with this picture. Your spot on; superstition and baseless attacks!
“Treefrog I didn’t say reject science, I said, “look at it is for what it is”…step outside of social science, police science, political science, and look. Life did not begin with science…neither did sanitation, and modern medicine well I don’t think you want to use that as an example. And feel free to make all the personal assumptions you can think of without any personal knowledge.”
It doesn’t matter how you try to rationalize it, science is simply a methodology - Like when you take your shoes off to count past ten. Attempts of yours to characterize it, good, bad, or any other way, is simply a reflection of your ignorance of the subject.
Knowledge didn’t begin with science, but systemitized knowledge, the ability to build on past works, did.
Ken Potter
I disagree…
Mr. Obvious
Genetic modification is legal robbery, making the basis of plant life the patented ownership by science and thier corrupt counterparts. You have some nerve being critical of the human beings that object.
Clearcutting erases the natural laws that apply, once you lose that information, it is easy to replace with genetically altered trees that are based in science not nature. Personal greed is a vehicle… it is linear.
The moral of this story is don’t give up. The Farm Bureau and their ilk are best represented by the statements emanating from Ms Jordan’s blow hole. This narcissim must be shared with full-on psychopaths, but instead of butchering people , Monsanto/Agri Goliaths attack the environment, and people’s lives are marginalized in the name of profit. The gag order. so insidiously prepared in this instance, is comparable to the Mafia’s code of silence.
Monsanto=pure evil.
Mr. Obvious you need to do a little reading before you post. Try this:
http://www.mofga.org/mofga/other/mofgd04p.html
Percy and Louise I have been following this story off and on for years. Congratulations on your victory! If there is any hope for our world, it is people like you. Thank you.
Incidently, I have also been following the story of the on-going study of the possibility of cell phone related cancers. It is being funded by the cell phone companies and they are spending millions on it, however compared to their profits it’s not so much - my daughter brought her phone in the other day for repair, it’s a few years old, and the repair person looked at it like it was a Model T of phones and said he could never find parts for anything so old. She had no choice but to throw it out and buy a new one.
Very briefly, the cell phone study’s first results began to come out in 2004 with the report from Sweden where they have been using cell phones for quite a few years now. The results from Sweden found that the use of cell phones is related to an increase in a certain type of brain cancer. You may remember those headlines. Since those first results reports have continued to come in from the other countries in the study, and all with the same headline: No relationship found between cancer and cell phone use.
Upon reading the full reports what I found was that in the studies that involved people using cell phones for less than 10 years, that statement was accurate. However there was a very small group of people in each study that had used their phones longer than 10 years, and there was a very strong correlation between the side of the head they used their phone on and the side of their head that developed a tumor. According to the reports “recall bias was postulated as the explanation for this finding”.
These are the same sort of tactics that Monsanto has been using.
Who has heard that caddisflies are dying from Gt corn? Report here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008171030.htm
Life is a circle. We are fools if we think we’ve figured out how to play God. You’d think we’d have learned something when we figured out how to split an atom and then did so to “save lives” and “secure peace”. Monsanto is not about feeding the hungry, it is about ruthless greed.
Mary
Alna, Maine
Former make believe activist, make believe
Congressman for the people, Congressman
Toby Moffett who double crossed Ralph Nader so that he could be accepted in the Corporate World was a vice president on the Monsanto Board.
If Monsanto could buy a leftie Democrat Congressman, who else have they bought?
Next, they will be genetically modifying human beings and DNA.
What then?
A child from a genetically altered parent will be nothing more than intellectual property of the corporation that genetically altered its mother and/or father, to be bought or sold on the open market for purely capitalistic purposes.
Welcome to the world where corporations have human rights and humans have no rights at all!
gandydancer - Have you checked back on the caddisfly fiasco? Have you checked on the letters to the editor published in the same journal as the original paper? Have you seen the response of the original author admitting that she overstated her conclusions? Have you seen the hidden data from this group, now revealed showing no affect in the actual environment? Maybe cell phones are causing brain cancer. Better get checked?
tree frog,
Science doesn’t care if you disagree. It doesn’t get mad, or feel insulted. Why don’t you vent your spleen on an abacus? It won’t care either, as it is simply a tool for performing mathematical calculations.
Science is a method of testing hypotheses. A discipline used to advance knowledge. Nothing more than an amazing tool.
Go insult your hammer, call it a rednecked, peckerwood. Tell it that it is the root of all evil. See if it turns red in the peen or hits you with its claw. You are indulging in anthropamorphization - ascribing human traits to non-living things. Science isn’t even a thing, it’s a discipline, a thought process.
If I own livestock that escape and destroy someone else’s crops and livelihood, I would be held liable by the courts. The same should be the case with the uncontrolled spread of GM plants - the owners of these plants should be held liable for their escape into the wider environment.
Check out Deborah Koons Garcia and the Future of Food.
An important legal precedent,congratulations to the Schmiesers!This could open the door to reparations to others in Canada who have been unfairly sued,or harrased by Pinkerton thugs in Monsantos’employ.Maybe damages to Organic farmers due to genetic drift and the destruction of thier crops by GMO contamination.Too bad the family can’t accept the check/settlement,it shows thier commitment.Gag orders are standard in Corporate ” hold harmless” launguage.The victory is priceless!
jcrumb(love Roberts work!)the Seed vault you mention is in the Svalbard islands in Norway near Longyearbyen.I don’t believe Corps. like Monsanto will have access to anyones’ deposits besides thier own(once a year)when the vault is opened for deposits.I agree with the spirit of your rant ,but no need to SHOUT! peace ,keep on truckin’
kendpotter
I think you are trying to tell me that science is just a noun. It exists without verbs and adjectives, there is just scientific thought and it stops there. It doesn’t, it can’t be stopped in some cases like nuclear waste for billions of years, you have to see it for what it is and you have forgotten how to see things as a natural human being. Try talking to a tree, a hammer is a dead tree.
Gandydancer–
An excellent pair of presentations on the subject of cell phones and potential genetic damage can ber found at:
http://www.tucradio.org/new.html
The presenters are Dr. Neil Cherry of Lincoln Univ. in NZ and Dr. Henry Lai of the Univ. of Washington. They explain how their research has disclosed that cell phone signals (and WIFI signals too) have led to breaks in the genetic strands of DNA in life forms exposed to them. This in turn can lead to such degenerative diseases as cancer, Alzheimers, and Parkinsons. Theswe are quite scary technologies in need of research more objective than those studies funded by their respective industries.
Posters: The domestication of plants has always involved genetic engineering. Corn used to be very different from what we know as corn. In fact, it was practically inedible and quite tiny. The product of your manipulation would yield a better crop and you would possess all the seeds. You could barter for them. Why can’t Monsanto? If they play dirty pool, that’s a different story. That is a matter for legislators and the law.
Well done!
http://www.mercola.com/future-of-food/index.htm
OK, it’s good they got $660. But they shoulda won in the supreme court too. monsanto and its seed patenting really need to be stopped. only in the u.s., where capitalism is the state religion, could “patenting” seeds of any kind make any sense. Monsanto, Cargill, the WTO and TRIPS are all part of an attempt by global capitalism to bully the farmers in the Global South into submission.
for 10 thousand years farmers have been saving seeds to plant next year, and freely swapping them with each other. The idea of these agribusiness monsters, guys in suits looking out of their 86th floor windows and dictating what farmers can and cannot do would be funny if it were not doing such devastating harm. Like the epidemic suicides of Indian farmers.
look at this
http://www.sunsonline.org/trade/areas/intellec/10040093.htm
Vandana Shiva is the woman who is leading the fight for what she calls “Seed Democracy”you can find her here
http://www.navdanya.org/
Justice delayed, is justice denied. After 10 years in legal hell, Schmeiser should have gotten at least 10 million.
The people of the planet need to get rid of Monsanto, before Monsanto gets rid of the planet.
Mr. Obvious,
Re caddisflies: No I haven’t. Please give a link to your information. Thanks
Lizard states:
“The domestication of plants has always involved genetic engineering.
The product of your manipulation would yield a better crop and you would possess all the seeds. You could barter for them. Why can’t Monsanto? ”
Duh, nobody is saying that Monsanto can’t “barter” for their seeds. The argument is that Monsanto, nor anybody else has a “patent” on any living organism.
Think about it, the original product has been there for thousands, if not millions of years. To say that any individual person or corporation has commercial and intellectual rights over something that originally occured in nature is not only absurd but extremely arrogant.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda, Percy should be in jail. He is theif, trying to steal patented technology. If he didn’t think RR-technology was beneficial, he would have not selected these plants using Ruond-Up. He is trying to play both sides, but only the eco-fools are fooled. He tried to steal technology but when caught, simply switched to the eco-victim. Only a fool would fall for that.
@ lizard re domestication of plants:
For centuries people have changed organisms’ genetic make-up by choosing individual plants and animals with particular traits, and breeding from them. This is selective breeding and is, in a sense, similar to evolution by natural selection. But selective breeding happens only within closely-related species.
Genetic modification alters an organism’s DNA - genes can be transferred or manipulated singly. Genetic modification can also overcome species barriers, allowing genes to be used in new ways, putting a fish gene in a tomato for instance.
Mr. Obvious said:
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda, Percy should be in jail. He is theif, trying to steal patented technology. If he didn’t think RR-technology was beneficial, he would have not selected these plants using Ruond-Up. He is trying to play both sides, but only the eco-fools are fooled. He tried to steal technology but when caught, simply switched to the eco-victim. Only a fool would fall for that.”
I think it’s past time you put up or shut up. You are trolling here with no information to back up your repeated posts. I doubt I’m the only one here that is beginning to wonder if you don’t perhaps work for Monsanto. I am done responding to your posts.
Mr Obvious has taken a simplistic view of the situation
I suggest he look at the documentary THE FUTURE OF FOOD. Percy Schmeiser did NOT steal ANYTHING from Monsanto.
But then again, look at Creationists; they believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, and fossils are tricks by the Devil.
“This entire matter could have been resolved more than 2½ years ago and Mr. Schmeiser would have saved himself some legal costs.”
The legal costs incurred by Percy Schmeiser is none of Monsanto’s talking-head-PR-twit-name-not-worth-mentioning’s business . Maybe “stubbornly holding out” is a hobby like golf , finishing-antique-cars or collecting matchbooks . Would Monsanto’s twit deny him a satisfying hobby.
Throughout history people who “held out at great personal expense” terminated slavery , initiated public education and forced governments worldwide to allow women to vote.
Wilberforce , Ryerson , Susan B. Anthony…Percy Schmeiser didn’t quit like 16 or more of his fellow farmers did .
Monsanto’s PR and her corporate sycophants are as transparent as a fish bowl with this statement : “It’s about the money , stupid. “
kelmer;
Where’s a good Witch Finder General when you need one?
I think they made him Pope. Give him a call.
benedictxvi@vatican.va
” Treefrog March 20th, 2008 3:32 pm
Mr. Obvious
Genetic modification is legal robbery, …. You have some nerve being critical of the human beings that object.”
S’cuse me for butt’in in on that little dispute, but hey, Treefrog, WAKE UP; don’t waste time foolishly believing Obvious is honest at all, that he doesn’t know what you’re saying. He most probably does and is obviously Mr Obvious Deliberate Liar, for complete name, first, middle, and last parts all stated up front; instead of keeping the qualifying parts, and which are indeed obvious, “hidden”. He surely knows what he’s trying to do, and suckered you into naively believing that he might actually be honestly-intended.
A cat is obviously a cat. A dog is obviously a dog. A rat is obviously a rat; tricky though, when they’re not from the wild, Nature, but the diseased sewers of cities. And Mr Obvious obviously is a Deliberate Liar; and a disease-carrying human rat.
Certainly quicker to do than making pie, it is to realise the above qualification of him describes his personal [reality] or existence.
Anyway, I agree that it’s a measly sum, $660, yet not without also agreeing that this is a great example of [progress] on the part of Mr and Mrs Schmeiser. And WOW are they [humble], and honest, which is another WIN for us all. They are real examples of people who can sanely be treated as [role models].
As for what du-fous (aka dufus) Trish Jordan, and in addition to appreciating when the names of such people are made public, she reminds me quite immediately of something Jesus of Nazareth said to hypocrite, … Pharisees, when he said:
“YOU ARE NOT SONS (AND DAUGHTERS) OF GOD, BUT OF THE FATHER OF LIES, RAPE, MURDER, …” PILLAGE, etc.
Yep, Jesus sure knew how to “call a spade a spade”, alright; and it’s all fitting for Monsanto and its armies of employed liars, etc. Really too; NO joking intended, seriously. Even if the above may seem funny to some people, it’s not the purpose; it’d just be a little “bonus”, extra.
What Monsanto does have nothing to do with what we normally consider to be “science”, which deals with better understand the world we live in. What Monsanto deals in is greed-motivated technology. There’s not a single damned “scientist” employed at Monsanto. Only a bunch of carefully controlled, pet, PhD techies.
It’s truly great to hear them finally getting what they so richly deserve.
It is disgusting, however, that the Canadian Supreme Court ruled as hellishly as it did in 2004. Of course it’s not unique for the CSC, but NONE of the cases of insane rulings by any courts is ever acceptable, either. I’m not surprised though; Canadian “justices” have been, now, long fancying [very] lenient punishment of very violent criminals. There are (too) many examples.
Prosecutors, some anyway, are sometimes wholly and excellently sound, but the “justices” are too often … quite [insane], criminally so; only there’s apparently no law against these crimes.
The problem with gentically modified crops is that there is no way to know what the result will be when these approximate gene splices are done. The gnome project has shown the false assumption about the GM crops’ safety. There is general agreement by the scientific community around the world that these modifications to the living food chain are dangerous in the extreme. The reason, as I understand, that the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Monsanto was due to NAFTA which has ceded their government powers as well as our own and Mexico’s to the corporate interests. A little side note is the fact that Monsanto now holds ownership of the seeds of traditional crops of Iraq. Actually, a corporation can now patent any plant or anybody’s DNA. The law is wrong. This must be stopped.
This story points out something I think we should make damn hard to get. A GAG order. Any gag order should have to be for a good reason and only maintained for a minimal time. Many people have died because companies pay off victims or their heirs one by one with gag orders to deny wrong doing, limit recalls, and class action lawsuits that would force them to act responsibly. No gag orders should be allowed if further danger is likely. Subsequent injury connected to gag orders should be treated as depraved indifference or negligent homicide if deaths result.
Someone near where I live was just arrested and extradited to Michigan for allegedly participating in destroying a GMO lab at a University. She was accused of being an ecoterrorist!.
The heavy handed tactics that corporations will use to throw their product at us… regardless of the unknown effects to our agriculture and our food supply.
This is really a life or death issue.. if you look at it carefully!…
These Seedbanks may not be enough!
.. it is about control.. and power and greed.
sigh.
The thing is.. is that these LARGE agricompanies are destroying sustainable farming…!!!
That is the problem.. the GMO stuff is a wild card.. we have no idea what will happen to our food supply!
but GMO seeds are PATENTED…and it requires farmers to buy seeds as the GMO seeds are STERILE… Monsanto just wants profits.. and control of the agricultural market…
it isn’t sustainable OR safe.. and it destroys local communities, cultures and sustainable ways of living!!!
What has the world come to? Now we are arresting seed theives and those that destroy labs. We need to start attacking the music and computer industry too for putting copy protection on their CDs. Oh wait, how would you all get together and pat each other on the back without the big corporations and their support of the internet? Well who cares? Just bash the big companies, I know in my heart that they are evil, just like I know the earth is flat. Just be sure that if I get sick, I can go to the doctor and hospital and get the drugs that I need.
What is more sustainable than replacing insecticides with built in insect resistance derived from a micro-organism that has been sprayed on crops as an organic pesticide for over 50 years? Now people do not have to spray it, and it works far better in a greater number of crops. I do not work for or get any compinsation or funding from Monsanto. I do not agree with their efforts to keep milk from cows without supplimental hormones from being volenteerly labled. However, I am also very familiar with the body of evidence/studies on the Bt proteins and crops, and it is squeeky clean. This is why opponents to the technology have to create more and more implausable “potential” risks. This is activism gone bad.
P.S. Caelidh - Sterile seed technology was developed by the USDA and has never been commercialized (terminator technology). If seed from GM crops were actually sterile, then folks like Percy could not steal it (like copy protection on software) and the grower agreements that purchasers must sign saying they will not save seed, would not be needed. Also, the cross-pollination issues and the problem described by Greg-R above would not happen. Where do you get this stuff from? Are you on drugs?
“The scary implication is that a private concern can control the genetic coding on a food product in a manner akin to a feudal lord. Even scarier is their pursuing the Schmeisers even when their own sloppiness led to the whole mess. The “moral” of this tale is, one code for corporations, one for the rest of us. Welcome to corporate feudalism.”
Corporate-feudalism won it’s victory in the U.S. long-ago…
[Click my Name]
“Virtually every ‘corporate’ S.C.Ruling (since the Gilded-Age) has
given/reinforced Corp’s “Super-Rights/Citizenship”…and yet, the
Constitution expressly (in its original-body, not just in those so-called
‘Amendments’ — screwed-up since the 14th was re-written/Un-ratified) forbids any/all Corp’s from even-existing beyond an initial ‘6-months, tops’
[Period!] without a required and separate/”Emergency-Dictated” Act of
Congress justifying that rare-event and 6-more-months (that’s how
‘dangerous’ the Founders felt such “business-entity’s” always/intrinsically
Were — and “with Cause” (when they looked at England’s bank(s) [and the
Bank England forced here after the Treaty of Paris 1783, and again after
1812, and again after Lincoln needed to win the phony Civil War] and the
East-India-style Corp’s — once only “over-there”, and which Founders
definitely didn’t want “over-here”). [Too bad the Constitution is never
‘upheld’ by the S.C. — and has been invalid, altogether, since
1871…”legally”, and after the ‘incorporation’ of this nation and D.C. by
“Common Law” of Britain.]
Had we ‘won’ the Revolution (instead of France), or the War of 1812, or if
Lincoln hadn’t needed foreign-help to ‘win’ the Civil War [and then gotten
shot before “righting-things, again, in the North’], or if Teddy had been
re-nominated [instead of that easily-blackmailed
traitor/”Internationalist”-Wilson, who allowed WW-I&’insured’ WW-II, and the Fed-Reserve in 1913, and laid-the-foundation for the U.N.] THEN maybe we’d have a ‘real’
Economy/Treasury-Dept/Currency and Freedom from Corporations and their
‘foreign intrigues’… ”
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/Taking-Back-Your-Power.htm
[English folk poem, circa 1764]
They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.
The Law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common.
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
A question…if Monsanto’s seeds are non-viable, where do they, will they, get next year’s seeds to sell to farmers?
Li-an - monsanto’s seeds are viable and always have been. Fear mongerers have garbled the facts. The USDA developed a system for producing seed that will germinate but produce sterile seed (terminator technology). This keeps pollen from fertilizing neighbors crops and also keeps purchasers from violating agreements that they must sign before purchasing the seed (protecting Monsanto’s patents on the use of these bacterial genes in plants). The technology was never commercialized. Non-Gm crops are readily available because regulations require a Non-Bt refuges to be planted to preserve pest susceptibility. These non-GM seeds are always cheaper. This begs the question: If non-GM seeds are readily available and cheaper, why do farmers keep buying more and more GM seed? The rational answer is that they make more money with this seed and do not have to handle dangerous chemicals. Others on this sight seem to think that it is because farmers are stupid and cannot run their businesses. Use your own judgement on which answer seems reasonable to you. The EPA has required the use of non-GM refuges to preserve the use of GM crops because they are beneficial to the environment and are in the public good.
Tree Frog,
Science didn’t create the atom bomb. People did. Truman ordered them used. Are you saying science made it inevitable that they be used? If you had been in Truman’s position, would you have ordered them used? Are you trying to convince me that science makes men war criminals?
Just to let you know, I fully agree with Truman’s decision to use the bombs. I have no qualms with nuclear power except that I think we should be reprocessing rather using a one-pass-through cycle.
I would very much like to know how much of a math/science background you have before I waste any more time on you. People tend to fear that which they are ignorant of.
For those that want to know the real story, google the exact phrase “Percy Schmeiser” and restrict you search to “.edu” sites (education sites). An example of what you’ll find is attached below, but pick your favorite university site:
http://www.geo-pie.cornell.edu/issues/schmeiser.html
Mr. Obvious-Your explanations of the facts are excellent. CDers: it’s ok to think and discuss factual information instead of just ranting about pre-conceived ideas.
In the final analysis I don’t believe there is any high ground from which to defend the patenting of genetic material. Patents exist to protect the right of an inventer to profits from his original invention. This is biological matter, and as such will interact with the surrounding environment, and in the process becomes something it was not when invented/produced. Patent protection ends when the pollen and seed ripen. Seed producers’ rights logically end at that moment. Since it is not reasonably feasable to completely isolate crop plantings from each other in the real world, there can be no technological mitigation of this reality. If Monsanto or any other seed producer can induce farmers to buy their seed because of higher yields, superior quality content, less cultivation/fertilizing, then the profit they make from the sale of THAT seed is the only profit they reasonably have the right to expect.
When agriculture here was a widespread community of smaller farms many, if not most individual farmers, kept and nourished seed stocks. There was stability in the nature of this distributive redundant industry (where it existed and was mature,) and there was genetic diversity as well. Through trade and sharing the collective efforts of the farming community could repair localized or individual failures and infestations. This was good agriculture, robust and redundant, not easily undone by widespread failure. Illegalizing a sound agricultural practice (maintaining individual seed stocks) makes no ethical or rational sense, and is a corporate encroachment upon agricultural practitioners (farmers - and gardeners too!) ability to apply sound industry practice to uncertain environments.
It is quite possible that North American society will necesarily become more localized and move somewhat away from the inevitability of “economies of scale” because of the declining supply/rising price of petrol. Back to a more distributive and redundant network. Genetic patents will be a poison to those developments. If agriculture is going to supply some of our fuel in the future, it will only accomplish that in a system that consumes much less (localized? regionalized?). Do we want Monsanto (for example)controlling the rights to fuel? Too late, the legal precedents have already been initiated.
Where is Percy’s victory? The Canadian courts consistently ruled or assumed that indiviuals (ie corporations) can patent genetic material. He lost, we lost. All genetic material, whether purposely engineered or not, owes its existance to billions of years of evolution, and for domesticated crops, thousands of years of human intervention. Merely finding a beneficial combination doesn’t confer creational rights and dispersing your product into an uncontrolable environment abandons your claim to hereditary ownership.
btw: CanOlA = Canadian Oil Association, and the rape seed they grow is highly selected and developed. There is no “canola seed.” (I’m pretty sure, since Canola is the trademark name of an association of producers.) Highly developed Rape strains, in yield per acre and chemical composition, are a superior source crop for diesel fuel. Rape does best in lower maximum temperature, hence higher latitudes (Canada, northern Europe) but efforts are under way to “climatize” strains for U.S. planting. Rape seed yield is moderately to highly responsive/dependent upon fertilization. The pressed seedcake of certain productive available strains is unpalatable to livestock, though not inherently harmful.
Vince - Without patents we would not have the highly productive crops that we do today, along with the longest lifespans in history. Strains of Bt (Bacillus thuringensis) were patented as organic insecticides long before GM crops. Monsanto’s patents are for single genes which is much narrower than a whole organism strains previously patented as sprayable organic insecticides. Antibiotics were also natural substance, isolated and patented. Without such patents many things that we take for granted would never have become available. Patents encourage long-term research by rewarding the inventor with a 17-year monopoly. This system is responsible for some of the greatest breakthroughs in science. Finding a use for a natural substance has always been patentable (use patents). Those that choose not to use these technologies are free to do so, but don’t punish the rest of us if we want to purchase the right to use new inventions.
By the way, look up canola. You are spouting nonsense. Canola was developed from rape by selecting for strains that produce less of a toxic substance normally in rapeseed. Canola is required to contain less than a set level of this toxic substance so it can be used to make an oil for human consumption.
Kendpotter
Fair enough question, but I would like to ask you what your experience in a non-idustrialized environment has been. Do you have any experience that qualifies you to live with nature?
I worked in Behavior science/Behavior analysis for 15 years I have several friends that work in the science field, one is a physicist and the other is an environmental scientist.
Treefrog - Have you ever lived in the true wild without any technology? I already know the answer. Three months in the wild (if you survived it) would change your perspective. I would suggest that you take your cell phone. I do not really think you deserve to die. Two weeks in the wild might give you a taste, but three months would certainly change you.
Mr.Obvious I have “looked up” Canola as well as rape and dozens of other oil-bearing crops. Canola is the trademark name of the Canadian Oil Association, and I did qualify my statement. The fact remains that even if there is a trademarked “canola seed” it is the rape plant highly selected and developed.
I’m not denying the benefits of invention and innovation, or of encouraging an economic incentive to do so. But the situation, as it exists with regard to genetic material is flawed, and far from settled.
Try to buy any seed today for agricultural profit that is not bound up with secondary crop restrictions and genetic trademarking, and you will sense the crystalization around a form of industrial agriculture that is neither sustainable nor desirable. Even if I want seed other than what the biggies carry, I may not be able to get it, and if I should, may be sued when their genetic material migrates to mine.
It’s a good thing use patents didn’t exist when man was domesticating all those plants we have nurtured for millenia, otherwise we may be stuck somewhere between pre-civilization and the dark ages, and none of us Mr. Obvious would be here to debate the rights to our collective knowledge.
Vince -What crop are you unable to get in a non-GM variety with no restrictions on saving seed? Strait run seed is readily available, but most want the the higher yielding, more profitable seed. It is also noteworthy that higher yields mean that less natural habitat must be converted to agricultural land. This is why we are high-intensity vegetable growers, and have been able to convert 90% of our land to natural habitat. Stop spouting and start acting to actually preserve the earth. Your mouth should not be your most developed muscle.
Or the rights to our collective inheritance. Seeds - genetic material - are not widgets, or steel beams, or component boards. They are part of an interactive biological continuum that can neither be retroactively restricted, nor legally constrained.
Vince - So save your seed and go extinct. Saving seed makes sense for seed banks to preserve diversity for the future. It has no place in production agriculture designed to feed the world today.
My issue was property rights. The safety is a matter for studies and government agencies. I think Mr.Obvious is again making good points and I don’t see a good counter argument as much as I see passion of Belief. Nobody is forced to buy Monsanto seeds after all.
Mr. Obvious, I’m certain your knowledge of agriculture is more complete than mine. The introduction of proprietary rights into a technology that evolved in the absence of such rights, proprietary rights that stand on the shoulders of collective effort and collective need, is not ethically or humanely defensible. That is the point.
What are you doing “to actually preserve the earth” ? I am not oposed to corporate involvement in agriculture, only the undue influence that corporatism can bring to bear on agriculture.
Vince - Rather than waxing phylisophically my wife and I worked for a decade saving every cent; no big macs. We bought an abused farm (overgrazed for who knows how long) and started a high-intensity vegetable busininess where we sell everything at local farmers markets. We used what we could to restore 90% of our farm to natural habitat (planted over 25,000 trees, put in a pond and three wetlands).
Now Vincent - What have you done to preserve the earth?
Tree Frog,
I am pretty much like most people. I am tied to technology. Dad taught me a lot about nature - He grew up in the Depression in rural Utah and they survived by dirt farming and poaching deer. I was in the Boy Scouts. None of that is preparation for life without any tech. I could build a fire but would probably starve to death without a rifle or fishing tackle. The thought of trying to get by without modern medicine or dentistry sends chills down my spine.
None of that is really the point. You try to make science out as some kind of demon, when in fact it is completely neutral. The same science that produced chlorofluorocarbons that destroy the ozone also is improving/perfecting solar cells. The same science that produced nuclear waste is finding ways to burn (transmute) those wastes in fourth generation reactors.
It is man’s application of science that is good or evil. When Hitler used Zyklon B to exterminate jews, that was pretty straitforward evil. When Indian farmers use a slight variation of the chemical to kill insects, the people that don’t starve to death as a result, think it is pretty good (they don’t much care what you think).
Mr Obvious,a little knowledge is a dangerous thing in a public forum.As someone who has bred plants,worked lobbying for real regulation of the GMO”life science “industry,and an organic master gardener for many years,I know little.That doesn’t mean that I can’t baffle you with bullshit,I won’t waste our time.I have lived as a vegetarian forager for over 8 months at a time including winter.In the N.E. Apallachian mountains it aint easy(lost 40 Lbs)and is a good way to compare lifestyles.
GMO seeds don’t save the farmer a dime.Most operations are forced to use them by thier bankers.The seed democracy movement has it right,the ability to save your own hierloom cultivars is what keeps the family farm in business without spring loans.When the patent on Roundup (TM) expired,Monsanto neeeded a way to extend thier profits and developed “over the top” sprayable cultivars of soy,canola,and others by adding an RNA gene segment from Petunias (i believe)adding to thier market share for the expired herbicide.
Most, again ,most farmers around the world save seed and must do so to survive.In the U.S. this was the general rule through the 50s until Co-ops started thier own breeding programs and shared production.This predated the green revolution and Pioneer, DeCalb,and other corps that used to hire College kids to detassle corn while developing new hybrid strains.
The problem with “Life science”expermentation in plant breeding is that the techniques are untested,not peer reviewed,and create novel proteins with unknown alergic reactions.The shotgun approach of DNA injection of Lord knows what Virus Bacteria or off species critter,is totally haphazard.If the genome of the cultivar had been previously mapped,the sequenses decoded,and a relatives desired gene inserted, folks wouldn’t be worried.But hey, let’s throw an antibiotic marker in here that’s easy to trace so we can prosecute seed thievery.And lets just throw this frost resistant Flounder gene in this Tomato.How about this bacterial insecticide BT to destroy the mid gut of all Lepedoptera larvae(including off target butterflys)that ingest it.How about a few novel viruses to carry some additional genes?
Obviously Mr., you are missing a few points.These new culivars have the potential of destroying the integrety of millions of years of evolution,and thousands of years of carefull selective breeding by indigionous people.As you mentioned Zea Mays Maise or corn was a man made plant.Grasses were selectivly bred for centuries untill the modern “12 row dent” became the standand.The perrenial ancestor of Corn, Teocente was a Mexican cultivar now threatened with genetic pollution from GMOs.Wouldn’t it be nice to develop a perenial corn? Genetic drift from GMOs can destroy that dream.This is why the caution ,this is why we want more studies.I am sick of being the guinea pig of “life science “corporations.Vegetarians,people with religious dietary preferences or restrictions,people with food allergies(some potentially fatal) all have a vested interest in a safe food supply.If there were lable laws to inform consumers,that would change the gestalt,however in this absence of regulation we must be vigilant and fight for transparancy in food ingredients and origion.
We don’t know if what we are eating is irradiated,the country of origion,if it is a GMO,what pesticide residues it contains!Buying groceries in the supermarket is an act of faith!Blind faith in GMOs being safe is just plain blind! peace
johnny - You allege a lot of things. Pick one of these that you feel is best supported by the evidence - just one. They are all bull, but you just pick one for me to address. Pick carefully, because I know the science and can reference the scientific evidence.
P.S. Better look up DNA and RNA before responding. Nobody puts RNA into GM plants. Thoght I’d help you out a bit in case your master organic gardener training is a liitle rusty.
Mr. Obvious: thanks for the honest (I hope) answer. Me and my siblings also own a worn out small piece of once-farmland (40 acres, approx. 15 tillable,) and what we could productively do with it is constantly on our minds. It is only pursuing those possibilities that I know anything of farming. I (we)really want to know if farming for fuel is a realistic goal or if it is just wishful (uninformed) nonsense. It is commendable that you are growing vegetables, but that is not where my personal interest lies. It is possible that we would be better off cultivating vegetables and trees - especially trees - but fuel will have to come from somewhere, and so I have looked, in my own non-professional way, into biofuels. What I’ve found is not absolutely encouraging or discouraging, just very uncertain and undeveloped. There is not one set of circumstances that prevail either.
I live in that portion of the Pennsylvania coal seam that was most devestated by the type of strip mining known as area mining. Much land here, even after so many years, lies uncultivated and unproductive, and even a small experimental fuel farm could prove useful for wider application on soils not much more unproductive than this worn out piece of land our father acquired. Considering the remarks I made in my first post, and what you revealed about your own efforts, I don’t understand your aggressive beligerance. We seem to want the same things. Forgive me for being a novice, but it is honest ignorance, and I am not completely wrong in my assessment of the negative effects of corporate imperatives on agricultural sustainability. This is not just philosophical bullshit, we’re trying to figure out the best use of this land, with limited resources and limited expertise.
Vince - If the land is not highly productive for agriculture, it is best to return it to natural habitat. The ecological advantage of high-intensity agriculture is to produce the most food and fiber on the least land. Agriculture is inherently disruptive to the environment. There is a conflict between human needs from agricultural land and the establishment of diverse habitats that support natural ecosystems. My advice is to cultivate 5 to 10 acres of the “good” land and farm it intensively to support the resoration of the rest. If you have local farmers markets, high-intensity vegetables can work. To get top dollar, you may need to drive to a population center, and you will need top quality produce. I will say that vegetable farming takes a lot of know how and a strong back. Five to ten acres of vegetables will take more than one person full time to run. We hire local farm kids to help.
Kendpotter
I think maybe you have a superficial understanding of how nature works and understand it at a survival level. It is hard to see an area that is free of interuption, mostly what you see is an adaptive level of nature, an example is grass retaking an asphalt road. Another example would be seeing commerical industrial farm land return to wild land. On the prairies, there are still depressions from the wagontrains, people trails. Looking at technology, you will find things that will also send chivers up your spine. Because you look in a linear way you don’t see the down side. (The down side is very down) I think it is more important not to become part of the down side and that is where there is a choice. Science does not ask permission, and by science I mean the full range of behavior that is science.
I think intictively you would know how to survive. I think it is the artifical world that confuses what you have to do to survive, to be free to decide is another matter.
Mike C.
Thanks for the support, it makes me made too.
Mr. Obvious
I don’t claim to be a wild indigenous person, but it where I came from and at least I know from this what has been lost or what has been stolen.
Treefrog - You think you know where you came from but will never know till you walk a mile in moccasins. Your fantacy about where you came from is obvious. You are well meaning, but that is not enough.
Mr. Obvious
You are the obvious one…I could tell you a bit more about that but I will remain a treefrog and your can be obvious.
treefrog - well i am rubber and you are glue…
Mr. obvious
Don’t you mean I’m a tired, intoxicated, religious fanatic and you are, well just a normal guy that likes to pervert nature, proliferate novel genes and expect everyone to eat it up and say thank you.
Treefrog - I am disturbed by your “handle” - Treefrog. I am not sure if I will ever be able to enjoy the spring peepers again without thinking of your perverted beliefs. You are so far away from nature that you are a cartoon. Thank goodness that Spring is here, and I will have little time to devote to your nonsense. Hopefully others will read these comments and draw reasonable conclusions, but I am not holding my breath. You are the poster child for a devoted cult zealot.
You are right about one thing…you are disturbed…
Treefrog - Who is disturbed? You complain that GM crops are “bad” and then complain that Monsanto charges money for them instead of giving them away. Won’t charging money for GM crops discourage their use? You complain that Monsanto encourages use of their “bad” herbicide and then complain that weeds will become resistant to their herbicide making it useless. Won’t weed resistance reduce the use of the “bad” herbicide? You complain that animal production is causing global warming and then suggest that everyone switch to organic farming which requires animal manure. Where will all the manure come from? You complain that natural habitat is being destroyed and then you suggest we all spread back out through the environment and go back to the low-production agriculture of the past (that by-the-way caused the dust bowl). Who is disturbed?
http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/federal/judicial/fed/opinions/00opinions/00-1002.html
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/content.php?catID=1005
http://www.purefood.org/dioxcov.html
Mr. Obvious is a troll…
If anyone wishes to get the entire story behind all of the
GMO agenda go to:www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
These sites are posted by the NATURAL SOLUTIONS group.(You may have to copy&paste).
There is also an excellent video on google,about 40 minutes long,called NUTRICIDE.It explains everything that you need to know about those forces working behind the world scene to
eliminate 80% of the world population through the enforcement of dangerous foods, as well as the control and elimination of vitamin and mineral supplements.This has already been accomplished in europe,and they are now trying to outlaw supplements in the US.There is so much more to this subject, than i could even begin to explain in this short comment.These forces try their best to keep the world
population ignorant of their goals, and by doing so,we are
slowly being poisoned.Enlighten yourselves.You will be glad that you did.It is not too late to try to prevent this “diseased science” from destroying us all.In the future,it appears that only the rich will be the
only part of the population that will be able to obtain healthy foods.I might also add that Mr. Schmeiser is one of my heros.
If any one wants the true story, Google the exact phrase “Percy Schmeiser” and restrict your search to “.edu” (education sites). Pick the university of your choice and see why Percy got nailed for stealing seed. He is a thief, and any reputable site will outline why this is so. A link to an example from Cornell is below:
http://www.geo-pie.cornell.edu/issues/schmeiser.html
Congratulations and many thanks to the Schmeisers for their heroic stance defending their rights and the rights of farmers everywhere.
If your livestock wanders into your neighbors fields and destroy their crops, you are responsible for compensation of damages. Monsanto, and any other entity that patents GE crops should bear the same responsibilities. Farmers around the globe are beginning to realize the threat these GE crops pose to mankind, and should form a farmers union to battle these corporate giants.
Farmers Union, anyone?
Tree Frog,
You don’t know anything about me and the level of understanding I have. You want to be a hunter/gatherer and eat leaves and twigs, feel free. I understand how we as a species have changed the earth. I have also taken astronomy and geography classes and know what insignicant motes we are. A billion years from now, we’ll be dead, all of our works undone, and the universe and the earth will never know we existed.
The ear of corn we eat today look as much like its ancestral forebears as we do to the first amphibian that crawled out of the slime. The addition of the Bt gene is a flyspeck on an elephant’s rear compared to the massive changes wrought in the plant by millenia of selective breeding.
Okay, you want to go back to all-natural - No gentics, no monoculture farming with hybridized crops, no fertilizer or other chemicals, tractors or combines. Fine. Which two-thirds of the human race do you plan on killing off? That is how many are supported by current “artificial methods”. Now Mr. Non-linear (actually I prefer the term Null-A, for Non-Aristotalean logic), how many more are going to die because we switched from chemical to human fertilizer? Remember cholera? It is still out there, you just forgot about it because science, starting with the Romans, figured out how important clean water was to a healthy population.
Prior to the advent of science, human life was nasty, brutish, and short. Please feel free to find some hole in the ground and live in whatever fashion you desire. For me, current technology suits me just fine.
Uncle - Only today’s society could support this level of dementia. I give up….
Kendpotter
Correct I don’t know you, I based my response by observation of your posts. I wonder if you understand the impact of chemicals in the environment, your environment, your health, and reproduction. The influence that has shaped and created dependency technology. You should recognize that you no longer have a working knowledge of the world you evolved in or you wouldn’t make comments that see it as threat to your comfort. I’m sorry for your loss.
Mr. Obvious
Go to the Center for Disease control or any other valid medical site and look up multiple myleoma it is an occupational risk in industrialized farming, so is dementia. I worked in a center that houses people with dementia and live in an agricultural area. We had a very high ratio of famers in the program.
Mr. Obvious
Feel free to go play with your neurotoxins….
Treefrog - you wrote
“I worked in a center that houses people with dementia”.
Now I understand. Please work hard and someday they will let you out.
Mr. Obvious
That doesn’t make any sense…
Are Americans all talk and no action? There are ways to begin the change we want to see. If everyone that is upset over GMO’s would stop placing blame on Monsanto, and take responsibility to change these circumstances, by their actions.
Something no one that I am aware of has started or mentioned is a movement to get congress to rescind ALL of the patents on life. This will take a long time and an enormous effort but it is so important and I believe it can be done. Monsanto and all those who believe they have the right to patent genes are wrong. Our government was wrong. The judiciary was wrong, and Americans are wrong if they continue to complain about the tragedy of GMO’s and patents and do nothing but complain.
The time is NOW. Remember that the masses of American citizens, people who are the average people outnumber the Monsanto Executive Club Set and the people in this industry. I plan to start such a movement because I am ashamed that I did not do it 25 years ago before most of our seeds were patented by this company and GMO organisms became ubiquitous in our world.
This technology is not sustainable and when this agriculture hits an ecological wall, Monsanto will try another scheme to defraud the people once again. Global food security is at stake, but unlike other countries, the people in the United States have not yet began to fight because this material is not on the front pages of our newspapers and on every TV channel all the time. Few Americans are aware of what has happened to our food security in the last 25 years.
These seeds belong to the people, to the commons. They should never have been allowed to be patented. It is time for the people to take back their seeds and other life forms that have been patented for profit and greed. This can be done legally; we just need the will of the people.
Follow the example of Percy Schmeiser and stand up for what you believe in.
Jean S - You would think that all the anti-GM folks would be glad that Monsanto patented the use of these microbe genes in plants and charges money for them. Since many on this site think that they are useless, these actions from Monsanto should make them disappear when no one buys them. Maybe you also think that antibiotics produced by microbe genes should not be patented. Then they would still be obscure compounds and we would not have them to fight infection (no motivation to find them). We would not have the many generic antibiotics now off patent either. The next time your child is ill, think about this. Their is plenty of public money being spent in public labs, but the important breakthroughs keep coming from private company labs. Maybe this is why we have a petent system?
P.S. - You might want to google “Percy Schmeiser” and restrict your search to education sites (.edu) before raising a criminal to hero status. Percy stood up for personal profit through stealing. I include a link to the first site that pops up below, but pick the university of your choice. Percy does a good song and dance.
http://www.geo-pie.cornell.edu/issues/schmeiser.html
Google Monsanto if you want to see REAL CRIMINALS
Treefrog - You can find anything you want on the internet. Having some means to filter out the propaganda is useful. I suggest looking at university sites as one method to seperate the seed from the chaff. It is OK to have an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.