Firms Seek Patents on ‘Climate Ready’ Altered Crops
A handful of the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology companies are seeking hundreds of patents on gene-altered crops designed to withstand drought and other environmental stresses, part of a race for dominance in the potentially lucrative market for crops that can handle global warming, according to a report being released today.
Three companies — BASF of Germany, Syngenta of Switzerland and Monsanto of St. Louis — have filed applications to control nearly two-thirds of the climate-related gene families submitted to patent offices worldwide, according to the report by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, an activist organization that advocates for subsistence farmers.
The applications say that the new “climate ready” genes will help crops survive drought, flooding, saltwater incursions, high temperatures and increased ultraviolet radiation — all of which are predicted to undermine food security in coming decades.
Company officials dismissed the report’s contention that the applications amount to an intellectual-property “grab,” countering that gene-altered plants will be crucial to solving world hunger but will never be developed without patent protections.
The report highlights the economic opportunities facing the biotechnology industry at a time of growing food insecurity, as well as the risks to its public image.
Many of the world’s poorest countries, destined to be hit hardest by climate change, have rejected biotech crops, citing environmental and economic concerns. Importantly, gene patents generally preclude the age-old practice of saving seeds from a harvest for replanting, requiring instead that farmers purchase the high-tech seeds each year.
The ETC report concludes that biotech giants are hoping to leverage climate change as a way to get into resistant markets, and it warns that the move could undermine public-sector plant-breeding institutions such as those coordinated by the United Nations and the World Bank, which have long made their improved varieties freely available.
“When a market is dominated by a handful of large multinational companies, the research agenda gets biased toward proprietary products,” said Hope Shand, ETC’s research director. “Monopoly control of plant genes is a bad idea under any circumstance. During a global food crisis, it is unacceptable and has to be challenged.”
Ranjana Smetacek, a spokeswoman for Monsanto, said companies deserve praise for developing crop varieties that will survive climate change.
“I think everyone recognizes that the old traditional ways just aren’t able to address these new challenges. The problems in Africa are pretty severe,” she said, noting that Monsanto and BASF are participating in a project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop drought-resistant corn that would be made available to farmers in four southern African countries royalty-free. “We aim to be at once generous and also cognizant of our obligation to shareholders who have paid for our research,” Smetacek said.
Gene patents allow companies to limit others from marketing those genes. The 35-page ETC report, “Patenting the ‘Climate Genes’ . . . and Capturing the Climate Agenda,” documents about 530 applications for climate-related plant genes filed at patent offices in the past five years. A few dozen patents have been issued; hundreds of others are pending.
Of the 55 major gene families at the heart of those applications, BASF filed 21, the report says. Other major players include Syngenta, seven; Monsanto, six; and Bayer of Germany, five.
Among the report’s concerns is the breadth of many applications. Protective genes are usually discovered in one variety of plant, and after minimal testing they are presumed to be useful in others, Shand said. In one typical case, a BASF patent claim for a gene to tolerate “environmental stress” seeks to preclude competitors from using that gene in “maize, wheat, rye, oat, triticale, rice, barley, soybean, peanut, cotton, rapeseed, canola, manihot, pepper, sunflower, tagetes, solanaceous plants, potato, tobacco, eggplant, tomato, Vicia species, pea, alfalfa, coffee, cacao, tea, Salix species, oil palm, coconut, perennial grass and a forage crop plant.”
Publicly funded developers of freely accessible plant varieties could succumb to biotech’s market dominance, the report warns. One of the biggest is the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which runs 15 research centers worldwide and is funded by several international aid organizations. CGIAR has long emphasized non-biotech breeding to develop varieties ideal for subsistence farmers and their local conditions.
Facing big budget cuts from its traditional funders, CGIAR is now a central player in the Gates-funded collaboration with Monsanto and BASF — a project that a CGIAR spokesman defended as a “global public good.”
Other experts said that both sides have oversimplified the pros and cons of biotech crop patents.
“I don’t mind Monsanto developing these tools. I mind that we don’t have an economic ecology that lets other companies compete with them,” said Richard Jefferson, founder and chief executive of Cambia, a nonprofit institute based in Australia that helps companies worldwide sort through patent holdings so they can build on one another’s work instead of stymieing one another.
Under the current system for patenting genes, he said, “the little guys shake out and the big guys end up in a place a lot like a cartel.”
Jefferson characterized the ETC report as extreme in its anti-corporate views but praised it for drawing attention to what he said is a real problem of corporate consolidation in the seed industry. Happily, he said, patent offices are “getting a lot better” about not allowing overly broad gene patents.
Jonathan Bryant, managing director of BASF’s U.S. division, said plants have tens of thousands of genes, most of them unexplored. “I think there’s still plenty of opportunity for many companies and institutions,” he said. “We’re all looking to bring our technology together for a common good.”
© 2008 The Washington Post
The world is pretty much being taken over by big business and that trend may be very hard to reverse, however with the immense investment needed to develope new methods and products large companies have their place.
People were sure that the change from horse power to internal combustion or steam engines which made cars, trains, and machinery possible was going to ruin their existence also.
All new developments need to be watched for problems, but common sense rather than paranoia might do more good, as most of them work out eventually with some adjustments.
GM seeds have proved their worth, or thousands of farmers would not be continuing their use on millions of acres of land. It is probable that most starving people around the world would not turn down a meal containing some GM food.
“This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
We let them own patents on life… we deserve what we get.
“People were sure that the change from horse power to internal combustion or steam engines which made cars, trains, and machinery possible was going to ruin their existence also.”
I think it has- for everyone!
God, how naive can you be Kernel? We aren’t talking about Podunk, OH only, this is the rest of the planet. When Chinese, Indian, and Andean farmers are forced to buy their seeds every year they won’t be able to farm. They are already killing themselves by the thousands because they have been forced of the land.
As far as funding for research is concerned, look into it, they are funded by grants from our government just like the pharmaceutical companies.
These companies want to patent all seeds including existing heirloom varieties so Ma & Pa has to pay them to plant the seeds their families have been hoarding since they stepped off the Mayflower.
This is insanity, anything for money.
I agree, what an odd thing to say. For one, who has ever said that the Industrial Revolution was going to ruin their life? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but that is not my understanding of that time in history. Also, to the extent that I understand people were leery of industrialization, I understand them to have been worried about the availability and quality of jobs in the emerging economy; they were worried about lifestyle and personal security, not about the viability of the new machines. No one back then doubted much that a car was better than a horse. Even if some folks did, who doubted that a car was better for some things than a horse was? Um…how many horsepower did a model T have? I bet it was more than one. And horses don’t take gasoline. They are very different means to a similar end, transportation.
This is not at all the case with GM crops. Evolution has resulted in “natural” crops that are very well suited to their environments. In certain cases altering a gene might make a crop better in some respect for human purposes, but there is always a trade off. Designing a GM crop is not analogous to trading a horse in for a car. Personally I expect that in most cases gene alteration can only make a crop worse. If the gene switch were advantageous, why didn’t nature see to it? You want bigger fruit? Now your plant has less energy for growth and pest resistance. You want natural pest defenses? Now your crop has less resources for fruit and growth. You want a plant with more energy to spent on all this stuff? Now your crop needs more sun/water/nutrients. This GM crop business reeks. Given the discontinuity between the interests of Monsanto and crop producers and consumers this GM crop stuff seems to me more analogous to instant paycheck cashing combined with pricing ink for specific printer models. The crop is better for awhile, then something “unexpected” ends up offsetting the nebulous “advantages” of the GM crop, and the grower comes out behind in the end. Or maybe they get you to plant with their crap seeds and then make a mint in selling you some pesticide the new crop now requires to thrive. Our current economy can’t handle these kinds of innovations…
Do animals, birds and bugs eat GM crops? Are these genetically modified/engineered seed crops lacking in certain enzymes? What is the long-term effect on biodiversity in the natural world?? I don’t think the issue addresses these questions/effects on other life forms when it addresses human hunger. As well, GM crops are touted to yield more crops and that is patently false — Organically grown crops yield larger crops than GM crops. As well, the pesticides and chemical fertilizers poison our foods and destroy the soil — which is occuring all over the planet on the more than 90% of crops, which are non-organic. Organic farming comprises only 10% of crops worldwide. I’m very skeptical and leery of GM science.
I was sickened when I first heard that modern patent law was not about protecting discoveries but rather denying competitors access to building blocks for their research.
I’d been under the apparently false assumption that a recipient of a patent has brought to market a product they developed without unfair copying. Instead, the patenting process revolves more about isolating genes and denying their use by others, including non-profit research entities who’d only purpose is solving hunger.
To think of the genetic code as privately owned is ludicrous. Mega-corporations and their patent lawyers can patent anything they want–they are restrained solely by patent judges and the patent court system. Like so many elements of the US legal system, courts elsewhere are influenced by the wealth and power of corporations, many of which produce more than entire third world countries.
I read that Big Agra companies are patenting seeds from regions of Mexico. Some varieties are known for sweetness, others for resiliency. By copying the seeds’ DNA, Big Agra hopes to make farmers violate patent law when they use seeds they’ve been using for centuries.
Looking at the new wheat fungus Ug99, one wonders if it isn’t also the purpose of Big Agra to create the crop diseases that only one type of genetically modified crop–theirs–can tolerate. We’ve already seen the spread of Round-up tolerating seeds, complete with restrictive covenants that deny farmers their right to keep spare seeds, along with other punitive sanctions. See how one farmer won here
Well, let’s see. Wall Street speculators, and seed giants are causing people in the world to lose their farm and starve. Who takes over? A big agribusiness. These same characters have sold us oil, and we have polluted the planet causing more people to starve to death. GM crops along with other pollution created by these same individuals is causing all the bees to die. When they die what happens to the genetically modified crop? It dies too. They are rich bunch of folks who have sold snake oil for too long and got away with it. Countries need to kick these losers out, and shut them down. Keep your donkey cart and seeds, because you will need it.
Everything is part of the Divine.
Why do avoricious creatures want patents on Holy Water?
Kernel writes: “GM seeds have proved their worth, or thousands of farmers would not be continuing their use on millions of acres of land. It is probable that most starving people around the world would not turn down a meal containing some GM food.”
Poor Kernel, I think he’s finally cracked under the pressure.
Go easy on him, guys!
To address your last point first, Kernel: starving people would happily eat food covered in mud. Does that mean muddy food is the answer?
Second, you take at face value the arguments of the agricultural industry - namely, that the food system is run in order to feed the world population as efficiently as possible, that the priority of governments and policy makers is eliminating food shortages, that these economic players have done their best, but it isn’t working.
Try this article:
“Deadly combination: The role of Southern governments and the World Bank in the rise of hunger”:
Extracts:
THE WORLD BANK INCREASING HUNGER:
“…the failure to address hunger is the result of a messy, unstrategic combination of policies. Liberalization was pursued quickly, deeply, and at the behest of outside actors, notably the donors, especially the World Bank, and therefore lacked real internal ownership. Now, continued state intervention is presided over by governments that are often untransparent, elitist and unaccountable, and where ‘patronage’ politics is the rule. The outcome is that they have the worst of both worlds – government intervention is not far-reaching, or good, enough to really benefit the poor, but it is sufficient to crowd out badly needed growth in private sector development that could provide farming inputs in competitive markets and functioning markets for outputs. Some government interventions under the reforms have improved food security for the most hunger-prone. Fertilizer subsidies, for example, have reached some of the poorest farmers. Their removal, under full liberalization, would have increased hunger. Yet neither fertilizer subsidies nor price setting have reached enough farmers to make a difference to hunger across the country, but at the same time the continued government role has set back the cause of building the capacity of the private sector.”
ORGANIC FARMING, NOT GM CROPS:
“The international community needs to massively increase its support for organic farming. Global research in agriculture has overwhelmingly focused on maximizing yields under chemical fertilizers and conventional agriculture. This must change. Increasing research shows that organic farming can dramatically increase yields as well as being more environmentally sustainable than conventional, fertilizer-based agriculture. Southern governments and donors must move away from a sole reliance on high-input agriculture to promoting sustainable, low-input farming techniques, and maximizing knowledge-sharing among farmers.”
OTHER SOLUTIONS:
“Programmes of free inputs and smart subsidies need to be implemented. Raising productivity is critical to eliminating hunger. The key to this in some places may come from increasing smallholders’ access to inputs such as fertilizer, though alongside increased extension services to develop low input agriculture: the choice should be the farmer’s and ’solutions’ must not be externally imposed.”
THE FARMERS’ VIEWS:
. Fertilizer was recognized as the single most important aid to farming among the farmers spoken to in all three countries. Yet few can afford to buy it though everyone questioned would use it if it were available free or at affordable prices.
. No credit is available to farmers to borrow money since the rural credit programme has collapsed. I was also told that the fertilizer vouchers distributed in the government-administered programme often went to the wrong people, sometimes the better-off farmers rather than the poorest, or else were politically-motivated, going to headmen, for example, who used it for their own purposes or to curry favours.
. Farmers universally complained of the very low prices they receive for selling their produce in local markets…Farmers receive pitifully little support from government extension services, which have been massively cut back under the [economic liberalization] reforms.
‘It is wishful thinking to think the private sector will come here. Look at our infrastructure. We’re not commercialized enough for this to work. It’s not profitable enough for the private sector except when they come in and knock down the price to farmers for their produce’.
. Most farmers also said they would like to grow other crops, such as Irish potatoes, rice or sorghum, to reduce their dependence on growing maize – mainly since the selling price of maize was so bad…What is preventing such diversification is partly the high price of new seeds and partly the lack of advice and support for growing and managing new crops.
…many of the farmers selling their produce said that if they received a better price for their outputs they would reinvest that income in their farming by buying fertilizer to increase their output. So farmers are locked into a vicious circle - low prices mean less money to buy fertilizer, meaning less ability to increase output, meaning less overall income etc.
For alternative views on the “merits” of GM food, try this article:
Extracts:
“As used in developing countries, biotech crops are shifting power away from small, poor farmers desperately trying to eke out livelihoods and maintain their land tenure.
“Glyphosate-resistance is supposed to enable earlier and less frequent spraying, but, concludes ‘Who Benefits from GM Crops,’ these biotech seeds ‘allow farmers to spray a particular herbicide more frequently and indiscriminately without fear of damaging the crop.’ This requires expenditures beyond the means of small farmers — but reduces labor costs, a major benefit for industrial farms.”
“The evidence on yields for the biotech crops is ambiguous, but there is good reason to believe yields have actually dropped.”
“The biotech seeds are themselves expensive, and must be purchased anew every year…’That has nothing to do with feeding the hungry,’ or helping the poorest of the poor, says Hope Shand, research director for the ETC Group…”
“Beyond the social disaster of contributing to land concentration and displacement of small farmers, a range of serious ecological and sustainability problems with biotech crops is already emerging — even though the biotech crop experiment remains quite new.
The time for marching, protesting, petitions, and other polite dissent is long past. The time for torch carrying mobs destroying fields, lab facilities, offices, and anything with the names of Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta conected with it (including especially law, and private security firms and recipients of political campaign donations) has arrived.
You think this sounds crazy? Just wait till there is either no food or insufficient money to purchase what is available. Desperate people do crazy things and we may not have too long to wait for a ring-side seat to this reality.
Nancy H: Yes, monarch butterflies rely for sustenance on a nutriment or enzyme present in corn … but NOT in GM corn. As a results, instead of the thousands we saw not many years agao as they migrated from northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, we now see only a few now and then. Very little of the corn they now eat has the missing, essential ingredient.
“Jonathan Bryant, managing director of BASF’s U.S. division, said plants have tens of thousands of genes, most of them unexplored.”
That statement of fact is one of the primary reasons we should not be unleashing GM crops upon the environment. They don’t know if one of those tens of thousands of unexplored genes might be dormant and turned on by modification or what effect it might have. Reason would dictate that the gene sequence be FULLY understood and the modification process perfected so as to be precise and predictable, greed and lust for power are the dictates of our current situation unfortunately. There have been many GMO failures in trials due to the unknown effects plus the known effects, both environmentally and economically have been consistently detrimental.
Abundance of affordable highly nutritious food can be available to all people of the world by SHARING sustainable organic farming practices, by cultivating, saving and sharing the seeds of varieties suitable to their bioregions and by everyone participating to some extent in the production of food. Community farming and gardening co-ops, CSA’s (community supported agriculture), community wide permaculture practices, growing food instead of lawns…would provide abundance and connections to the community and the land that most people don’t currently experience, but that’s not profitable, nor should it be, so the monopolizing corporations win by eliminating competition and oppressing viable alternative options.
The corporations are taking the abundances of the world and monopolizing them into scarcity and extinction. This can be changed if we start supporting local agriculture and stop giving the corporations our time and money.
peace
It seems from the articles I cited in my post above that Monsanto & Co. need to sell to the larger farmers who can afford their seed, fertilizers, herbicides, etc. So, small farmers must be killed off, and the World Bank seems happy to assist in this endeavor. The result of this “pruning” will be a few large firms more amenable to Monsanto’s products. But, as has been happening in Pakistan, a few big players can create cartels, hoard food, to keep prices high, and it’s the poor who’ll go hungry.
Monsanto, however, will say, look we said there was a market for our products, and there is! But there are still people going hungry - we must sell more of our seed and fertilizer! And individuals, such as Kernel, not knowing how this market was created, not knowing why people are still going hungry, will say, told you so - GM IS the answer!
I was hoping to suggest that you watch The World According to Monsanto but apparently it has been pulled off the net. Here is a link that may still have it. It is an hour and forty-eight minute horror movie worse than Stephen King ever thought of, and it is for real.
http://100777.com/node/1805
The apparent goal is total global control of agriculture and food by the giants.
nohick and insane in an insane world___ I am not particularly pushing the use of these GM types of seed, as none of us know the final word on their use. I only know they are being used in 23 countries on 282 million acres and most farmers in my area are using them on the large majority of their acres. That tells me they are here to stay for better or worse and all any of us can do is try to be informed and realize this is no different than many other new methods that have to be worked through.
Very few people that are so concerned seem to realize the use of GM seeds also reduce the use of dangerous chemicals that would need to be sprayed and spread on the land to control pests. Farmers do not use them because they like paying a high price for the seed, but because of the yield results.
As for poor farmers in other countries, they would have trouble even buying non-GM seed, which is still available. It is probable they can still get open-pollinated seed, which can be re-used, unlike hybrid seed. That is what every farmer used until about 60 years ago and would work fine for subsistance agriculture.
And even Iraq has been forced into Monsanto’s products. See:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/iraq111704.cfm
Everything is being taken over by big corporations. Perhaps we should do away with national anthems and have a universal required anthem named “Praise the Company”.
Solrey has the correct answer, buy your produce locally or, better yet, grow it instead of grass. That is what I am doing. In a neighborhood in a suburb, close to where I work. I used to live 45 minutes to work but that is insane. It only takes a half acre to grow all the vegetables and fruits a family needs.
Or go to local farm markets and support local farmers. Organic, non GM farmers. Buying a pear or lettuce or any produce from Argentina (or China now) at a grocery store in middle America in the winter makes no sense. That is off-shoring our farmers just like they off-shored our manufacturing. Pass the labor costs to the slaves who produce the product.
Frankenfoods will be the end of America if Bush and Cheney can’t git r done before then.
The absurdity of this discussion reminds me of a story I was told by a right wing associate regarding how to deal with environmentalists…
“We know they will oppose our development so we open with a completely outrageous proposal that attacks many additional things they care about… then we fight for all of these things we actually don’t want but we included just to have plenty to ‘give up’. We end by accepting ‘a compromise’ that allows us to do what we wanted in the first place… “
Just another lesson in how to defeat all the people all the time!
First point, we DO NOT have a natural problem! The entire situation is artifice, the food shortages, all of it!
We have a perception problem. Humans are herbivores. The outrageous amounts of land dedicated to farming are unhealthy, for us and everything else and completely useless to our health.
Practicing human herbivores require 1/50th the amount of land required by the average Western style meatarian.
The truth of the GMO rush is one meant to accomplish absolute control over the world’s food supply. Please watch this documentary “The World According to Monsanto” http://100777.com/node/1805
And please learn the truth about the causes of hunger around the world… because there is already enough food produced to make eveyone quite fat!
The Twelve Myths of Hunger:
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/pubs/backgrdrs/1998/s98v5n3.html
Kernel writes: “Very few people that are so concerned seem to realize the use of GM seeds also reduce the use of dangerous chemicals that would need to be sprayed and spread on the land to control pests.”
Have you heard of Monsanto’s RoundUp-Ready seeds, Kernel? Clearly not! Let me address your point, then, by quoting from another article:
“Many of the crops have been engineered to withstand applications of weedkiller. This permits farmers to wipe out almost every competing species of plant in their fields. The exceptions are the weeds which, as a result of GM pollen contamination, have acquired multiple herbicide resistance. In Canada, for example, some oilseed rape is now resistant to all three of the most widely-used modern pesticides. The result is that farmers trying to grow other crops must now spray it with 2,4-D, a poison which persists in the environment.”
“Let’s Do A Monsanto”
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2003/06/10/lets-do-a-monsanto/
Kernel also writes: “I only know they are being used in 23 countries on 282 million acres and most farmers in my area are using them on the large majority of their acres.”
From the article I gave, Kernel:
“But while it is true, as ISAAA happily reports, that biotech planting is rapidly growing, it remains heavily concentrated in just a few countries: the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India and China.”
GM crops may be in over 20 countries, but they only have a significant presence in six.
“For all of the industry hype around biotech products, virtually all planted genetically modified seed is for only four products — soy, corn, cotton and canola — with just two engineered traits. Most of the crops are engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide sold by Monsanto under the brand-name Round-up (these biotech seeds are known as RoundUp-Ready). Others are engineered to include a naturally occurring pesticide, Bt.”
What is the point you’re making, Kernel?
Provide some facts that GM food is necessary to prevent hunger. Provide some evidence that this HANDFUL of genetic modifications to a HANDFUL of crops serves a really useful purpose. Acres of farmland are being covered in GM crops merely because they are resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide, “Roundup”.
This about the corporate takeover of our food supply, Kernel. Only a fool would go along with this.
staying sane in an insane world__My point is, what do you expect farmers to do when they are offered a product that will make their business much simpler and more profitable? After one has worked fields many times before and after planting to control weeds and then spread and flown on chemicals for pests, is it a wonder they would use a stacked hybrid that takes care of the whole business with only two trips plus one weed spray job? Yes, Roundup is a great product to use on RR corn and will no doubt be overused as is about every other product. However, that problem is already anticipated and will be taken care of.
Farming has been evolving for thousands of years and GM is only one more development. It is nearly impossible to undo new methods that are well accepted and implemented in most businesses. We could shut down half of the motor vehicles on the road to save energy and reduce pollution, but would that be well accepted?
What is your solution, insane? Should we have the government take over the farming business to stop the voluntary use of a corporate product? I hear much scare talk, but no answers except take farming back 20 years, which will not happen any sooner than everyone else giving up their modern conveniences.
We have already Poisoned huge parts of our environment. We all got PCBs and hunderds of other molecules of poison in our bodies - including radiation. The fundamental thing here IS that spraying Herbicide as an INTEGRAL part of the Process is Death. To all tha contact it - from farm workers to babies.
Try this out. You just plant real seed, then take a hoe out in the field and prune the weeds. Hey, hire a few of the unemployed to do it for you, lots of them out there. Gonna be a lot more real soon. Oh, invite your fellow farmers over to help you Harvest. Don’t forget to help them when it’s their turn.
Worked like this for a long time. What’s the Problem here. Oh, and while you’re at it - No more Mono-Culture. Mechanized farms minimize people, Maximize Pesticides and Impoverish and poison us all.
The stupidity of humans is beyond belief. Why do we tolerate these corporations? Why do we allow them to control our world? We don’t we rise up and club them out of existence before they destroy us?
Then, having done that, why don’t we climb the nearest tree and stay there! It’s where we belong.
P.S. Your car is more important than you! Check my blog for details.
Dear discussion mates, do you not sometimes wonder who the real fools are? Some who write here are so certain of their opinions that they must call others ‘fools’ who merely disagree. Now first off, I believe that corporations are inherently insane, however that does not make them always evil. The potential for ‘better’ is out there. Don’t let fear stop potentially worthwhile science from making improvements in our world. Don’t become a fearmonger just because a shifty salesman with a dull axe has sold you a pig in a poke.
“GM seeds have proved their worth, or thousands of farmers would not be continuing their use on millions of acres of land.”
Even by industry standards (considering only profitability), this is a dubious claim. Furthermore, the argument is an appeal to popularity fallacy. Just because a large number of farmers mostly in 4 countries decide to follow a trend that proved itself in the 20th Century (newer is better), it does not follow that the technology has “proved their worth,” whatever that is supposed to mean, specifically (plus, if you try to grow canola around other GM canola growers, you must grow GM canola because it spreads, meaning you risk being suit by Monsanto if you don’t pay licensing fees and you can’t sell it as IP canola).
First and foremost is the question of human safety. You are advocate, the burden of proof rests on you. Hocus-pocus claims to “substantial equivalence” don’t cut it. So, please point us to 1) independent animal feeding trials showing that each commercially available GMO event is safe and most importantly 2) independent double-blind, placebo-controlled human trials with a focus on vulnerable groups like children, the elderly and those suffering from HIV, hepatitis or the like showing that each commercially available GMO event is safe. Additionally, as the genome of GMOs have been found to alter substantially from generation to generation, such safety testing would need to be repeated frequently.
Then there are issues concerning unintended and unforseen environmental effects (effects on ladybugs, caddisflies, monarch butterflies - as was the case for the no longer available Event 176 Bt corn, mycorrhizal fungi, increased fusarium due to increased RoundUp usage, to give an incomplete list).
Then there are unforeseen nutritional consequences. For instance, GM crooked-neck squash cultivar Event CZW-3 has 67.6 times less beta carotene than the control squash, according to the data on the USDA application. This raises the immediately apparent issue of potential nutritional impoverishment. It also challenges genetics itself. It was not given a gene to make it produce negligible amounts of beta carotine, yet this is how it performs. This goes against the industry doctrine of one gene coding for one protein delivering predictable Mendelian inheritance (based on James Watson’s incorrect interpretation of the Central Dogmas of genetics). Once we acknowledge incomplete fragments transgenes, alternate-splicing, RNA’s role in genetics and epigenesis, we realise that all bets are off with regards to either safety or predictability in genetics, at least as we understand it today.
Kernel,
I don’t know what to tell you except that there are plenty of people on this board with absolutely no expertise in any particular field (except whining perhaps) that are more than happy to render their opinion on any matter. Technical excellence and practical experience are not required to pronounce judgement on exceedingly complex problems. Why spend all that time studying math and science? On this board, all are equal.
In truth, it is no different than when Limbaugh bloviates on matters he knows nothing about. It is just that raging against the machine is the accepted norm here.
Douglas Barnes,
Please disregard my previous post. You at least have done some homework. You are ignoring a good deal of what kernel has to say about the utility for him, but you raise excellent points.
Kernel, your arguments are sounding a bit funny to me. Are you saying that we should accept GMOs despite what I mention above because they simplify the work of industrial monoculture? Are you saying that because agriculture has seen many attempts at improvement in its history (Sumerians making a huge desert by inventing irrigation networks, for example), and genetic modification is one of those attempts, we should accept GMOs despite what I mention above? Are you saying that we should accept GMOs because once discovered, knowledge cannot be unlearnt? (Does that go for nuclear weapons as well? Biological and chemical weapons? Torture techniques?)
Also, how specifically will the problem of RoundUp “be taken care of.” Is this unspecified solution going to address the issue of the toxicity of its surficant to amphibians? Will it address the vomitoxin problem as the RoundUp feeds fusarium (even though Monsanto does not want to admit this little problem)? Will it deal with associated human health issues that have been linked to glyphosate?
kendpotter, I hope I have addressed the utility in my last post, but what is the point of utility if environmental and human health cannot be assured (perhaps they can, but that little part of the research has yet to be done)? My first thoughts are of Catch 22’s Milo Mindbender telling Yossarian that the boys must eat chocolate-covered cotton “for the good (i.e. utility) of the syndicate.”
‘Ranjana Smetacek, a spokeswoman for Monsanto, said companies deserve praise for developing crop varieties that will survive climate change.’
How can this person live with herself? is she that unaware of the nature of the company she works for?
Douglas Barnes___Even if we were all convinced that GM seed is a bad development, how exactly, do you propose to stop the use of it? Marching in the streets did not even slow down the war, so that does not seem to work. We have a free enterprise system, so if something is legal, there is not much of a way to stop it.
I guess if you can get Monsanto declared illegal and criminal, then you might get somwhere with this crusade. Just do not expect commercial farmers to give up a product they like and are glad to purchase due to good results.
Without many tests confirming that GM seed constitutes a health menace, which is not the case now, it will continue to be used. As for the Roundup, you can be sure the people that developed it are aware it may need a replacement as most other farm products did andd were discontinued.
MONSANTO! The same biotech company that produces the artificial bovine growth hormone BGH (Posilac) that is designed to make cows produce more milk… and causes infections, PUSS and BLOOD! Then it is passed on to our uneducated parents and their children for consumption! Give me a damn break! “SO HUMAN AN ANIMAL” RENE DUBOS!
“We have a free enterprise system, so if something is legal, there is not much of a way to stop it.”
Free enterprise? Free for whom?
We actually have a highly controlled economic program where access to resources, capital, etc. is increasingly determined by consortias of banking, corporate and military interests.
Also, certain industries (such as businesses to provide reasonably priced healthy vegan food) are also opposed by syndicated efforts involving government, banking, and private businesses.
And then there is the question of ownership. If you invent something and you are not being designated by ‘the powers that be’ to release it (but they decide they want it developed), your days may be numbered! And if not your days, certainly your reputation is about to take a dive.
(I have seen both of these and many other variations on this theme)
Nothing is more controlled in our society than capital and economic opportunity other than possibly accurate information.
What a pile of manure this GM p.r.campaign is.I have a pack of Aztec Black and some Blue corn here.Both varieties have been in cultivation for hundreds of years in the desert in Mexico ,Guatamala and other very dry climates.This is like the drug cartels using GM to make Coca and Canabis roundup ready lovely idea.I’m gonna go smoke some Glysophate and snort some Paraquat yum yum we know what these seed fascists are up to! Bill and Melinda wake up and eat some O.P. organic corn damn it. peas in and out
staying_sane-
thanks for your posts and links.i think this is a fight between
corporate greed and all the poor people in the Global South,
most especially the small farmers. well these small farmers
two thirds of the population of the earth. so maybe another world
is possible after all. You could all rush out and buy Vandana Shiva’s
book, Earth Democracy. or spend some time at her website.
http://www.navdanya.org/about/founder-message.htm
If you want safe food, you might be a terrorist.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=monsanto&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv&start=20
Just before I respond here to your question and points, I’d like to ask for clarification. I posed nine questions. You could get by answering the six main ones. I asked them because your argument sounded funny. I would like clarification, please. Now, onward…
“Even if we were all convinced that GM seed is a bad development, how exactly, do you propose to stop the use of it?”
I’ll jut be clear: I don’t know if the practice is universally a bad development. Some of it has proven to be (Event 176 Bt corn, for example), others are highly suspect (for example, industry data suggesting Event MON 810 was found to be somewhat toxic in an animal feed trial). Elements of the technology do not look good for the industry as a whole.
That said, it strikes me that your argument, if applied to, say, thalidomide, would mean that there would be no way to control the stuff once harmful effects were discovered. Or how about cannabis? It is a controlled substance because it is regulated as such. (This last example is, admittedly, not a very good one because significant numbers of people want cannabis, whereas the large majority of the planet’s population do not want GM crops.)
If you go to the supermarket today and buy anything with corn in the ingredients, you are just about guaranteed to be consuming GM corn. This came about not because of a free enterprise system (incidentally, for a free enterprise system, there are plenty of regulations, not to mention corporate welfare), but as an expedited administrative decision under Bush Sr. As Erik Millstone, et al wrote in their piece Beyond ‘Substantial Equivalence’ in the October 7, 1999 issue of Nature, “[using chemical tests to show GM crops are ’substantially equivalent’ to non-transgenic crops] might seem plausible and attractively simple, but we believe that it is misguided, and should be abandoned in favour of one that includes biological, toxicological and immunological tests rather than merely chemical ones.” They go on to point out that “The biotechnology companies wanted government regulators to help persuade consumers that their products were safe, yet they also wanted the regulatory hurdles to be set as low as possible.”
Again, this came about not by the market and its mysterious wisdom, nor by some metaphorical invisible hand. It came about by political pressure on regulatory scientists (something the Bushes seem to have an affinity for). Regulations permitted it, regulation could make it disappear. More on this below.
“Just do not expect commercial farmers to give up a product they like and are glad to purchase due to good results.”
For reasons I stated earlier, it is certainly unclear as to whether or not farmers are glad to have GM canola or not. If their neighbours grow it, they have to, as I mentioned. Gladness does not enter into it. Some GM soy farmers are conceivably glad to grow GM soy. Others are glad to grow IP (identity preserved) soy and enjoy higher yields for lower seeding rates, plus get significant premiums from customers like me (and entire nations like Japan) who do not want GM soy. Premiums of $150 or more an acre are commonplace. And as I mentioned before, almost all the GM crops grown in the world are grown in just 4 countries. Compared with the rate of spread of hybrid corn in the 40s, the adoption of GM crops has been lukewarm even in those 4 major-producing countries.
But what does popularity with a segment of the population really tell us? I remember a silly cigar boom in the late 90s. What would the popularity of cigars in 1998 have told us other than they were popular with people who smoked them? Popularity gives not meaningful gauge of safety, healthfulness, etc. It only tells us people who like it like it.
“Marching in the streets did not even slow down the war, so that does not seem to work.”
Labels would. Soy products in Japan need to be labeled if they contain GM soy. After the law came into effect, producers gave GM soy a shot, but they could not sell the product even at below cost and quickly scrambled to procure IP soy. Just as regulation allowed GM crops, this simple regulation, applied universally, would get rid of them.
“Without many tests confirming that GM seed constitutes a health menace, which is not the case now, it will continue to be used.”
This, like so many other things modern industrial society does, is a sociopathic way to go about doing things. As others have pointed out here, we are paying the price for this approach. Reality always gets the last punch.
And regarding RoundUp, my earlier questions were not rhetorical. What are they doing specifically? I know what Monsanto has done. It has invested in a future for glyphosate. Their patent is up, but if you want to use RoundUp Ready GM crops, you have to use RoundUp under the licensing agreement. They could change the surficant that is toxic to amphibians, giving themselves a new and patentable product. But that does not address the issue of fusarium or the health issues.
For a list, based on lab experiments and testings, of the ongoing RISKS of GM “Foods”:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Home/index.cfm
It is a travesty that patents on seeds (our food supply!) were ever granted to Monsanto. You are looking at a corporation that cares nothing about feeding others. Look at their track record! Their products have left the earth reeling with chemical waste, spills, and harmed every community they touch. Look into the 100+ deaths of those who consumed their genetically engineered tryptophane. Trace the increasing allergic reactions to soy, corn.
To grant them any power is to ask for genetic suicide. Our bodies do not recognize these plants, and their is no proof that the genetic split will stabilize as GM food is ingested.
Monsanto wants ownership of the world’s food supply….FOR PROFIT, and to use food as a weapon for control.
Please LOOK.
What Solrey writes needs emphasis:
” Reason would dictate that the gene sequence be FULLY understood and the modification process perfected so as to be precise and predictable, greed and lust for power are the dictates of our current situation unfortunately. There have been many GMO failures in trials due to the unknown effects plus the known effects, both environmentally and economically have been consistently detrimental”.
I fully agree.
We are Sickness in an ever-downward spiral. In my few years on this planet I have seen a degradation that should shame anyone with a conscience, yet we slime ever onward as without a second thought.
“Monsanto wants ownership of the world’s food supply….FOR PROFIT, and to use food as a weapon for control.
Please LOOK.”
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Home/index.cfm
Thanks for the link. It looks excellent!
Every promise Monsanto et.al. has ever made about the benefits of their GM technology has failed. Climate ready crops will fail as well.
Their only consistent and unfailing successes are; unflinching government support for whatever they do, farmers who will without question buy whatever they put on the market, and consumers who will ask no questions about the technology used to produce their food.
So, why is anyone surprised when they unveil the next crop that will save the world and the world accepts it without question?
BAC: I agree with itsaNaziWorldOrder, it does look good! I saw Mr. Lyman and his lovely wife at a theater showing his film.
And John Robbins at the Green Festival. Both excellent speakers and well informed.
Thanks.
It’s time to stop arguing with fools who promote GMO’s, we can and should stop them soon.
(I have posted this elsewhere but I think its the one practical way forward)
Best selling anti-GM food author Jefrey Smith predicts we can stop it: “Now remember, the food industry gains nothing from these GM crops, in about 80% are herbicide tolerant and about 20%produce their own pesticide. They do not have consumer benefits, so the food industry gains nothing from using GM, and if they saw a drop in market share of just a few percentage points and they perceived a trend that might grow over time, it is very easy to see how the stampede away from GM could be repeated in the United States as it was in Europe. I am predicting that with as little as 5% of the US consumers avoiding GM ingredients very consciously, that 15 million people could drive the decisions for the entire food industry. So where can we get 15 million people? Well, certainly health conscious shoppers are low-hanging fruit since there are already 28 million people who buy organic food on a regular basis, but they rarely avoid GM ingredients in their non-organic purchases. I’m working with some CEOs of major food companies in the natural food industry, and what we are doing is we are cleaning out any remaining GM ingredients from the entire natural food sector, setting up GMO information centers in all the health food stores, non-GMO shopping guides, and later on, in-store, on-shelf labeling of any products that have held out and not participated in the clean-up.”
To read the full interview with Smith and find out how grassroots action can stop GMO’s go to:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10691.cfm
Kernel
During Hitler’s Germany there were no Nazi war criminals in terms of the law, their actions were santioned by the state, so with the present US government it may be hard to legislate against dangerous GM seeds farmers love growing because its Monsanto’s America.
However, things changed in Nazi Germany, and after WW2 many Nazi war criminals were hanged for crimes against humanity.
Farmers who love growing harmful GM seeds should change their ways, because what goes around comes around. As you sow so shall you reap. Ask Hitler’s henchmen.
I’m not going to pretend to be an authority on whether or not GM foods are safe. After all, I wouldn’t want someone to accuse me of not having a right to speak my mind because I’m not a geneticist, or because I didn’t do my “homework.”
So I’m going to speak my mind from a different angle:
Oil is something to be traded for, and not stolen, and food is something to be grown (and sold and purchased), but not patented. No one invented food (except God or Nature, depending on your viewpoint) and no one has a right to patent it. Period.
Kernel:
Your comments are a reflection of the kind of propaganda produced by a shill for a PR Firm working for one of the world’s largest Agricultural BioTech Corporation. Pathetic!
i just read this on yahoo india (it must be true!!! and they got it from the telegraph) apparently vegetables and fruits grown at zero gravity in space produce harvests 20% higher than normal. the chinese are currently working on this phenomena hoping to solve the world’s food crisis. they don’t know why this happens, but suspect cosmic radiation, microgravity and magnetic fields might play a part. if it’s true and it works, let’s just hope these biotech conglomerates don’t get wind of it…………
Kernel
I still question your pro-GM assertion that “Just do not expect commercial farmers to give up a product they like and are glad to purchase due to good results.” Research shows that generally GM crops use far more chemicals and yield less than non-GM, while US farmers lose millions of dollars a year through foreign market rejection.
Are farmers thrilled about GM seeds?
not US Family Farmers, according to their web site,
not Canadain Family Farmers according to their web site
not many Austalian farmers, according to a NON-GMO Farmers web site in Australia
PLUS:
tribal women in India burn GM seeds
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/indiawomen32505.cfm
AND
12 reasons for Africa to reject GM seeds
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=294
BASF’S HOLOCAUST - NAZI LOVING PAST.
Something worth remembering about these companies is they don’t give a shit about where they get their money. If there is a buck to be made they’ll sleep with Satan and damn the rest of us. BASF during world war II was part of the infamous I.G Farben conglomerate that amongst other things manufactured Zyclon B for the Nazis. BASF were involved in the production of synthetic rubbber for Germany’s war effort. A major centre of which was to be at Monowitz or better known to you and I as part of Auschwitz. Using slave labour they got in bed with the Nazi’s. With a track record like that why wouldn’t you trust them to do the right thing with GM crops? I say BASF should be destroyed. Boycott BASF and Bayer drive these scumbags out of business.
kendpotter writes: “Kernel, I don’t know what to tell you except that there are plenty of people on this board with absolutely no expertise in any particular field (except whining perhaps) that are more than happy to render their opinion on any matter. Technical excellence and practical experience are not required to pronounce judgement on exceedingly complex problems. Why spend all that time studying math and science? On this board, all are equal.”
-
Kendpotter, I can’t work out if you are supporting Kernel or criticizing him. But it sounds like you are supporting him.
If you’re supporting Kernel, “technical excellence” gave us Eugenics in America at the beginning of the last century - individuals were sterilized and others prevented from marrying - and it got its ultimate expression in Nazi Germany.
However, I see no “technical excellence” coming from the mouths of either you or Kernel. Just mere opinion that GM is OK, or can’t be stopped, so what you gonna do?
You refuse to argue why we need GM food. As I pointed out, large swaths of farmland have been planted with GM seed merely because it’s resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide, Roundup, which kills every plant it’s sprayed on.
This might be great for large farms who can now spray Monsanto’s herbicide with abandon, and not have to worry about killing off their crops, but it serves no useful purpose for us, the consumer, and it’s the fact that seeds are now the property of corporations that’s so worrying.
Just because someone is a “scientist” it does not mean they have free rein to conduct any experiment they want or to turn food into a product that corporations own.
GM food is jobs for the biotech boys. Many university scientists are no longer satisfied with technical excellence or knowledge - they are setting up their own companies so that they can get rich quick, and that means creating a market for their products, even when one doesn’t exist. GM food is not what the public has been demanding, and it gives us nothing that we want.
Scientists that work for corporations have compromised their “technical excellence”, kendpotter.
I don’t see people dying from lack of food in America or Canada, so why are these seeds being planted there?
It’s about corporate control of our food supply, and any argument is being made to justify GM. No longer will we be able to extract the seed from a fruit or vegetable and grow our own food. We will either have to buy the seeds or get a license.
Supermarkets already reject the sweetest variety of tomato because its skin is too thin to cope with all the shunting about and rough treatment fruit and vegetables are subjected to by the supermarkets’ distribution networks. Once plants becomes the property of corporations, it’s purely the profit motive that matters, not good, tasty, healthy, nutritious food or any other consideration.
The poor will be sued if they dare grow fruit and vegetables from seeds they didn’t buy (in fact, Monsanto has already sued farmers). Available plant varieties will diminish also.
This is about the corporate control of EVERYTHING! If corporations could genetically modify air, they would, and we’d have to pay companies merely to breath.
Kendpotter and Kernel’s views are the exact same ones held by politicians. Those who are “intellectually superior” to the masses have a right to control the masses, to tell them what is good for them, what is bad for them, what they need, and what they don’t need.
For the benefit of Kendpotter and Kernel, “intellectual superiority” is not the same as moral superiority, having principles, having concern for others, or even having integrity in the position you hold in society. You are both deeply confused.
To those who say GM food is OK:
FACT: From 1956 to 1962, approximately 10,000 children were born with severe malformities, their mothers had taken Thalidomide during pregnancy. But assurances of Thalidomides safety continued to come in:
“There is still no positive proof of a causal relation between the use of thalidomide during pregnancy and malformations in the new-born.” Frank Getman, President Merrill Company, Feb 2nd 1961.
It would be good FOR EVERYONE to acquire a copy of “Seeds of Deception” www.seedsofdeception.com which exposes industry and government lies about the safety of the GM food you are eating.
I have no financial interest in this book, but it is one of the best expose’s of industy and governments lies and deceptions on this subject.
Kernel and Kendpotter, here is not “technical excellence”, but some empirical evidence, which is far more useful:
“Strong evidence of pesticide resistance is rapidly accumulating, details ‘Who Benefits from GM Crops,’ meaning that farmers will have to spray more and more chemicals to less and less effect. Pesticide use is rising rapidly in biotech-heavy countries. In the heaviest user of biotech seeds — the United States, which has half of all biotech seed planting — glyphosate-resistant weeds are proliferating. Glyphosate use in the United States rose by 15 times from 1994 to 2005, according to ‘Who Benefits from GM Crops,’ and use of other and more toxic herbicides is rapidly rising. The U.S. experience likely foreshadows what is to come for other countries more recently adopting biotech crops.”
“Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose; The Genetically Modified Food Gamble”:
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/editorsblog/index.php?/archives/74-Heads-Monsanto-Wins,-Tails-We-Lose;-The-Genetically-Modified-Food-Gamble.html
-
Did you read that, Kernel? HALF of all GM seed is planted in the United States.
The empirical evidence proves that you are a liar, Kernel - that GM seed is not widely used around the world and, thus, has not proven itself.
Americans are also not starving to death, so why are GM plants being farmed there? More GM lies! This isn’t about feeding the hungry - it’s about feeding corporations, and, naturally, they’ve decided the best place to start is in one of the richest nations on Earth.
GM shills always call for more science then use anecdotal information to spin their case.
US and Canadain farmers lose millions of dollars each year and major export markets due to embracing GM crops, See:
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/service32.htm
Kernel
Approximately 98% of GMO’s in the world are grown in only five countries. USA, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and China.
Hardly a success story I say. What about the other 196 countries?
And of course you must have seen this: New Study Exposes Great GM Crop Myth- http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8405/
And - ‘Argentina’s GM Woes’ - will give you a just faint hint of the destruction GM crops cause in the developing world, See:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/AGMW.php
Andrew Taynton: Excellent comments, sir! I’m in total agreement with you.
Wavestrider wrote: “We let them own patents on life… we deserve what we get.”
Yes, the corporations have ventured beyond reason by owning patents on life. Their blind and brash actions invite strong opposition. What form that opposition takes remains to be seen. It is definitely crunch time.
Normvincent wrote: “The fundamental thing here IS that spraying Herbicide as an INTEGRAL part of the Process is Death.”
Exactly! Not only do they want to own life but they create Death.
insane____Apparently you do not know that GM corn is not planted only to be able to use Roundup herbicide. The main reason is to protect against corn rootworm and corn borer, along with other insect pests, and it certainly does not cause the use of more chemicals.
Have you thrown away your cellphone and microwave, as they can be dangerous to use, also?
Kernal
Bt crops only make up 20% of GM crops planted. Herbicide tolerant crops make up 80% of area planted.
So 80% of GM crops use more chemical herbicide (Round up etc) , wake up and stop trying to ignore the facts or mislead readers on this blog!!!
In addition, find out more about the harmful effects of Bt or insect tolerant crops:
Go to this URL and scroll down until you find the heading
“Worldwide Consequences of Bt-Toxin Use Reported”
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10691.cfm
Kernal, who exacly is insane old chap, some doddery old farmer by the sound of it?
Also see: US and Canada lose major export markets due to GM crops: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/service32.htm
Congress needs to make it a law to label all food sold that is genetically engineered or contains any of it. When people stop buying it, that will solve the problem.
As you are buy asking others questions, I will request for a third time a response to my questions (leaving out the RoundUp bit as that is taken care of) to get clarification of what you are trying to say. I will repost them for your convenience:
Are you saying that we should accept GMOs despite what I mention above because they simplify the work of industrial monoculture? Are you saying that because agriculture has seen many attempts at improvement in its history, and genetic modification is one of those attempts, we should accept GMOs despite what I mention above? Are you saying that we should accept GMOs because once discovered, knowledge cannot be unlearnt?
“Have you thrown away your cellphone and microwave, as they can be dangerous to use, also?”
Is it your intent to make a tu quoque argument here? Either way, what would this tell us of either the safety or appropriateness of GM crops?
Andrew Taynton,
You taint every intellingent, well-researched comment you make with your comparison of Kernel to a Nazi henchman. It would sure be nice if we could make it one day on this board, without calling someone who disagrees with us, a Nazi.
As far as farming goes, I never have. I have to think that since Kernel does and he doesn’t appear to a be a stupid person, chances are he has good reasons for the things he does.
Since he reads Common Dreams, chances are he cares about things that are matters of common concern to the folks here. I would suggest that we all have more in common than not.
kendpotter
You obviously don’t read too many of my comments do you?
I like factual stuff, like that published in agronomic journals and written by scientists who reference their papers such as:
1) Organic yields no different from conventional agriculture See “Organic Agriculture Enters Mainstream” by Institute of Science in Society
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OBCA.php
2) Organic yields equal conventional (April 4, 2003 Agronomy Journal)
http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/041903_organic.cfm
Maybe you or Kernel would like to answer my response to Kernel posted at 10:29am above. But please don’t just regurgitate typical biotech industry spin.
The Wiki definition of plant breeding: “”Plant breeding is the art and science of changing the genetics of plants for the benefit of humankind[1]. Plant breeding can be accomplished through many different techniques ranging from simply selecting plants with desirable characteristics for propagation, to more complex molecular techniques………..The practice is estimated to date back 9,000-11,000 years. Many crops in present day cultivation are the result of domestication in ancient times, about 5,000 years ago in the Old World and 3,000 years ago in the New World. In the Neolithic period, domestication took a minimum of 1,000 years and a maximum of 7,000 years. Today, all of our principal food crops come from domesticated varieties.”"
So plant breeding is “changing the genetics” and is up to 11,000 years old. (I was wrong . it’s older than I thought). Now we do it much faster with Genetically “modified” crops. “Changing” versus “modified”??? You mean that’s what causing all the fuss on Commondreams ??
The risks of GM crops are miniscule compared to the risks people take everyday such as driving on a freeway to go buy organic food at a farmer’s market. Don’t get me wrong, I complelely agree with buying local. I don’t buy imported food that wastes fuel to get it across the ocean when i can buy the same thing here (like Italian cheese and French wine). I just suggest we look at things with a little more pragmatism.
If you want organic food, that means much more labor. I grew up hacking weeds in soybeans when the only herbicide available was very expensive. If you want that nasty job my friends, I ain’t stopping ya. Update your resumes. Go do it, because I–am–not.
“the chinese are currently working on this phenomena hoping to solve the world’s food crisis.”
There is NO world food crisis except the one being orchestrated by the corporate military control freaks.
________ excerpt below from Food First ________
Why so much hunger?
What can we do about it?
To answer these questions we must unlearn much of what we have been taught.
Only by freeing ourselves from the grip of widely held myths can we grasp the roots of hunger and see what we can do to end it.
Myth 1:
Not Enough Food to Go Around
Reality: Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world’s food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other commonly eaten foods - vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs - enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most “hungry countries” have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.
_________
Read all twelve myths including the overpopualtion myth: http://www.foodfirst.org/en/12myths
Andrew Taynton
“kendpotter You obviously don’t read too many of my comments do you?”
I read your comments and like most of them since they tend to be well written and researched. What I said I loathed and tends to make me respect you less is when you liken kernel to a Nazi - And I repeat - You do yourself a disservice and no justice to kernel. As a farmer and actually using these products, I am interested in hearing what he has to say. I don’t think that insulting him is in anyway productive to the discussion.
“But please don’t just regurgitate typical biotech industry spin.”
I can’t regurgitate any of their spin because I don’t know any of their spin. I do know kernel is a farmer and knows more about farming than I do.
”So plant breeding is “changing the genetics” and is up to 11,000 years old. (I was wrong . it’s older than I thought). Now we do it much faster with Genetically “modified” crops. “Changing” versus “modified”??? You mean that’s what causing all the fuss on Commondreams ??”
We aren’t attempting a linguistic confusion, are we? Traditional plant breeding shares next to nothing with genetic modification. Both involve plants, that’s about it.
The conventional creation of new cultivars is familiar to most (excluding technique tissue culture, known to cause genome-wide mutations, used in the creation of hybrids and in GM crops). Traditional breeding crosses plants within the same species to try to result in a new cultivar with desired traits.
Genetic modification involves the imprecise insertion of transgenes (whole or nearly whole) along with unintended fragments of transgenes (I’m including fragments of transgenes along with fragments of vector plasmids here) from entirely different species, perhaps event different kingdoms, with the aid of gutted out viruses or microscopic DNA-coated tungsten or gold BBs (the latter inspired by a scientist who was wastin’ squirrels - not making that up).
Implying genetic manipulation is the same as traditional breeding doesn’t fly.
kendpotter
I have been countering biotech industry spin on GM crops for 10 years so I recognise it in most of its forms, no matter who repeats it.
One thing the biotech industry and their spin doctors have in common with Hitler is the following quote from the man himself “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
I am tired of arguing with people who promote GM crops while living in denial of the risks and harm they will bequeth on this and future generations.
Surely a product should only be released after the science has been done, and a fact is th emore science we do on GM crops the more we find they should never have been released.
“Any politician or scientist who tells you GM products are safe is either very stupid or lying,” Geneticist Professor David Suzuki
I wish more people would realize that it’s not just about food safety, it’s about the corporate takeover of our food supply.
Plants will become the property of corporations for the first time in history.
Monsanto makes a minor genetic modification that makes plants resistant to their herbicide, Round-Up, and that entitles them to own the seed itself, the DNA that nature created.
Perhaps Americans are so indoctrinated with a capitalist mindset that they think the ownership of life itself is not a problem, but Europeans think otherwise.
Aside from turning plants into corporate products modified to serve the profit motive - varieties restricted and rejected - it’s out-and-out theft, turning something that was free into something that we must now pay for.
Plants and animals evolved over millions of years, and they belong to all of us. No one should have ownership over the DNA that nature created - it’s public property!
Just because scientists map a genome, it does not entitle the company they work for to own the genes. Explorers once mapped the world, discovered new continents - however, that did not entitle them to own what they mapped.
Corporations have no right to patent a seed they didn’t create.
And, as nature’s DNA is public property, we should have a right to reject the planting of GM crops - if we so wish - as it is tampering with something WE ALL OWN.
This also means that, until corporations get public approval, they must grow GM crops inside, not outside, which can alter the genome of other plants we collectively own.
Finally, assume there is absolutely no problem whatsoever with tampering with a seed’s DNA, there is still no reason for a company like Monsanto to own the seed that it didn’t create. Monsanto can simply insist that companies buy a license to use the seed in conjunction with their herbicide, Round-Up.
The seed could be used by anyone. But if you want to take advantage of the seeds resistance to Monsanto’s herbicide, then you must get a license.
A Canadian farmer was sued by Monsanto for saving and using Monsanto seed that blew into his field. He didn’t spray his fields with Monsanto’s herbicide - so he wasn’t taking advantage of Monsanto’s genetic modification - yet he was still sued because Monsanto owned the seed itself.
Monsanto should not own the seed as it did not create the seed - NATURE DID!
-
I gave up reading posts by Kernel and Kendpotter. They seem to be working together, playing good cop, bad cop.
First Kernel steps in playing good cop, telling us that GM crops are used extensively across the world - so whatever we think, the demand is there, and our concerns, unfounded.
However, it turns out that GM crops are NOT being used extensively across the world. America alone accounts for approximately 50% of their use. The other 50% is almost entirely accounted for by just five countries - in no particular order: India, China, Argentina, Brazil, and Canada.
Europeans have rejected GM crops. Farmers across developing countries have also rejected them.
Kernel’s nice guy approach failed to work. Enter stage right, Kendpotter.
Kendpotter plays bad cop, telling us we are imbeciles, lacking “technical excellence”, whiners, and non-achievers. “Come on, Kernel,” Kendpotter says, “stop expecting so much from these losers”.
Kendpotter tells us that our opinion is irrelevant. If we won’t go along willingly, our “superiors” will ram GM food down our throats, like it or not - and there’s nothing we can do to stop them!
Europeans took a stance, and their governments backed down, though their governments haven’t given up.
Americans can do plenty!
But if Americans continue to do nothing, politicians - and the corporations they whore for - will force GM crops onto the entire world through stealth legislation or by other means, such as using the World Bank and economic “liberalization” to “assist” small farmers to go out of business. The world’s food system will then be in the hands of a few like-minded corporations.
About the corporate ownership of life itself.
A simple analogy: I get hold of a copy of Windows Vista. I make a small modification to the code that makes it useful to others who run software I’ve written.
Does that minor modification to something I didn’t create - Windows Vista - entitle me to take out a patent on the modified version of Vista and sell it as if it were my own creation?
Would Microsoft tolerate this? Would the courts?
Then why are we allowing Monsanto, and others, to take what they didn’t create - a seed - make a very minor modification to its genome, then patent the seed itself, and sell it as its own creation?
Now apply this legal precedent to a human genome. It would mean the children of a person with a modified genome are the property of the corporation that made the original genetic change.
It would also mean that the person concerned could not have children without paying and getting permission from the corporation that made the genetic alteration.
Corporations are moving in to take possession of animals and plants - that which they didn’t create, that which they don’t own.
Actually, “staying_sane_in_an_insane_world”, it is only you I think is an imbecile. Andrew seems to be pretty sharp and I like reading his posts and checking the references.
I am not educated in this field so I don’t know what I think. I like to get information from as many sources as I can. I want to hear kernel because he working with the stuff and to get him to quit posting by browbeating him is just wrong. Andrew obviously has strong opinions (I still don’t like Nazi references thrown around) against GM and has done quite a bit of research which I have found to be very compelling. This does seem to me to be letting Pandoras Box open.
What I seriously dislike is the denigration of posters simply because they disagree with you. I don’t think you are an imbecile because I disagree with you but because you can’t tell the difference between someone trying to learn something and someone who disagrees with you. And because you think I disagree with you, you immediately go on the attack. I further think you are an imbecile because you fit the profile I talked to kernel about perfectly. You have done nowhere near the amount of research Andrew Taynton has, you’re not a farmer like kernel, yet here you are wasting all our time on your bloviating.
Andrew,
You make some very compelling arguments and have obviously done your homework. It is pretty clear that the science is incomplete and the unintended consequences could well be ruinous. I think you have made the case for not introducing any more of these products. Do you think there is anyway to get Bt corn and some of the other widespread seeds currently in use off the market? If so, is the damage already done or can it be contained?
Kendpotter, I’m not sure what Andrew’s response would be, but these crops were allowed onto the market based on a few controversial bureaucratic and judicial decisions. There are no laws of nature at work here. The decisions are political choices and could be reversed.
Another more likely approach would be to enact labeling laws. I had been living in Japan at the time their labeling laws on soy products were enacted, and it ended the market for GM soy in Japan.
Hi Douglas,
I seem to recall a big political sqabble in this country over labeling. I would guess the large agribusinesses won, since there is no labelling on most foods. But, it didn’t go all their way because organic producers can clearly label their products as being free from GM.
I think they have had some success (in labeling GM foods) in Europe though one of pan-Euro commissions that had become part of their bureaucracy since unification is throwing monkey wrenches in the works.
kendpotter
I respect the fact that you do not like my linking GM crop promoters to Hitler. As you say I do have strong opinions on what I believe is a crime against humanity, i.e. releasing these organisms prematurely.
While an anti-GM microbiologist told me ten years ago the US has no chance of ever getting transgenic genes out of its food system ever, the next best thing is to reverse the process as much as possible, until the scienece can persuasivley show us its OK to release these organisms into the environment.
Idealy governent should quickly phase them out then ban them. This is unlikely. GM food labelling will help build consumer resistance which which is why industry lobbyists prevent government from implementing it.
I have to go will complete this later.
Back again to continue above post.
Civil society in Europe are creating GM free zones and regions (over 4500 so far), and in the US as far as I know two such small GM free zones exist already. One was reported on the other day. So GM free zones are one prong of a two pronged approach.
The second is consumer resistance. If consumers won’t eat it, farmers cannot grow it then biotech firms cannot sell their transgenic seed. In April 1999, Unilever in Europe announced it was going GM free due to consumer preference and within a week all major food manufacturers in Europe announced they were doing the same. If only 5% of consumers in the USA started to consciously avoid food with GM ingredients, it would probably be enough to make major brands rethink their GM policy. The rest would have to follow suit. There are already many more than 5% US consumers who are choosing healthier food, so it is just a matter of time to get 5% rejecting brands with GM ingredients.
Once a tipping point is reach, the GM crop industry should collapse like a pack of cards, because current GM crops have no benefits for food manufacturers, retailers or consumers.
Thanks Andrew! Very much appreciate the information. Still don’t see any value in vilifying people, especially ones like kernel. I am fairly certain he is not an evil person. In any event, it doesn’t fit with progressive values.
Evil? Not that I can discern. Keen on asking questions but not answering them, I’d say. And it sounds like he/she might be accusing me of “scaremongering” on another thread because I ask for independent human feeding studies for GM crops (knowing full well myself that they simply have never been done). If that comment was made with me in mind, he/she was either knowingly making an unfair charge or does not know what the word scaremongering means. I suppose I should be grateful that I no longer see the tactics of Mr. Objectionable or Obnoxious or whatever it was.
kendpotter
After ten years of taking part in the GM crops debate I have never met an honest promoter of the technology. I probably learned to vilify my opponents from spending too much time in their company. It must be another one of their bad traits that has rubbed off on me. I must stop it.
Douglas,
You may like to guess who may just be the reincarnated Mr Obvious. These guys are like clones, they keep appearing with just a name change on blogs.