Family Seed Business Takes On Goliath of Genetic Modification
Heather Meek leafs through the seed catalogue she wrote on the family computer, on winter nights after the kids went to bed.There are Kahnawake Mohawk beans and Painted Mountain corn; Tante Alice cucumber and 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.
Selling seeds is more than just an extra source of income on this organic farm an hour northwest of Montreal.
For Meek and partner Frederic Sauriol, propagating local varieties is part of a David and Goliath struggle by small farmers against big seed companies.
At stake, they believe, is no less than control of the world’s food supply.
Since the dawn of civilization, farmers have saved seeds from the harvest and replanted them the following year.
But makers of genetically modified (GM) seeds — introduced in 1996 and now grown by some 70,000 Canadian farmers, according to Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company — have been putting a stop to that practice.
The 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds. That means they must buy new seeds every year.
Critics charge such contracts confer almost unlimited power over farmers’ lives to multinational companies whose priority is profit. They say GM seeds are sowing a humanitarian and ecological disaster.
But Trish Jordan, a Canadian spokesman for Monsanto, explains that requiring farmers to sign “technology use agreements” allows companies to recoup the cost of developing products.
“Farmers choose these products because of benefits they provide,” Jordan says. “That’s why we’re successful as a company.”
The debate over GM seeds has come into sharp focus as the world faces a food-price crisis that threatens to push millions into starvation.
In recent months, riots have erupted from Haiti to Bangladesh in the wake of soaring costs for staples like bread, rice and corn.
The crisis has prompted calls to step up investment in biotechnology to improve crop yields in developing countries.
“At a global level, it’s a problem that’s not going to be solved by organics or focusing on local food,” says Douglas Southgate, a professor of agricultural economics at Ohio State University.
“Dealing with the problem on a global scale involves using biotechnology.”
But Ottawa author Brewster Kneen, a fierce opponent of GM seeds, counters that biotechnology, as practised by companies like Monsanto, is not the answer.
“The point was never feeding the world or saving the environment,” says Kneen, author of several books about agriculture and biotechnology, including Farmageddon: Food and the Future of Biotechnology. “It’s about wealth, not about health.”
Developing new seed varieties was long a congenial affair where federal government scientists shared information and distributed samples to farmers for testing, says Kuyek, a researcher for GRAIN, an international non-profit organization that promotes agricultural biodiversity.
But in the 1980s, he says, the federal government began privatizing agricultural research.
Worldwide, GM crops have grown 67-fold in 12 years, now covering 690.9 million hectares in 23 countries, according to the industry’s Council for Biotechnology Information.
Canada is the fourth-largest grower of GM crops, which cover seven million hectares. About half of the corn and soybeans grown in Quebec and Ontario are GM crops.
Sauriol and Meek started their first seedlings 13 years ago in their four-room apartment on de Bullion St. Now, the Ferme de Bullion delivers fresh produce to 200 Montreal families every week.
The tiny leeks, sown in February, poked up through the soil like small blades of grass.
They won’t be ready for harvest until November.
This week, Alexander Muller, assistant director of Food and Agriculture Organization, warned that loss of agricultural biodiversity threatens the world’s ability to survive climate change.
“The erosion of biodiversity for food and agriculture severely compromises global food security,” said Muller, who heads FAO’s Natural Resources Management and Environment Department.
Muller’s words resonate with farmers Meek and Sauriol, whose four daughters help with the painstaking work of cleaning seeds over the winter.
“Growing seed is a big job,” says Meek.
“But if you don’t grow your seed, you lose your power.”
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
Congratulations!
As a very small time farmer, I started because I wanted to feed people the best, healthiest, and local produce. Then I got fascinated by collecting my own seeds.
I can’t explain it, but there is something extremely empowering about collecting and replanting your own seeds. Maybe it’s a control thing. Being independent. Or something.
The first seeds I ever harvested and replanted were nasturtiums (I specialized in salad greens, herbs, and ecible flowers). The seeds look like shrunken human brains. Beautiful seeds really. And things just literally grew from there.
I started out being totally opposed to hybrid crops because the seeds didn’t breed true. I can’t even tell you how opposed I am to GM crops. And what is the purpose of terminator technology that Monsanto has hiding in the wings?
This whole debate is about profit over people. And about control and power over food and agriculture. The arguements about GM crops problems/benefits really has nothing to do with what I feel is the major issue. And that is freedom to farm. And when GM crops contaminate any other farmer’s crops, that farmer’s freedom has been sacrificed because his freedom to choose has been taken away. And the community that depends on that independent farmer has also lost its freedom to choose what they eat.
Monsanto, ADM, Cargill, et al are some of the enemies of our freedom and independence as human beings. For me, I’m no longer going to engage in the details of why GM is evil. I have seen the forest from the trees, and I think I now know who my enemy is. That’s a start.
And hand in hand with this goes the coming destruction (if we don’t stop it) of herbs and supplements.
If you want to educate yourself on this issue, go here to watch a 45-minute video on Codex Alimentarius:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634
Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs
Some of you may remember the Psychedelic day’s when Morning Glory Seeds were sought after…as Psychoactive substance…along with banana peels…and it got so out of hand that the company that made…what was it..some great brand name that was very tongue in cheek to those who tripped the lights fantastic..but anyway..the company..finally produced a strain that had so little of the psychoactive element, that what you had to do to obtain the “good stuff” was to BUY THE SEEDS, GROW A CROP, THEN REPLANT FROM THE SEEDS THAT CAME FROM THE FIRST BATCH…AND THEN..THE SECOND BATCH..REVERTED TO ‘NORMAL’ AND CONTAINED THE FULL AMOUNT..THE NORMAL AMOUNT..OF THE …SOUGHT AFTER ASPECT..
MY QUESTION IS THIS, IS THAT NO LONGER POSSIBLE? ARE THERE CONTROLS IN PACE TO KEP THE STOCK FROM SELF PROPAGATING?
I need an answer…WHY is it exactly..that these seeds from the Satanic Seed Co….AKA Monsanto..CAN’T be RE-BREAD?…I have yet to see that little gem in any article..well..okay..let me be specific..I have not seen any BIOLOGICAL REASON as to why these GM seeds cannot be made along with the rest of the crop that is being grown..eg to pollinate a female with male pollen…do they not produce pollen? that alone would..SHOULD be reason enough to halt this practice..how many BENEFICIAL INSECTS…Honey Bees for one…REQUIRE pollen to live..to create Honey etc…? so WHY? why…BESIDES the “CONTRACT” is it not possible to create your own seeds from your plants?
Because if it is ONLY a piece of paper..that stands in the way..well..then..let’s..START MAKING SEEDS…LIKE GETTING MUSIC OFF NAPSTER..BUT EVEN EASIER..WE ALL BUY THESE SEEDS AND THEN “CLONE’ EM..AND GIV THEM TO Farmers…just simply..DENY Monsanto and their ILK..the profit..sure..ILLEGAL???? maybe..do these ploants come..rather do they GROW a little group of fine print words on the stalk stating oyur “rights”? what if this GM crap blows onto MY LAND…an ACT OF GOD…and then? what then?
So..again..HOW is it that these seeds are not …obtainable except through the “company”…?
To me…as a small farmer in Nor Cal..this is the whole deal..the only real question as far as “control’ f food crop seeds go…for if you CAN obtain seeds from breeding these seeds that you bought..then really..there is no problem in terms of control…then it is only the other little reality of GM end of the world science that does not know what it is doing and killing us all…but CONTROL? no…not unless they cannot be re-bread from purchased stock…
Dead seeds, are dead food!
The last thing the world needs is for giant agri-business concern like Monsanto to be in charge of the world’s food supply. If that would come to pass, the nightmare world of the 1975 version of “Rollerball” is that much closer to becoming reality.
jcrumb,
“I have not seen any BIOLOGICAL REASON as to why these GM seeds cannot be made along with the rest of the crop that is being grown..eg to pollinate a female with male pollen…do they not produce pollen?
I can’t imagine that they don’t produce pollen, but in science, anything is possible.
Genetic engineering, my friend. Don’t know the science, but the reason is greed.
Keep on truckin’!
Rebel Farmer, I’ve silently admired your posts for a long time now. You make your point eloquently, thank you. I’d love to have you contact me (just click on my link to access my site) so I can hear more of what you are up to.
Grow food, grow soil, save seed. Learn to operate by the permaculture ethics, Care for earth, Care for People, Share the Surplus.
Amen.
Wouldn’t growing crops from these seeds be a little like the end result of mating cloned cattle? No telling what the end result might be. I’m sure the companies behind the GM seeds know, and maybe that’s why they go to such great lengths to make sure people buy new seed from them each year.
JCrumb,
The answer to your question is this: GMO seeds are seeds that have had DNA from other species inserted into them, either introduced in a virus, or shot in with a weird DNA gun. The inserted DNA by and large carries forward into future generations of the seed. Which is why they want to legalize a suicide gene, to make it impossible to reproduce the harvested seed, all in the interest of profit. When you purchase GMO seed, actually what you do is rent the seed for one planting, you must sign a contract that not only makes you liable if you were to replant without paying royalties, but also has gag clauses, etc… for even speaking about the issue with others.
Monsanto even had, I don’t know if they still do, a hotline to snitch on neighbors planting GMO seeds without paying, with leather jackets the prize if one gets nabbed… They are absolutely hostile toward farmers… just ask Percy Schmeiser, the Canadian farmer who has been fighting them in court for years and years… after Monsanto expropriated all his seed because, get this, his rapeseed had been contaminated by rapeseed fallen from a passing truck or otherwise carried by pollinating insects into the edge of his fields.
The other fallacy of the argument calling for GMOs to increase productivity, is that GMO seeds are not higher yielding than the latest hybrids. Lies, spin and more lies coming out of the mouths of these corporate raiders.
Was there anything in the farm bill to help our farmers buy new seeds every year?
Monsanto —- money for campaign contributions —- elected lawmakers sign farm bill (using tax-payer dollars —– money for Monsanto
Bend over ya’ll
Grow indigenous food, whenever you travel or have friends who travel, visit the local markets, buy produce save and dry the seeds. Bring them back, and pass out to friends who garden. Spread real food, it tastes better cost less, and the initial investment goes to someone suffering at the expense of GMOs and so-called free trade
It is also very important to have seed which is from plants adapted to your local conditions. We have very different photoperiods (no darkness from mid-May until early August) from the areas where most of the seed we buy is produced, yet there is no real local effort to save quality seed on a local level. I do save heirloom tomato seeds (it is a very easy thing to do and you don’t have to isolate the plants like with squash, etc.) –
there is something very empowering about replanting saved seed.
jcrumb — why even mess around with trying to save GM seed when it may be vulnerable to who knows what plant viruses, etc. etc. ? There are many good heirloom seed companies, support them instead ! I would suggest the “Seeds of Change” company for starters.
There are even laws against propagating cuttings from certain ‘patented’ plants. May the Gods strike me dead for saying so, but I not only propagate cuttings from patented plants, I give them away and encourage the recipient to propagate them too. Since there is no ‘profit’ involved, my conscience is clear.
jcrumb, Just google Monsanto percy GM crops canada and your blood will boil!
Here’s the first one that came up for me:
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/interviews/schmeiser.php
Watch this documentary about Monsanto while you still can:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/monsanto_movie080307
Continuing on the topic of patented ornamental plants, I work in the ornamental horticulture industry, and let me tell you, it is a hotly contested issue, even if most nurseries don’t talk about it in the open. While the consequences are probably less dire than for the locked-in subscription system that Monsanto puts farmers through, there are some serious ethical and practical problems with patenting a living plant. Some of the ornamental plants that have been awarded patents are weedy little succulents that propagate themselves very easily without anyone asking. What are gardeners supposed to do, remove these plants every time they show up to keep the breeders happy?
Other patented plants are actually quite valuable varieties of fruit crops. Ever eaten a pluot? That plum-apricot hybrid you purchased at a market was most likely from a patented variety, which orchardists are not allowed to propagate without paying heavy royalty fees.
At least though, with patented ornamentals, unlike these gawdawful seeds from the likes of Monsanto and Novartis, the patent runs out after 20 years, and they can be propagated normally just like anything else.
Here’s “The Future of Food”:
http://www.mercola.com/future-of-food/index.htm
Edible Wild Plants by Peterson field guide is what I have been doing the passed couple years. When you can make coffee, salads, fritters from dandelions off your front lawn. Make pink lemomade from Sumac flowers. Make cooking flour, salads, potato and even eat the flower like corn on the cob from cattails that grow in a marsh. The world is a free buffet if you know where to and what to look for. Roses, that packed with more vitamin C than an orange. Alfalfa that grows everywhere you name it can be added to your daily food and are packed with the vitamins you need.
@Rebel Farmer
If Monsanto could, they would make it illegal to plant your own seeds. How do I know … Remember Bremer’s Order 81 in Iraq? Order 81 is a cleverly written law, with the orwellian title, “protection of new varieties of plants,” that makes it illegal for the Iraqi farmer to replant his own seed:-
http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2004/06/20040609.php
http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-cymru030305.htm
Thats the sort of FREEDOM that the US has exported to Iraq. The freedom for large corporations to prevent the local population from replanting their own seed. Now that is a fundamental freedom. I wonder if such freedoms will find their way back into the USA?
Why do you think all the fuss over chicken flu? I can see a ban on the farm chicken coop. I know people who raise about 3 dozen a season ( none in winter) that last the year. All natural never forced fed and are allowed to walk around peck the ground eat a bug if they want. Best chicken I have had in years. When I move I am going to start one before it is banned as well.
In his book, The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran says, “If you bake a bread with bitterness, you bake a bitter bread.” The analogy extended to gene patents is that when the marriage of that which is naturally given to merge together is instead FORCED to do so (shotgun wedding style biogenetic engineering) its integrity is compromised. LOVE is missing from these equations.
I find the idea that those using seeds “under patent” owe Monsanto royalties… and to whom does Monsanto owe its royalties for the work of ancient hybridization on the part of human farmers added to the ULTIMATE owner of all seed stock: The great mother/nature. Let’s talk about them thar royalties, huh?
And while I am on this roll, after the past due royalties to all RIGHTFUL owners are paid in full, let’s get to those war reparations in the form of paying for what reconstructive surgery is possible for those suffering genetic defects from products Monsanto has also seen fit to profit by. They are to biological science what the nazis were to initial experiments with genetics and torture. And here come the same mental midgits, spiritually impoverished souls ready to prey upon the whole of mankind, claiming the legal and oft’times religious authority to do so. Ah, blasphemy in our midst! And now in our diets, which means our corn (corn syrup everywhere) and soy (fairly ubiquitous) these adulterated molecular structures, these Frankestein cells, are set loose for a massive new experiment in survival of the fittest, based on compromising organisms from the inside out. But of course, as is evident with respect to those forced to sue big pharma, by the time any preponderance of evidence is amassed, any fledgling burden of proof established, the company has closed shop, folded up, assumed sovereignty under a new name, and presto! Like magic, All consequence free!
What a great bunch of comments on raising crops the new modern way!! If one wants to save and plant your own seed that is fine, but in the case of corn, not too smart. The biggest increases in yields have come from hybrids, which lose their yield benefit if the seed is saved and used again. Thank goodness the seed companies developed new varieties and keep changing them to adapt to new conditions. Corn now yields several times what it did when old varieties were used year after year. The biggest benefit from GM seed is resistance to many pests and secondary is yield increase.
If we are going to constantly whine about seed and chemical companies, why stop with them? There are hundreds of large companies that are doing well making money off the little guys with tax and subsidy help. We may as well get rid of all of them and go back to an 1800 existance which of course was so pure and lovely.
Maybe some should realize that without the large companies and their research and developement, we would still have a horse and buggy existance which few of us would want to put up with. If one thinks they are making so much money, it is no problem to buy some shares and find out how it feels to rake in all that easy cash. Just remember companies lose money as well as make it before going too strong on any of them.
But Kernel I think if organics could be hybridized like god intended then we wouldn’t be able to keep the corn from filling our fields. Why think man is better than God and try to mess with DNA splicing or any other weird egotistical conquering conjures. Admittedly I think it would be rad to have Gecko hands, but, I don’t personally think speeding up our own personal Armageddon would be the wisest of ideals to shoot for. Besides, people would think its weird.
“The biggest benefit from GM seed is resistance to many pests and secondary is yield increase.”
It is an overly technical (partial) solution to a problem that already has a solution (all at the cost of billions wasted in research dollars). And yield increase is not universal for each GM crop - some have reduced yields. But if yield increases are the end all be all, the most effective approach is to decrease farm size. One side benefit to this approach would be letting more people into farming and keeping more in farming. Modern agriculture is as great at making farmers unemployed as it is at damaging the environment.
I couldn’t feel comfortable growing GM for another reason as well. There have been no long term health testing at all. The regulatory approach pushed through under Bush I was designed to avoid health testing. Is it safe? Maybe. No one has done an independent, long-term study (let alone multiple studies that one would like to see to feel comfortable consuming the stuff) on a single one of the crops, so who knows? Maybe some of them are healthier than conventional crops, maybe some are detrimental to health. But with no testing done, we can’t tell. So, I would regard myself as a sociopath, or at least committing a sociopathic act were I to produce GM crops and let anyone other than myself eat them without knowing for sure of the health effects.
The capitalist’s abuse of hi-tech is usually motivated by an agenda of power and control over the biosphere up to and including the highest spiritual/intellectual world of humans. To avoid such contamination of the natural world, one can help by shifting one’s exchange/association away from the capitalists and toward one’s local community. This where one finds the local indigenous wild varieties of edible plants. Sustain them, cultivate them, but not too intensely, and enjoy them. And when the capitalist comes to town, share some with him, but don’t take anything he offers in return. You must keep your independence.
Jungle Boy:
Didn’t God also give man the ability to think? It is human nature to try to be better or make things cheaper. I am not saying everything man has invented is good or needed. So when it comes to seeds and these farmers didn’t have a gun to their heads to sign up then what is the problem. How many farmers didn’t or won’t sign up? The ones who don’t sign up, how many will save some seed from last year as their own insurance against the system or finance problems?
Siouxrose:
This is why I mention a few times that book Edible Wild Plants. Everthing we plant, eat, and use for medicine starts as something nature gave us. So why not use something that most in some cases call a weed and is strong enough to live for thousands of years without mans help? Nature makes the changes to these plants but it takes thousands of years to do it, something that is too slow for man. You have heard for years the cure for cancer maybe sitting in a forest some place, and it maybe very true.
” Rebel Farmer May 25th, 2008 12:25 pm
As a very small time farmer, …. Then I got fascinated by collecting my own seeds.
I can’t explain it, but there is something extremely empowering about collecting and replanting your own seeds. Maybe it’s a control thing. Being independent. Or something.”
Maybe I can help clarify that a little, Rebel Farmer.
You’ve heard of ‘assurance’, before, and that is a matter of ‘confidence’, which relates to ‘trust’; all GOOD qualities, when we can really have and/or exercise them anyway.
People who know how to collect their own seeds from their own crops, and this applies with also the excellent medicinal herb known as marijuana, well, how do such people perform the collections?
They collect from the [best] specimens among the crops being grown, not collecting from the less productive plants.
That provides far greater assurance in one, or maybe two respects.
*) It permits the cultivator to naturally generate a sort of hybrid of the crops seeds are collected from, or rather a hybrid of their seeds. What kind of hybrid is as per the next point.
*) This provides a natural hybrid seed which is no different from the original seeds crops were grown from, with one exception. The farmer or cultivator now has far greater assurance of what his or her crops grown in the future will provide in terms of quality, size of fruit and vegetables, perhaps plant strength, and then, maybe, other quality traits.
E.g., people who grow squashes organically, or by an alternative environmentally safe, clean method, should collect seeds from only their best squashes, so the larger ones.
I don’t know if this works with all crops, but when collecting seeds of fruit like squash, then you also get to enjoy eating the squash, just that you separate the seeds from the rest and do what is needed for drying and storing or safe-keeping the seeds.
This, btw, wasn’t learned through experience, but from readings; however, I do not doubt that what they said is indeed the right way for cultivators of plants to collect seeds to be used for future plantings or seedings (whichever term is the right one to use). Some or all of these authors were or are people who actually did this, so they got to see the actual results.
If they are mistaken, which I very much (wholly) doubt that they are, then it most surely can’t hurt to collect and save seeds as those people described to do. So, and in the very worst case, you can’t lose by following their very simple guideline.
It’s information that is available enough online too, so you only have to do a little Web searching for these resources.
As for marijuana, the way to tell which specimens to collect seeds from is indicated by the plants that are the most potent in THC; the better the potency, the better the effect and the far less needs to be smoke to obtain a satisfactory effect. The less needs to be smoked, the less tar is consumed. I doubt the tar is a truly big deal, but it’s lousy to smoke important crop. That’s while smoking the herb is not the best way to consume it; and I once found it great when added to pasta sauces, f.e. Yummmm, for taste, and great is the effect; just simmer on heat as low as you can make it for the sauce to simmer a little and cause the THC to be excreted from the leaf material so that this permeates the sauce for a very pleasant, relaxing, though also energizing, … meal.
Make food your medicine and medicine your food!
Correction: “I doubt the tar is a truly big deal, but it’s lousy to smoke important crop”, should read ‘impotent’, not ‘important’. Even if the herb is also important, ‘impotent’ was meant.
A few other things I wrote, above, deserve correction, too; but I won’t bother with those now.
‘Make food your medicine and medicine your food!’, anyway. I forget which agri.-loving priest said this, but the name should not be difficult to find. May have said it a little differently though; such as, f.e., ‘Make food your medicine. And make medicine your food’, or some other variation of this.
@Hollow point May 26th, 2008 5:04 am
“So when it comes to seeds and these farmers didn’t have a gun to their heads to sign up then what is the problem. How many farmers didn’t or won’t sign up?”
No guns were necessary, and yet the farmers had no choice. I disagree with most of what Kernel says. The sins of Monsanto are many. But he does have a point. In many cases there were very substantial yeild increases. Can you compete if other farmers get the yeild increases and not you? If other farmers were to stay behind and not take the GM crop, you could double your yield by being the only one to adopt and that would have the effect of multiplying your profit by ten. As a farmer, whether you think the GM crop is a good idea or not, economically you would have little choice.
Often times the modification is one that breeds in a resistance to a poison that only Monsanto sells, that kill most everything else, but your crop is immune to it.
But in the case of Iraq, Bremer’s law forbids them to replant their own seed. Yes, they still have a gun to their heads.
The incredible stupid laws allowing Monsanto to take ownership in every ense of mother nature itself are just criminal. The US goverment standing by without acting to stop and revert this criminal company policy deserves to be thrown into prison themselves.
It’s 5 to 12 and the situation will become shortly irreversible. A C T N O W
Unless Monsanto is stopped in India where a similar fight is ongoing in courts there, this too will be yet another successful corporate grab at control of all commodities. Food in this case. I would suggest that all of you who already eat organic foods begin to save the seeds of those foods you are eating. Until the organic seed distributors organize and then attack the Monsanto’s in courts for the bio-infestation of their organic crops this will continue. We need to take the fight to them the way they are coming at the organic food industry. It is the GMO seed growers who should be in court on the defense. How about getting some of the million NGO’s lobbying Congress all day and get them to goto court on offense for once. Flip the script or be run down by the corporate monster which knows nothing of satiety.
rebel farmer-good for you! keep up the good work, the world needs more independents.
CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL, is the name of the game with these ‘people’, we must resist at every turn their own ideas and ways to do things. WE can do better! WE need that basic right back to plant most any plant. WE NEED INDUSTRIAL HEMP BACK ASAP!!!!!!!!!! We need fresh ideas from progressive thinkers, we need to organize people!!!
go fresh, go local, start talking to people about these issues, and hopefully it starts to reach a critical mass..
until then, happy trails to you and yours!
braithwa842 -thanks for the link, directive 81 is an abomination on the iraqi people. as is this never ending occupation of foriegn lands. Long Live their own Resistence!
The reason that the people opposed to GM crops across the board come across as religious fanatics with no ability to think logically is that, in fact, they ARE religious fanatics with no ability to think logically. That they do not subscribe to one of the recognized flavors of religion is irrelevant. They still think and act like the Bible thumpers who can be switched on and off by pushing the right buttons.
The problem is not that there is something intrinsically wrong with GM, but that the use it has been put to is not always of benefit to people in general. One Phillipine professor managed to add a gene for beta carotene to rice, the mainstay of the diet in East Asia. It would have prevented the visual problems that are too common in children in that area, but thanks to the Holy Rollers, including Green Peace, his modification never made it into the market and children continue to go blind.
For those who complain about Monsanto putting a lethal gene in their seeds and then complain about “contamination” of other seeds, you can’t have it both ways. Either you allow the spread of genes from GM crops or you produce seeds that will not grow. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
I checked the web pages concerning Bremer’s Order 81 and it doesn’t say what they are purported to say. There is no way in hell that anyone can prevent a farmer from using the same seeds that he has used all his life, try as you will. Some jerk tried to patent quinoa in Bolivia and the Bolivians went on growing quinoa just like they had for thousands of years with no intention of paying anything to the aforementioned jerk.
What Order 81 says is that use of commercial seeds is restricted to buying the seeds every year, that a farmer is prohibited from buying the seeds and then the next year, using them for his own benefit. If he has been trading seeds with his brother-in-law, there is no way that he can be stopped from continuing to do that as long as these are seeds that didn’t derive from a commercial source.
I understand they’re making strains of food crops which are immune to insecticides and defoliants so they can kill off every living thing in a commercial field except the crop itself. How does that grab you? Are we then expected to develop the same immunity if we dare to eat?
Plus the corn ethanol fiasco which is raising food prices 85% world-wide. It’s the real reason for embargoing Cuba, because sugar cane is like 9 times as productive for making alcohol than is corn. It’s up and running in Brazil, but we can’t seem to look away from corn. It isn’t the small farmer (if there is such a thing anymore) it’s these huge monolithic giants who are making the profits by keeping us focused on corn.
Makes it pretty clear which side government is on — the one which makes giant campaign contributions and gets even more back with subsidies and tax-payer funded technology which becomes established and entrenched and then controls everything.
I don’t think this will change until a few heads roll, and these guys don’t expect that to happen as long as they control the politicians.
dkm: “The reason that the people opposed to GM crops across the board come across as religious fanatics with no ability to think logically is that, in fact, they ARE religious fanatics with no ability to think logically.”
This coming from someone who totally ignores my requests for evidence of human testing on GMOs is hilarious. To ignore reasoned arguments showing concern over GMOs while focusing on the weaker arguments is a form of straw man argumentation.
“One Phillipine professor managed to add a gene for beta carotene to rice, the mainstay of the diet in East Asia. It would have prevented the visual problems that are too common in children in that area, but thanks to the Holy Rollers, including Green Peace, his modification never made it into the market and children continue to go blind.”
Ahem. Bullshit.
You are talking about German (not Filipino) researcher Ingo Potrykus who created a strain of rice that, had it met its goal of 33.3 micrograms per 100g of rice (it did not even approach this level), would have people eating 2.272 kg dry weight of golden rice daily (nearly 7 kg when cooked). That is one whole hell of a lot of rice to eat to get the necessary 750 micrograms of vitamin A needed per day.
Furthermore, fat is required to uptake vitamin A. Well, if you have to eat 7 kg of rice per day, you won’t have room for anything else, and rice has only 0.5g of fat per 100g dry weight. So all that vitamin A won’t help much because their bodies won’t absorb it. And rice is low in iron (0.7g per 100g of dry weight), which is necessary for the body to convert beta carotene into vitamin A. What a great recipe to create vitamin A deficiency!
Then there is the issue of inviting blight by spreading a genetically identical strain all over Asia - something that has cause severe losses in places such as Indonesia.
Then there is the issue of wasting millions of dollars on an untenable solution to a problem that already has a solution. Just as millions is spent in North America teaching people about nutrition, so it needs to be done on the ground in places suffering from vitamin A deficiency. Better to use already existing plants that actually meet dietary needs such as coriander, which has 1166 to 1333 micrograms of vitamin a per 100 grams, curry leaves (Murraya koenigii) with 1333 micrograms per 100 grams, or, if possible, goat or sheep liver with 6600 to 10000 micrograms per 100 grams.
No, it’s better not to create vitamin A deficiency with “golden rice,” thank you.
Now, was that “think[ing] logically”: straightforward mathematics with no hint of religious overtones.
Remember too that many of these very high-yielding strains are dependent on very large inputs of inorganic fertilizers, and those fertilizers are created from petrochemical products among other things which you’d probably rather not know about (the Seattle PI did a great series some years ago about all the toxic waste which is innocently listed under ‘inert ingredients’ in commercial fertilizers)
The price of fertilizer is naturally going through the roof, so what will happen to these crops which won’t grow without all this artificial chemical input when the fertilizer becomes unaffordable ?
Maybe then the farmers who have been unable to compete because they prefer a reasonable and sustainable yield from more moderate inputs will finally be back in business again . . .
I think that by putting all our eggs in one genetic basket, such as identical rice all over Indonesia, it is putting the population of the world at risk. Remember the potato blight in Ireland, and how it led to the starvation and ex-immigration of many of the Irish? Think, too, of the blights or insect ravages that have killed off entire regions of specific plant species, leaving none behind.
What would happen if almost every U.S. farmer grew “the Monsanto brand” of corn, and we had a blight attack on them? That would affect our country in ways that would be deeply problematic. That would impact our supply of corn oil, high-fructose corn syrup (sweetener in almost all manufactured foods), corn as a food, cornmeal and some packaging materials. At least those are the products I can think of that come from corn. It would be a disaster, not only for the U.S, but for many parts of the world we export to!
GM crops are a economic disaster, if it were not for susidies US farmers planting GM crops would have gone bankrupt long ago.
More on lower yields from GM seeds in Science/Nature:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_26789.shtml
Within a few years of the introduction of GM crops, almost the entire US$300 million annual US maize (corn) exports to the EU and the $300 million annual Canadian rape (canola) exports to the EU had disappeared due to market rejection.
In contrast, the market for organic produce which does not use GM seeds, chemical pestides or synthetic fertilizers is growing at about 30% per year.
dkm
Your little rant about GM opponents behaving like religious fanatics is ludicrious on uninfomed.
Hundreds of independent scientists are opposed to GM crops for a variety of reasons see: World Scientists Statement http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/world-cn.htm
(I can supply you with other sources as well.)
But there are some good religious reasons to oppose them as well See:
http://www.safeage.org/GM%20Free%20Food%20List%20Campaign/Alliance%20for%20Biointegrity%20(US%20Clergy).htm
Genetic Engineering: An Affront to Religious Principles. The false claims and faulty procedures of the biotechnicians not only affront genuine science, they affront religion as well. From a religious perspective: (a) By insisting that forced, piecemeal gene-splicing is substantially equivalent to sexual reproduction, and by attempting to trivialize the multiple barriers against cross-species gene flow, bioengineers denigrate the presence of purpose in nature. (b) By sundering these barriers without sound safeguards, they display irreverence toward the Creator and an irresponsible attitude toward the creation. Especially arrogant is their presumption that human intelligence can restructure the intricate genetic programs that guide the growth and function of living organisms with greater competence — and with less precautionary procedure — than when amending a man-made computer code. Accordingly, an increasing number of people oppose the genetic restructuring of our food as a brazen trespass on the realm of God and a disruption of the divine plan.
dkm
Your following statement is rediculous: “For those who complain about Monsanto putting a lethal gene in their seeds and then complain about “contamination” of other seeds, you can’t have it both ways. Either you allow the spread of genes from GM crops or you produce seeds that will not grow. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”
If you don’t plant/release GM seeds in the first place you don’t need terminator technology to contain them do you?
The message you need to understand is NO GM SEEDS, whether alive or sterile.
Poeple are working towards GM free countries, continents and regions around the world, grassroots action towards a GM-Free-America is needed.
Glad to see this discussion. I wrote my book because so few people know that all the important seeds we rely on have been engineered and have been almost completely privatized.
This is a theft of monumental proportions and impact, and it is a political issue, just like hunger, which is caused by poverty, is a political issue - we need to ask ourselves: how WILL we feed ourselves?
Here are two resources: “There Will Be Drought” gives links to the way the “gene giants” have now captured “climate ready genes” and drought resistant seeds (as if they invented this!) and, of course, my book, which covers all this and more “Uncertain Peril, Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.”
http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2008/05/there-will-be-d.html#more
and www.clairehopecummings.com
Claire Hope Cummings
dkm - O by the way dkm:
You want a religious discusion, yes. Genetically Modified Food: The Impending Disaster
Statement of the Catholic Bishops of South Africa
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE3/Catholic-Bishops-Statement14nov01.htm
Sorry dkm missed this one, what I say…
Chuches - 10 reasons against GM…
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_print.asp?ID=847
don’t forget old fellow , scientists, agronomists and consumers don’t want GM either!!
Whadda ja say now?
Claire, thank you.
Andrew, I suspect he says nothing to strong arguments and only goes after the weak ones: hit-and-run posting. Still, I am thankful he gave me the opportunity to debunk the golden rice propaganda.
Kernel says, “The biggest benefit from GM seed is resistance to many pests and secondary is yield increase.” I’d like to point out that one way GM corn resists pests is by having an inserted gene that produces the pesticide BhT. And guess what — the plant produces BhT ALL THE TIME, throughout EVERY PART OF ITSELF. This means that when you eat GM corn, you are eating BhT. Is it harmful to us? Results of any studies done to find this out are quashed or buried, but there are rumors that people have allergic reactions, it promotes diseases of the liver, etc. When pollinating insects eat GM corn pollen, they are eating BhT — which kills them.
As for yield increase — remember a couple of years ago, the several hundred farmers in India who went into debt to purchase GM cotton, counting on Monsanto’s promise that it would yield a six-fold increase in production? When it proved to be LESS productive than non-GM cotton, these farmers — around 700 of them, now in desperate debt, killed themselves.
Start a garden! Plant non-GM seed and save it!