The World According to Monsanto

[rd_macgregor]

A couple of folks have mentioned GMO wheat and tomatoes, and the terminator trait. Delta and Pine Land and the USDA were issued a joint patent for a Genetic Use Restriction Techology (GURT) method which was dubbed "terminator" by opponents. The trait has never appeared in a product.
Similarly, there has never been an approved GM wheat and, to the best of my knowledge, GM tomatoes are no longer being grown commercially anywhere.
The adoption of gene-spliced crops around the world has been a revolution...much more dramatic than any prior technological change in agriculture. Individual farmers have made the decision to switch to GM varieties because of the agronomic advantages they provide. Something like 90% of farmers using GM varieties are in the third world (eg, China, India, Philippines).

Farmswithjunk is right to point out that after over 20 years of widespread consumption and billions of servings consumed, nobody has ever verified an adverse health effect from eating GM foods. Research in recent years has pointed out that other breeding techniques, particularly mutation breeding, introduce greater genetic variation in plant varieties than does genetic engineering, yet those techniques are considered "conventional breeding" so get no special attention.

Nowadays, it is nearly impossible to get a GM safety study published...UNLESS it shows some negative effect! Journals just don't want to publish yet another study yielding the (now) expected result. This is why researchers are no longer eager to undertake GM-food safety research.

In my understanding, the FDA does very little research of its own (on foods, drugs or anything else); mostly, it is a question of them requiring proponents of a product to undertake specific studies. Despite a preponderance of scientific studies showing no risks from GM foods up for approval, and despite a government policy of using a science-based approach to approvals, the bureaucracies in FDA, USDA and EPA all take every opportunity to demand proponents jump through extraordinary hoops. In theory, genetic engineering could develop useful plant varieties in a fraction of the time (and cost) of most other conventional techniques, however, excessive government oversight has actually made the process MORE costly because of the regulatory burden.
Worse, this regulatory burden is what helps guarantee the monopoly position of Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and the rest; they are the only ones who can afford to do all the studies required to carry a new variety through to market release.
Finally, remember that patents expire in 20 years. Monsanto's glyphosate (RoundUp) patent expired a couple of years ago, and key GM patents are already starting to become "public property", so the big biotech companies have to keep trying to come up with new, improved...and patentable... traits to keep their customers coming back to them. Notwithstanding movie plots and conspiracy theorists, it is not a viable business strategy for these companies to produce products that kill their custormers or their customers' customers.
BOB

[Short Game]

WikiLeaks, the messenger at the top of the empire's Most Wanted Dead list, shows us how the game is played. What's good for Monsanto is good for the good ol' Red, White, and Blue.

New WikiLeaks Cables Show US Diplomats Promote Genetically Engineered Crops Worldwide
Thursday 25 August 2011

More of:

GOVERNMENT:
Of the people
By the corporations
For the rich

Why Monsanto Always Wins
Tuesday 22 February 2011

So, what else would you expect from a tinfoil hat guy?

[schoolsout]

And the executive order comes from an elected official.

The court case I was talking about wasn't about research into the GMO, it was about if they could plant a field next to someone and then say you received benefit from their special pollen that the field of GMO released and thus you had to pay R&D costs. The case never touched on if the GMO was good for you or not. That is a separate issue.

There was something along the lines of 100:1 or 300:1 "No" calls into the gov't when TARP was about to be implemented...that didn't matter. They do what they want.

Our country is not a capitalist one...unless you want to go easy and just call it Crony Capitalism (which, in reality, it is not)

Some of y'all would do well to learn what fascism is...

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini.

[Short Game]

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini.


Some of y'all would do well to learn what fascism is...

You aren't going to ask us to accept that definition just because the guy was the founder of Fascism? That doesn't seem quite fair.

[Farmwithjunk]

As I was searching, (not that it matters), I kept coming across a familiar term.........."A consensus of scientists".

Same term used by the Global Warming crowd.

Then a little more searching turned up the fact that every scientist that does say anything against GMO's is blackballed, riduculed, fired from their jobs.

Same as with the Global Warming

Then I look at your reaction, to anyone that dares say anything against GMO's

Ridicule, denegrate, chastise, blackball.

Same as the Global Warming Crowd.

Probably isn't much sense in posting the newest studies I did find, because with your mentality, you would tell me I was a fruitcake, and that you know more than those scientists that actually did the studies.

The tide of GMO's may be turning, if what I read is true. But considering the fact that "I'm only a truck driver", what do I know about it.

There is one thing I do know for sure,

There is no way on God's Green Earth that you sir, would ever have the capability of looking at any evidence that is against GMO's.

You have proven that you are totally 'one sided' in the debate.

Yep....One sided alright....The side that uses common sense, science, facts, ect...to make intelligent decisions, as opposed to your side of the debate....which uses hysteria, confusion, and misinformation to base your opinions upon.

So now you start making personal accusations based on the fact that your argument has crashed and burned....

The "evidence against GMO's" to this point, isn't evidence, but a smear campaign against something that your side cannot seem to understand. Evidence implies truth and facts, NEITHER of which you've been able to present. I've looked at your side of the debate, your "evidence"....And found it to be nothing more than propaganda without any basis in science. If you had so much as a shred of background in the science, you could see right through it for what it is....NONSENSE.

I don't have to tell you that you're a fruitcake.

One more time...You really do need to learn the difference between a "study" and a bunch of contrived nonsense done for the purpose of mis-information/dis-information/guiding lemming over the cliff....

[Short Game]

It looks like it matters who wrote the "don't pee on the electric fence" sign. If the electric fence industry has paid for the campaigns on both sides of the isle, and the industry fears a loss of profits due to wild fanatical claims of the dangers of peeing on electric fences, and the pertinent regulatory body is now filled with ex-electric fence executives, and the Executive Branch has now filled the ambassador corps more of those execs to help access the foreign markets, and the industry finances university studies to show the benefits of fence peeing, and we get nice Green looking teevee ads to show us that peeing on electric fences is actually good for us, then maybe at last the Free Market will settle this once and for all.

[Farmwithjunk]

It looks like it matters who wrote the "don't pee on the electric fence" sign. If the electric fence industry has paid for the campaigns on both sides of the isle, and the industry fears a loss of profits due to wild fanatical claims of the dangers of peeing on electric fences, and the pertinent regulatory body is now filled with ex-electric fence executives, and the Executive Branch has now filled the ambassador corps more of those execs to help access the foreign markets, and the industry finances university studies to show the benefits of fence peeing, and we get nice Green looking teevee ads to show us that peeing on electric fences is actually good for us, then maybe at last the Free Market will settle this once and for all.

Of course, you need to realize (maybe you already have...explaining the feeble attempt at humor in the face of a crushing defeat) that LEGITIMATE science and the free market ALREADY HAVE decided....and the loonies singing their sad, lonely, pathetic songs about their imaginary dangers of GMO's have already been peed on.....Try not to cry...There's no crying in farming.

[schoolsout]

You aren't going to ask us to accept that definition just because the guy was the founder of Fascism? That doesn't seem quite fair.

[Combustix]

You can only choose if you have truth in labeling.
And what has been shown in Europe is that products labeled as "GMO" do not sell as well as "Natural" products. Which is why the chemical companies lobby so hard to stop labeling from saying "contains GMO"
I don't know if GMO products are dangerous or not.
What I do know is I would like to have the choice to eat them or not and I cannot do this without correct labeling.

Just my thoughts.

regards
Bob

Great point. It does make you wonder why the producers of these seeds do not want products labelled as such. Most people have no idea were their food comes from other than a grocery store and nothing about how it gets there. They just eat it not knowing whats in it. Since GMO seeds and food stuffs are relatively new, how do we really know the long term detractors or benefits from these products. Just look at the tobacco industry. Hope we never see the same labelling on GMO corn muffins.

[MossRoad]

Thread closed due to too many insults.