Big Business strong arm tactics

Here is a long article about Monsanto using strong arm tactics on the small farmer. Pretty scary.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feat ... anto200805

There's 10+ year battle going on between environmental activists and the plant biotech industry. This article doesn't say much that's new and what is new isn't interesting.

The truth is that plant biotech has eliminated or greatly reduced the need for some of the scarier pesticides.

It's the farmers that pay more for plant biotech that push the companies they buy from to police and prosecute farmers who expropriate the technology. They are growing a commodity crop and don't want their competitors (other farmers large and small) to have an unfair advantage.

auxen1 wrote:The truth is that plant biotech has eliminated or greatly reduced the need for some of the scarier pesticides.

it's amazing how many people really don't know the extent to which crops have been genetically modified... i often think that people buy organic but don't really understand why.. ...outside of them being genetically modified not to grow two years in a row (so you have to ... buy more seeds every year), do most people realize that plants have been GMOed so they kill their own insects and other crazy crap? it's both shocking and amazing that this doesn't scare more people

dddane:

it's a reflection of how far removed we've become from our food supply. people simply don't see how animals are raised, crops are grown, etc., etc.

Gm crops that won't grow the second year haven't been developed (to my knowledge). Though the USDA worked on them.

Hybrid crops, corn most notably, will not grow the same sized fruit (ears of corn) in year #2. France outlawed hybrid crops much the same way they have outlawed gm crops. In both cases it was the French farmer who was hurt, even though they didn't have to repuchase seed every year.

In regards to the gmo'd plants doing weird stuff, it's really just basic biology and neither scary nor risky. In the case of insects, one naturally occurring gene is inserted into a plant with over 10,000 genes. Certain insects can't tolerate that gene and die.

And so you can raise crops with high tech breeding or you can spray pesticides from containers with skull and cross bones.

You mentioned organics and I agree that people have no concept about what's behind them or the organic standards. However, I think large companies make a mistake in dismissing organics. Along with farmer's markets and other grass roots efforts they create a movement that if nothing else keeps industrial agriculture on its toes.

I think that organics do more than that, though. They preserve and promote all sorts of food varieties that Cargill and Dominicks would prefer not to be bothered with. And, even though I'm very pro gmo, those foods are an important part of my familiy's life.

It's possible to be pro gmo and pro organic. Kinda like Jews for Jesus.

Their seeds are resistant to Roundup, their pesticide. So the farmers can dump tons of Roundup on the plants without hurting them, and killing most of the bugs. But then we end up with that poison in our water tables. That's the scary part. I'm against patents for GM plants, it's a slippery slope that will come back to bite us in the ass.

Cogito,

Your post is a good example of the misinformation that is spread around on this issue.

It's true that plants have been modified to resist herbicides and Roundup is the most visible example. Roundup has perhaps the most attractive environmental profile of weed killers. It immediately breaks down when it hits the soil -- your assertion about it poisoning our water table is complete nonsense (and so is the remark about roundup killing insects...well, maybe if there heads are submerged in it)

More importantly, since these plants allow farmers to control weeds with a benign pesticide they have stopped using the herbicides that have long half-lives and do leech into our water.

Let me be really clear that I'm not pro-chemicals. The less the better. Unfortunately, we've built a world where we need some of them (and need to get rid of some).

That's fine. You can believe what you choose and so will I. These are the same folks that told us Agent Orange was safe.

I don't put my trust or beliefs in any company that sells products (though I do trust my doctor).

It's a simple matter of science.

You may want to rail against a company and be my guest. But, asserting scientific facts that are just not true will get some pushback.

I agree, except I don't trust Doctors unless perhaps I might know them personally.

Humans have been cross-breeding crops for centuries to see what might result, and this is considered to be a fairly natural thing. For the last 50+ years researchers have been bombarding plants and seeds with radiation to see what weird mutations could occur, and this receives almost no attention. Now we have scientists selectively changing a gene or two and everyone is in an uproar. Seems relatively benign to me.

-Will

WillG wrote:Seems relatively benign to me.

and to many others as well, apparently. but last i checked, they still hadn't identified every source of cancer. so how do you really know?

"but last i checked, they still hadn't identified every source of cancer. so how do you really know"

that's right dddane....oxygen causes cancer....that's why people in hospitals are dying of cancer....spread the word

It seems a former Monsanto lawyer is after those evil Amish now:
http://americanvisionnews.com/1674/form ... -producers

What upsets me more is the update bit at the bottom about an artificial sweetener, Neotame, that could be toxic and does not require labeling.

How did food production get so convoluted?


MODS: If this should go someplace else, feel free to move it; I noticed a lot of threads related to Monsanto.

Pie Lady wrote:What upsets me more is the update bit at the bottom about an artificial sweetener, Neotame, that could be toxic and does not require labeling.

How did food production get so convoluted?

Agreed that food production is pretty messed up, but I believe the handwringing over Neotame is based on some misinformation.

Roundup is designed to break down into naturally occurring chemicals almost as soon as it hits the ground. There is no runoff from it. Unlike some of the much more toxic herbicides and pesticides being used by organic farmers. The organic farming laws are weird and although organic farmers used fewer chemicals than regular farmers, they still use some. And the ones the rules allow them to use are all older, and often more toxic chemicals.
Organic farming is nice. It does support numerous, virtually extinct varieties of plants and animals. However, production volumes per acre are less and this kind of farming done world wide would lead to massive starvation. We cannot produce enough this way to feed the world. So if we want organic farming, we need a much lower population worldwide.
There are genetic modifications that are fairly minor and ones that are extreme. I think that organic farmers are doing a disservice ignoring all modifications. Slight tweaks can create plants that resist diseases and insects better without chemicals. This is a win/win. However, the push to control seeds by Monsanto and other companies is dangerous. So are some of the other modifications that put drugs and other chemicals into plants. These can get so out of control so easily.

There are two sweetner companies hq'd in Chicago...Nutrasweet and Merisant. They are legacy companies from GD Searle, a former Chicago hq'd company. Searle and the sweetner companies were owned by Monsanto and then sold/spun off something like 15 years ago.

The "super sweetner" is owned by one of these chicago companies. Think it would be news to Monsanto that they own a new sweetner.

Sweetners of all types have always been controversial and always had a health overhang.

But they are critically important to diabetics.

auxen1 wrote:Sweetners of all types have always been controversial and always had a health overhang.

But they are critically important to diabetics.

Personally, I think that there are two types of scientist.

The first develops new sweeteners.

The second finds that they are a low-grade carcinogenic.