Scotland To Ban GM Crops 361
An anonymous reader writes: Scotland's rural affairs minister has announced the country will ban the growing of genetically modified crops. He said, "I am concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand, thereby gambling with the future of our £14 billion food and drink sector." Many Scottish farmers disapprove of the ban, pointing out that competing farms in nearby England face no such restriction. "The hope was to have open discussion and allow science to show the pros and cons for all of us to understand either the potential benefits or potential downsides. What we have now is that our competitors will get any benefits and we have to try and compete. It is rather naïve."
Scotch (Score:3)
I guess Scotch made from organic wheat will be better for my liver?
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Yep, it was originally all barley, but wheat/rye is becoming more and more common (and I was trying to make a joke more than anything).
You're right that there's also no GMO wheat being grown commercially, but there is triticale, which is a wheat/rye hybrid (and technically a GMO).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Thank heavens (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think the world is quite ready for genetically modified haggis.
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I think you mean hCTTis
Back to stone age food? (Score:3)
TFA:
"The Scottish Government will shortly submit a request that Scotland is excluded from any European consents for the cultivation of GM crops, including the variety of genetically modified maize already approved and six other GM crops that are awaiting authorisation."
The rest of the world calls that corn. We've been genetically modifying it for all of recorded history.
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So long as by "the rest of the world" you mean North America, Australia and New Zealand, then yes, you are correct.
I guess I'm lucky that Australia and NZ get included. The average American doesn't know that ANY of the rest of the world exists.
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So long as by "the rest of the world" you mean North America, Australia and New Zealand, then yes, you are correct.
I guess I'm lucky that Australia and NZ get included. The average American doesn't know that ANY of the rest of the world exists.
Isn't listing Australia and NZ separately redundant? (I'm kidding, I watched "Flight of the Conchords" so I'm an educated American...)
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That's right. And simple selective breeding and hybridization just means mashing together entire genomes (often across species) to get the one trait you want. Surely there's no chance of any unexpected [boingboing.net] traits that way. Totally under control, right?
Not All GMOs are Created Equal (Score:3, Informative)
Lots of people like to say things like 'there is no evidence that GMOs are dangerous.' But that is mirroring the hippy-dippy types who say that anything 'natural' is healthy.
Just because no one's found a problem with the corn that most of us have been unknowingly eating for decades, that doesn't mean the latest and greatest GMO won't have its own unique risks. The more GMOs that are engineered, the more chances there are to screw something up.
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Lots of people like to say things like 'there is no evidence that GMOs are dangerous.' But that is mirroring the hippy-dippy types who say that anything 'natural' is healthy.
Just because no one's found a problem with the corn that most of us have been unknowingly eating for decades, that doesn't mean the latest and greatest GMO won't have its own unique risks. The more GMOs that are engineered, the more chances there are to screw something up.
Way to be all hand wavy... You forgot to say "think of the children!"
Absence of evidence != evidence of absence (Score:2)
Lots of people like to say things like 'there is no evidence that GMOs are dangerous.' But that is mirroring the hippy-dippy types who say that anything 'natural' is healthy.
That is a bad attempt at conflating two things that have nothing to do with each other. Saying there is no evidence of GMO crops being dangerous is (thus far) an accurate statement of fact. Doesn't mean or even imply there isn't something we don't know yet. But claiming GMO crops are dangerous when you have no evidence to support that claim is not remotely the same sort of statement as asserting that all "natural" things are healthy. One is a correct statement of the absence of evidence of harm and the
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Naive? (Score:2)
The SNP, naive? Who'd have thought!
Gambling but not the way he thinks he is (Score:4, Insightful)
Scotland's rural affairs minister has announced the country will ban the growing of genetically modified crops. He said, "I am concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand, thereby gambling with the future of our £14 billion food and drink sector."
Oh he's gambling with their food and drink sector but not in the way he thinks he is. Simply banning these crops in the absence of actual evidence of their harm will definitely cause an impact but probably not a positive one. I understand taking reasonable steps to evaluate the effects of new(ish) technologies but slapping a blanket ban on something without any actual evidence of harm seems rather short sighted. This is exactly the sort of thing that you need to have a rational and evidence based debate over. Not a fear motivated ban.
Re:Gambling but not the way he thinks he is (Score:4, Insightful)
Rational and sensible policies out of the SNP, please pull the other one. This time last year they where telling everyone just vote for independence and we will all be swimming in oil money. Then they wanted full fiscal independence, then when that had a £7 billion hole in it, it was going to be phased in over a period of years. Funny because this time last year when they where saying vote for independence they had set a date of May 2016.
Why would I believe a bunch of racist (the anyone but England mentality is racist plan and simple), tax dodging (yep if you don't like the tax the SNP thinks that it is perfectly fine not to pay it - aka the Poll Tax) closet Tories, yeah the I am all right Jack now we have oil money we don't want to share with the rest of the UK, despite hundreds of years of the rest of the UK sharing with Scotland much to Scotland's benefit, especial through trade with essentially English colonies. Socialist my ass.
Even their Socialist policies like free University tuition for Scottish students in Scotland simply means *FEWER* Scottish students go to University (loads of EU students out competing them for those free places), especially those from poorer backgrounds. Way to go.
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Scotland's rural affairs minister has announced the country will ban the growing of genetically modified crops. He said, "I am concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand, thereby gambling with the future of our £14 billion food and drink sector."
Oh he's gambling with their food and drink sector but not in the way he thinks he is. Simply banning these crops in the absence of actual evidence of their harm will definitely cause an impact but probably not a positive one. I understand taking reasonable steps to evaluate the effects of new(ish) technologies but slapping a blanket ban on something without any actual evidence of harm seems rather short sighted. This is exactly the sort of thing that you need to have a rational and evidence based debate over. Not a fear motivated ban.
Looking at changes to an entire nations food source is most certainly gambling, and based on the legal antics of the GMO players running the game today, what you label as a fear motivated ban others simply call common sense. One thing to keep in mind. There is no turning back once the decision is made. Monsanto's legal teams will guarantee that.
I hear they will start throwing shoes into looms. (Score:2)
Not to mention burning witches.
"allow science to show the pros and cons" (Score:2)
You get the science you pay for. And who's paying for it? Why, it's Monsanto! Do you see any non-profits who can buy a comprehensive study disproving Monsanto claims? Is there an elected official who will support an investigation of Monsanto? (Try to find one who doesn't get support from the company.) As usual, when a controversy arises you can usually follow the money to see who is behind the 'facts' we are presented with.
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Greenpeace has a quarter of a billion dollar annual budget. If they spent a tiny fraction of a percen
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I'm totally onboard with it. The problem is that you haven't done so. At all.
You're asking me like you know the answer and that's a rhretorical question, but it's pretty clear that you don't and it's not. I personally know scientists who are paid by the university (with taxpayer dollars) and whose resear
Good! I want to see if it leads to failure. (Score:2)
A nation that fries everything (Score:2)
is worrying about the effect of GM food on public health.
That worked out so well for Mexico (Score:2)
Marketing benefits (Score:2)
This could benefit Scotland in that "grown in Scotland" could mean more value to the a consumer. Putting the science issues aside for the moment, a certain percentage of consumers don't like GM food. Sometimes zigging when everyone else is zagging gives you an edge.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
in case you missed the last twenty years, they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed), b: specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye), and most importantly c: as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
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Really? You mean they're not talking about the stuff that Norman Borlaug made as well. It sure seems like it, and many of the things he invented fall into those categories as well.
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http://www.monsanto.com/newsvi... [monsanto.com]
Of course, we're quite happy to eat effectively some of these kinds of plants (seedless grapes and seedless watermelon).
And of course if you were worried about some of the GM gene's getting into the "wild", this would be a good thing. Then again, you'd expect one to be more concerned about our traditionally GM'd crops (i.e., bred) inter breading with their "wild" relatives.
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I understand it seedless grapes are typically grafted from plant to plant and are perennial but I expect the "first" generation of them are produced in a similarity. That's how you could get multiple seedless varieties (green, red, black, etc.)
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Strawberries too. 100% of strawberries are from grafted hybrids.
Corporations do some crazy things in the name of profit, but GM food is not particularly crazy or malevolent. It's pretty awesome, actually. Unfortunately, the ill-defined "natural foods" trend -- really just another form of superstition -- is all the rage among a well-meaning but (sometimes willfully) uninformed population of mommies, hipsters, and, by extension, their households.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the ill-defined "natural foods" trend -- really just another form of superstition -- is all the rage among a well-meaning but (sometimes willfully) uninformed population of mommies, hipsters, and, by extension, their households.
You nailed it: GM fear and vaccinations are the 2 top superstitions of the 21st century. Plus, the two are related: "stick a pin in a map in the center of an anti-vax hotspot, and you've found a Whole Foods.
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This is one of those sentences that doesn't inspire confidence in the technical accuracy of what's to follow. Kind of like talking about sending your kid "an internet."
You mean they've classified it in a class of carcinogens that includes "emissions from high temperature fryin
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
The "accidental contamination gets you sued" argument that they made is also a myth. The most famous case usually cited is that of Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser [wikipedia.org], where they sued a Canadian canola farmer for growing crops from seeds wind-pollinated from a neighbor using their plants. But Schmeiser always admitted to deliberately trying to get the glyphosphate resistance. He roundup'ed his own crops that were grown next to his neighbor who was using roundup-ready canola, saved only those seeds from the survivors for the next year and planted his whole crop with the resistant seeds, achieving a 95-98% concentration of the gene. He was deliberately attempting to acquire the gene without paying for it - it was in no way, shape or form "accidental contamination". Monsanto confronted him about what he was doing and insisted he pay a license fee since he was using their crop. He refused saying that because he grew it from seeds on his land, it was his own property.
Despite the fact that it was deliberate contamination, not accidental, Monsanto still barely won the patent infringement case, 5-4.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's IP law, not property law. If you photograph the book that I've written from your house, that doesn't give you the right to publish it and sell it.
And you could make a great argument against IP laws -- there are many to be made -- but this has nothing to do with property rights.
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I'm inclined to agree with you in a lot of industries, but plants? What progress is being held back? It seems to me that the people doing the real heavy lifting in producing transgenics and novel hybrids are companies that benefit from patent protection. I mean, Bt and Roundup Ready crops are amazing and there's even more interesting work being done, but if all of your investment is gone within
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Well, that and the fact that it's 100% obvious to any judge that Schmeiser intentionally killed off his non Roundup-Ready crops to select for the trait. His fields were 95% Roundup Ready. That's not "Ow! Monsanto is pollinating my crops with its big, bad pollen!" That's, "Yay, I'm going to get this stuff without paying for it!"
And Monsanto had a solution to this
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Well, that and the fact that it's 100% obvious to any judge that Schmeiser intentionally killed off his non Roundup-Ready crops to select for the trait. His fields were 95% Roundup Ready. That's not "Ow! Monsanto is pollinating my crops with its big, bad pollen!" That's, "Yay, I'm going to get this stuff without paying for it!"
So farmers cannot select for beneficial traits anymore. What are they to do -- keep databases of traits so they can determine which ones might be "property" of a genetic engineering firms?
And please don't try to tell me this ban on millennia-old behavior will stop at 'Roundup-readiness'.
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No, they absolutely can. Just not ones that are specifically genetically engineered and patented. Other than that, knock yourself out. Although farmers aren't really in the "producing new and better varietals" business these days. If they want to get in to R&D, they can jump right in, but most of them are going to keep buying seeds and seedlings from the companies that actually produce the varietals.
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Bullshit. The RoundUp-Ready trait is useful only because you douse your whole plot with RoundUp and every plant not resistant to it dies in 2-3 days.
Schmeiser did not "find" the useful trait. To find it, he would have had to use RoundUp before *knowing* that some plants are resistant to it. However, RoundUp has no practical use except as a herbicide together with RoundUp-Ready plants, so he had no reason to have some around.
I have no love for Monsanto and their horrible legal practices, but that Schmeiser g
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My baseball falling onto your property does not give you the right to mass produce that exact style/design of ball.
Just because something fell onto your property, it doesn't give you the right to break copyright on that item, no matter how much you twist the law.
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There has been no case where the farmer accidentally grew the GMO. Every case that has been pursued in court was over a farmer intentionally concentrating the seed and planting it. Not accidental anything.
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When I did a search, Schmeiser did not come up, but this did: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/monsanto-wins-lawsuit_n_3417081.html and to quote in part, "Monsanto filed 144 patent-infringement lawsuits against farmers between 1997 and April 2010, and won judgments against farmers it said made use of its seed without paying required royalties."
The assertion on slashdot is that everyone they won against stole the Monsanto seed, but cross-contamination is well documented which places the burden of pro
And there it is. (Score:3)
He was deliberately attempting to acquire the gene without paying for it
This, in a nutshell, is my problem with GMOs. Nobody should have to pay for genes, period. Exclusive ownership of lifeforms and genes (which after all are just information) is wrong. It's that simple. If we allow this, and we do, we venture out on a very dark and extremely slippery-sloped road. Not buying GM-ed products is a way of protesting the "life can be IP" meme, which is why I support labeling laws despite the fact that I don't believe GMO food is harmful. It's about ethics and the future, not public
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anytime a company holds a patent on our craps
It's the end of the world when you can eat your food and get sued when it comes out the other end.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you think that this could happen? There are tons of companies that produce seed. The only reason a farmer would pay a ton of money for their particular seed was if it was a really profitable seed that they couldn't get anywhere else. And farmers have been buying seeds anually forever for lots of crops. Agreements not to replant specialty varietals long predate the modern transgenic era. A lot of the time, they're just buying a particularly useful hybrid that doesn't breed true (or doesn't produce seeds at all), so it makes sense to buy seeds year after year anyway.
This doesn't actually seem to be happening, though. Glyphosate use is way up, but that seems to be primarly because it's replacing other (much nastier) herbicides. And insect resistant crops actually reduce insecticide use.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because it's already happened. If you notice a bunch of crops growing on your land with special properties, and you dare replant those next year, you could inadvertently be running afoul of a license agreement you never saw, never agreed to and be sued for patent infringement.
So it doesn't matter that you can buy seed from a competitor - if some of the "viral" seed ends up on your land, your only option is to burn it. Or be sued.
Terminator seeds don't work, period. And unless the legal system changes to the point where if your patented seeds end up on someone else's farmland, then it's SOL for you - it's your responsibility to prevent that, then it's a serious problem.
Hell, the problem's compounded if your neighbour starts using the seeds and you want to go for organic certification.
All Scotland really needs to do is change the laws a little bit and say legal agreements are not conveyed by living things. So you can impose license agreements on farmers that agree to buy your product, but if they spill your product elsewhere, then not only is all legal protection void on the spilled product, any other IP protection carried on that product cannot be enforced. So your neighbour's seed ending up on your crop is yours free and clear.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Informative)
And yet, with all of the farmers out there, there are no examples whatsoever of inadvertent use resulting in a lawsuit. The only ones who have gotten sued are the ones who obviously intentionally selected the Roundup Ready seed and planted that. Monsanto's position on this is pretty clear, and they've acted on it exactly how they said they would. In fact, Monsanto used to have (and probably still does) a policy that they'll pay to have hybrids removed from your fields if you contact them.
Terminator seeds would completely solve this problem, but there was so much outcry and shit flinging when they were proposed that Monsanto has pledged not to produce them. This is 100% not Monsanto's fault. They'd love to sell terminator seeds and have 0% cross pollination and never have to worry about enforcing their contracts.
That's a tougher nut to crack. USDA rules allow some cross pollination without losing certification. I haven't seen a lot of data that indicates hybrids are taking over, and depending on the crop, there are techniques to mitigate the problem (adjusting planting times, etc.). But cross pollination happens and people need to learn to live with it. If I grew strawberries and claimed that my deity was angered by corn pollen touching them, how much of a right would I have to dictate what my neighbors planted? At some point, the public's demand for religious accommodation on this issue is going to start trampling on other practical goods and we're going to need to draw a line.
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Shouting "shill alert!" doesn't make anything he said less true.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
If at some point in a discussion about GMO and the company Monsanto gets brought up as a point pro/con GMO, just remember this. Bringing up a company that is built around a product does not mean that the product in question inherits the attitude that the company that uses has.
Good example, if I'm talking about chicken and McDonald's and their woeful employee wage gets brought up, more than likely you have less a problem with chicken and more a problem with McDonald's.
I get that Monsanto has some serious legal ethics issues and that apparently the CEO goes to bed at night after his late night snack of kittens. However, GMOs didn't make their CEO some monopolistic asshat, he was already that before hand. GMOs are just his weapon of choice. It could have been self-microwaving hotdogs for all we know but we were destined to have this kind of caliber of a person grace the planet and this person choose GMOs.
You have a great point in that the whole problem isn't a scientific one, the problem is a political one. Much like climate change, a lot of people when the topic gets brought up start naming off political parties. Which that typically means whoever it is doing the talking has a lot more beef with the other political party (parties) than they actually do with the science behind the whole issue. It would be great to not hold people accountable if they didn't plant the seed and it came over by the wind instead. However, I will say, that a fair amount (I wouldn't say majority, but a lot more often than would like to be admitted) of farmers are on purpose planting seed knowing all about the agreements and what not. That comes from my experience with living not too far away from where a lot of growing goes on and having a few buddies that work on those farms. Again, though, we have a serious problem because the vast majority of those that aren't seriously trying to game the system are finding it difficult to mount a serious defense. However, again, that's not a problem with GMOs so much as a political problem.
So it is important and yet very difficult, because after all we are humans, for us to understand that there is a separation between the actual thing being debated and those who want to be complete dickheads with or about those things. Scotland banning GMOs is less an attack on the validity and safety of GMOs, and more along the lines of a big middle finger to companies like Monsanto. Knowing the context of why Scotland took the actions it did, helps us to cut through the "how do we make GMOs safe / how do we eradicate GMOs from the Earth" debate and get to the real heart of the matter, "How do we stop kitten eating CEO corporate greed? Or at the very least wean them off of kittens and reduce the full throttle amount of greed that engage in?" Because it is not unheard of for a business owner to actually take interest in their employees' lives and care about their impact on the local and national levels. That era may have passed us or may be only something in the domain of small businesses. However, I believe that this is truly the topic we should on a more broader sense be discussing.
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Well, eliminate IP for all things would be better of course, but eliminating it for lifeforms would be a nice start.
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It's not a question of "no one" doing it. It's simply a question of how many. There will always be public research and non-profit funds for doing this type of work. Just not as much. Doing away with patent protection won't hal
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
in case you missed the last twenty years, they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed), b: specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye), and most importantly c: as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
Aren't a and c mutually exclusive? I am not a farmer, so if I have a gross conceptual error here please correct me, but if the crops are terminal, how are the farmers "illegally" getting seeds to plant without paying royalties? Someone has to buy the seeds from Monsanto if they are not viable on their own, right?
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
How the fuck did he 'saved the seed and planted is next season' if your claim that they do not produce viable seed is correct? You need to keep your lies straight.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Simple answer:
The plants do produce viable seed. The sterile seed BS is just FUD by the anti-GMO group.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
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they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed)
If they are, they're not blocking anything, as Monsanto has never sold terminator seeds. [monsanto.com]
specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye)
If they are, they're not blocking everything, because all crops are being constantly bred for disease resistance
as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
There has never been a lawsuit for accidental wind sprouting. The closest case was Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser [wikipedia.org], in which Schmeiser bred roundup-ready seed, pretending to have had it been part of a wind-blow, but actually having purchased the seed before, and simply bred a new crop without paying for it:
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> and simply bred a new crop without paying for it:
Paying to grow plant seeds, simply because he "ought to have known" that those seeds have artificial restrictions placed on them by government on behalf of some company? That's luddism right there.
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in case you missed the last twenty years, they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed), b: specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye), and most importantly c: as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
Wait.
How can they be talking about crops that are both a) sterile and c) spreading into the fields of non-Monsanto farmers?
Btw, I'm pretty certain the sterile seeds were never used in production.
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Interesting perspective. Almost entirely wrong [npr.org], but still interesting.
TL;DR:
1) Monsanto does not produce "sterile" seeds. They do hold a patent on that technology, but have promised not to create seeds using that technology. Yes, they could go back on that promise...but how about we wait until they actually do that before vilifying them?
2) They have never "litigated a farmer to death" over "marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows". The one lawsuit that occurred was a result of a farmer
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No they are not. While Monsanto has teh patent to the terminator gene, they have never used it in a commercial product. Right there I know I can disregard the rest of your post since you have started off with veritably false information.
Read myth #1
http://www.npr.org/sections/th... [npr.org]
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Aren't all crops genetically modified?
No, not by humans. By natural selection, yes, but that rarely would produce Antarctic teleost genes in vascular plants or other extreme HGT effects now "readily" possible.
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Selective breeding is humans directing natural selection. We have been doing it for millennium. Wheat and maize only exist because humans have influenced them.
Though I would expect that this kind of GM would not be banned, unless the hippies that are running things have really gone off the hook. But even still, this "science = BAD!" generalization is not helping things. What happened to having some government organization look at each proposed GM change and authorize them on a case-by-case basis?
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What, humans aren't natural? Where did we come from then?
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Selective breeding and hybridization I don't think are counted as "genetically modified".
Can someone with first-hand knowledge explain to me what the problem, or perceived problem, is with GMO's? It's tough to find this information on the net without feeling an agenda is being pushed. Is it religious nuts scared that science is playing god, or are there real concerns? I think I read at one point there was concern about GMOs causing super-bugs to arise, or a lack of genetic variety could cause an entire crop
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See also: false dilemma.
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Corn with fisheyes is generally considered to be GM. Corn in tune with Mother Nature (when she's not trying to kill us) and grown under the benevolent gaze of a wholistic crystal is not.
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1. GMO foods cause cancer, infertility, etc. (health concerns in general)
2. GMO foods will disrupt the environment, either by spreading too far due to their increased fitness or by spreading their genes and causing unforeseen changes in the surrounding wildlife
3. Issues with the concept of patenting life
4. Concerns about letting one (or several) large company control most of the seed stock
5. Concerns about allowin
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Re: Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The book is wrong. There have been hundreds of studies that show animals turn out the same. Also the seed/pesticide price for a farmer isn't that big of a difference between the two types of corn. The farmer would not grow it if there was a difference.
I find it really funny how non farmers think farmers are stupid. They spend all day thinking about these things, the same as you think about computers/tech, etc.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Really? You mean the book by this guy [wikipedia.org], who has literally no educational background in genetics (or for that matter, any kind of science).
And before you accuse me of ad-hominem (which is not always fallacious [wikipedia.org]), a pretty good trouncing of every "fact" in that book can be found here [academicsreview.org]
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He probably wanted something actually based on science, and not anecdotal claims and innuendo.
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Shush, don't go intruding about the anti-science paranoia.
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Scottish Nationalists want to go back to pre-1707, apparently everything was a paradise back then.
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Scottish Nationalists want to go back to pre-1707, apparently everything was a paradise back then.
If you had to eat English food, you would think so too.
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Do these people want us to go back to the Stone Age? Because that's what's going to happen.
These people are opposed to any progress that might actually solve the problems we face, which only leaves us with the option of going backwards.
From http://www.savethepinebush.org... [savethepinebush.org]
Who Owns Life?
Canadian Farmer Sued by Monsanto
by Lynne Jackson
ALBANY, NY — The First Lutheran Church was the setting for the talk by Percy Schmeiser, the Canadian farmer being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. [...] Around 1995, Percy told his wife he was thinking of retirement. Louise expressed concerns about what he would do with himself, so Percy decided to keep farming for a while longer. What to do with his spare time was decided in 1998, whe
Re:Neo-Luddite scaremongering wins again (Score:5, Insightful)
Must you keep repeating this bullshit? Read the actual case, not some anti-GMO spin on it.
He was not 'concerned that Monsanto seed contaminated his farm'. He suspected that some GMO seed from his neighbors property got on his field, so he intentionally killed (with glyphosphate) all of the crop that HE planted, kept the seed from the 'contaminated' plants, and replanted them. There was nothing 'accidental' about it.
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No spin: Before GMOs farmers could select for interesting traits without restriction.
Now they must assume that new traits they come across are someone else's "property" until proven otherwise. To say this is burdensome would be an understatement.
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Do these people want us to go back to the Stone Age? Because that's what's going to happen.
These people are opposed to any progress that might actually solve the problems we face, which only leaves us with the option of going backwards.
Perhaps you need to prove we have a true problem with food supply first before being convinced by certain corporations that the answer is only solved with patented solutions, as if greed has never been a motivator in human history.
And listening to how we "need" to grow more efficient crops while watching humans throw away tons of food annually isn't going to cut it.
Seems the only real issue that has been brought forth from the Stone Age is the one we still call corruption.
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Given the enormous popularity of the transgenic crops that do exist, I'd say the farmers think that they solve a problem. Otherwise, they'd be planting the same thing they were planting before. And yes, greed is a motivator. It's the same motivator that makes smart phones, ai
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Do these people want us to go back to the Stone Age? Because that's what's going to happen.
These people are opposed to any progress that might actually solve the problems we face, which only leaves us with the option of going backwards.
Fear, lack of understanding, and skewed risk perception. Society has a hard time accepting new things. I remember fear of microwave ovens when they first came out. Unfortunately there is a lack of objective and qualified reporters to help move things along.
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Monocultures are always bad, anything that reduces biodiversity is always bad.
Re:Neo-Luddite scaremongering wins again (Score:4, Insightful)
forcing terminal
Nobody is 'forcing' anybody to do anything, and there are no 'terminal' crops. Two words, two lies. Seems about right for the anti-GMO bunch.
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Name one such case other than Schmeiser. Schmeiser doesn't count because there was nothing 'natural' or 'accidental' about it. He intentionally killed everything that was not GMO and replanted the GMO seed. Nobody forced him to do that, although he was forced to pay once it was found he infringed on the patent. The willful ignorance is all yours.
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Forcing crops on you? Unless you are being force-fed or ass raped by mutant corn, I don't see how this is.
Now, loopholes where companies can lie about GM labeling need to be closed, this lets consumers make their own choices.
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Please stop spreading FUD, it makes you look like an idiot.
The crops are not terminal [popsci.com]
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> What pray tell is a terminal crop?
Genetic use restriction technology [wikipedia.org]
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There's been a slight increase in the human population since the Neolithic.
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I'd be more concerned about those auxilliaries currently stationed around the nuclear submarine pens, where are they going to go once those facilities are removed?
Genetic Roulette: A film by Jeffrey M. Smith (Score:2)
Jeffrey M. Smith (born 1958) is an American consumer activist, self-published author, and former politician.
He attended Maharishi University of Management, and participated in a TM-Sidhi program yogic flying demonstration
Wow
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I'm more concerned with pesticides/herbacides/whateveracides than GMOs.
We started engineering our food when we started farming 10,000 years ago.
It isn't the GMO side of it that is a problem, it is the patenting of genes and the fact that you can't produce viable seeds from these crops, thus making you fully dependent on the producer: Monsanto.
10000 years ago, we didn't have patents or predatory, global corporations. GMO could be of huge benefit to the world, but the producers, like Monsanto, are doing everything they can to hinder it. What should happen is that governments should fund the development of GMO crops with real benefits, untainted by gr
Re:Farming is unnatural (Score:4, Insightful)
You made that up. Or somebody did. What GMOs need more pesticides? And what pesticides are they, specifically?
Bt crops that produce their own pesticides are amazing. They took a natural bacteria-based pesticide that has no known effect on humans (and is used by the truckload on "organic" crops for this reason) and engineered the gene straight into the plant. The result is a pest resistant plant that massively reduces the amount of Bt pesticide used per acre and increases its effectiveness at pest control.
Of course, the anti-GMO crowd has a million complaints about it. It produces too much Bt to be safe. It also produces too little Bt to be effective. It's OK to spray it but it's super toxic when the plant produces it. 100% bullshit, but it's cheap to make a web site and hard to do real research.