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In meetings with Canadian government officials in Ottawa, farmers, scientists and policy specialists from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East will call on the government to review its use of genetically modified (GM) crops as a tool for sustainable development. The international delegation will join several Canadian civil society groups to express concerns over Canada’s aggressive promotion of GM crops in developing countries.

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Unless something has radically changed in the last few months, there is no evidence that any of the advancements in GMO crops will do anything to help world hunger. Quite the opposite, in fact -- by corporatizing seed, they reduce the biological diversity out there, and we stand a much greater chance of widespread famine should something go wrong. In addition, because seed is becoming patented and terminator genes are coming into use, the poorest farmers, the ones most at risk of famine, are unable to keep seed for the next crop and are being financially penalized by this system.

I watched a fascinating documentary not long ago, called "Life Running Out of Control", and it covered a lot of ground -- animal experimentation, crop experimentation, corporatization, and activism against GMOs. I highly recommend it. Here's a good link about it.

One example that the pro-GMO types like to trot out is "golden rice" -- a rice that has been modified to carry beta-carotene, and touted as the solution to vision problems that can be solved by more beta-carotene in the diet for people in the third world who eat rice as a staple. What they neglect to mention is, that despite its slightly orange, or golden, colour, there isn't actually enough beta-carotene in it to do much of anything. Still, it's loudly proclaimed as the solution to preventable blindness. Oh, yeah, and it's patented. So we know where that leaves the subsistence farmer, don't we?

Then there's safety. For all we know, "golden rice", and many other GM foods, may be bad for you in ways that far outweigh any minimal gains from trace beta carotene. While it's generally been believed that health risks in GM foods are potential rather than actual, in fact there may be more evidence than most people think that the damn things actually ain't good for you. I recommend the book "Seeds of Deception" by Jeffrey M. Smith on evidence for, and theoretical reasons to expect, health problems in GM foods.

The key reason is that genetic modifications are firmly based on outdated notions of how genes behave. GM foods would work fine if each gene encoded for a single protein and was position-independent. In fact apparently genes code for an average of three or four proteins--and just what proteins get made will vary depending on what promoter and helper stuff is nearby. So if you shoot the gene you know makes protein A wherever it comes from into a random position in another life form's genome, it may or may not produce protein A where it arrives, and you can test for whether it's doing so. But it probably also produced proteins B and C where it came from, and where it is now it may instead produce proteins D and E. And not only will you be unaware of this fact, but there's no way to know what proteins D and E might be--they could be entirely new. Oh, and in shooting the gene into the host genome you may have busted an existing gene in half and stuck your gene in the middle; who knows what that'll do.

For the third world, GM crops are a repeat of the failures of the green revolution:

- Mainly, they still require a lot more fertilizer than traditional crops. You can't avoid it: the better the harvest, the poorer the soil becomes. Thus, farmers would still be dependent on artificial sources. And as the price of oil goes up, the cost of nitrates follow.

- The 'major breakthrough' in North American agriculture, herbicide resistant crops, doesn't aleviate the dependance of the farmers on foreign chemical corporations. It encourages bad cultural practices more than anything else. Around 2000, a professor at the University of Banf (sp?) stated that the quantity of round-up sold had steadily increased as the round-up ready crops became more and more popular.

- pest resistant crops create tougher parasites, like any other form of constant exposure to pesticide. Unless, Monsanto advise us, we mix the GM variety in rows with normal crops, and cover no more than 30% of the field... Find me a single farmer who has time to play in his field as if it was a japanese zen garden.

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For the third world, GM crops are a repeat of the failures of the green revolution:

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Skookums! It might be true in terms of strictly technology to use GMOs to actually grow more food plants, etc.

But that certainly is NOT what it's mainly being used for today. Rather, it's being used to centralize control of the food production chain into the clutches of a few corporations that patent the GMO seeds (since the plants they produce are sterile).

I remember back in 1999, Monsanto boasting about GM tomato plants being able to grow in the desert.

Being organic gardeners with a special dedication to tomatoes, we thought we would investigate further.

Turns out it was crapola. There has never been any successful commercial venture growing quality tomatoes in any desert.

Monsanto, of course, was looking to develop GMO tomato seeds and force them on farmers across the globe. This way the plants would always be sterile and farmers would be forced to buy seeds from Monsanto every year if they want to grow tomatoes.

Almost all successful farmers in the Third World rely on using seeds from maturing plants every year.

Forcing them to buy them from a corporation would not only deliver a harsh fiscal blow to already impoverished people, but would literally enslave agrarian economies and sectors all over the globe to these elite corporations.

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"The defoliating tomato was just a lucky accident and we won't apologize for it," Monsanto President and Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant told reporters. "My only regret here is that the defoliation process is slower and messier than the cross-pollination process would have been, but we are still working on it. The tomato market is highly competitive and lucrative and we intend to use every available means in order to assure that growers, distributors and consumers spend their money exclusively on our products. We do not care if we eliminate our competitors' product through cross-pollination or defoliation or both. Monsanto is in the money-making business, not the testing or safety business. That's the FDA's job."

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Originally posted by pogge:
Boar_Axe: I'd love a link for that if you have one. I'm not questioning the veracity of the quote. I'm collecting ammunition against Monsanto.

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AFAIK golden rice is still a failure: you'd choke on it before you meet your daily need of vitamin A.

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Golden Rice is not intended to provide 100% of a person's daily vitamin A requirements. Typically, vitamin A deficient individuals are lacking 10%-50% vitamin A intake -- not 100%. Therefore, any enhancement is useful. Earlier forms of Golden rice would provide 15%-20% of a person's daily intake, as reported in Science. More recent versions have more.

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For the third world, GM crops are a repeat of the failures of the green revolution

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Unfortunately, the Third World, in large part, does not have access to biotechnology, so, yes, in that sense it has been a failure, thanks in large part to the efforts of militant anti-biotechnology activists. More's the pity. Probably the largest showcase of "organic" farming techniques would be the African continent -- specifically, the most famine-stricken and malnourished parts.

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Mainly, they still require a lot more fertilizer than traditional crops. You can't avoid it: the better the harvest, the poorer the soil becomes.

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Wow, that's a nice bit of zero-sum logic, there. How did you come up with that? Are you suggesting farmers benefit from poorer harvests? Also, I've never heard that GM crops require any more fertilizer than any other type of crops, of the same variety. Reference?

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The 'major breakthrough' in North American agriculture, herbicide resistant crops, doesn't aleviate the dependance of the farmers on foreign chemical corporations.

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Well, you don't mention to what extent, historically, or at present, farmers are "dependent" on "foreign chemical corporations", or why that is even significant. However, your xenophobia is duly noted.

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stated that the quantity of round-up sold had steadily increased as the round-up ready crops became more and more popular.

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Uhhh, yeah ... that would pretty much stand to reason, wouldn't it? The problem being what, exactly? In other news, DVD sales have increased as DVD players have become more and more popular. My God! Where will it all end?!

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pest resistant crops create tougher parasites

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Are you suggesting we should let pests have free reign? Should we just throw our hands in the air and give up? Or, maybe, just maybe, technology manages to keep pace.

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Unless, Monsanto advise us, we mix the GM variety in rows with normal crops, and cover no more than 30% of the field... Find me a single farmer who has time to play in his field as if it was a japanese zen garden.

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While you're at it, find me where Monsanto has advised any such thing?

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For subsistance farmers, seed banks that try to catalog the hundreds of traditional varieties for their different properties would do much more good. Unfortunatly, there's no profit to be made there so the work is left to a few underfunded NGOs and a few governments sponsored projects like the International Rice Research Institute.

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For all we know, "golden rice", and many other GM foods, may be bad for you

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So, conversely, it must be equally true, for all you know, that GM foods are not bad for you.

In fact, it is demonstrably true that many non-GM foods are proven to be "bad for you". You don't seem upset about that for some reason, though?

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While it's generally been believed that health risks in GM foods are potential rather than actual, in fact there may be more evidence than most people think that the damn things actually ain't good for you.

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Interesting then, that you have neglected to provide any of this damning "evidence".

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I recommend the book "Seeds of Deception" by Jeffrey M. Smith on evidence for, and theoretical reasons to expect, health problems in GM foods.

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Earlier forms of Golden rice would provide 15%-20% of a person's daily intake, as reported in Science. More recent versions have more.

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When rice is your primary nourishment for the entire day, this hardly helps, does it? More likely, it simply obscures the fact that the commercialization of agriculture has made it impossible for the poor in the "developing" world to provide their children basic nourishment. Bio technology will not help such matters. The redistribution of land and the de-commercialization of agriculture, eliminating the profit motive, will alleviate the problems that real people have with acquiring basic necessities. Most people in the world depend on subsistence and small scale agriculture for their daily food needs, and the corporate entities spending billions on suspect bio technology and fertilizers are too consumed with the mass scale American agricultural market to keep their interests in mind.

Here's a challenge: Lets see some proof that the agro-business can do better than subsistence producers that have been living sustainably for thousands of years. Can they do better? Should they even try?

[ 18 March 2005: Message edited by: LukeVanc ]

[ 18 March 2005: Message edited by: LukeVanc ]

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Originally posted by PereUbu:
Quoting Rufus Polson:

Are you telling us you draw absolutely no distinction between hypothetical risks, and real ones? Can we assume, then, that since there is a hypothetical risk you could slip in the bathtub, and kill yourself (as many people have), you avoid washing? Yuck.

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And some of just don't care what they ingest into bodies.

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Those supporters of genetic engineering attempting to sway their opponents state that, “from a strictly environmental viewpoint, GM crops” provide the “distinct advantage” that they will “reduce the use of chemical pesticides by millions of kilograms” (Tribe 2000).

Pesticides -- which technically encompass both insecticides and herbicides -- are designed to kill pests, of both the insect and weed varieties. So, to suggest that GM crops will significantly reduce the use of chemical pesticides is to conveniently ignore the fact that more than 70% of GM crops currently in production are designed specifically to encourage chemical pesticide use

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A Link

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When rice is your primary nourishment for the entire day, this hardly helps, does it?

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A 20% increase doesn't help?? Are you high?

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More likely, it simply obscures the fact that the commercialization of agriculture has made it impossible for the poor in the "developing" world to provide their children basic nourishment.

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"Commercialisation of agriculture"? What are you babbling about? It would be helpful if you explained your rather extraordinary claims. Hopefully with actual facts.

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Bio technology will not help such matters.

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Um, okay. If you say so, professor.

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The redistribution of land and the de-commercialization of agriculture, eliminating the profit motive, will alleviate the problems that real people have with acquiring basic necessities.

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Okay, now you must be pulling my leg. Are you being willfully bloody-minded, or are you just stupid?

So tell us, how well did "land redistribution" work in the case of the Soviet Union in 1921-23, and again in 1931 - 1933? Only about 5,000,000 dead of famine the first time, and 7,000,000 the second time. Or China in 1958 - 1961? They take the prize with 27,000,000 people dead due to famine caused by forced "land redistribution".

How could anyone be so daft as to possibly ignore
THE HUGE HEADLINES regarding the current famine in Zimbabwe caused by -- you guessed it -- "land redistribution", by the communist despot Robert Mugabe???

But, I have to hand it to you: as far as diabolical methods of addressing the issue of too many people and not enough food, deliberately starving a few million people to death at least solves half the problem. You must be very proud.

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Here's a challenge: Lets see some proof that the agro-business can do better than subsistence producers that have been living sustainably for thousands of years. Can they do better? Should they even try?

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Gosh, I dunno, what proof could I possibly offer which would convince you? What with all those long lineups we have here in North America to get our meagre government food rations, and that famine which recently wiped out half the population of Nova Scotia, that's a tough one to answer. Maybe I should ask one of those incredibly succesful "subsistence farmers" in the Third World what their magic trick is, which makes Third World countries have such high crop yields and such nourishing and plentiful food?

Seriously, though -- in what alternate universe do Third World subsistence farms, by any measure "do better" than those who use modern farming methods?!

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Originally posted by PereUbu:
Quoting "LukeVanc":

Gosh, I dunno, what proof could I possibly offer which would convince you? What with all those long lineups we have here in North America to get our meagre government food rations, and that famine which recently wiped out half the population of Nova Scotia, that's a tough one to answer. Maybe I should ask one of those incredibly succesful "subsistence farmers" in the Third World what their magic trick is, which makes Third World countries have such high crop yields and such nourishing and plentiful food?

Seriously, though -- in what alternate universe do Third World subsistence farms, by any measure "do better" than those who use modern farming methods?!

Pardon me, but you are either positively insane, or you smoke waaaaaay too much dope.

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Great...A 20% increase of fake food.

You are messed up. YOU are smokin' waaaaaay too much GM weed.

[ 19 March 2005: Message edited by: Boar_Axe ]

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Originally posted by PereUbu:
Actually, I think most starving people are happy to settle for any kind of food.

Nice to see you kind-hearted anti-biotechnology fanatics are looking out for their best interests.

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Bio-tech is an irreversible incentive that is motivated by greed.

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Originally posted by Boar_Axe:

Bio-tech is an irreversible incentive that is motivated by greed.

Monsanto et al are engineering a dominance on who eats what, where and when.

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Didn't Lex Luthor try that in one of the Superman comics?

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Originally posted by PereUbu:

Seriously, though -- in what alternate universe do Third World subsistence farms, by any measure "do better" than those who use modern farming methods?!

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In North America, arrable land is available everywhere. The free market system didn't provide us with ample farm land. It was there already. We have Saskatchewan's wheat fields, the lush Ottawa and Okanagen Vallies and PEI. The Yanks have California, Florida, Idaho to Kansas and the natural acquifer that is Ogalala. But it's modern farming methods that have been creating a problem over the last few decades of mechanized farming. Ogalala's water levels have been dropping at alarming rates of six feet a year as a result of industrialised farming methods. About 24% of the High Plains region of the US has been turned into desert since about 1980. Mechanised poultry and pig farming produces millions of gallons of manure which is sprayed onto land and poisoning water tables before bacteria has a chance to turn over. Environmental groups in N. America have been sounding alarms for years about agribusiness and sustainability issues. Capitalism is proving that it doesn't belong in the food chain.

[ 19 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Capitalism is proving that it doesn't belong in the food chain.

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Certainly, as far as North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Cuba are concerned -- capitalism does not belong in the food chain.

About 14% of N. Korea is arrable land in a mainly mountainous country about the size of Mississippi. Severe weather in the North is a factor with crop yields. The US has enforced trade sanctions since the dirty war. HUmanitarian aid to Korea and Cuba has been blocked and delayed by the US. Blocking of humanitarian aid is illegal, according to the UN.

As for Africa and 12 major wars there, the CIA has been involved in 11 of them. Libya seems to be the only bright light there.

[ 19 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

- On golden rice, my numbers date back so you may be right. They'd still have to cross that variety with the multitude (hundreds) of rice varieties adapted to different soils and climates if they want to make it available to small farms that can't pay for pesticide/hebicides/fertilizers. Since distribution is the problem, golden rice wont help if it's only a good crop for large-scale farmers. If distribution wasn't the problem, the target population could simply buy other sources of vitamin A...

- Subsistance farmers work on small plots. A diversity of crops and good cultural practices (that were often traditional but mostly forgotten since the green revolution)can yield equal quantity of food than the monocultures and simple rotations they are practicing without depleting the soil. And yes, you're right, projects in famine and drought stricken Africa and Asia are the best showcases of the succes of organic farming.

- Depleting the soil to get bumper crops is harmful in the long term, doubly so if you can't afford or don't even have access to chemical fertilizers. Why do you think "sustainable" has been the favorite buzzword of every agronomist for the last 20 years? It's not for the littles fishies in the stream, it's for the money.

- Round-up is almost the only herbicide used over here. It's 'clean' (short half-life), very efficient, and affordable for North-Americans. So your DVD comparision doesn't hold. What happens is that more passes are made now that the round-up doesn't defoliate the corn. For us, the point is to use it later so we use less of it. It's in the same family as Agent Orange, as toxic, only it's contained in a week instead of half a century. For the third world, primo they don't have the gear and machines to apply it safely, secundo they often can't pay for it anyway.

- Pest resistant GMs contain the gene from a bacterial pesticide (some strain of Bt), unlike traditional resistant varieties that can survive a larger population of insects/fungus etc...
10% of every pest population is resistant to a given pesticide. If you abuse it, the other 90% disappear and in time the 10% will take all the place. Basic Biology. There are ways to avoid that phenomenon with conventional pesticides but if the pesticide is always present in the field, as is the case with Bt corn, the proportion of the restistant population will slowly but surely increase.

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While you're at it, find me where Monsanto has advised any such thing?

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Hey sorry, i don't really want to re-read every issue of la Terre de chez Nous from 1998 to 2002 to find it.

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Then I'm sure you'll be interested to know that the International Rice Research Institute is heavily involved in the development and testing of Golden Rice.

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Yuppers. They've been a major actor in the green revolution in Asia too. What's interesting is that they made a sharp U-turn from their usual position with the seed bank project to fight the shortcomings of large-scale agriculture applied to subsistance farming.

[ 19 March 2005: Message edited by: Epistrophy ]

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Unfortunately, the Third World, in large part, does not have access to biotechnology, so, yes, in that sense it has been a failure, thanks in large part to the efforts of militant anti-biotechnology activists. More's the pity.

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Well, whadyaknow folks. We got ourselves here another corporate apologist who just makes it up as s/he goes along.

Of course if anybody takes notice of such things, the main reason why the Third World is denied access to most things is that it has been so ravaged and leeched by decades of colonial capitalist plunder it can afford to buy or trade practically nothing at global commodity prices.

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Probably the largest showcase of "organic" farming techniques would be the African continent -- specifically, the most famine-stricken and malnourished parts.

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Ah, so now it's them there evil organic farmers who are a-starvin everybody, eh PereUbu!

I guess the historic fact of two hundred years of unsustainable farming for rapid cheap exports by the invading colonial power, that left once arable farmland in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt and other regions as little more than parched land and desert had nuthin to do with it.

Oh, and I suppose we shouldn't talk about the fact that before this, these evil organic farmers just farmed away for generations without the mass starvation levels of recent years.

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So tell us, how well did "land redistribution" work in the case of the Soviet Union in 1921-23, and again in 1931 - 1933? Only about 5,000,000 dead of famine the first time, and 7,000,000 the second time. Or China in 1958 - 1961? They take the prize with 27,000,000 people dead due to famine caused by forced "land redistribution".

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Ah yep, we sure gotta make sure that these state capitalist regimes (and that's what they in fact are/were by their own admission) and their corporatization of commercial farmland, which contributed to that starvation, are used as an excuse to keep land centralized under the existing plutocracies.

After all, the reasoning (that's a laugh) goes, those dumb peasants are too stupid to run the land on their own. That's why they starve.

Well, if we look a real land collectivization, is in farmers running land in democratic independent cooperative associations, we find that, hey, in fact things do improve.

We can look at regional agrarian cooperative ventures in Mozambique, Madagascar, the Kibbutz movements in Israel, Palestine, Syria, in the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Scandinavia, etc. for this.

But, wow, we don't even have to leave the country to see this. Just look at our Redneck old Prairie Provinces and the legacy of the NDP/CCF cooperative ventures that helped pull these economies out of the worst depression in history by providing affordable food products to people directly from farmers. And guess what. The starvation stopped.

Oops, not supposed to talk about THAT starvation, eh PereUbu. You know, other than the Stalinist regimes, like the estimated 50 million (WHO figures) people who starve to death each year because they simply can't afford to buy food, while our corporate agribusinesses let food rot in silos and warehouses to keep the price up.

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Certainly, as far as North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Cuba are concerned -- capitalism does not belong in the food chain.

Apparently, neither does food.

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Actually, given the facts, capitalism in not only in the food chain, including to one or another form or degree, in the countries mentioned here. It controls the food chain, and that's why food isn't event he main factor in the chain. Rather, it's the free money for the corporate food cartels and the big banks.

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Originally posted by Boar_Axe:

"Bio-tech is an irreversible incentive that is motivated by greed. Monsanto et al are engineering a dominance on who eats what, where and when."

Didn't Lex Luthor try that in one of the Superman comics? So, would this be established fact, or merely your personal opinion?

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Right folks, it's total BS that Monsanto are patenting genomes for seeds that produce sterile plants and pushing them on farmers across the globe, thereby forcing them to buy seeds exclusively from them--even though the CEOs have admitted this is what they're trying to do.

Now I call that a captive market. Like a prison.

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So, conversely, it must be equally true, for all you know, that GM foods are not bad for you.

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That's right, ya loud-mouthed idealistic socialists! Quit bein so Goddamned intelligent. The economy will be just fine if you act like the good little mindless consumers you're supposed to be and shut down your brain, open yer mouth and shovel it in.

Who needs all this precautionary health risk assessment crap? Heck, if ya live long, ya'll know it's good fer ya. If ya die, well maybe them there "militant anti-biotech fanatics" had a point after all.

But whatever happens, don't blame the corporate dictators and the big retail hacks. After all, this is global capitalism. It's buyer beware!

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Actually, I think most starving people are happy to settle for any kind of food.

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Sure thing, PereUbu. They're all just a bunch of desperate starvin mud folk, who'll eat just about anything to stop the pain of famine. Hell what would they care if we just feed them potentially poisonous junk? I mean, they're gonna all die anyway, right.

Of course, even this is conditional on the farmers there being able to buy the sterile seeds from the exclusive patent holders at their price. Otherwise, well, ya know, pay of die.

And all to fatten the profits of a few giant centrally-planned corporate behemoths, who aspire to attaining as great a control over global agriculture as the bureaucrats in Moscow did over Soviet agriculture. In that light, Ubu's knee-jerk rantings about the evils of Stalinist central-planning are beyond comical.

What the world needs now are similar commitments to end hunger and poverty in the capitalist third world. Currently, an estimated 36 million human beings starve to death around the capitalist third world where free markets in poverty and malnutrition are the rule. Washington consensus and IMF policies are becoming recognized as planned and enforced genocide, a holocaust every year. Total annual deaths are preventable but remain a thorn in the side of the capitalist record on overall progress. A handful of Anglo-American-Dutch trans-national corporations are effectively controlling the world's food supplies and monopolizing food distribution as well as preventing third world nations from intervening in their own public policies in preventing abject poverty and advancing toward economic stability. It's old world colonialism made new again as predatory capitalism and 'globalism.' Not only does concentration of wealth, power and control of our economies in the hands of a few go against the grain of free market theory, it's wrong.

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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On golden rice, my numbers date back so you may be right. They'd still have to cross that variety with the multitude (hundreds) of rice varieties adapted to different soils and climates if they want to make it available to small farms that can't pay for pesticide/hebicides/fertilizers.

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I don't know enough about rice cultivation per se to either agree or disagree, and I suspect you don't, either. But I put it to you: so what? Your argument is a little like saying the Wright brothers will never get their crazy contraption off the ground because they'd have to go to a lot of trouble to put a propeller on the darn thing. Therefore, they should just give up.

Maybe that explains why mankind has still not managed to acheive powered flight in 2005. Oh, wait sec ...

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Since distribution is the problem, golden rice wont help if it's only a good crop for large-scale farmers.

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Yes, but in this case distribution is not the problem. The problem is vitamin A deficiencies, and the diseases caused by it. And who says it's only a good crop for large-scale farmers? You seem to be making a lot of assumptions based on nothing.

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If distribution wasn't the problem, the target population could simply buy other sources of vitamin A...

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Oh, gee, why didn't anyone think of that?! It's all so simple, now that you've explained it. Thank goodness that problem has been solved!

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Subsistance farmers work on small plots. A diversity of crops and good cultural practices (that were often traditional but mostly forgotten since the green revolution)can yield equal quantity of food than the monocultures and simple rotations they are practicing without depleting the soil. And yes, you're right, projects in famine and drought stricken Africa and Asia are the best showcases of the succes of organic farming.

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Then how do you reconcile the rampant malnutrition and famine in those same areas?

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Depleting the soil to get bumper crops is harmful in the long term, doubly so if you can't afford or don't even have access to chemical fertilizers. Why do you think "sustainable" has been the favorite buzzword of every agronomist for the last 20 years? It's not for the littles fishies in the stream, it's for the money.

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Then that sounds like an excellent reason to develop crop strains which require less fertilizer and pesticide input. Congratulations, I think you're beginning to catch on.

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Round-up is almost the only herbicide used over here. It's 'clean' (short half-life), very efficient, and affordable for North-Americans. So your DVD comparision doesn't hold. What happens is that more passes are made now that the round-up doesn't defoliate the corn. For us, the point is to use it later so we use less of it. It's in the same family as Agent Orange, as toxic, only it's contained in a week instead of half a century.

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That is complete nonsense. You definitely need to do some research (assuming, of course, you've done any to begin with).

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For the third world, primo they don't have the gear and machines to apply it safely, secundo they often can't pay for it anyway.

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You seem to be conflating Roundup Ready canola/corn/soybeans with Golden Rice. Again, completely different things. I haven't heard of anyone suggesting people start growing canola, corn, or soybeans in east Africa.

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Pest resistant GMs contain the gene from a bacterial pesticide (some strain of Bt), unlike traditional resistant varieties that can survive a larger population of insects/fungus etc...

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I'm not quite sure I understand what you're trying to say? Are you claiming that Bt hybrids have any less resistance to a broad spectrum of pests than non-Bt varieties? That doesn't make any sense. Do you have evidence to back that up? That would defeat the whole purpose, now wouldn't it? In any case, the main parasite of, for example, corn crops, is the European Corn Borer. We're not so concerned with things like fungi, etc. with corn.

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10% of every pest population is resistant to a given pesticide. If you abuse it, the other 90% disappear and in time the 10% will take all the place. Basic Biology.

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Biology, as taught where? Yikes.

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There are ways to avoid that phenomenon with conventional pesticides but if the pesticide is always present in the field, as is the case with Bt corn, the proportion of the restistant population will slowly but surely increase.

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Even if that were as big a problem as you seem to think, do you imagine that science and technology are static? That's nature. Nature changes and adapts, and we, in turn, change and adapt right along with it. Apparently we're good at it, since we're not extinct.

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quote:
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While you're at it, find me where Monsanto has advised any such thing?
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Hey sorry, i don't really want to re-read every issue of la Terre de chez Nous from 1998 to 2002 to find it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by PereUbu:

Yes, but in this case distribution is not the problem. The problem is vitamin A deficiencies, and the diseases caused by it. And who says it's only a good crop for large-scale farmers? You seem to be making a lot of assumptions based on nothing.
...
If distribution wasn't the problem, the target population could simply buy other sources of vitamin A...

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Even the conservative right's diagnosis of the problem is wrong. In the London based Guardian, Jeremy Rifkin points out that:

quote:

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“ 80% of undernourished children in the developing world live in countries with food surpluses. The hunger problem has more to do with the way arable land is utilized. Today, 21% of the food grown in the developing world is destined for animal consumption… The animals, in turn, will be eaten by the world's wealthiest consumers in the northern industrial countries.”

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Ireland, India, Brazil and Indonesia exported food to "the market" while 50 million starved to death between 1870 and 1900.

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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The revolutionaries tried to catapult dysfunctional imperialist regimes into the future, we know and understand that now.

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Yeah, in Cuba The Future is apparently full of 1934 Dodges.

quote:

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By the late 1970's, Mao's regime had doubled the average life expectancy in China.

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Where was the conservative right when Cuban children were dying of TB and prostituting themselves to well-heeled foreigners while their parents worked the cane fields from sun up to sun down ?.

It took the Americans two plus decades to recover from a 30 year experiment in laissez-faire capitalism. Oh ay'!.

One in five American children are defined as living in poverty, according to Census Bureau's outdated guidelines developed in the 1960's.
One in seven British kids. Canada's doing poorly. In fact, the three most conservative first world nations tend to own the highest child poverty and infant mortality.

Outdated conservative ideas and old world colonialist attitudes are the problem, PereUbu, not feasibility of GMO'd food for the sake of controlling food production.

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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I don't know enough about rice cultivation per se to either agree or disagree, blah, blah, blah

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Many of this nation's farmers, forced to the wall have had to find ways to to thicken thinnier and thinnier margins to try and make a living. Combine that with comsumers who buy only on price and you get the push for GMO technology. I reject that production model, but I sure understand why farmers would look that way and I don't blame them, even though I believe it won't work. It's hard to know that you are working for a year producing a product that sells for less than it cost you to make it and to know you will have to take another job to keep your farm operation going. The promises of the promoters can look pretty compelling to those getting increasingly desperate.

The driving force for Monsanto and the bio-techs, despite their rhetoric, is nothing more than them to solve one problem, increased corporate profits.

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Grant R. ]

quote:

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Originally posted by beluga2:
I note that the Ubester has had nothing whatsoever about the utterly crucial point raised by Rufus in the latter part of his post: that the whole concept of biotechnology is based on utterly fraudulent science; it has no more legitimacy than alchemy or astrology.

---

Well, I suppose there are still people around who fervently believe NASA faked the lunar landings, and that public water flouridation is a KGB mind-control plot -- so who am I to burst your bubble?

Actually, the real reason I didn't bother to address it, is that Rufus Polson's, ahem, "explanation" is so ludicrous and self-evidently a misrepresentation of the subject, I thought it's ignorant falsehoods would be fairly obvious to all but the most scientifically illiterate and gullible.

And we already knew that fluoridation of water was a commie plot to poison our bodily fluids. ha ha

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Moving from a non-GMO system of mass malnourishment to a GMO system of slightly less malnourishment obscures the fact that the real problem is that subsistence farmers lack access to land.

You use the most extreme, Soviet examples of Mao's Cultural Revolution and the Stalinist model. During Mao's Cultural Revolution, Mao ignored science and cultural traditions and mandated an arbitrary crop planting schedule which varied by region. This example is not representative of land redistribution schemes. It is an example of a few decades of insanity imposed on the Chinese people by a mad mass murderer.

I have studied Indian agriculture extensively in my undergraduate studies and I can tell you that land redistribution has worked tremendously well there. Giving landless farmers access to reclaimed land, developing community seedbanks, and giving the children of farmers their own plots (again from reclaimed land, usually government owned or privately owned land that is idle) can increase the food supply and increase farm incomes.

Subsistence farming is more sustainable and more productive than a mass scale green revolution type farm, which does nothing to alleviate poverty in a country of such immense size as India, where millions are denied access to both jobs and food supplies when Green revolution techniques are implemented.

GMO technology is a "one size fits all" paternalistic, western model that fails to address the realities faced by real people in the developing world... these farmers need social justice, access to their own plots of land... not massive, fertilizer intensive agrobusinesses which charge exorbitant prices for their food products, use up all the local petroleum supplies, and throw everyone out of work.

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: LukeVanc ]

quote:

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I can say you have shown extreme ignorance on almost every section of your episltes about the wonders of GMO technology.

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Really? Then I'd certainly appreciate if you could show a specific example of what you consider my ignorance in my "episltes"[sic]. I'm sure we could all benefit from the wisdom you obviously must possess.

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GMOs make money and are a benefit for one group and one group only, and that is the corporate entities who control them. No one else.

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You claim to be a farmer, why don't you explain to us why Roundup Ready canola offers absolutely no benefit to farmers -- yet, for some mysterious reason, continues to enjoy ever-increasing popularity among them. Are those farmers insane? Stupid? Is someone holding their mother hostage?

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Many of this nation's farmers, forced to the wall have had to find ways to to thicken thinnier and thinnier margins to try and make a living. Combine that with comsumers who buy only on price and you get the push for GMO technology.

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Oh, I see. So wouldn't you call the ability for a farmer to increase his profit a benefit to the farmer? But didn't you just finish telling us how GM technology only benefits the corporations who sell them? Let's see ...

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GMOs make money and are a benefit for one group and one group only, and that is the corporate entities who control them. No one else.

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It seems you are contradicting yourself. So which is it?

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why don't you go out and do some real work with your hands

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quote:

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Originally posted by LukeVanc:

You use the most extreme, Soviet examples of Mao's Cultural Revolution and the Stalinist model. During Mao's Cultural Revolution, Mao ignored science and cultural traditions and mandated an arbitrary crop planting schedule which varied by region. This example is not representative of land redistribution schemes. It is an example of a few decades of insanity imposed on the Chinese people by a mad mass murderer.

---

What science was there in post-imperialist China?. Was there no starvation or millions murdered en masse under the "mad" emperors and Tsars. Prescott Bush and industrialist friends funded the biggest mass murderer of the last century.

PU, how does handing-off more control of food production to profit oriented agribusiness solve world hunger ?.

As it was in India, China, Ireland and Brazil when 60 million starved to death between 1847 and 1900 as food was exported to the market, todays malnourished peasants have no land to grow their own food and no incomes to buy it either.

Lets hear some more conservative bullshit on how the poor need a hand up and not a hand out, please. That's always good for a laff on Sundays.

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

If you bothered to read what I wrote you would find that I said that I don't believe they can make more money. They are hoping they will make more because the margins are so tight they are willing to try anything that looks like it has a potential. Trouble is, it's not working. I can't fault them for trying though. See unlike some little twerps who are all hat and no cattle, I actually treat people who deserve respect with respect. Other farmers trying to make a living earn my respect, whether I happen to agree with them or not. Little shits who aren't even half as smart as a bag of hammers, but think they are freakin Einstein, they don't get it.
I could paraphrase this but I have chores to do, so I'll cut and paste from here

quote:

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Any initial economic benefits will be quickly outweighed as farmers are drawn further under corporate control. More than any previous technology—such as fertilizers or tractors—patented seeds sold through contract and multi-page technology use agreements clearly erode farmers’ autonomy.

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Guess they're not real farmers either. 2003 (the last year figures are available for) saw the lowest net-realized farm family income in Canadian history, that includes the years of the Great Depression. Canadian farmers are amongst the most efficient in the world and agriculture is amongst the most efficient industries in Canada. Yet the people who work in that industry, (farmers) are not benefiting. Spreading this technology further is clearly not the answer. Your entire supposition is based on faulty logic and ignorance of facts. You are proof positive of the old adage that a little bit of knowledge without a whole lot of wisdom is a useless thing.

As for your general ignorance -
start here:

quote:

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Quoting "Epistrophy":

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Finish here

quote:

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Best of luck with that.

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That should cover it.

By the way. As I once told another person on here. I own my very own bull. He is a 1700 lb(he's grown since then) eating and crapping machine. Yet he is a rank amateur compared to you in dropping bullshit.

Edited to fix a format error

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Grant R. ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Grant R.:
I own my very own bull. He is a 1700 lb(he's grown since then) eating and crapping machine. Yet he is a rank amateur compared to you in dropping bullshit.

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quote:

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Starvation kills 35,000 every day
35 thousand children die each day from hunger and hunger-related illnesses. These 13 million annual deaths can end if society intitiates already known solutions to the issue of ending hunger.
A key to providing adequate nutrition and health care in any community is electrical energy; for the refrigeration of food and medicine and the pumping and filtering of water and the resultant waste water and sewage. Energy enables irrigation of crops and the processing, packaging and transport of bulk food.

When a society reaches a threshhold of 2,000 kilowatt hours per person per year, infant mortality falls below 50 per year (the United Nations determination between "hungry" and "non-hungry" nations). Also at this threshold, safe drinking water becomes available to 80% of the affected population.

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GENI

[ 20 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by pogge:

I'm tempted to buy a bull just so I can use that line.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grant R.:

He'll be for sale this summer.
Nice young polled Hereford Bull, easy to work with, nice sized calves, particularily for heifers. Wouldn't take up too much room I'm sure. Plus you get to claim your are a professional in dealing with the bullshit of others.

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The study was the fourth in a series that has, in effect, sealed the fate of GM in the UK - at least in the foreseeable future. They showed the ultra-powerful weedkillers that the crops are engineered to tolerate would bring about further damage to a countryside already devastated by intensive farming.

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The Independent

quote:

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Originally posted by brebis noire:
The most poignant argument is the Irish experience after the tuber was imported from South America...it looked like it would be able to feed the hungry Irish poor because it could grow in places where other crops wouldn't(the arable lands had been taken over English landowners) but it eventually led to the Great Potato Famine in the mid-1800s.

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That exemple could be countered by cassava (manioc). This plant from South America was first exported to Africa in the 17th century. It was adopted rapidly because it can grow in very poor soils, just like the potato. Somewhat put aside for a while in the 20th century, the FAO has led a major campaign aimed at subsistance farmers to promote it in the late 90ies. It's now the 6th most important crop in the world and, in some places, the increase in cassava culture has reduced undernourishment. The FAO considers it a success.

New crops are not the problem. The problem is the excessive desire to dominate, control and manage all things in nature, because there's usually a political agenda behind it that involves keeping the best for a select part of the population and leaving the dregs for everyone else.

In the case of the Irish Potato Famine, biology gave its opinion on monoculture through potato blight.

[ 22 March 2005: Message edited by: brebis noire ]

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I've given up responding to people who confuse belligerence with intelligence.

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Whereupon he proceeds to post his response, which includes these gems:

quote:

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"...little twerps who are all hat and no cattle"

"...Little shits who aren't even half as smart as a bag of hammers, but think they are freakin Einstein, they don't get it.

"...You are proof positive of the old adage that a little bit of knowledge without a whole lot of wisdom is a useless thing."

"...He is a 1700 lb(he's grown since then) eating and crapping machine. Yet he is a rank amateur compared to you in dropping bullshit."

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Pardon me, but what was that you were saying about "belligerence" and "intelligence"?

Now, to address the few vaguely relevant points of your comment:

quote:

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Guess they're not real farmers either.

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It is difficult to hazard a guess. The National Farmers Union seems to be far more concerned with promoting it's extreme leftist agenda, than they are about farming, as far as I can tell. Aside from demanding ever-increasing government subsidies, I don't see much much to do with the nuts and bolts of agriculture there. Farmers? Who knows. Political lobby group? Definitely.

quote:

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2003 (the last year figures are available for) saw the lowest net-realized farm family income in Canadian history, that includes the years of the Great Depression.

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You neglect to mention that small farmers have been consistently losing profitability since the mid-70s. GM enhanced technologies haven't been available until fairly recently. Clearly, other factors are at play here.

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Canadian farmers are amongst the most efficient in the world and agriculture is amongst the most efficient industries in Canada. Yet the people who work in that industry, (farmers) are not benefiting.

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Then it should be fairly obvious to you that efficiency is only one factor in determining the viability of any business enterprise. You could have the most efficient manufacturing business in the world, but if your factories happen to be producing 8-track tape players or buggy-whips, then you're still going to fail.

Luckily, farmers are somewhat insulated from marketplace realities, thanks to taxpayer-funded subsidies, and so, are free to continue running their businesses poorly.

quote:

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Your entire supposition is based on faulty logic and ignorance of facts.

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Well, ignorance of the "facts" as presented by the National Farmers' Union, at least.

And by the way, what is it you believe my supposition actually to be? If anything, you seem to have gone off on a tangent and are arguing a completely different topic.

To correct that, and address the original topic of this thread, ie., "Can GMOs end world hunger?", I present the following:

Former US president, Jimmy Carter, (who is, indeed, a farmer) seems to belive GMOs can help end world hunger.

quote:

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And their benefits are legion. By increasing crop yields, genetically modified organisms reduce the constant need to clear more land for growing food. Seeds designed to resist drought and pests are especially useful in tropical countries, where crop losses are often severe. Already, scientists in industrialized nations are working with individuals in developing countries to increase yields of staple crops, to improve the quality of current exports and to diversify economies by creating exports like genetically improved palm oil, which may someday replace gasoline. Link

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From the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation:

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[Biotechnology] can be used by small farmers as well as larger ones; it does not require large capital investments or costly external inputs and it is relatively simple to use. Biotechnologies that are embodied in a seed, such as transgenic insect resistance, are scale neutral and may be more affordable and easier to use than other crop technologies." Link

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Finally, many poor farmers, for which Grant R. and the National Farmers' Union shed their crocodile tears, also are strongly in favour of increased access to biotech.

Thousands of poor Indian farmers nearly rioted in 2002 when the Indian government, spurred on by anti-biotech activists, was poised to destroy the genetically modified pest-resistant cotton they had planted. Faced with this farmer revolt, the Indian government backed down. The subsequent crops of biotech cotton performed spectacularly, boosting yields as much as 80 percent, reducing pesticide use by 70 percent and increasing farmers' cotton-related income fivefold.
Link

As a friend of mine (a farmer, no less) pointed out, "There are basically two types of farmers: those that farm, and those that sit around and just piss and moan about it."

We could prevent 13 million starving to death needlessly around the world each year without granting exclusive food production rights in the form of GMO patents in the hands of trans-nationals, PU. The situation whereby hundreds of millions of poor people cannot afford to eat hasn't changed in the capitalist third world since Black '47 in Ireland.

Colonialist dogs simply shift to another port and cock their hind legs to piss on another nation and leaving chaos behind. And now the IMF and its business partners are asking poor people in Africa to pay full market prices for drinking water. This kind of free market fundamentalism was never implemented in the country where the IMF is based. And it's still not working where tried. We need fundamental change in the way food and basic human rights are administered, PU, not just approving designer food so that capitalists lay claim to what nature has already provided us. They continue to starve in countries with food surpluses as it was in colonial India and Brasil and Ireland and Indonesia and imperialist China and Russia and so on.

Estimates:
• 40,000 Third World children starve to death or die from simple preventable diseases each day.

  New York Times, September 17, 1992, p. a24.

• 38,000 children starve to death each day.
  Unfortunately, this fact is available mostly from vegetarian lifestyle websites. E.g.,

  click here

• Over 800 million people are chronically undernourished as of 1994-6.

  and here

• 60,000,000 die of starvation each year.
  a clickable link

Maoist International Movement

So we're entirely disappointed to know that GMO isn't about stopping what is a preventable holocaust every year, it's about corporate rights to patent mother nature. This economic fundamentalism from the right really is a non-issue for hundreds of millions in third world capitalist nations who feel the sharp thorn of hunger every day of their miserable lives.

[ 27 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by PereUbu:
Thank you, Fidel. Your moonbat ravings always bring a smile to my face.

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Well, like the good conservative that you are, you've completely misdiagnosed the problem, PU.

80 percent of these nations where millions are expiring from hunger and related diseases have food surpluses every year. If they can't distribute the food, then it doesn't matter whether it's Frankenfood or the real McCoy. They still won't have the means to buy the food.

Food was exported from 13 Irish ports to "the market" as millions starved tofucking death. Millions were sacrificed to false worship of an invisible hand, PU.

The poor in these countries need schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure in general. Remember your old conservative adages, PU, teach a person to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life, or whatever it is you people have short term memories for when making your weak cases for private enterprise.

What part of this simple theme on grinding poverty don't you understand, PU?.

[ 27 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Thank you, Fidel. Your moonbat ravings always bring a smile to my face.

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Shuckins, Pereubu! I have been reading your posts on this thread, and when I think of the term "moonbat ravings" Fidel's name ain't the first that comes to mind.

In your posts, I see angry apologies for the corporate tyrannies like Monsanto that don't deserve such loyalty. I see equally angry dismissals, with no evidence, and refusal to consider the facts posted by others. I see your refusal to deal with the obscene situation of multi-national corporations forcing sterile GMO crops on farmers that will force them to have to buy seeds from them every year, instead of cultivating their own.

Your evidence that GMOs are proven to grow better and more crops is, to be very generous, flimsy. The only source you have provided is an article about GMO cotton--which people don't eat.

I see your blatant opposition to common sense practices of thorough open studies to assess the long-term health risks of GMO consumption and labeling GMO products so people know what their eating. If you and the corporate cliques and governments you support are so confident in these GMO products, why resist these beneficial measures?

I found this on the Internet. It's by a group that is opposed to GMO products and their introduction into the market place, at least in their current form. Unlike you, these folks seem to have done their homework and backed up their positions with some good fact. They may not be totally right about everything, but they sure provide a compelling reason for everyone to be on the alert and get wise to what your corporate buddies are up to.

[EMAIL]http://www.saynotogmos.org/scientists_speak.htm[/EMAIL]

quote:

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As a friend of mine (a farmer, no less) pointed out, "There are basically two types of farmers: those that farm, and those that sit around and just piss and moan about it."

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Well, I don't wanna diss yer friend. But that's a pretty stupid comment (if he in fact said it. Sounds more like you made it up.). Those who farm are farmers, regardless of their views on GMOs.

They are definitely farmers, and judging from what I have been reading about them, they sure don't like your kind much.

[EMAIL]http://www.saynotogmos.org/events.htm[/EMAIL]

[EMAIL]http://www.saynotogmos.org/ujun03.htm#pot_hoax[/EMAIL]

[EMAIL]http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/seedsaving031405.cfm[/EMAIL]

[EMAIL]http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/brazil32505.cfm[/EMAIL]

In Haiti, rice is currently being exported to the market while children in Port Au Prince suffer severe malnutrition. The invisible hand works in mysterious ways to heap great riches on the deserving and punishing the poor who offer-up their children to free market gods demanding sacrifice. This free market nonsense is actually a conveyor belt of death and misery.

And if Monsanto refused to compensate victims of its very safe at the time, Agent Orange, then why should we trust them now by handing them patents on food production ?. Something's fundamentally wrong with this picture all the way around, imo.

Vaclav Smil of M.I.T. estimates that roughly 70 percent of the 5.2 billion hectares of dry lands used for agriculture in world are at risk of desertification. These unsustainable practices are symptoms of the short-term, profit driven nature of capitalism.

Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard says that millions will die of starvation this year and then next because they are too poor to survive. In the USA, 40 thousand new cases of HIV infections will occur because of politically motivated cutbacks to public health and prevention programs. The IMF ties aid money to third world countries to the same privatisation schemes that have failed and or are underperforming in test nations around the world. The cash crop mentality is a leftover of colonialism and still being promoted by free market nonsense today. Millions starve so that a handful can become enormously wealthy.

This is key to understanding colonialism resuscitated as capitalism and globalism.

The problem is not the scientific and popular protest against multinationals desire to monopolise world food supplies, it's abject poverty and the inability of capitalism to abate the problem at the source. Capitalism is the problem.

PU has to be a shill for big agribusiness, EthicalRedneck. Nobody could be this stubborn on purpose.

We return now to our regularly scheduled rant on Monsanto's behalf.

[ 28 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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In your posts, I see angry apologies for the corporate tyrannies like Monsanto that don't deserve such loyalty.

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Really? Then please be so good as point out where I have made any such "apology". I think you'll find I haven't.

quote:

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I see equally angry dismissals, with no evidence, and refusal to consider the facts posted by others.

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Have I done that, too? Then would you care to provide even one example of this? I think you'll find you can't do that, either. What "facts" have I refused to consider?

quote:

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I see your refusal to deal with the obscene situation of multi-national corporations forcing sterile GMO crops on farmers that will force them to have to buy seeds from them every year, instead of cultivating their own.

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Hmm, the only thing being cultivated around here, are your feverish paranoid conspiracy theories. Why on Earth would I be obligated to deal with your fantasies?

I haven't heard of any "multi-national corporations" "forcing" anyone to do anything of the sort. If you have some secret information you'd like to share, then by all means, do so.

quote:

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Your evidence that GMOs are proven to grow better and more crops is, to be very generous, flimsy.

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Really? Actually, I don't think I've actually presented any evidence to that effect. I've merely challenged the strident assertions of others in this thread that GMOs don't provide better yields (which, by the way, they do).

Beyond shrill denunciations of biotech and the usual wack-job conspiracy theories -- you, and others, have not provided one scintilla of scientific proof for your astounding claims.

quote:

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The only source you have provided is an article about GMO cotton--which people don't eat.

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I may not be the final authority on farming, but I do know this much: No matter what farmers are growing, if they don't have a crop to grow, they don't eat. Period.

Yes, of course you're right, "Ethical Redneck". Biotech crops don't actually produce larger yields. Everyone's just been growing them for fun. It's all a big illusion -- the same as when NASA faked the lunar landings. Growers all over the world have simply been hypnotised by the evil biotech KKKorporations, using their array of deep-space hypno-ray satellites.

quote:

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I see your blatant opposition to common sense practices of thorough open studies to assess the long-term health risks of GMO consumption and labeling GMO products so people know what their eating.

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Once again: where have I said anything like what you are claiming? Show me.

quote:

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If you and the corporate cliques and governments you support are so confident in these GMO products, why resist these beneficial measures?

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Do you do anything else besides try to put words in other people's mouths?

quote:

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I found this on the Internet.

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*yawn*...

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It's by a group that is opposed to GMO products and their introduction into the market place

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double *yawn* ...
These people are generally referred to as Luddites. The Internet has no shortage of them. Rather ironic, don't you think?

quote:

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Unlike you, these folks seem to have done their homework and backed up their positions with some good fact.

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Good fact? In other words, any nonsense which seems to support your viewpoints. And, no, sorry -- You'll have to point out one of these "facts" for me, since I haven't had any luck finding one on their website.

I'm talking about scientific evidence -- not idle speculation; not ignorant scare-mongering; and not yet another tiresome retelling of long-debunked foolishness.

quote:

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They may not be totally right about everything, but they sure provide a compelling reason for everyone to be on the alert and get wise to what your corporate buddies are up to.

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So what you're telling us, is that you don't need for them to be totally right about anything -- just so long as what they tell you flatters your ideological biases.

quote:

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In Haiti, rice is currently being exported to the market while children in Port Au Prince suffer severe malnutrition.

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Fidel, please tell us more about how Haiti is exporting rice.

Who decides where rice is shipped to from Haiti ?. If you were a friend of the former Duvalier regime or hired thug of the ton ton macoutes, who would you sell your rice to?. Would you ask the poverty stricken in Haiti to pay "full market prices" or wealthy gringos in the United States or Dominican Republic, another shithole-deluxe off Uncle Sam's back door step ?. The U.S., with it's imposing free market fundamentalism on poor nations around the world, has had a death grip on this island nation for too long.

The scum that reconquered the country are mostly inheritors of the US-installed army and paramilitary terrorists and dreaded ton ton macoutes, that's who, PU. Those people have no souls, PU. Their religion is free market worship, the blackest of magic.

[ 28 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Who owns most of the land in Haiti, PU ?. Who decides where rice is shipped to from Haiti ?. If you were a friend of the former Duvalier regime or hired ... (snip)

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So essentially, grinding poverty is the result of free market fundamentalism foisted on Haiti by US imperialism, PU. Free market fundamentalists in the U.S. tend to abandon faith in the invisible hand when propping-up their own agricultural industries with heavy subsidies, but not the same medicine for struggling third world underlings of capitalism. Like all religious fundamentalisms, poverty stricken Haitian children suffering from kwashiorker will just have to wait for a free market long run to kick-in, eh!. Oh, but wait now. There is Monsanto wanting poverty stricken Haitian's to buy the wonderful fruits of their dirty bag of GMO seeds, a sure fix for a fundamentally flawed imperialist system, for sure.

In fact, hundreds of millions of poor, starving miserable human beings will just have to have long-term faith and pray to the free market gods. Or is it the Monsanto deity this year ?. Copia? Whatever.

If only the desperately poor Irish could have bartered what few posessions they had for GMO'd potatoes, then a holocaust might have been averted, eh PU?. Perhaps we can send Haitian's some Dale Carnegie tapes on how to become rich and famous in ten easy lessons and support their once daily food binges, if that. But then we'd have to send them the tape recorders ... and batteries and maybe some boxes of kleenex to wipe away tears of joy when they realize how easy it is to make-capitalist on an island nation where colonialists have ripped the heart out of democracy decades ago and left the land pock marked and desolate.

Never mind the corn and pork which left 13 Irish ports for London town and ports elsewhere, all the while millions were dropping like flies from hunger and other death related illnesses at the time. So here we are now, with PereUbu, Monsanto and their free market solution to world hunger for all time. If only people would listen to what they have to say. tsk tsk

[ 28 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Oh, he's caught on to something here.

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But "Fidel", you seemed so outraged and full of the gases of self-righteousness, when you wrote:

quote:

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In Haiti, rice is currently being exported to the market while children in Port Au Prince suffer severe malnutrition.

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Here I was picturing starving waifs, while conveyor belts full of bags of rice, stretching to the horizon are feeding the bottomless cargo holds of freighters, bound for the evil KKKapitalist Rice Krispies factory in the U$A, so fat imperialist bastards can eat their breakfast, while forcing newborn babies to dig with their bare hands in their coal mines. At dockside, an overseer, dressed like Uncle Sam, is cracking his red, white and blue whip. He's drunk, of course.

Are you saying that you were, y'know, just, um ... lying?

quote:

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Haiti used to be a rice exporting nation.

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Uh-huh. So tell us, what was the last year Haiti exported rice, and roughly how much did they export?

quote:

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So essentially, grinding poverty is the result of free market fundamentalism foisted on Haiti by US imperialism

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quote:

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Originally posted by PereUbu:
Are you saying that you were, y'know, just, um ... lying?

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Not intentionally. But there does continue to be annual surpluses of food in nations where famines occur .... just like 1847 Ireland, PU.

Haiti is the object of US affection, Has been for decades. They exported rice up to some point in the 1990's when Aristide was being pressured by Washington to make Haiti a free trade nation. Haiti is a shithole full of starving people who cannot afford to eat half the time. Haiti will remain a shithole nation of impoverished and starving people as long as they subsist in the shadow of Uncle Sam.

The essence of what I was saying is still true. 80 percent of nations that have suffered famine were experiencing food surpluses at the time. I know this fact doesn't support a case for allowing Monsanto et al to monopolise patents on mother nature or that poverty stricken nations need even more food to export while the people starve to death, but you can certainly continue railing about Haiti and how US foreign policies are fucking things up around the world since Prescott Shrub's bastard offspring have threatened world security ever since.

quote:

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Uh-huh. So tell us, what was the last year Haiti exported rice, and roughly how much did they export?

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Haiti exported rice in the 90's. That much I know. Now they don't due to US protectionism and other free market fundamentals the pro-market Bush regime have insisted upon for Haiti but refuse to follow themselves. And now Haitian's starve. They've always suffered under the shadow of colonialism in Haiti. Port Au Prince and Santo Domingo are home to some of the poorest people in the western hemisphere, and yet they are situated so close to the land of milk and honey and US influence. Prosperity eludes them still.

quote:

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I see. So, Haitians didn't live in "grinding poverty" before they had "free market fundamentalism foisted on Haiti by US imperialism"? Is that what you're saying?

---

Free trade policies and export agriculture have increased poverty throughout the Third World.

By the end of World War II, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were as destitute as Haiti today.

The policies which helped those countries recover focused on allowing the peasantry to become the engine of economic growth. This was achieved by trade barriers against cheap subsidized imports of food staples and their products combined with agrarian reform. Those domestic policies created a peasantry with the purchasing power to support the fledgling domestic industries that later became international powerhouses.

I'm sorry, but those prescriptions for fighting famine and abject poverty are exactly the opposite of what's being insisted upon for Haiti by pro-marketeers today. GMO is a non-issue except for those wanting to export even more food while millions around them starve to fucking death.

Third world countries are still exporting cash crops today, PU. Peasants are forced into jungles or mountain slopes where the land eventually becomes unworkable from erosion and deforestation. The poor pile into the cities where they are met with police and military violence and then graduate to becoming refugees while the rich hord the land.

So whose cause will GMO advance besides those who own the land ?. It's flawed free market fundamentalism.

[ 28 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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The essence of what I was saying is still true.

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Even if the substance of what you were saying has, thus far, proven to be completely false?

quote:

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Haiti exported rice in the 90's. Now they don't due to US protectionism and other free market heresies the pro-market Bush regime have insisted upon for Haiti. And now they starve.

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Specifically what year did Haiti supposedly stop exporting rice, and how much did they export previously?

Capitalism, spelled colonialism, is about repressing whole nations of people for the sake of maintaining vast repositories of natural wealth for the benefit of United Fruit, Dole and US corporate interests in general.

Increasing agro-export economy is causing a greate deal of environmental destruction and out-migration in the capitalist 3rd world.

This expansion of export agriculture forces the poor to utilize less viable land. It's destructive to the local environment, and problems result.

Africa's deserts are increasing in area as the poor try to survive on the fringes. In Central America, peasant farmers are being driven from more fertile lowlands to higher up slopes, where they try to till rocky, depleted soils which blows away. The rain forests become desertified as more and more trees are cut down, a process which some archaeologists are attributing to the demise of past cultures.

Meanwhile, those nations that export food produced from the best land are rapidly destroying it by abusing pesticides, fertilizers, and heavy machinery. As yields drop and poor countries increase exports to meet unrealistic debt repayment obligations, food export is squeezed to the max from areas with the best soils, again displacing peasants from marginal lands to less and less arrable land.

People end up moving to the slums of San Salvador, Jakarta, Bangladesh, Mexico City, or Bangkok or to other countries.

Poor and starving people don't need or want to be guinea pigs for GMO, PU. Besides, they can't afford to buy regular food being exported from their own countries to "the market" as it is.

What hundreds of millions of poor and starving people want and need is the stability and security of not being forced off land because of encroachment by big business or abusive land barons. African's, Afghanistani's, Indonesian's, Iraqi's and more want social democracy, not war and famine and political upheaval. Before 1991, Iraq had the lowest infant mortality rate of all Arab nations, including Kuwait where about ten percent of the people are allowed to vote for Prince al Sabah. Since the US-led sanctions began on that desert nation in'91, over 700 000 Iraqi children have perished from bombs, bullets, famine and preventable diseases. Was this worth it to arrest one man ?. Or was famine and infanticide the price Iraqi's would have to pay so that Haliburton could rake in over a billion taxpayer dollars a month with its Iraqi operations alone?. World's 2nd largest proven oil reserves have anything to do with it ?. Ya, well ...

They need schools, hospitals, sewers, clean drinking water and electrical power to help make it all happen. Free market mantras aren't allowing this to happen right now, PU. Monsanto and GMO are a fine get-rich-quick scheme on mother nature, but it's not what the tens of millions who will starve to death in the capitalist third world this year need. Not really.

quote:

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Of the 830 million hungry people worldwide, a third of them live in India. Yet in 1999, the Indian government had 10 million tons of surplus food grains: rice, wheat, and so on. In the year 2000, that surplus increased to almost 60 million tons — most of it left in the granaries to rot. Instead of giving the surplus food to the hungry, the Indian government was hoping to export the grain to make money. It also stopped buying grain from its own farmers, leaving them destitute. The farmers, who had gone into debt to purchase expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides on the advice of the government, were now forced to burn their crops in their fields. At the same time, the government of India was buying grain from Cargill and other American corporations, because the aid India receives from the World Bank stipulates that the government must do so. This means that today India is the largest importer of the same grain it exports. It doesn’t make sense — economic or otherwise.This situation is not unique to India. In 1985, Indonesia ...

---

[ 28 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Stop feeding the troll.

PU is only interested in being snide and condescending. He/she refuses to acknowledge that his ‘facts’ around GMOs are as based on belief and faith as he/she accuses others of being. There are no facts in his arguments, only suppositions. It's the typical stance of the ignorant, my beliefs are facts, and yours are just crazy speculation. Pu has demonstrated his ignorance long enough. Let him/her post back and forth with himself/herself, that's all she's really interested in anyway.

Anyone who is that dismissive, in such a ridiculous way, of the NFU for instance, clearly isn't letting facts get in the way of their beliefs.

Here's a further hint to this belief system- GMOs don't, as a general rule, increase yield, any more or less than using say one strain of alfalfa does over another, yet Pu claims this over and over and over. That’s not a fact Pu is stating, that’s a hope, a desire, a crazy moonbeam idea.

What GMOs do, in the case of cash crops anyway, is make the use of herbicides and pesticides more efficient, there may be some tangential short term yield benefit in theory, but no one, absolutely no one, including Monsanto has demonstrated this in reality. What the short term benefit is is the reduction, because of efficiency, in some input costs. I can see where that might be a draw for some facing severe income pressures, but those who have looked at the long term cost/benefit have concluded it is a lost leader for farmers. Yet some will be attracted as the cost pressures on farmers, around the world, are high, in large part because of an out of whack trade system based on American subsidies and practices.

PU is not interested in a debate any more than a bar hopper is looking for marriage. Enjoy your drink and the music, but really why waste the effort on someone who is only really interested in their own reflection.

By the way Pu, the obvious tip off of the final proof of you being full of it was your comments purporting to come from a farmer. No farmer would ever talk that way about another, even if they disagree, we all know how hard the other works, even if we are trying to get to the same goal through different tracks. What farmers can do though is smell someone full of it from a mile away.

[ 28 March 2005: Message edited by: Grant R. ]

quote:

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Really? Then please be so good as point out where I have made any such "apology". I think you'll find I haven't.

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Well, let's start right in your same post where you made the above assertion:

quote:

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I haven't heard of any "multi-national corporations" "forcing" anyone to do anything of the sort. If you have some secret information you'd like to share, then by all means, do so.

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I don't have any secret info. Just some well-documented stuff:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/syngenta32505.cfm

http://www.fao.org/biotech/C9doc.htm

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/syngenta1_32505.cfm

http://www.biodev.org/

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/syngenta032305.cfm

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/iraq031505.cfm

http://biogassendi.ifrance.com/biogassendi/editobiogbterminator.htm

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/21.html

http://www.purefood.org/Corp/HR3005.cfm

There’s more. But here’s a quote from one of the big shots himself:

quote:

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"The defoliating tomato was just a lucky accident and we won't apologize for it," Monsanto President and Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant told reporters. "My only regret here is that the defoliation process is slower and messier than the cross-pollination process would have been, but we are still working on it. The tomato market is highly competitive and lucrative and we intend to use every available means in order to assure that growers, distributors and consumers spend their money exclusively on our products. We do not care if we eliminate our competitors' product through cross-pollination or defoliation or both. Monsanto is in the money-making business, not the testing or safety business. That's the FDA's job."

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Then there’s dismissing everyone else:

quote:

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Have I done that, too? Then would you care to provide even one example of this? I think you'll find you can't do that, either. What "facts" have I refused to consider?

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Well, let's start with the corporate patenting of genomes and growing sterile plants forcing farmers to buy seed strictly from those corporate patent holders, which we established is a fact via the above sources and quotes.

You said:

quote:

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Hmm, the only thing being cultivated around here, are your feverish paranoid conspiracy theories. Why on Earth would I be obligated to deal with your fantasies?

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and:

quote:

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Beyond shrill denunciations of biotech and the usual wack-job conspiracy theories -- you, and others, have not provided one scintilla of scientific proof for your astounding claims.

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Now if this ain't blatant blind-ass denial, then nothing is.

Now let's see how you deal with the serious concerns health and consumer organizations, farmers unions and governments about the health risks of long term consumption of GMO foods. And as some of the links I posted here previously show, even the most passive studies say proceed with caution and not without proper testing and research into these risks or concerns.

Others here have said this as well, to which you said:

quote:

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Beyond shrill denunciations of biotech and the usual wack-job conspiracy theories -- you, and others, have not provided one scintilla of scientific proof for your astounding claims.

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and:

quote:

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double *yawn* ...
These people are generally referred to as Luddites. The Internet has no shortage of them. Rather ironic, don't you think?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grant R.:
Fidel
I expect we could find lots to disagree on, but let’s agree on this.

Stop feeding the troll.

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That sounds rather dictatorial and with not too many good vibes toward me all at the same time. I'll say what I feel needs to be said, thank you very little.

quote:

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How in hell should I know?

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Well, gee, "Fidel", you made the claim, so one would naturally expect you'd have some sort of factual basis.

In fact, you even said so, yourself:

quote:

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Haiti exported rice in the 90's. That much I know.

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You don't sound so sure now.

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Look it up yourself instead of taking me to task, ffs.

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It doesn't work like that. You made the assertion, therefore the burden of evidence is on you to prove your claim -- not on me to disprove it.

quote:

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There’s more. But here’s a quote from one of the big shots himself:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The defoliating tomato was just a lucky accident and we won't apologize for it," Monsanto President and Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant told reporters. "My only regret here is that the defoliation process is slower and messier than the cross-pollination process would have been, but we are still working on it. The tomato market is highly competitive and lucrative and we intend to use every available means in order to assure that growers, distributors and consumers spend their money exclusively on our products. We do not care if we eliminate our competitors' product through cross-pollination or defoliation or both. Monsanto is in the money-making business, not the testing or safety business. That's the FDA's job."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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You do know that was from a Comdey routine, don't you?

What I don't seem to understand is what is pissing you guys off more, is it that Monsanto has patented an organism that doesn't work, or that what Monsanto sells does work but is morally objectionable? If it doesn't work who cares, and if it does then isn't that good for farmers? And can't a farmer choose to buy seeds from Monsanto or grow them himself? And if farmers in the third world can't afford Monsanto's seeds, isn't that a good thing? Unless they work, then that's a bad thing, right?

quote:

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Originally posted by Rattus:
What I don't seem to understand is what is pissing you guys off more, is it that Monsanto has patented an organism that doesn't work, or that what Monsanto sells does work but is morally objectionable? If it doesn't work who cares, and if it does then isn't that good for farmers? And can't a farmer choose to buy seeds from Monsanto or grow them himself? And if farmers in the third world can't afford Monsanto's seeds, isn't that a good thing? Unless they work, then that's a bad thing, right?

Oh well, it just seems to me that people arguing against PU are arguing boths sides against his middle. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me[/QB]

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It's not quite as simple as that. You asked your question in a straight-forward way. I will try to answer it in the same light.
Monsanto wants to sell terminator gene GMOs, for example, which would mean you could not replant seed. Part of the problem with that is that GMOs can work, but sometimes in unexpected ways. They could cross with other varieties, rendering those varieties GMO contaminated, or worse inert because of the cross-pollination, or take over other crops essentially becoming a nusiance weed. See the thing is nature is waaay smarter than all of us, it usually finds a way to bite us hard on the ass for our arrogance. Our history is replete with examples both ancient and modern.
Messing around with the food supply just for increased profit doesn't sit well with a lot of people for a number of reasons beyond your ying/yang proposition.

GMOs could potentially have some up sides, as I acknowledged above, in terms of greater effciency of herbicide/pesticide usage, at least for some, in some areas of agriculture, but on balance the down sides far out-weighs any potential theoretical short-term benefits. It's just not as simple as if it works- it's good, if it doesn't- it doesn't matter. Farmers the world over could become dependent on highly concentrated companies for seed material. That's not good for anyone. GMO technology, backed up with corporate patent rights, could become very problematic in terms of cheap, accessible food.
The problem in other parts of the world in regards to hunger and poverty have very little to do with the fact that subsistance farmers and other farmers are not buying Monsanto's products.

[ 28 March 2005: Message edited by: Grant R. ]

And the quote that ER used is from:
http://www.newhumanist.com/monsanto_humor.html

But you know a little bit of fear is not neccesarily a bad thing. Until a technology is proven I think we should employ the pre-cautionary approach. I live just a few kilometres from Walkerton. I know people first hand who have paid the price of government neglect in protecting us from the ass-biting power of Mother Nature.

I'm no luddite, but I'm not going to buy from the first snake-oil salesman that comes by either. The case for GMOs is as based on fears and unproven promises as people like PU accuse those against being. There is no case for GMOs ending world hunger. As I said before, world hunger is not caused by a lack of food, particularily GMO food. It is the world economic system and who wins and who losses from that system. It's about who has power and who doesn't. It's about who is in the way of those with power and who stands to benefit from any change. GMOs are not going to fix that. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest they will make it worse. So the short answer to the thread title is NO. They have nothing to do with it. It is a red herring to suggest they can. That's not the point of GMOs.

quote:

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Originally posted by PereUbu:
It doesn't work like that. You made the assertion, therefore the burden of evidence is on you to prove your claim -- not on me to disprove it.

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Nope, I've already admitted that I was wrong about Haiti exporting rice as of some point in the 1990's. Haiti is a chaotic third world nation subsisting in Uncle Sam's shadow. It's sometimes difficult to know what's going on in Haiti with depending on corporate-sponsored news media for news on Latin America in general. For the most part, the CIA and corporations work to maintain oppression and chaos throughout the Carribe and
Latin America.

What you seem to be ignoring, PU, is the big fat link I posted up there which describes how hungry nations experience food surpluses in times of famine more often than not. That doesn't say much for the argument that there is not enough food being produced now to feed those millions of people who will starve to death this year. And it doesn't support a case for GMO being the solution to world hunger.

Is there anyone else up there I could talk to ?.

quote:

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Nope, I've already admitted that I was wrong about Haiti exporting rice as of some point in the 1990's.

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I see. So, are you saying that prior to this point in the 1990s, Haiti exported rice? Why don't you give us some details? Please share your Haitian rice exporting knowledge with us.

Do you not find it odd, though, how you have come full circle?

First you invented the fiction that that Haiti is currently exporting rice. You used their imaginary rice exporting as the basis for your usual ranting against the US.

Unavoidably confronted with your own lie, you now claim that Haiti used to export rice, and was somehow forced to stop exporting -- again, the basis for one of your seemingly endless anti-US rants.

So, on the one hand, your little narrative has Haiti exporting rice -- for which the US is to be denounced -- and on the other hand, you now claim Haiti no longer exports rice -- for which, astonishingly, you still manage to blame the US.

It seems to me, you clearly have not got the slightest clue as to whether Haiti is currently exporting rice, used to export rice, or has ever exported a single grain of rice.

What your prevarications lack in imagination, they certainly make up for in adaptability.

quote:

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It's sometimes difficult to know what's going on in Haiti with depending on corporate-sponsored news media for news on Latin America in general.

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Yes, I'm sure it must be difficult for you, "Fidel". I guess that's why it's so much more convenient for you to just make totally absurd shit up.

quote:

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For the most part, the CIA and corporati ... (etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum)

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I was getting worried for a second there, "Fidel" -- You hadn't mentioned the CIA in almost 3 1/2 minutes. And that's important in a thread supposedly about the role biotech might play in helping alleviate world hunger.

[ 29 March 2005: Message edited by: PereUbu ]

quote:

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Originally posted by PereUbu:
It seems to me, you clearly have not got the slightest clue as to whether Haiti is currently exporting rice, used to export rice, or has ever exported a single grain of rice. bla bla bla

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Read about Haiti, a capitalist shithole producing CASH CROPS and plastic widgets for slave wages

Haiti's a CIA and IMF-sponsored shithole. Remember that. Haiti owes external debt up the wazoo for previous loans gone bad to corrupt despots of Uncle Sam and years of colonialism. The CIA and external creditors want Haiti to continue to be a way point for Colombian drug trafficking to the U.S. They get paid, the death squads get paid, and everyone is happy except the poor and destitute in Haiti whose democratically elected leader was overthrown by the narco-leptic CIA and right-wing mouthpieces in the U.S.

quote:

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Of the 830 million hungry people worldwide, a third of them live in India. Yet in 1999, the Indian government had 10 million tons of surplus food grains: rice, wheat, and so on. In the year 2000, that surplus increased to almost 60 million tons — most of it left in the granaries to rot. Instead of giving the surplus food to the hungry, the Indian government was hoping to export the grain to make money. It also stopped buying grain from its own farmers, leaving them destitute. The farmers, who had gone into debt to purchase expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides on the advice of the government, were now forced to burn their crops in their fields. At the same time, the government of India was buying grain from Cargill and other American corporations, because the aid India receives from the World Bank stipulates that the government must do so. This means that today India is the largest importer of the same grain it exports. It doesn’t make sense — economic or otherwise.This situation is not unique to India. In 1985, Indonesia ...

---

So with all these surplus cash crops in the capitalist third world happening while millions capitulate each year, PU, you're saying the remedy is to hand extended patents on mother nature over to companies like Monsanto, the company that created the very safe Agent Orange ?.

Do you even realize the redundancy in your weak argument for GMO, PU. ?. Who's to say that GMO crops won't be stockpiled or burned in the fields to comply with bass-ackward colonialist rules of global trade while millions continue starving to fucking death every year, PU ?. PU, your case for GMO stinks!.

quote:

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I was getting worried for a second there, "Fidel" -- You hadn't mentioned the CIA in almost 3 1/2 minutes. And that's important in a thread supposedly about the role biotech might play in helping alleviate world hunger.

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Biotech is what's happening in federally funded laboratories and universities. Private enterprise waits in the wings to pick the fruits of taxpayer funded research as always. In 1980, corporations pressured Raygun's bunch to pass the Bayh-Dole bill which essentially gives corporations a free hand in taxpayer funded research. Not much of a change, mind you since most of the cold war technology now propping-up capitalism around the world was initially developed by a few hundred taxpayer funded researchers. Computer chip technology, computer GUI tech, the beginnings of internet communications tech, fibre optics, lasers, satellites, metallurgical advances, important vaccines and more were simply handed off to a few dozen corporations and rich families, now referred to as "the market" or private enterprise.
What can private enterprise offer the world's hungry besides another burst tech bubble and corporate crime waves as per dot bomb infamy ?.

Again, 80% of the nations experiencing famine and chronic hunger are in food surplus as it was in 1847 Ireland, PU. Your case for GMO stinks more than dozens of silos full of of rotting grain in India, PU. Pee-Yew!

[ 29 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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BROOKLIN, Canada - Just four countries plant 99 percent of the world's genetically engineered (GE) crops, despite more than a decade of hype about the benefits of agricultural biotechnology.

The United States, home of the agricultural biotech giant Monsanto, represents 55 percent of the world's GE crops, while Argentina, Canada and Brazil account for the rest...

...While the industry says it is expanding by leaps and bounds and gaining entry into more and more countries, Bell says that growth has been incremental and will be an uphill fight over the next five years. Others, including Nature's Aldhous, agree that the 10-year battle is coming to a head but say it is too close to guess at the outcome.

The big three companies that dominate agbiotech -- Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer -- have some very powerful allies, the U.S. government and World Trade Organisation among them.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has long been a tool through which companies promote biotech in the developing world, according to Brewster Kneen, an author and food industry critic...

---

quote:

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Groups fighting for the rights of peasant communities are stepping up pressure on governments to ban the use of genetically modified ''suicide seeds'' at UN-sponsored talks on biodiversity in Spain this week....

...The product is being tested in greenhouses throughout the United States. Opponents fear it is likely to be marketed soon unless governments impose a ban.

''Terminator seeds will become a commercial reality unless governments take action to prevent it,'' said Hope Shand of the Canada-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration (ETC Group)...

...The issue has pitted some governments against their citizens. Canadian government officials at a UN meeting in Bangkok last year pushed for language allowing the field testing and sale of Terminator. But they backed down in response to strong public criticism at home...

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Brian White:
The amazing thing about the third world is that they support so many people. There is basically no refrigeration and transport is so bad. All those old dodges. And yet they support many more people per hectare than we do or the usa does.

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But that's just it - the third world is being pressured by the IMF and World Bank to privatize food production and open their markets to cheap imports from the USA and other third world experimental capitalist states like India. And India is a terrible example of agricultural reforms via the IMF simply because they've allowed so many millions to die of starvation in that country each and every year. In fact, I disagree entirely that the third world has done a decent job of supporting itself while cash crops are exported from an estimated 80 percent of those countries suffering chronic hunger. UN and other sources say that 25 years ago, there were 500 million chronically hungry people around the world. Today there 800 million. Capitalism has been a monumental failure for hundreds of millions of human beings.

quote:

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Originally posted by I'm richer than you:
You guys talk about patents like they're the end of the world. They only last for around a decade, and then we can all use them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by I'm richer than you:
You guys talk about patents like they're the end of the world. They only last for around a decade, and then we can all use them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Boar_Axe:

I found this awhile back. It gives me the creeps.

---

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SHI109A.html
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/pir-ch.htm
http://www.eciad.bc.ca/~lolin/basmati/boycott.html

In terms of the limits of the "Green revolutions/GMO's" ability to solve the world hunger problem we only have to look to some Asian examples of how it has failed.

Bali is a good example. Hunger issues are directly linked to community organization and cohesion as well as a diversity of access to foodstuff. The biggest failing of GMO's is that are generally extremely dependant on chemical fertilizers and pesticides to work right and grow in monoculture situations because anything else just can't survive. Monocultures completely contradict the most basic of ecological principles and lead to long term degradation of the actual growing medium and create a cycle of dependance on human manufactured products. They are also based primarily on petroleum as a source a failing that will become more apparent as we move into an era of higher energy prices and peak oil.

A brief synopsis of the Bali situation...

http://tinyurl.com/bed4h

Quote from this article.
http://www.itdg.org/?id=publicgood_cheeyokeling

quote:

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"So if you look at Asia again, we look back now and this is not something new. Ten or fifteen years ago, when we started looking at data, whether for India or Malaysia where I come from, we realized that the kind of indicators to measure productivity were so simplistic and so crude. For example we looked at the production of rice in one of our green revolution areas, before and after. In the measurement of the rice productivity there was no taking into account the 80-90% of the output of the same piece of land - fish, duck or vegetables, a whole range of food products, fruit trees the intercropping with other legumes - 80-90% of the land was not taken into account. The levels of input in terms of fertilizers or non-use of fertilizers or using of animal manure - all
those calculations of the complex nature of productivity was not taken into account. Only the rice measurement was taken into account.

So of course if you take the entire piece of land and grow nothing but rice you are assured this huge leap of productivity and this is what happened. If you do nothing but grow one crop you will have for that one crop have very, very high productivity. Not to say that the high bred varieties did not have high yields, yes they did. But today we look back and realize with data that the nutritional level compared to many other varieties of rice is lower. We have reduced stock because we want to increase the rice yield, but we gained rice because we changed the whole pattern of our rice cropping. So the high stalks were very good because the rats couldn't get to the rice grains, but because of reduced stock and double and triple cropping you had feed for rats and pests the whole year round. In one of the areas I was looking before I did some policy work at the local level, we had rats so huge that the cats were afraid of the rats. And then we use more rodenticides, and then we have this vicious cycle. Those are the lessons of the green revolution that also needs to be learnt.

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(edited for sp.)

[ 30 January 2006: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]

Rather than pour even more millions of pounds into the yam project, it has very quietly been shelved. Red faces abound.

Meantime, in Peru, the agri-business folk continue to do everything they can to seek out and destroy all wild tomato varieties so that eventually the only tommy toes available anywhere will be their hybrids...

I don't trust their introduction into creation as it now exists. We don't know enough about outcomes, and we don't have many sources of unbiased reaserach, either.

quote:

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Originally posted by ElizaQ:

How about a potato that is classified as a pesticide? It was GM'd to combat the potato beetle.
The thing that gets me most is that they are very upfront with the knowledge that the beetle will eventually develop resistance and along the way traditional organic methods will lose their effectiveness.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:

Why would that happen? One would expect the contrary--with the beetle resistant to pesticides, *only* organic methods would work. Immunity to a particular toxin doesn't make them superbeetles in any other way--if anything, adaptations normally carry some sort of cost with them.

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Actually this isn't the case in this particular instance. I'll dig up the specific info when I get home from work. The substance being used in the actual potato is similar or the same (can't quite remember exact details) as what is used in organic methods of control. Prolonged and continuous exposure will build up resistence to the specfic organic methods. I remember quite clearly that Monsanto itself admitted that this would happen.

[ 31 January 2006: Message edited by: Rufus Polson ]

The problem (one of the problems, there are quite a few) is that with 100% of the genetically modified plants producing the toxin, the effect will/is the same as overspraying a pesticide. If there are insects that are naturally resistant, then they will be the only survivors, they will breed, and bingo, you have a resistant population.

The classic example is DDT-resistant malarial mosquitoes, but this phenomenon is well-known (as someone said above, basic biology).

That's what I was looking for. Did a quick google search. (potato pesticide monsanto)

This artcle seems to sum up the overall issues quite well.

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A World Trade Organisation decision that called European safety bans on genetically modified food illegal under its global trade rules could usher in a new phase of potentially hazardous "Frankenfoods" worldwide and further erosion of local protections, say environmental and advocacy groups.

The groups urged the European Union to place human health and environmental safety first and continue to resist allowing imports of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The long-awaited landmark ruling on the EU's six-year embargo on genetically engineered crops could affect millions of farmers and consumers around the world and billions of dollars in trade.
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...Environmental groups say they are still hopeful the ruling will not be as destructive as initially thought. The expansion of GM crops in the U.S. and other major farming countries has been slowing and many consumers say they are turning to "cleaner" and "tastier" organic or traditional foods and crops...

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The following is from a National Farmers' Union press release, January 27, 2006:

The National Farmers Union (NFU) of Canada, the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) in the United States, and other organizations are concerned that “suicide seeds” may be introduced into the environment through the back door.

A worldwide de-facto moratorium on Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs – popularly known as “Terminator” technology) was undermined this past week at a United Nations conference in Granada, Spain. Terminator technology is used to create genetically modified seeds which are rendered sterile at harvest.

A resolution adopted at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Granada, Spain January 27 recommends abandoning the precautionary principle and allows testing of Terminator plant varieties on a “case by case” basis under the guise of “risk management” and “capacity building.” Government representatives from Australia, New Zealand and Canada were instrumental in forcing the change in policy at the UN forum.

Terry Boehm, NFU Vice-President and Chair of the Ban Terminator campaign in Canada, said officials from the Canadian Department of Environment tried to accomplish this objective last year at a similar meeting in Bangkok, but backed off following strong public opposition in Canada and worldwide.

“This time around, the Canadian delegation is involved in a supporting role, with the governments of Australia and New Zealand taking the lead in destroying the consensus against Terminator,” said Boehm. “This flies in the face of any regard for farmers, citizens and the world’s biosphere. Why would Canada help to unleash something as dangerous as Terminator on the world?"

Boehm said the Canadian delegation appears to be taking advantage of a change in government to push though an agenda that benefits large multinational seed and chemical companies.

Colleen Ross, NFU Women’s President, said the CBD consultations in Spain were supposed to involve Indigenous peoples, “yet the bureaucrats repeatedly refused to consult with farmers or Indigenous groups on this issue.” She said Terminator technology is all about who controls seeds – and ultimately who controls the food system.

“Terminator is the ultimate tool in controlling the world’s food supply, because it forces farmers to buy seeds from the handful of seed companies which dominate the global market,” she said.

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Doug:
Production isn't the issue in world hunger anyway - at least at present. It's distribution, stupid.

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This is an incredably shortsighted view, predicated on the phenomena of industrialization. Besides the hegemonic nature of industrialism to begin with, there is the simple fact that the pipe dream of feeding everyone in a different manner is predicated on the drug known as oil. Once that slides down, all the dreams of industrial organic distribution on a mass level will go down the shitehole. As James Kustler points out, food production will inevitably become localized.

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Originally posted by Vigilante:

As James Kustler points out, food production will inevitably become localized.

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Iow's, like Cuban's are doing now. Note: the Cuban's actually have some land to grow food on, whereas those peasants in Central America, who are being forced off of land given to a handful of old families during Spanish colonial times, will be lucky if they keep their families from malnutrition and curable diseases ... in the here and now.

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
The question is will the spectacle of Fidel finally be overcome for a trully egalitarian society. Chiapas is certainly much closer to this.

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Chiapas is where Cuba was in the 1950's, V. Mexico’s highest infant, maternal, and tuberculosis mortality rates are in and around Chiapas. And what's left of the indigenous population in Guatemala after 40 years of U.S.-funded right-wing death squads aren't much better off either. I'd suggest an actual visit to Cuba, then over to Central America. Don't flash any more than 20 quetzals at a time in Guatemala. Bring Morpheus. Be careful handing change and food to the children - the rancheros don't like it much.

l8r chica

[ 12 February 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

The difference between Chiapas and Cuba is simply one of localized more egalitarian self-management.
Certainly the Mexican state's external pressure makes things tough, though the picture you paint is not nearly as dim. You do realize that it is the Mexican state that is exclusively responsible and not the lack of a state in Chiapas right?

Many indigenous people want the mexican state off their back to continue their autonomous existance. They certainly don't want to substitute it for another state, a dictatorship in particular.

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
The intellectual infancy of Fidel continues.

The difference between Chiapas and Cuba is simply one of localized more egalitarian self-management.
Certainly the Mexican state's external pressure makes things tough, though the picture you paint is not nearly as dim.

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No, it's not. I only mention the abject poverty and appalling rates of mortality in the off chance that it might bring some perspective to the plight of the poor in Chiapas, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and the rest of Mexico. Cuba's achievements in health care, education and agriculture pale in comparison to subsistence existences where they're free to starve or die of treatable diseases in any corner of those Central American countries just a few days drive from Texas.

I am not downplaying the situation of indigenous people in central america(while you overate what Cuba is) What I am trying to tell you is that they are fighting to preserve the subsistance economies that served them for such a long time. And please brush up your vocabulary on what subsistance is and can be.

And their was a power shifting revolution, it happened on jan 1st 1994. It might not have taken the dictatorial shape that you would like, but ranchers and state officials certainly were upheaved. The problem was that the rest of mexico did not follow suite.

They'd label you and Morpheus the official village idiots, we can be sure of that, chica.

[ 13 February 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
Certainly they want land, healthcare and education, but in a communal context. And poor people are alot more complicated then you think. As long as you fixiate your ideological bineries on them, you will never understand.

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The current "context" in Chiapas and Guatemala is a backdrop of misery and abject poverty, V. Cuban's were actually slightly better off than the indigenous people of Central America because even though Cuban children were dying of TB and selling themselves to well-heeled foreigners while their parents broke their backs in the tropical sun from sunup to sundown, they knew the revolutionaries were battling Batistas robots in the hills. You make flippant references to fascism but haven't once correctly identified it for us here or in what "context" the working class poor have battled real fascism around the world since the first emperor of Chin and Caligula and Nero and Kahn and Hitler and Franco and Pinochet, Menim, Batista and Rios Montt. If history hadn't had Stalin or Mao, we'd be working 23 and half fucking hours a day until we came a cropper at the ripe old age of 30, or younger depending on which of the real fascist megalomaniacs who necessitated the other two biggest winners of the last century took over the planet at the time.

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Social democracy is predicated on the very same inequalities that created the original neo-liberal brand.

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
I am not downplaying the situation of indigenous people in central america(while you overate what Cuba is) What I am trying to tell you is that they are fighting to preserve the subsistance economies that served them for such a long time. And please brush up your vocabulary on what subsistance is and can be.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Washington consensus and IMF policies are becoming recognized as planned and enforced genocide, a holocaust every year. ... It's old world colonialism made new again as predatory capitalism and 'globalism.'

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