Monsanto protests scheduled in 36 countries.

[Mithfin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto might shed some light on why people don't like them.

Yes... Because they are retarded religious-driven Luddites? Oh Mah Gaud, dem GMOs are EVIL, and all who tasted it once became GHAY SATAN WORSHIPURZ!!!1!1

[Laize]

The big problem with companies like Monsanto is that they hold the rights to organisms that spread through natural means. This has led to multiple farmers being sued for unknowingly having a Monsanto product invade their crop. Hence all the hate. Oh, and their products are also wiping out genetic diversity in the wild thanks to cross pollination.

And yet anti-GMO groups ALSO routinely protest terminator genes which would solve both of those problems.

Not to mention the guy who was sued for "unknowingly having Monsanto invade his crop" knew full well that what was growing on his land was Monsanto product. He testified to that. He even testified that he killed off the rest of his crop using Roundup specifically to isolate the Monsanto plants and, the following year, cultivated a crop that was 98% Monsanto.

That's not an accident.

[Deleted]

I wonder which these 36 countries are. There seems to be no source.

[Laize]

How far do you want to go to enforce control over corporate patented lifeforms, how much control should one entity have over the world's agriculture? Is there a limit where intellectual property enforcement becomes too authoritarian for you?

Well a few things.

A) Monsanto doesn't control the world's food production. They are practically a monopoly when it comes to corn, but why is that bad when their product is simply the best? Their products are so much better than natural alternatives that it just makes good sense to use them instead.

B) Nothing is preventing any farmers from cultivating natural crops. Monsanto certainly doesn't have a patent on traditional maize. Your crops will simply be inferior and more difficult to cultivate.

C) Again, none of this would ever be a problem if Monsanto simply used terminator genes. But anti-GMO groups protest that too.

[Wildtree]

This a reminder of just how damned easy modern life is. The things we now complain about is that our food doesn't spoil fast enough.

The US/Europe flavor difference is almost certainly just psychological. I've been on both continents and notice no difference in the mentioned products. Legitimately farm fresh eggs and produce are better tasting, but you can easily get those in the US as well.

I agree with the products being available.
But the problem lies within the market. The store chains selling the products that make them the most profits. That doesn't always equal better quality in food.
Fresh farm eggs are very hard to come by. I know where to get mine, living in Iowa, farm territory, I go to a farmer and get them there. But I wasn't always that lucky.
As for the other claims... No, I know it really well... I'm a very passionate cook. I know my recipes in and out. And I had to dramatically alter them. And sure, yes. I complain about food that doesn't spoil as it suppose to. Because it proves that it's been artificially manipulated. Yet no one tells us how it's manipulated.
Why do my fruits and veggies not rot? What am I actually really eating? And it doesn't stop there.... What about the "pink slime", they selling us as ground meat?

[Orlong]

If it's a bad, unaffordable product, why in the world would anyone buy it?

I agree, If these farmers dont like the business practices of Monsanto, they can buy their seeds from another seed company like Burpee

[Deleted]

Well a few things.

A) Monsanto doesn't control the world's food production. They are practically a monopoly, but why is that bad when their product is simply the best? Their products are so much better than natural alternatives that it just makes good sense to use them instead.

B) Nothing is preventing any farmers from cultivating natural crops. Monsanto certainly doesn't have a patent on traditional maize. Your crops will simply be inferior and more difficult to cultivate.

C) Again, none of this would ever be a problem if Monsanto simply used terminator genes. But anti-GMO groups protest that too.

I can't easily rebute your enthusiastic salesman's pitch and praises about how great, so much better, simply the best... Monsanto is as I am no farmer. My concern is about monoculture, and control. Monoculture is a large risk.

Even if you don't mind monopolies, and having the power over the food supply for large populations concentrated in very few hands, there is the biological risk, the vulnerability to diseases brought by monoculture.

I'm not anti-GMO, but find it funny how you use natural here as derogative term, and earlier rightly said that there all other breeds have been changed greatly from the original forms.

And for C), your answer to concerns are simply that they don't wield enough control. The answer to power abuse, is simply give powerful institutions more power?

[Wildtree]

I wonder which these 36 countries are. There seems to be no source.

They overlooked you, did they?
But this is indeed a very good question.

[Puremallace]

All of your food has been genetically modified. Artificial selection/selective breeding is a method of genetic modification. What Monsanto does is simply far more direct. I fail to see any problem, and every single government that's researched has failed to find problems either.

Human arrogance to think we can fuck with nature and not have consequences is what will really lead to our down fall. We do not know a damn thing. If you think Monsanto can predict every single change when screwing with the genetic structure of corn you are insane.

Doing some simple shit like Mendel is just speeding up natural selection. Fucking with the genetic structure of our food easily has unforeseen consequences.

[Dezerte]

Human arrogance to think we can fuck with nature and not have consequences is what will really lead to our down fall. We do not know a damn thing. If you think Monsanto can predict every single change when screwing with the genetic structure of corn you are insane.

Doing some simple shit like Mendel is just speeding up natural selection. Fucking with the genetic structure of our food easily has unforeseen consequences.

Well, if nature/god or whatever you believe in, wasn't so darn inefficient and lazy we wouldn't have to do anything to advance humanity.

[Dasffion]

Squirrels know.

[PrivateSmiley]

All of your food has been genetically modified. Artificial selection/selective breeding is a method of genetic modification. What Monsanto does is simply far more direct. I fail to see any problem, and every single government that's researched has failed to find problems either.

Monsanto actually does their seed manipulation in as much as a non genetic way as they can. they actually have two different paths that merge into one later on. They take their modified seed, and plant it. They take the UNMODIFIED seed, and plant it. they then use natural selection to get the best out of both sections, breed those, and start over again.

Monsanto is a fantastic company when it comes to seed, and all of the farmers i know very much appreciate Monsanto. and man, i kinda know that about at least 400,000 farmers.

the thing you fail to realize, is that WITHOUT monstano, we would be in a pile of shit. just ask any farmer about it. the seed monsanto makes helps out becuase they tailor their seeds to fit a number of scenarios.

[Deleted]

Human arrogance to think we can fuck with nature and not have consequences is what will really lead to our down fall. We do not know a damn thing. If you think Monsanto can predict every single change when screwing with the genetic structure of corn you are insane.

Doing some simple shit like Mendel is just speeding up natural selection. Fucking with the genetic structure of our food easily has unforeseen consequences.

Any technology can have unforeseen consequences, genetic modification is not special in that. Artificial selection and hybridisation did as well (hybrid honey bees).

[PrivateSmiley]

Monsanto is a good company.

if you want to learn more about that so-called "bad" corn, go to the NCGA.com. They are the National Corn Growers Association. They represent i believe about 400k farmers right now. and lol, they might actually talk about Monsanto somewhere on the site.

Get informed, and then come back and join the Monsanto Debate.

[chaotus]

Monsanto is a good company.

if you want to learn more about that so-called "bad" corn, go to the NCGA.com. They are the National Corn Growers Association. They represent i believe about 400k farmers right now. and lol, they might actually talk about Monsanto somewhere on the site.

Get informed, and then come back and join the Monsanto Debate.

My issue with Monsanto comes from the fact they are two parts of a complex and needed system. They produce Roundup and they produce the seed that are immune to Roundup. This seems beneficial at first glance, but it's also an abuse prone concept. We see that everyday in their business practices. Roundup is strengthened every year to be more detrimental to anything that is not Monsanto protected. Roundup, which in it's original form was a general use pesticide is now a complete atomic bomb on anything not Monsanto. So you force farmers to use RoundUp since all other pesticides are illegal due to Monsanto lobbying committees or ineffective due to Monsanto buying them out of existence. There are a few inferior pesticides in use besides RoundUp but Monsanto has inserted genes to make their crops resistant to these pesticides causing you additional labor to remove any Monsanto plants that do end up growing in your fields.

In my opinion the real problem isn't so much the seed or RoundUp, it's the combination of both under one company umbrella that is detrimental. Monsanto makes a phenomenal seed, that out produces everything else. Then they make a superior pesticide that kills everything it touches but that seed. The land is scorched and demolished making it unable to support anything but Monsanto products afterward without affecting the new seed's output. If your a farmer you don't need convincing, if you don't use Monsanto seed and RoundUp you can't grow and compete. Once you start using it, you continually damage your land to the point of not being to properly support anything but Monsanto. It's the same sales approach taken by a crack dealer on the corner of a city.

[Deleted]

All of your food has been genetically modified. Artificial selection/selective breeding is a method of genetic modification. What Monsanto does is simply far more direct. I fail to see any problem, and every single government that's researched has failed to find problems either.

Except that we have been using evolution as a method for thousands of years now, and direct genetic modifications only the last decades. I'm not a health specialist, but having most of your diet be a byproduct from geneticly modified corn doesn't sound to healthy to me. I like real food

[Dezerte]

There is nothing inherently bad with genetically modified food, sure it may have some unwanted/unforeseen consequences sometimes but that applies to 'natural' food as well.

[Elegiac]

Except that we have been using evolution as a method for thousands of years now, and direct genetic modifications only the last decades. I'm not a health specialist, but having most of your diet be a byproduct from geneticly modified corn doesn't sound to healthy to me. I like real food

Good, thank you for admitting that.

GMO food is fine as long as it gets tested properly.

[Sunseeker]

All of your food has been genetically modified. Artificial selection/selective breeding is a method of genetic modification. What Monsanto does is simply far more direct. I fail to see any problem, and every single government that's researched has failed to find problems either.

Yeah I tend to agree with this POV, why is cross-breeding plants OK, but using our awesome brains to do really cool shit with science is NOT? If we limited ourselves to only the processes that mother nature uses we'd have never invented fire. Most of the anger at Monsato is purposefully created and directed, in a manner of speaking, it's socially engineered hate. Mostly by people who think humans should return to their hunter-gatherer days, with extra emphasis on the gatherer part.

[Laize]

I can't easily rebute your enthusiastic salesman's pitch and praises about how great, so much better, simply the best... Monsanto is as I am no farmer. My concern is about monoculture, and control. Monoculture is a large risk.

Even if you don't mind monopolies, and having the power over the food supply for large populations concentrated in very few hands, there is the biological risk, the vulnerability to diseases brought by monoculture.

I'm not anti-GMO, but find it funny how you use natural here as derogative term, and earlier rightly said that there all other breeds have been changed greatly from the original forms.

And for C), your answer to concerns are simply that they don't wield enough control. The answer to power abuse, is simply give powerful institutions more power?

Well you tell me whether or not Monsanto's corn is better than natural corn. Its list of genetically engineered traits include both insect and herbicide resistance. This makes it much less time consuming (and easier in general) to take care of crops and increase yield.

So in what way is this not better than regular corn?

I never used natural as a derogatory term... natural isn't worth of scorn... it's just inferior to Monsanto's product.

What's more, Monsanto doesn't actually CONTROL anyone's food supply. You are free to stop producing their stuff whenever you want. Your crop yields, however, will drop. This isn't like Standard Oil where one company controls an essential commodity that isn't readily available to everyone who wants it like corn is.

And for C)... yeah, my answer to the original concerns was (and remains) terminator genes. No one can get sued for using unlicensed Monsanto corn because second generation seeds will be useless.

I wonder what you would do about Monsanto had you the power. They aren't making exorbitant amounts of money, nor are they extorting it. Paying them a premium for their seeds reduces farmers' costs in other areas such as insecticides and herbicides. And they DO have competition from DuPont and other companies. Monsanto is just the largest player.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 11:47 PM ----------

Human arrogance to think we can fuck with nature and not have consequences is what will really lead to our down fall. We do not know a damn thing. If you think Monsanto can predict every single change when screwing with the genetic structure of corn you are insane.

Doing some simple shit like Mendel is just speeding up natural selection. Fucking with the genetic structure of our food easily has unforeseen consequences.

So if environmental issues are your concern, why aren't you advocating terminator seeds?