GMO crops, Monsanto, and the future of world agriculture.

[BoysBoysBoys]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VEZYQF9WlE

Watch this to learn more about Monsanto. These GMO's aren't even modified for our health, just to resist their own pesticide that kills everything.

[Deadvolcanoes]

Well, Monsanto is (rightly) afraid that the "organic food" whackjobs will boycott their corn despite no real reason to. It's still corn. It's just like corn farmers having to defend HFCS as being no worse for you than cane sugar. It's needless extra spending to counter bad PR campaigns.

Well, I do partly agree, but I think the solution is to give the consumer more information, not less.

---------- Post added 2012-12-03 at 04:53 PM ----------

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VEZYQF9WlE

Watch this to learn more about Monsanto. These GMO's aren't even modified for our health, just to resist their own pesticide that kills everything.

Instead of linking a random YouTube video, maybe you could link some peer reviewed scientific papers to prove your hypothesis.

The author of that video also has videos about chemtrails, fluoride in drinking water, and NWO conspiracies. So yeah. Not gonna waste my time.

[Laize]

Public education will fix this problem. Monsanto spent 8 million lobbying against labels. They probably could have spent 4 million raising public awareness.



We're not talking about selective breeding here. We're talking about extremely precise changes to a plants DNA through genetic engineering processes. We have not been doing this for thousands of years.

As I said before, I see nothing wrong with GM food. More information is never a bad thing, and companies that spend millions to ensure that consumers have less information shouldn't expect to have the publics trust or support.

They're splicing desirable genes from plant A into plant B.

It's exactly the same as what we've been doing for thousands of years, just a LOT more precise. The end result is no different.

[Stede]

The IP conflicts regarding GMO seeds is something that's murky to navigate. Given their usefulness and legit patents, it would seem that comapnies like Monsanto should be able to protect their IP.

Issues arise, though, when cross-pollenation from neighboring fields occurs, and the adjacent farmers become liable for patent infringement when they harvest their seeds. To be sure, there are farmers who try to cheat the system, and retain seeds from GMO crops that they cannot legally use. On the other hand, there are plenty of other farmers who simply mind their business and whose only crime is being downwind from a GMO field.

Monsanto abuses the litigation process in their aggressive pursuit of "protecting" their patents. I use quotes because I strongly believe they'd have a better time of it if they simply spent their time managing cross-pollenation rather than managing litigation.

Another one of the main problems with GMO is its impact on the overall biodiversity of the food supply. We've yet to see any systemic breakdown of GMO crops, but biodiversity remains a sound principle. GMO offers increased efficiency at the expense of biodiversity. In today's American economy, efficiency is king. There are, however, other countries with seedbanks that also participate in biodiversity funding.

The industry draws many parallels to pharmaceuticals. Recently, the FDA mandated the disclosure of all clinical trials and their results in pharmaceutical testing. If there was something similar for agriculture and GMOs (and I'm not sure if there is or isn't already), that would allow a central body of knowledge to be built. Further, if these companies were compelled to help fund independent research by the DoA on biodiverse crop options, I think that would allow us to mitigate any future hazards.

The US sits on one of the world's largest aquifers,and we're one of the largest food exporters, as well. A significant portion of our economy involves our agricultural industry, so taking some extra steps like this to mitigate the potential risks seems prudent - to me.

---------- Post added 2012-12-03 at 10:46 PM ----------

I disagree. They absolutely have a right to be angry when someone else grows their crops illegally.

As someone else pointed out in this thread, I'm pretty sure the lawsuits only come when an unauthorized farmer knowingly and willingly uses their seeds.

That's a claim you simply cannot prove, and one that's generally contested.

[Lynarii]

One of the cruxes of the discussion is whether or not Monsanto is an "evil" corporation.

Honestly? The jury is still a lot more out on that subject than a lot of people in this thread seem to believe. There's a lot of talk about how Monsanto has been suing farmers for inadvertent cross-pollination... but if you start searching over the internet, there are actually EXTREMELY few actual court cases that can be found where this has happened. The most famous one is Percy Schmeiser, but his claims of inadvertent cross-pollination are dubious at best considering his own personal actions (he claims lack of knowledge of his plants being roundup ready, after he sprayed his fields with roundup and saved the seeds of the surviving plants).

The real facts are that there have been several lawsuits against Monsanto's business practices, but they are usually thrown out because the farmers involved had never actually had any legal confrontation with Monsanto. The lawsuits that Monsanto /has/ done (actually only an average of around 13 a year) has primarily been against farmers that attempted to buy seed from them, balked at the price, and then were found using it anyway for their entire crop.

So does this mean Monsanto is good people and unfairly maligned? Not really. While the talk of their aggressive lawsuit practices is mostly a trumped up one by anti-GMO activists, Monsanto /does/ actively lobby for laws that stifle the spread of information on their product, and make it more difficult for independent scientists to do fair testing on their plants. This is never a good thing for the general public, and the justification for it is that "criticism of our product harms us". Well... yes it does, but a company should not have the right to stifle any criticism just because they don't like it.


Personally, I believe that GMO crops can be a wonderful thing for humanity... but having them be controlled by a monopoly is not. Even if Monsanto /isn't/ evil, having the world food supply being primarily controlled by one company (or even two) is just too dangerous to be an acceptable situation.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Well, Monsanto is (rightly) afraid that the "organic food" whackjobs will boycott their corn despite no real reason to. It's still corn. It's just like corn farmers having to defend HFCS as being no worse for you than cane sugar. It's needless extra spending to counter bad PR campaigns.

HFCS is bad for you. And I don't want to be eating shit that has been genetically modified in a lab. And I don't consider this Monsanto company trustworthy, not with the lawsuits and campaigning against labelling of GMO products. If it is so safe, why didn't they launch a campaign on how safe the stuff is, but allow labelling. If it so fine, why are they so eager to cover up the fact that their corn is in products.

How about they splice in a gene that causes the stubble to kill off anything in the field that isn't monsanto corn? All in the name of increasing production by removing weeds, of course. 20 years down the line you can't plant anything else in that field and those poor Zambian farmers are stuck with buying that specific corn, and the company is suddenly charging ten times the price, knowing that the farmers will be given more development aid by the USA and the EU to pay for the seeds. Company shares skyrocket, executives get massive pay rises effectively paid by the US and EU governments, and of course they funnel the profits through shell corporations so they can avoid paying taxes on the income.

And don't tell me that they are too good and innocent to do that. Seems to be standard business practice nowadays.

[Deadvolcanoes]

They're splicing desirable genes from plant A into plant B.

It's exactly the same as what we've been doing for thousands of years, just a LOT more precise. The end result is no different.

Can we stop pretending that digging a hole with a shovel is "exactly the same" as digging a hole with a backhoe.

Modern day genetic engineering couldn't be more different, from the process to the result, and it has one major flaw: we don't know the long term effects from consumption of food subjected to extremely precise engineering. All current reputable studies show no negative side effects, but its certainly something we have to watch.

Allergenicity, toxicity, and antibacterial resistance buildup all need to be watched closely. Until then, I support the consumers decision not to eat GMO's, and I believe they should be labeled as such.

[Ssith]

Got a source for that?

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/i...splay/id/23451 - most importantly the paragraphs that read:

Monsanto's history of aggressive investigations and lawsuits brought against farmers in America has been a source of concern for organic and non-GMO agricultural producers since Monsanto's first lawsuit brought against a farmer in the mid-‘90s. Since then, 144 farmers have had lawsuits filed against them by Monsanto for alleged violations of their patented seed technology.

Monsanto has sued more than 700 additional farmers who have settled out-of-court rather than face Monsanto's belligerent, and well-financed, litigious actions.

Many of these farmers claim to not have had the intention to grow or save seeds that contain Monsanto's patented genes. Seed contamination and pollen drift from genetically engineered crops often migrate to neighboring fields. If Monsanto's seed technology is found on a farmer's land without a contract the farmer can be found liable for patent infringement.

[This name sucks]

HFCS is bad for you. And I don't want to be eating shit that has been genetically modified in a lab. And I don't consider this Monsanto company trustworthy, not with the lawsuits and campaigning against labelling of GMO products. If it is so safe, why didn't they launch a campaign on how safe the stuff is, but allow labelling. If it so fine, why are they so eager to cover up the fact that their corn is in products.

How about they splice in a gene that causes the stubble to kill off anything in the field that isn't monsanto corn? All in the name of increasing production by removing weeds, of course. 20 years down the line you can't plant anything else in that field and those poor Zambian farmers are stuck with buying that specific corn, and the company is suddenly charging ten times the price, knowing that the farmers will be given more development aid by the USA and the EU to pay for the seeds. Company shares skyrocket, executives get massive pay rises effectively paid by the US and EU governments, and of course they funnel the profits through shell corporations so they can avoid paying taxes on the income.

And don't tell me that they are too good and innocent to do that. Seems to be standard business practice nowadays.

Even if the worst case scenario does happen and 1 company does end up going all mad scientist on the world and monopolizes all food production the entire world will not just sit back and think "well gee, capitalism, hes got all the food that we need to live, better pay him!".

No, EVERY single government and army in the world will go full despot mode and fight that shit rather than starve.

[Deadvolcanoes]

If Monsanto's seed technology is found on a farmer's land without a contract the farmer can be found liable for patent infringement.

I'm interested to know how this is enforced. Is the USDA going around to farms and checking the genetic strains of the crops?

[Ssith]

I'm interested to know how this is enforced. Is the USDA going around to farms and checking the genetic strains of the crops?

Monsanto does it when they (farmers) go to sell the product. it's a fairly simple DNA test because they know which markers are theirs.

[swineflu]

Got a source for that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Schmeiser

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Monsanto does it when they go to sell the product.

Shouldn't something like that require a court order?

[Animaneth]

First and foremost, I realize this is a highly politicized and controversial topic, if people could keep the vitriol to a minimum that would be fantastic.

I'm doing a research project on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for one of my finals, and I'm curious to see what MMO-C members know about them and what their opinion is. I'm trying to take a balanced approach to my research, examining both sides of the argument and weeding out the conspiracy theorists and those that are in the pocket of agribiz (unfortunately those 2 groups combine for the majority of the internet's readily available info).

For those that don't know, since 1996 a massive agriculture company called Monsanto has sold genetically engineered seeds which are equipped with artificially inserted gene data that allows the crops to produce a toxin Bacillus thuringiensis to kill insect pests. Other strains have also been developed which protect the plant from herbicides (called "RoundupReady"), these allow for broad spectrum herbicide usage to destroy weeds while not harming crops.

For the first decade+ of their use, it appears the crops have been an economic benefit to farmers and consumers alike, but there are valid criticisms of the technology. Adaptation among bug populations to the Bt toxin has recently occurred in many regions, forcing farmers to spray additional insecticide to supplement the seeds which are supposed to deal with the pests independently. Due to the already high price of the seeds, in addition to the cost of extra insecticide, there have been major issues of debt and suicide among farmers, especially in India, and a subsequent ban on the GMO technology in the Maharashtra region. This is not an isolated incident but I am using it as a case study.

http://ens-newswire.com/2012/08/09/m...-seed-license/

The business practices of Monsanto are one of the driving forces behind the anti-GMO movement. Some argue that they are an unjust monopoly with their aggressive patent protection, and clear dominance of the biotech seed market. Monsanto does not allow farmers to use heirloom seeds which contain their technology, and sue successfully anytime they find farmers doing so. They have also absorbed many conventional seed companies, making it difficult for some farmers to acquire seeds that are not genetically modified.

In the U.S., 73% of corn, 80% of cotton, and 93% of soybeans have been converted to GMO variety crops (source: USDA). If you're eating something in America that you didn't grow yourself or buy from a local that you know, it probably has GMOs in it. If it's heavily processed, 100% it has GMOs in it.

Many argue that this technology is the only way to effectively feed the growing population of 7+ billion. Others think that an ecological crisis stemming from the side-effects of the crops is imminent, and in some cases already in progress. The technology has already been banned, or food containing it is labelled by law in over 50 countries. In California, a ballot measure to require labeling of GMOs was defeated on Nov. 6 after a major influx of money from Monsanto ($8.1 mil) and other major food companies (Coke, Pepsi, Kraft, among others).

Thanks for reading, any correction of my information via peer reviewed source is welcome as well. With a topic like this, I'm finding it can be difficult to know what is propaganda and what is fact.


TL;DR - If you know what GMOs are and some of the issues surrounding them, what is your opinion of them?

this kind of things (what monsanto does) is the reason for me not accepting an offer to work as a system's engineer even when it represented an offer that can be hardly matched when it comes to the economical, social security, and benefits in general. I say that and I belong to a country that lives from the soil, and the agriculture is a BIG deal...

[This name sucks]

Monsanto does it when they go to sell the product.

That sounds illegal as fuck, just randomly sampling the dna of all crops that ever enter the market?

[Ssith]

Shouldn't something like that require a court order?

if they buy the product, then i'd guess they can do what they want with it.

[This name sucks]

this kind of things (what monsanto does) is the reason for me not accepting an offer to work as a system's engineer even when it represented an offer that can be hardly matched when it comes to the economical, social security, and benefits in general. I say that and I belong to a country that lives from the soil, and the agriculture is a BIG deal...

>Live off the soil

>Uses the internet

[Animaneth]

>Live off the soil

>Uses the internet

the fact that economy of your country is mainly driven by agriculture does not mean we all work on it

[Deadvolcanoes]

if they buy the product, then i'd guess they can do what they want with it.

Do you have a source that Monsanto is the company doing the testing? That would never hold up in court for reasons of conflict of interest. Monsanto could probably just fabricate any result they wanted. Doesn't seem to make sense.

[Deleted]

Yes. Monsanto gets sued by the united states government and forced to split into multiple independent companies

Ahahahah yeh that's a good one.