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Kochari wrote:I'm not necessarily against GM crops per se - I'm sure if they're done right and safely they can do amazing things, feed millions who would otherwise starve.
What I am against is allowing a company (and especially a company like Monsanto) absolute free reign to do what they want with untested technology, without telling us what it is they're doing.
Plus I think this march was an excellent opportunity to show those in charge that people do care about issues like these, that we do have opinions and those opinions should be listened to. That applies to more than just GM crops. It reaffirmed for me that if you feel strongly about something it is your responsibility to make your voice heard....I think a lot of people were empowered by this, at least consciously. And that's the first step towards positive and meaningful change, innit.

sd5 wrote: bullies of small farmers
monopolizers of seed stocks

magma wrote:As for GM in general, it's the future and we won't support the sort of population that we want to without it. Talk of population decreases is about as fantastical as talk of World Peace - it's just not in humanity's nature to limit its breeding, so we need to be able to fill all these stomachs somehow. We've already been genetically modifying for millennia through selective and cross-breeding - just about everything that passed your lips today was GM in some way or another; just because it happens in a petri dish rather than a seed propagator these days doesn't make it any scarier to me... if anything, it should make eventual results more reliable.

twilitez wrote:So more then 2 million people did this, and the media response?
A deafening wall of total silence..
Why am i not surprised.

test recordings wrote:We actually already produce enough food for at least 9 billion people, without proper management on a lot of it. We'd be best off sorting the supply system first, or just perpetuate the first-world monopoly.

magma wrote:Progress should be about raising the rest of the world up to the ability-to-waste of the western world

magma wrote:

test recordings wrote:We actually already produce enough food for at least 9 billion people, without proper management on a lot of it. We'd be best off sorting the supply system first, or just perpetuate the first-world monopoly.

There will always be waste. Have you ever looked in your own bin at the end of a week? This isn't a modern society or first world problem, it's a human problem. You need to produce a LOT more food than the minimum in order to actually fill every mouth in the world. People have whims, food goes off, people buy luxuries they don't need. That's all part of living a happy human life. Only those faced with starvation are organised enough to not waste... in any other situation, the human has better shit to do with their time than count out their portions of mung beans.

I don't really understand why the "perfect" vision of the future so often leaves humans with incredibly hassled lives. Progress should be about raising the rest of the world up to the ability-to-waste of the western world, not for the western world to spend all it's spare time on making sure every last lentil is digested.

SS: Do you disagree with the use of GMOs on purely scientific, medical grounds, or do you also have moral qualms as well?

JS: I have no problem with the technology per se. I think it’s important to have the technology if we can correct a defective gene in a human being with human gene therapy – that’s great. But that’s a risk that one person will take. Right now we can’t predictably and safely manipulate the genes in the way we are doing to protect health and the environment. So, to release the products of this infant science, which is prone to side-effects into the food supply and moreover into the environment where the self-propagating pollution of the gene-pool trough pollen drift and seed movement makes it irreversible – that’s not responsible at this time. Maybe in 50 to 100 years, maybe at some point in the future when we fully understand the DNA enough to make these manipulations – then it would be responsible to introduce GMOs into the outdoors or food.

SS: The advocates of GM crops say that they can help us combat poverty, starvation and diseases in the developing world – is there any truth in these claims?

JS: Not according to the experts, just according to the PR of the biotech industry. The world’s experts at feeding the world and eradicating poverty actually have the report, called “I-Stat” sponsored by the UN and the World Health Organization – and it concludes that GMOs in their current form have nothing to offer in feeding the world or eradicating poverty. There has been a promise to get people to try and promote the technology, accept the technology, but it doesn’t in fact even increase average yield, it reduces yield on average, according to independent science.
GMOs give tangible benefits only if you put blinders on

SS: But Jeffrey, from your point of view – are there any tangible benefits at all from GMOs?

JS: If you put blinders on – then yes. You see, the most popular genetically modified crop is called “roundup ready.” It’s produced by Monsanto, and they produce roundup herbicides, so the roundup ready crops are able to drink or withstand applications of roundup herbicides, which would normally kill a plant. So from a narrow farmers perspective of weeding – it’s easy, because you can spray over the top of the crops, kill all other plant biodiversity, but not the roundup ready crops. What they don’t look at are the health dangers for those who eat the crops that now have the roundup absorbed into the food portion. They don’t look at the damage to the soil, the damage to the ecosystem, the promotion of plant diseases – more than 40 of them in the US are the result of the roundup. If you look at the big picture, the current generation fails. If you narrow yourself down to one particular attribute, you can sing the praises of this flawed technology.

S: Tell me the bigger picture, how did Monsanto get so big?

JS: Monsanto is the largest seed company in the world. Their background is quite controversial – they were continually voted the most hated and most unethical company on Earth for years and years, [even] with stiff competition. They lied about the toxicity of their former products – PCBs, Agent Orange and DDT – and they have unprecedented control around the world over regulatory bodies.

This is exemplified by the US Food and Drug Administration, where the policy on GMOs was overseen by Monsanto’s former attorney, Michael Taylor. And the policy falsely claims that the agency wasn’t aware of any information showing that GMOs were significantly different – therefore the FDA requires no safety studies and no labeling. They leave it up to Monsanto to determine if their foods are safe, and Monsanto doesn’t even have to tell the FDA or consumers if it wants to slip a GMO in our food supply.

Now, Michael Taylor – after overseeing this policy – became Monsanto’s vice-president and chief lobbyist. Now he’s back at the FDA as US Food Safety czar.

By the way the documents made public from a lawsuit revealed that the overwhelming consensus among the scientists working at the FDA was exactly the opposite of that exposed in the policy. The scientists said GMOs would be dangerous, could create allergies, toxins, and new diseases, and should be tested. Monsanto’s takeover essentially of the FDA has been replicated around the world, I’ve been in 37 countries and I’ve seen how they “capture” regulators, ministries, departments, etc., and once that happens, they discredit and dismiss any adverse findings about GMOs – they don’t even read the dossier. Unfortunately, it’s a rubber stamp situation around the world and if you trace it back, it comes down to them doing it, based on Monsanto’s own research. We’ve caught them red-handed, rigging their research to avoid finding problems, and covering up problems when they persist nonetheless.