The Facts about GM Food.

bigtomatofarmer said:

I will be damned before I let the governement tell me how many children I can have.
Seriously man, that is not an option

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under my plan if you want to have 50 kids, good for you, but if you just have 1 or 0 then you would get rewarded.

NoDrama said:

The main problem with having enough food to feed the world really does not have much to do with genetically engineered foods, it has more to do with oil than anything. According to some scientists the world on a whole saw peak oil in 2008, every year from here on out will produce a bit less oil. The problem is that agriculture is extremely dependent on oil for not only fuel, but wait wait here it comes....FERTILIZER! 95% of fertilizer is made from OIL, the less oil the less fert, the less fert the less food there is. Also consider how much of the food you buy at your grocery store was shipped by rail or truck to get there. You start reducing the output of oil and you start incurring higher costs to ship food, to harvest food and to fertilize food, not a good outcome for those countries that cannot support their populations with food grown locally. This in iteself will probably starve billions of people in the long run.

GM food cannot reproduce, it is made sterile so that you will have to buy seed every year to plant your crops. Thats how they are able to Patent and sell their seed at a profit.

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thank you, and a big problem is Monsanto's terminator crops can and very often do pollinate other fields (Monsanto sues them), so that farmer that was self sufficient has to now buy seeds from Monsanto.

CrackerJax said:

Like I said....Number 1 is not achievable....

Dolce....500 years?

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we are gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. i stand by what i say, we can reduce it gradually over time in ways that don't harm the people. it is very possible do do it without resorting to what our government is doing like what micro said. If yall just open your minds... did you even watch the video i posted?

DID ANYONE WATCH THE VIDEO I POSTED???

Microdizzey said:

Not contagious, but certainly addictive.

I just say fuck it all. I'll grow my own veggies and fruits, and buy meat from local farms. Keep up with daily exercise, take vitamins and whatnot. I tell you... I feel great! Never sick. I never really got sick in the first place, but no signs whatsoever these days. My mind is clear, I can think straight and critically. My body has no pains. Mind you, I also stay away from pharmaceuticals.

It's like the native Indians that live on their own without all the societal bullshit. They are machines.

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Guess you haven't heard of the Obama initiative to outlaw private veg gardens? It's in the works now...

CrackerJax said:

Guess you haven't heard of the Obama initiative to outlaw private veg gardens? It's in the works now...

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are you kidding me? thats so gay.

Dolce Vita said:

are you kidding me? thats so gay.

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Or at least regulate them to the hilt, you wont be able to sell your own produce with out having it poked, prodded by bureaucrats, and being poked and prodded yourself by the same bureaucrats, and not in a way you'd like...

For your own good...no foolies...that's what they are saying.

and the majority of Americans will support this! it sucks to see America going down the tubes and seeing the people like it wtf

CrackerJax said:

Guess you haven't heard of the Obama initiative to outlaw private veg gardens? It's in the works now...

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I've heard of Codex Alimentarius, not sure if that's what you're talking about. At this point I don't care what laws they push. I've heard years ago about this exact stuff, and I know what else they have planned which completely dwarfs making growing illegal.

We're already dead, mate.

Hi, I'm new around here, but if yall don't mind I'd like to chime in on this GM thing. As I understand it, one of the first goals (and successes) of genetically modified food was a type of rice that had a high Vitamin A content. Another is a type of corn that can grow in poor soil conditions. These types of plants hold the promise to allow starving peolpe in areas that are less than conducive to agriculture to successfully farm their own food. Because of the concerns about GM food, these people have been prevented access to plants that could save their lives. Plants that have no proven health risk, but are being withheld because of unproven fears. Meanwhile, those people that are suffering are being told it's for their own good. Is all of this sounding familiar? Kind of remind you of another plant?
Some background:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9876

guitarabuser said:

Hi, I'm new around here, but if yall don't mind I'd like to chime in on this GM thing. As I understand it, one of the first goals (and successes) of genetically modified food was a type of rice that had a high Vitamin A content. Another is a type of corn that can grow in poor soil conditions. These types of plants hold the promise to allow starving peolpe in areas that are less than conducive to agriculture to successfully farm their own food. Because of the concerns about GM food, these people have been prevented access to plants that could save their lives. Plants that have no proven health risk, but are being withheld because of unproven fears. Meanwhile, those people that are suffering are being told it's for their own good. Is all of this sounding familiar? Kind of remind you of another plant?
Some background:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9876

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The problem is that the plants are protected by patent law, and are also engineered not to be fecund (reproduce) so any farmer that uses them has to continuously be seed from Monsanto instead of being able to retain a portion of their crop for replanting.

It's a horribly unjust system that grants a monopoly over our food supply to one company if it is allowed.

If the gengineered plants were fecund, and the farmers were allowed to replant as much (or as little) as they wish and perhaps just pay a licensing fee then I wouldn't see any problem with it.

But on this, I have to admit that I believe patent law is being misapplied.

TheBrutalTruth said:

The problem is that the plants are protected by patent law, and are also engineered not to be fecund (reproduce) so any farmer that uses them has to continuously be seed from Monsanto instead of being able to retain a portion of their crop for replanting.

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As the article in my previous post states, the developer of golden rice spent considerable time making sure that needy populations would NOT have to pay royalties.
Besides, I have commercial farmers in my family and they would never use seeds taken from a harvested crop for the same reason we get our seeds from breeders and seed banks. We can feed the world now, lets do it. If they all sprout tumors we'll deal with that. At least they'll be alive to complain about it.

guitarabuser said:

As the article in my previous post states, the developer of golden rice spent considerable time making sure that needy populations would NOT have to pay royalties.
Besides, I have commercial farmers in my family and they would never use seeds taken from a harvested crop for the same reason we get our seeds from breeders and seed banks. We can feed the world now, lets do it. If they all sprout tumors we'll deal with that. At least they'll be alive to complain about it.

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and what happens when the people they buy there seeds from decide to have a seed shortage and they wont sell to that farm, what then?

That's not going to happen. They are in the business of selling....not withholding. That would be the Russians.... FOOD NAZI!!! NO SEEDS FOR YOU!!

Look, you are either going to let ppl starve on natural food...or you are going to feed them GM food....make your choice.

CrackerJax said:

Guess you haven't heard of the Obama initiative to outlaw private veg gardens? It's in the works now...

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Can you please expand on this? what initiative to outlaw private vegetable gardens, and why?

Well, I put a shine on it to grab attention but what they are planning to do is put a stop to ORGANIC farming. They are siting health concerns... (??) Ppl will have to use a pre determined list of pesticides they can apply on their plants..... from big AG no less. Obama is saying that organic food is unchecked and possibly unsafe.

You will still be able to garden, but you won't be able to garden YOUR way....just the Govts. Nice huh.....

CrackerJax said:

Well, I put a shine on it to grab attention but what they are planning to do is put a stop to ORGANIC farming. They are siting health concerns... (??) Ppl will have to use a pre determined list of pesticides they can apply on their plants..... from big AG no less. Obama is saying that organic food is unchecked and possibly unsafe.

You will still be able to garden, but you won't be able to garden YOUR way....just the Govts. Nice huh.....

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Okay, but this applies to commercial farming and not my 2 tomato plants in the backyard, right?

Is there some info on this somewhere online that I could read? Sounds ridiculous to me. How on earth could spraying your FOOD with chemicals be less dangerous to your health than NOT spraying your food with chemicals? If this is for real, I'm so out of this country. I will not be mandated to ingest toxic chemicals, that's just effed up beyond belief.

Gosh i hate big government. leave me the fuck alone! anyone agree?

Ah, okay. I found the text of the bill (HR 875), and it says this:

For the purposes of registration, the term ‘food establishment’ does not include a food production facility as defined in paragraph (14), restaurant, other retail food establishment, nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer

My vegetables go straight from the garden to the kitchen, which would be my "nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer". So, unless you're growing veggies to sell at the Farmer's market or serving $5 salads to the neighbors or something, your backyard garden wouldn't meet the definition of a "food establishment" under this bill.

The goal behind the bill is to make food tracable from seed to plate. Everything has to be documented. Think ISO9000 for veggies.

doobnVA said:

Ah, okay. I found the text of the bill (HR 875), and it says this:

For the purposes of registration, the term ‘food establishment’ does not include a food production facility as defined in paragraph (14), restaurant, other retail food establishment, nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer

My vegetables go straight from the garden to the kitchen, which would be my "nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer". So, unless you're growing veggies to sell at the Farmer's market or serving $5 salads to the neighbors or something, your backyard garden wouldn't meet the definition of a "food establishment" under this bill.

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No..... the Non Profit status is an official one, not you. NPO is a tough gig to get....and to keep as well.

CrackerJax said:

No..... the Non Profit status is an official one, not you. NPO is a tough gig to get....and to keep as well.

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Well, not to be argumentative but the bill says nothing about any "official" nonprofit food establishments. I've read the whole thing and honestly I don't see any wording that could be interpreted as meaning that HOME gardeners who don't sell or trade their products would be affected by this bill. The term "food establishment" is defined as a place where food is produced for SALE, either directly to the consumer or to a reseller/packager.

Furthermore, there are already laws in place that dictate precise locations where chemical pesticides and fertilizers CANNOT be used, because the chemicals seep into the ground and affect water supplies, etc. So if they wanted to mandate chemical pesticides and fertilizers, they'd have to change the laws that protect these areas to allow contamination of ground water, and tributaries that lead to larger bodies of water that are under protection.

At any rate, it isn't practical for the gov't to even attempt a mandate on small, backyard gardening and I'm not convinced that this bill aims to do that. In fact, I think the entire bill is misguided, though it does aim to solve a very real problem of food contamination.

A better option would be to enforce higher standards of cleanliness and sanitation, not in the production industry, but in the distribution, processing and packaging industries.

Spraying chemicals on food does nothing to protect against contamination if the workers at the packaging plant aren't washing their hands, wearing gloves, or keeping the equipment sanitized.