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The Push for GM crops

 
 
000
07:58 / 25.06.03
The European Union hit back yesterday at President George W. Bush, who earlier this week joined a chorus of US officials determined to link Europe's opposition to genetically modified crops to hunger and poverty in Africa.

Mr Bush had urged Europe on Monday to end its five-year de facto moratorium on approving new GM crops "for the sake of a continent threatened by famine", and had argued that the EU's position was "based on unfounded and unscientific fears".

A European Commission official said: "The suggestions made by the United States are simply not true. It is false that we are anti-biotechnology or anti-developing countries."

The spat, just ahead of the EU-US summit in Washington today, underlines growing tensions between Washington and Brussels over how to deal with GM crops. The US decided last week to call for a formal World Trade Organisation panel to rule on the legality of the EU's regime.

It also came amid the release of the first Europe-wide study of the economic impact of GM crops. European farmers would derive big financial benefits from plant biotechnology and the environment would gain from reduced pesticide use, according to a report by the US National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
08:19 / 25.06.03
Sooo... There's a big push from the US right now for the EU to accept - and not label - GM foods. This comes as a shock to no one.

Did you have a reason for posting this, or did you just wake up feeling vatic today?
 
 
000
09:49 / 25.06.03
Darling Nicky,

Being predictable is never easy. Thank heavens you have been designated to be the humanoid Barbelith Member Vaticity(sp?) Barometer.

I feel safer now.

No, this is/was a thread designed to accumulate articles of how GM foods are dangerous to the health, while adding in how the U.S. also treats their fruits and vegetables with heat -- nuking them if you will, and how losses in nutrients and additions of toxic agents pertain to this action.

Vatic ... heeheh.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
11:15 / 25.06.03
Well, if you'd bothered to write something in the post or the abstract which wasn't a quote from the rather drab article you linked to, perhaps we might have known that.

And if you quote Prince lyrics at me again, I shall send an invisible ectoelf to dance on your vegetable patch until all the marrows are soggy.
 
 
Ariadne
14:29 / 25.06.03
As Friends of the Earth point out, public consultation has already started on GM in the UK and the government's not exactly making an effort to publicise the fact. There's a link on that site to let you make comments - and you only have until July 18 to do it, so get cracking.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:53 / 25.06.03
I particularly hate the way anyone (like me for example) who says more tests must be done before committing to this course of action is condemned as a Luddite... I mean, I'm not totally against the idea, I just think it would make sense to figure out if we're really seriously gonna be fucking with bad shit before it's too late!
 
 
Ariadne
19:12 / 25.06.03
I agree Stoatie - and in most things I'm most definitely not a luddite. That's pretty much what I tried to say in the govt questions. The first bit is all multiple choice but you do get to expand on your views.
 
 
bjacques
21:28 / 25.06.03
I don't even have anything against GM foods as such, but I object to the high-handed approach the US politiicans are taking on behalf of agriplexes. I thought "free trade" included the right not to do business with people or products you don't like, but maybe I'm just naive. The attempt to guilt the EU--that is, their leaders--into accepting GM foods wholesale is simply odious. Africa needs the EU as a market for "golden rice" and other GM miracles (properly copyright-protected of course)? What about the US market? Oh, right, I forgot-gotta protect the US farmers against cheap crops. Hurray for free trade!
 
 
Simplist
22:14 / 25.06.03
I must say, I just can't get that upset about GM foods. While some of the arguments against them seem plausible (albeit usually speculative), my tendency is to come down on the side of we humans actually trying improve our lot in the world via knowledge acquisition and experimentation, rather than selectively conforming ourselves to some postulated "natural" order. I mean, if we can do it, why not manipulate plants to produce foods that are more nutritious, more plentiful, and easier to grow? I find that the only common objection I tend to agree with is that these foods tend to be rushed to market more quickly than I'd prefer due to their development and production being tied to the fortunes of various megacorporate agribusiness combines. The more extreme variations especially should obviously be subject to serious long-term testing prior to their arrival at my neighborhood grocery. But in general I'm all for the development of GM foods.

That said, the Bushies' behavior around this issue has been fairly appalling. I may not have a problem with GM foods, but I can certainly see how equally reasonable minds could come to different conclusions. I read somewhere that the Bushies are insisting not only that GMF be sold in the EU, but that it not even be labelled as such. They want to remove freedom of choice about the issue right down to the level of individual consumers. I very much hope the EU finds a way to slap them down on this.
 
 
Ariadne
09:32 / 27.06.03
Well, one issue is that there's not going to be long-term testing - it's just being assumed that they're safe enough. Future generations will just have to deal with it if their food and or bodies start behaving strangely because of this. Now, obviously, that's not necessarily the case but the point is we just don't know.

And then there's the danger of a few large biotech companies gaining a lovely, profitable control over a large part of the world's food supply - and Bush's attempts to push GM do little to reassure me on that front.

Lack of choice is a huge question too - given that plants naturally sread their pollen as far as they can, how can anyone grow non-GM food as an alternative? Cross pollination is inevitable. How can I choose not to eat GM? Well, i can't, is the answer, if they get introduced here.

GM is not the answer to world hunger. It's the answer to companies wanting to make buckets of money. Most starvation is caused by politics, war and other human-caused disasters, so GM crops will make little difference there.
 
 
Smoothly
09:58 / 27.06.03
Can anyone recommend an layman's guide to the issues surrounding GM? I'm a bit lost even on the basics. For instance how genetically modifying crops is different (particularly in terms of its capacity to make our bodies 'start behaving strangely') from cross-breeding crops in the way, I gather, we have been doing for thousands of years.
 
 
Ariadne
10:35 / 27.06.03
My body behaves strangely all the time ... but what i mean is that it could, potentially, mean that previously nourishing foods become less so because we don't understand why the 'natural' version works, or they could cause illnesses/ cancers. I'm not saying they *will*, just that there's not enough evidence either way.

I'll have a fish around for some information.
 
 
Cherry Bomb
10:48 / 27.06.03
I think in Europe there IS still a choice. The reason there aren't loads of GM foods on supermarket shelves at the moment is because of the big stink the British public raised when companies first attempted to introduce them.

In the states quite a few agricultural products in stores are now GM foods. Why? No public backlash against them. (Public apathy, yes. Outcry, no.)
 
 
Ariadne
10:55 / 27.06.03
Okay, on the anti-GM side, or at least the hang-on-a-second side, there's five year freeze

The Guardian has a big section on it here. I haven't read through all that but it looks quite thorough. If, you know, leftie and liberal and what not.

On the pro-GM side, there's Monsanto and a story here on New Scientist with some potentially interesting links - I'm running out of time!

That's a very shallow selection from a google search because I'm at work - if I manage to find anything more authoritative I'll post it later.
It's a hard subject - everyone has their views to push and it's difficult to find an objective view.
 
 
Smoothly
11:42 / 27.06.03
Thanks Ariadne.
 
 
Baz Auckland
12:55 / 27.06.03
I just did a quick google for Canada, and it seems we're pretty close to the US. We have them in the markets, and don't label them... except wheat it seems.

The Canada Wheat Board's fighting Monsanto to keep GM wheat out of Canada. (link) Which makes sense, given that farmer out west who was sued by Monsanto for having seed from Monsanto's field travel into his...

There's something just very very disturbing about copyrighting food products and strains...
 
 
000
15:29 / 27.06.03
Ariane, I'm just waiting for some correspondence with somewhat authoritative documents about Monsanto -- I think a larger picture is needed, whenever that company pokes around.

Later ...
 
 
000
19:22 / 28.06.03
This abstract from 2000 states:

Source: Kaeppler, H. F. 2000. Food safety of genetically modified crops. Agron. J. 92:793-797.

The amount of genetically modified crops grown in the United States alone has increased to over twenty-eight million hectares. Thirty-five percent of corn and 55% of soybeans planted in the year 2000 were transgenic. In testing food safety, a study done in 1999 showed that lab rats fed genetically modified potatoes suffered intestinal abnormalities at a greater rate than a group fed normal potatoes. A rebuttal to this study showing its many inaccuracies was published in the same journal, but opponents of genetically modified foods have used this study to raise concerns about the safety of those foods anyway.


So, I wonder, what are the inaccuracies of the first study, and what does the rebuttal consist of, and is it more sound?

Gene transfer. Gene transfer from GM foods to cells of the body or to bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract would cause concern if the transferred genetic material adversely affects human health. This would be particularly relevant if antibiotic resistance genes, used in creating GMOs, were to be transferred. Although the probability of transfer is low, the use of technology without antibiotic resistance genes has been encouraged by a recent FAO/WHO expert panel.

I feel safer by this encouragement, already.

Well, there is always the zone of probabilities ...

More later.
 
 
gingerbop
18:04 / 29.06.03
Hmmm... Im very unfond of the whole idea. Perhaps im just a traditionalist, but the whole idea just seems *wrong.*

Their existence could disrupt whole ecosystems, and not having been tested fully before being sold, and and and... althogether, it seems more trouble than its worth. Other than for the big fat business type person, whos laughing loudly, and probably like this: *mwuh huh huh*

As for the possibility of growing them commercially in my part of the world: Well we had a crop-trial down the road last year. There was a fairly legal protest, of tents and caravans beside it with huge signs etc for a few months. But it was clear that nobody (general public) had been, or was going to be consulted; and in the end, everyone took their lawnmowers out and took out half the field.

The fac that Bush is championing them makes me cringe at their existence further still.
 
 
Lurid Archive
21:13 / 29.06.03
Being the kind of pro science guy that I am, I have nothing against GM foods in principle. In practice, however, the story is quite different. Given that the risks are potentially huge and, IMO, cannot be properly assessed except by long term testing, I think the precautionary principle is key.

Couple that with a dose of imperialistic capitalism designed to control food supplies (wasn't that the plot of Omen 2?) and I think that it becomes perfectly sensible to be cautious about GM.
 
 
000
18:43 / 08.07.03
After a long wait I have fi-nal-ly received responses to my enquiries about GM crop nutritional values and any reported side effects as opposed to non-GM crops ... Nada, nothing, intet.

At this point I have to side with Lurid Archive, as there are no reliable studies that prove or disprove this & that, and the studies that have been done to date could be suspected of having been tinkered with to achieve the desired results of the companies who have funded the studies.
 
 
000
19:31 / 08.07.03
Of course, there is these:

The Bees Die...The Planet Dies
By Michel Dogna
France's Health Freedom Journalist

I am speaking about the extermination of the bees - on which depends 80 % of the pollination of cultivated plants - by Imidaclopride which Bayer sells under the name of Gaucho to the farmers to coat seeds and to protect them from certain diseases...

This product paralyses insects such as bees which cannot return to the hive and they therefore die. When they do succeed, the honey which results from it is toxic (because it's poisoned). In less than three years, 450 000 hives were thus lost and production of honey fell from 45 000 tons to 25 000 tons in France. In Alsace, bee-keepers are regarded as disaster victims because of the Bayer products. In addition, it should be known that in Europe, approximately 4 000 vegetable species have their life assured thanks to pollination by bees.


& Terminator Seeds by Monsanto.
 
 
Nematode
20:29 / 08.07.03
Nobody has yet informed me of the point of higher crop yields when we already ahve enough food to feed the world. While we're at it: to a great extent [and yes I know about hybrids] we have evolved in tandem with the food we eat, I do not believe that a bunch of guys in white coats are going to be able to suss out ways of improving a situation to which we are already very well adapted, especially given that I do not believe that these aforementioned guys really know that much about the complexities of 1]the environment. 2] human physiology. 3]nutrition. Disabuse me of this preconception and I might be up for it but believe me that is going to be very hard. The only sound motivation for doing this at this point is money, so GM crops and all who support them can go fuck.
 
 
Salamander
21:57 / 08.07.03
GM are unnecessary in famine countries, Cannabis Sativa is second to soy in protein, and it grows just about anywhere with little help, I'm not against GM mind you, I just think it's an unnecessary solution to a problem, like making new laws or preserving old ones say...
 
 
alexander
07:33 / 09.07.03
The problem with leaving the choice in the hands of individual consumers is that there will always be fringe awareness of the ramifications of these decisions while the whole remains in support of the unbridled use of this technology. There are obvious reasons for this but it bothers me that there doesn't seem to be any powerful mass-media image promoted by this fringe awareness, for consumption by the whole. Until an organization of this fringe aware enough and powerful enough to best the efforts of producers of Terminator second-seed "theft" solutions, and similar means of thwarting world hunger, to lull the whole into not thinking about what they buy or caring to hold anyone responsible for revealing such information, I might as well choose to work for the fuckers. I can spend half a paycheck at Whole Foods but the hardworking indigenous peoples of wherever are still fucked. I'd really like to get to work with some folks who are trying to carve out a piece of mindshare via mass media instead of just street protests and glorified "club events" that just seem to enforce the special interest group identity any movement has to deal with. Something that'll drive the point home to everyone else, the folks with visions of Americana dancing in their heads. Maybe none of us have got the money it takes to give us a choice, at least the one that matters most.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
10:27 / 09.07.03
There is an old thread relating to GM crops which might be useful or interesting.

Until an organization of this fringe aware enough and powerful enough to best the efforts of producers of Terminator second-seed "theft" solutions, and similar means of thwarting world hunger, to lull the whole into not thinking about what they buy or caring to hold anyone responsible for revealing such information, I might as well choose to work for the fuckers. I can spend half a paycheck at Whole Foods but the hardworking indigenous peoples of wherever are still fucked.

Oh come on now, old thing, never say die, every little counts, etc. In fact, given the stranglehold major corporations have over both production and marketing, perhaps on of the best ways in which to operate is to put one's money where one's mouth is (I must admit that I am not adhering to this at the moment - 0 money = 0 mouth). Though given the way the US is pressuring the EU to make labelling illegal - despite the fact that there is clear consumer demand for it - this may not always work. But that is no reason not to try - the more avenues protest uses, the wider its reach, etc. etc.

I think perhaps there is more widespread awareness of this in Europe, but surely there must be loads of smaller American farmers who find themselves bound to the seed corporations and tied to the demands of the food corporations (often the same beast). And what could be more American than the American farmer?
 
  
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