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You think you're being very clever, but the green revolution has not fed anyone that otherwise would have starved.

Funny, pretty much every reputable source says otherwise. I guess all those prizes Norman Borlaug got were for his good looks.

Who told you that? That's not true, at all.

Pretty much every crop & soil scientist out there will tell you that.

The herbicides kill off beneficial nematodes and other organisms which live in the soil. Healthy topsoil can be over 40% living organic material. After using these herbicides, it drops to 0%.

And if that were the alternative you'd have a point. But the alternative is tillage. Inputs are never disirable, but it isn't a question of 'does this do harm' so much as 'does this do the least harm.'

google for "superbugs", the first time I ever did (relevant since google remembers what you've searched for) the first bunch of results were all relevant.

I know there's resistance but I've never heard of the resitnat weeds possessing any attributes besides their resistance (at least in this particular case anyway).

The point I'm making is that engineering these plants to be pest-resistant or chemical-resistant is a loser's game, because they will become resistant to it themselves.

Uh, yeah. there's been a Red Queen's race in agriculture for ages. GE doesn't change that. Of course pests will develop resistance. That's always happened, it is always going to happen.

Meanwhile, there are potential harmful side effects, and indeed Bt corn has already gone toxic in the 20th generation (just try finding the citation any more, though. I'm sure I have a bookmark saved somewhere, maybe even scrapbook'd the article, but elefino where it is now. It was all over when it happened..

I think you mean this. Turned out to be a fungus, but the transgene go the public blame. Funny thing is, Bt corn is actually safer due to lower levels of mycotoxin. Corn that doesn't get chewed on has less open area for fungal infection which means lower mycotoxins.

That's because you're being disingenuous.

Nutrition facts describe the nutritional content of something. The variety used to make it is entirely different. Its the difference between knowing a car's MPG and knowing the elemental composition of the alloy used in the tailpipe.

That's a bunch of shit. It's not a common issue that has always been in agriculture, because the technology has never existed to do these things on this scale.

We've used herbicides before genetic engineering, and we've had resistant weeds before genetic engineering. There are even non-GE herbicide tollerant varieties of some crops out there. We've bred pest resistant varieties, and pests have overcome those varieties. For example, there's no GE wheat on the market, but they still use herbicides on wheat, and they still have pest issues that require new varieties. Surely you don't deny this? And surely you're not calling the notion that a Rainbow papaya is different from Golden Rice is different from Arctic apple is different from Bt corn to be a bunch of shit?

Attacking a straw man is still a fallacy, and it's what you're doing, because I never said nature knew what it was doing; in fact, I said it didn't.

You started off by advocating organic agriculture. If you don't think that's an appeal to nature, either you don't know what an appeal to nature is or you don't know what organic farming is.

On an interesting note. They won this case but it actually may come back to haunt them as they are being sued for contaminating the organic canola market and destroying it because ownership has it's responsibilites.

No kidding.

As /. user Colin Smith said:

Who would have thought that evolution would be developing it's own roundup resistance. Damn that Charles Darwin.

Maybe the Monsanto executives are creationists.

According to this page which I found linked from this comment Monsanto does sell the stuff, though. In fact I just visited this page on Monsanto's site which says that "Monsanto remains the primary global producer of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. In postpatent markets around the world, Roundup has maintained market leadership and a premium brand position." Hence their production of roundup-resistant crops clearly goes hand in hand with their production of the active ingredient in Roundup, and makes anything they might say about basically anything highly suspicious.

Frankly, I'm more concerned about Monsanto using these heavy handed tactics to control the worlds food supply, than I am about M$ Palladium. We can live without computers, but with increasing patents covering basic food (corn, canola, tomatos, ...), I can see a time when all food will be covered by some patent. Think M$ is evil with their monopoly? Think what would happen when a few companies own patents on most of the food you eat.

Cross contamination of GMO with natural crops is a real concern, and farmers of organic crops are starting to sue GMO producers. Some related articles at cropChoice.com

Monsanto got Fox news in Tampa to pull a story and fire the two jounalists who researched it because it was about health problems from rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone [a Monsanto product]) in cows milk, and it's been one of the most under reported news stories. Here's a Google search. So they are very willing to use intimidation and the courts to further their control. Hmmm... Sounds all too familiar.

Just to clarify: The Motosoto license is different from the Monsanto license. The biotech giant will sue you for growing crops using their patented genes, even if the genes got into your crops because of cross-contamination from neighbors fields. Even if you don't want to grow genetically modified crops, and you don't use roundup (a monsanto herbicide - their plants have genes that make them resistant to this, so you can spray it indiscriminately and kill only weeds), they still sue. More monsanto info.

It's almost as if the people behind nimda demanded money from you for running their copyrighted software! The sad thing, this is a very good comparison. Genetically modified organic crops are worth much less than pure organic.