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It is ridiculous that they can sell GMO foods including Roundup Ready crops without labeling. http://web.mit.edu/demoscience... Yes, please engineer my food so it can be sprayed with more Roundup http://www.panna.org/blog/roun....

The companies fighting GMO labeling (Monsanto, Kraft, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, etc.) have put huge amounts of money into these campaigns. You think your health has anything to do with it? All they care about is profit. Concealing information from you for profit.

Another thing I don't like about voluntary "GMO free" labeling is that it puts the burden on the producer who is not using GMOs rather than the producer who is using it. Kind of like organic farming. If you want to grow produce naturally you have to pay for the privilege of labeling your food as natural. If you want to use all the "conventional" chemicals, go for it, no extra fees and no labeling required.

It is ridiculous how backwards things are. And their clever marketing has you arguing for your own undoing.

I'd support limted use of DDT for bedbug control, however, using DDT is probably futile.

Like all pesticides, the bugs they're used against become resistant to them.

Google it yourself or check out:

http://www.panna.org/blog/DDT-for-bedbugs

Best,

--PM

It kind of occurs to me that they would most likely say that there is no evidence if there was none. Since they didn't say there was no evidence, I suppose there is some. I would also point out that there is an active lawsuit (first google hit) going against the EPA and possibly this is the reason for the article. I also read that there was at least one paper on the cause of colony collapse disorder. Don't know if they/it can be found on Google Scholar here. Bayer crop science is the villan for promoting the use of this. Anyway you look at it, the disappearance of bees may be good for selling one particular seed, but in general very, very bad for the rest of nature and most other agricultural industries too. Think of how Biologist Jonas Salk said: "If all insects on Earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.”. This does not mean that all humans have to disappear in order for life to survive however. I would prefer a balance.

... some links I was looking at yesterday:

NAFTA Harms Mexican Farmers and Biodiversity
Family Farmers From Mid-Missouri & Mexico hold Fair Trade Picnic & Roundtable

The second link mentions how corporate farms have disproportionately benefited from NAFTA. 'Class Warfare', as being waged by global 'elites' against the middle class and the poor, is all about concentrating wealth in their own pockets - 'the rich get richer and the poor get poorer'.

Becoming a Maquilladora worker may very well represent an attempt to provide a better future for the farmer's kids.

It's not so much about providing a better future, as providing any future at all. My girlfriend has traveled extensively along the boarder, and was overwhelmed by the region's poverty - the impression I get is that it's a step backwards. NAFTA seriously upended the status quo, and people are still adjusting - like some site said, globalization & "free trade" are about turning millionaires into billionaires, and making everyone else poor.

I'm not feeling all that coherent this morning, so hopefully this makes some sense... I found the two links while searching yesterday; I also recommend Noam Chomsky's Class War talk (I found a torrent a while back).

How many people here actually work in the science or math industry? You are programmers and scientists and you are telling me you cannot set up a private sector consumer lab?

Grow your own food and sell it to each other, buy local food, and set up a consumer testing lab. Sell the results.

http://www.panna.org/

Stop consuming long enough to test before you eat. If you are a consumer with a big brain, then figure out ways to organize and test what you consume. Why should you rely on the FDA? Why should you rely on big government?

If you want to protect your food and water, protect your food and water. Nothing short of actually doing it will make it so. Asking for protection means you don't really want it. Demand protection from your congressmen or and senators in your state. This is a local issue, a state issue, and your state senate, and city mayor, along with those CEO friends of yours and church leaders, all can join in and decide to protect the food and water. You do not have to buy your food from Walmart and McDonalds. You do not have to let these corporations get away with selling bad food if you test the food and water yourself. If you suspect it has bird flu, test it and find out, take it to the lab and see. Go to the resturant or the super market, buy the food and test it under the microscope. If you want to get paid to do it, ask your mayor or governor for a grant, and if they say no then ask your church or CEO friend to invest. The money is there for this, as this is the one issue everyone agrees on.

Mad Cow, Avian Flu, what next? The pork pox? Then you have the pesticides. Look, do something or keep eating your burgers. If you want to know about pesticides, here is a site

http://www.panna.org/

Pesticide Network of North America

You really have no excuse here.

Stop consuming long enough to test before you eat. If you are a consumer with a big brain, then figure out ways to organize and test what you consume. Why should you rely on the FDA? Why should you rely on big government?

If you want to protect your food and water, protect your food and water. Nothing short of actually doing it will make it so. Asking for protection means you don't really want it. Demand protection from your congressmen or and senators in your state. This is a local issue, a state issue, and your state senate, and city mayor, along with those CEO friends of yours and church leaders, all can join in and decide to protect the food and water. You do not have to buy your food from Walmart and McDonalds. You do not have to let these corporations get away with selling bad food if you test the food and water yourself. If you suspect it has bird flu, test it and find out, take it to the lab and see. Go to the resturant or the super market, buy the food and test it under the microscope. If you want to get paid to do it, ask your mayor or governor for a grant, and if they say no then ask your church or CEO friend to invest. The money is there for this, as this is the one issue everyone agrees on.

Mad Cow, Avian Flu, what next? The pork pox? Then you have the pesticides. Look, do something or keep eating your burgers. If you want to know about pesticides, here is a site

http://www.panna.org/

Pesticide Network of North America

You really have no excuse here.

Why the hell didn't Monsanto neuter their seeds while they were busy tinkering with the herbicide genes?

I know I'm not the first person to ask this question...

What's the best answer /.'ers have seen/heard/read?

I know and understand about Terminator seeds but if the company is going to sue you for reusing 'their' seeds, they might as well make the seeds one shot wonders.

Either the royalty payments on reusing seeds is less than buying them new from Monsanto, or Monsanto wants to save on distribution costs.

Good question, though not too hard to research as there's a volume of data and it's a hot issue. Of course, it's controversial, since much of the research is influenced by agribusiness (esp. here in Canada -- AgCan is in industry's pocket) and that means that research is overly reductionist or just plain skewed.

Keywords to look for in your reference search: loss of topsoil in green revolution scenarios (effects of tilling, bare soil, industrial watering, monocrops, heavy feeding crops, pesticides); dependence of farming on chemical inputs; loss of seed sovereignty; crop diversity reduction; the effects of large-scale monocropping on the environment; water usage; permaculture; loss of local knowledge (microclimates, local pest management, seed varieties --again--, plant companions, etc); misguided pest management (overused pesticides etc.); distribution and ownership models that reduce local food security; and so on.

Some good places to start looking outside of google:
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Sustainable Farming Connection
FarmFolk/CityFolk
The Ram's Horn
World Resources Institute
WorldWatch Institute
Pesticide Action Network
Sustainable Agriculture Network
Permaculture
ETC Group

There, that should get you started. You want evidence? there's plenty out there.