Slashdot Mirror

A product bearing the USDA Organic certification mark "has been produced through approved methods that integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used."

There is not in any way "consensus" that "GMOs are safe"

Again the facts say otherwise.

The consensus is that they are safe.
American Medical Association
National Academy of Sciences
World Health Organization
Chief Scientific Advisor to the European Commission
Department of Agriculture
Food and Drug Administration
Environmental Protection Agency

Scientific consensus is that GMOs are safe.

Yes, someone with $20 million in assets is rich.

Taking Washington state as an example, the average family farm is worth about $0.75 million and the average family farmer makes a net profit of just under $50k per year. These people are not touched by the estate tax. Hell, a farmer 7x richer than average is not touched by the estate tax.

The estate of your "poor" farmer in your example with a farm valued at $20 million (26x larger than the average family farm), would have to pay $6 million (40% on [$20 million minus the exclusion of $5 million]). This huge farm would be producing a net profit of $1.2 million per year. If the son wants to keep all his farm property, he will get a loan for the $6 million and spend 10 years paying it off while continuing to pocket $600,000 per year and now being the owner of tens of millions of dollars in assets that he didn't own before.

No, I'm not worried that this family's children will be unable to "have a good, hard-earned living."

If you offered $1M/yr to anybody willing to pick oranges you'd have no trouble filling the jobs

Sure you would because there would be no company able to make an economic profit selling them. No profit = no company = no jobs. This piece of your argument is a strawman.

If you offer $5/hr then nobody is willing to do the job, apparently.

Probably true in most of the US at least. Wages have to be high enough to allow people to pay for necessities of life in the location they live in. However labor costs in Mexico for picking produce are close to $4/DAY so it clearly is not true everywhere.

Chances are if you offered $10-20/hr you'd have no trouble filling the post.

The average wages of a field worker in the US in 2009 was $10.07/hour. (The linked article's conclusions are badly flawed as I'll detail below but the data on wages appears to be close to accurate)

The price of oranges probably wouldn't change much at all - if they could get a penny more for them they already would be doing so.

The price certainly would change if by some means the price of labor went up across the board. However given that these are globally traded commodities we are talking about (you can get oranges from outside the US), it's kind of a moot discussion. Even if we established a higher minimum wage within the US, significant production would simply move to where labor prices are lower. Not all, but significant amounts. This creates a de-facto cap on the price of food products. The cost cannot simply be passed on to consumers even if the consumers were willing to pay more, which they demonstrably are not. (See Walmart) You can place trade barriers but then you are increasing the cost of living for everyone to protect the jobs of a very small group of people.

he guys who own the farm would just make less money.

You are incorrectly presuming several things including that the farm is profitable and that farmers who are profitable are making large profits. Not typically true. Farming is a HARD business that frequently is not profitable and even in the best of circumstances tends to have modest profit margins.

The best data I've been able to get indicates that if you buy an orange for $1, about $0.30 of revenue goes to the owner of the farm and about $0.10 goes to the worker who actually picked the fruit. (Labor costs make up 42% of variable production costs.) The remaining $0.60 goes to the distribution network and various other players including grocery stores. Now that doesn't say anything about profit, just revenue. The farmer has a LOT of cost to their operation so the profits after expenses are negative profit margins for about 2/3 of farms, especially among smaller farms. That means they have zero ability to raise wages - they are already losing money. Bigger farms are more likely to achieve profits and even higher net margins (often >20%) but the profit picture varies wildly by farm. But even among the profitable farms the farmer gets to keep somewhere between $0.02 and $0.07 of the $1.00 you spent on that orange. Many don't get to keep any profit at all.

So, bottom line, if you raise wages by 50% ($0.05 on that $1.00 orange) you will essentially wipe out almost all profit in farming. I'm all for paying higher wages if we can but it isn't as easy as many are making it out to be.

I find that hard to believe. Just looking at one common item that I've really noticed has gone up, ground beef has gone up from $3.005/lbs to $3.467/lbs since 2012, which is 15.4%. Lean ground beef has gone from $3.884/lbs to $5.021/lbs, which is 29.3%.

That's had a huge knock-on affect in fast food as well. Compare Wendy's "value menu" or "right price menu" or whatever they're calling it to the dollar menu of yesteryear (long ago in the foggy past of 2012). Same food items, now 20%, 30%, 50% more expensive.

I'd love to see inflation statistics from Visa and Mastercard rather than theoretical "baskets" from researchers.

As the article points out, most of this is going to mandatory programs, which would be the same even if it were Romney or McCain or Sarah Fucking Palin in office.

What this means, for those dumb enough to believe what they read in IBD, is that what Obama has achieved is to reduce the amount of spending on the discretionary side. Agriculture, down 8%. HHS, down 7.6%. Even Homeland Security, down 2.8%.

This is misleading -- at best -- on both counts. So-called "mandatory" spending has been on a screaming binge since the 2009 stimulus, with the Senate letting that supposed "one time emergency" increase ride by not passing a budget for years. Who cares what label the politicians put on the dollars if the absolute number of dollars keeps skyrocketing?

Let's take just one of your examples, the USDA, and look at absolute dollars spent before and during Obama's term in office (sources here, and here, all numbers in billions):

• 2007: Mandatory $67, discretionary $25, total $92
• 2008: Mandatory $67, discretionary $26, total $93
• 2009: Mandatory $92, discretionary $24, total $116
• 2010: Mandatory $103, discretionary $27, total $130
• 2011: Mandatory $118, discretionary $25, total $143
• 2012: Mandatory $128, discretionary $24, total $152
• 2013: Mandatory $132, discretionary $23, total $155
• 2014: Mandatory $134, discretionary $24, total $158
• 2015: Mandatory $123, discretionary $23, total $146

So the harsh mathematical reality is that since Obama took office, the USDA budget is up between 155% and 170%, depending on whether you believe the factors driving the 2014-2015 decrease in "mandatory" spending (discussed on PDF page 6 of the second link) are going to stick in future years.

So two takeaways: First, you can't say with a straight face that this same outcome would have occurred regardless of who was in office. Second, what exactly from the above numbers makes you want to give Obama a big ol' backslap? Because he trimmed somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion from a cumulative $349 billion in increased USDA spending during his time in office? Give me a break.

As the article points out, most of this is going to mandatory programs, which would be the same even if it were Romney or McCain or Sarah Fucking Palin in office.

What this means, for those dumb enough to believe what they read in IBD, is that what Obama has achieved is to reduce the amount of spending on the discretionary side. Agriculture, down 8%. HHS, down 7.6%. Even Homeland Security, down 2.8%.

This is misleading -- at best -- on both counts. So-called "mandatory" spending has been on a screaming binge since the 2009 stimulus, with the Senate letting that supposed "one time emergency" increase ride by not passing a budget for years. Who cares what label the politicians put on the dollars if the absolute number of dollars keeps skyrocketing?

Let's take just one of your examples, the USDA, and look at absolute dollars spent before and during Obama's term in office (sources here, and here, all numbers in billions):

• 2007: Mandatory $67, discretionary $25, total $92
• 2008: Mandatory $67, discretionary $26, total $93
• 2009: Mandatory $92, discretionary $24, total $116
• 2010: Mandatory $103, discretionary $27, total $130
• 2011: Mandatory $118, discretionary $25, total $143
• 2012: Mandatory $128, discretionary $24, total $152
• 2013: Mandatory $132, discretionary $23, total $155
• 2014: Mandatory $134, discretionary $24, total $158
• 2015: Mandatory $123, discretionary $23, total $146

So the harsh mathematical reality is that since Obama took office, the USDA budget is up between 155% and 170%, depending on whether you believe the factors driving the 2014-2015 decrease in "mandatory" spending (discussed on PDF page 6 of the second link) are going to stick in future years.

So two takeaways: First, you can't say with a straight face that this same outcome would have occurred regardless of who was in office. Second, what exactly from the above numbers makes you want to give Obama a big ol' backslap? Because he trimmed somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion from a cumulative $349 billion in increased USDA spending during his time in office? Give me a break.

U.S. nitrogen and potash supplies largely depend on imports. More than 50 percent of nitrogen (N) and 85 percent of potash (K2O) supply was from imports in the U.S. in fertilizer year (July 1 to June 30) 2011 (the latest full year of production data available).

Citation

Now, I realize that this is in the context of fertilizers, but that's all I could find, and I'd imagine that we use nitrogen for fertilizer more than anything else. Anyway, I was only suggesting this because of the recent story on slashdot about propofol and sodium thiopental and the EU's restrictions on exporting stuff that's used to kill humans. Presumably, sodium thiopental, a sedative, isn't actually what kills you, yet the EU won't send us any more because it's involved in lethal injections. Who knows how they'd see asphyxiation via nitrogen. Who knows if we even import nitrogen from EU. Just some food for thought.

He does good things, and the you bitch?

Obama could buy everyone in America free donuts and this site would find a way to complain about it.

Obama could buy everyone in America free donuts and this site would find a way to complain about it.

Free donuts may cause weight problems and increase health care costs.
Also how will dunkn donuts compete with free donuts being handed out by the government, think of the job loss.
Perhaps we need price supports for the oat farmers to compensate for lost revenue.
Who gets to decided what type of donut? Do beignets count?
Are there going to be no-bid contracts awarded for the making of donuts?
Unionize the workers, or make companies involved with donuts implement new federal contract minimum wage of $10.10/hr.
Need a have USDA work on a standard grading scheme for donuts (analogous to catsup).
Must appropriate money to revise the recently revised USDA "competitive food standards" disallowing most donuts provided to school children (even if free).
Are GM ingredients being used?
What type of fat? Corn-oil? Lard?
Are they Kosher? Are they Halal? How do we respect all religions? Are "noodlie" appendage donuts allowed?
What about gluten free? Are we discriminating against these people?
Can't use red sprinkles, they are made from bug parts (think of the vegetarians and vegans).
How about the sugar, is it real sucrose, or HFCS, or *gasp* one of the artificial sweeteners that cause cancer!
Government contract should specify the used oil be recycled for alternative fuel vehicles.
1000 page bill needs to be passed w/o reading followed by 12M words of regulations need to be generated by the executive branch...
How to reconcile this policy with Michelle's Let's Move initiative?
Maybe the 1% should pay for their own damn donuts...

Yeah, these are a few reasons why the government shouldn't get involved with give-aways (donuts or otherwise).
Sometimes the government should just do less...

Plant life does not factor into it because they can not suffer.

according to your definition of "suffer".

They can’t suffer because they have no nervous system with which to think.

Why is thinking a necessary criterion for suffering?

They also have no physical mechanisms with which to feel pain.

Their mechanisms are different from those of animals, to be sure. No nerves, etc. But plants DO have mechanisms for registering and even communicating physical damage and distress.
http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/0187702-mechanism-for-biosynthesis-release-and-detection-of-volatile-chemical-in-plant-insect-interactions.html

And even if they did, they have no thoughts, so the pain would mean nothing.

Yes. Thoughts have "meaning" to us human beings. We have no idea what meaning (if any) thoughts have for animals. And we have no idea of a plant's experience, and whether there is anything which has any "meaning". In this completely anthrocentric view - why is "meaning" of thought, more important than "meaninglessness" of plants? In fact, human suffering and thought, and meaning, when viewed in certain contexts, can shrink to almost nothing. Imagine stubbing your toe. Now imagine the meaning of that thought, 1,000,000 years from now. Not so much meaning to that, is there?

They have no fear, panic, or sadness. They live, but they live without consciousness.

Why is a plant's existence any less meaningful than an animals? Why does consciousness preclude suffering?

There is an argument about meat-eaters, that since they eat cows and pigs, but not dogs or cats, that this is really an argument of "survival of the cutest". Dogs and cats are the most human-like, and they are cute, so we don't eat them. But they are not human, so it's really no different if we ate dogs or cats. (some cultures eat dogs, of course). But if we can extend our humanity to dogs and cats because they "feel pain" or "have conscious thought" - then we can really extend that to most of the mammals, and many higher animals. And if dogs and cats have thoughts and feelings (though, clearly they're different from human thoughts and feelings) - why would we place value on those, and not the thoughts and feelings of cows and pigs - which are clearly even more different. And if we can conceive of an existence of cows and pigs being sacred - then why is not all life (even plant life) sacred? Where do you draw the line, and why do you draw one? What is "complex" enough to merit not being eaten? It's either a biological argument, or it's an argument of empathy. And even the biological argument is empathic. We draw our lines of distinction at the classification boundary between the plant and animal kingdom?

Except that now, that USA doesn't produce much to feed itself (500Billion USD/year trade deficit) once the importers decide that the USD is not worth the paper it's printed on and won't buy US bonds anymore, the only government cheese that those, trained to get it will get is dick-cheese, and if I understand the term correctly, it wouldn't provide much of any nutritional value.

Food is something the USA *does* produce a lot of. So much, in fact, that we actually export food.

It's hard to sell more bonds when the Chinese buy them up as fast as they're issued. They own a large piece of our pie.

"most milk is heavily subsidized in price" Oh your're right, it's subsidized, just not in the direction you think. The government RESTRICTS the price of milk, imposed import quotas, and on top of that drives up the price with needless EPA reglations for, literaly, spilled milk. If the government weren't restricting the output of milk the price would be a lot LOWER.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib-agricultural-information-bulletin/aib761.aspx

Thanks for posting the link. I took a look at the table you are referring to. There isn't a simple pattern. Farmers intrinsically have better food security and few could be said to be in poverty. Economically, they are small business owners and have to be reasonably successful or they don't stay farmers for very long. But they only make up less than 2% of the US population. Even in a rural state such as Wyoming, most people are not farmers or ranchers.

Rather, compare it to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_quintiles and this: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/income-rules-income-limits

You'll see that states that have lower median income (more precisely, more people in the first quartile) have more people on SNAP. The cause for all the variation is due to a thousand different reasons.

One of the reasons so many people qualify for SNAP is that you don't have to be extremely poor to qualify. A family of 4 can earn $30,000 a year and qualify. Being poor in the US is not like being poor in 90% of the world.

I've had to make ends meet here on that kind of income, and it's not easy. My wife and kids qualified for a state food program for a while (bread, beans, milk). But even though they got the food, and it helped our budget, we would have survived without. Others might not.

Yes, we have federal, state, local, community, and even church programs that help people. These are independent of welfare benefits. Much of the fight you are seeing is due to there being so many programs. Many disagreements as to efficiency and efficacy. What is the right delivery mechanism, how much funding for each, who is in control, etc, etc.

Like many American things, it's a mess, we enjoy arguing about it, and things manage to work.

Agreed, the spread of the program is pretty huge. (It actually averages 14%).

But again, this may be simply because the program has been expanded beyond its target population lately. The largest growth has been under the current administration, which also happened to coincide with a major 5 year recession which threw millions out of work.

The most dramatic upturn occurred beginning 2008, with a rapid doubling over prior levels..

Its hard to know if these levels will be maintained as people go back to work. Once eligibility requirements are loosened, they seldom are tightened. So IF (just sayin) this administration loosened the requirements, then food stamp levels will remain high.

However, if the recession caused more families to full under existing requirements, then you would expect a decline in participation. We may just be looking at a huge, but temporary bump. If so, the program is working a intended, and people need to understand this, and maybe spend two minutes thinking about how proud of their country they would be if there were wide-spread starvation.

There are some interesting figures here: http://www.statisticbrain.com/food-stamp-statistics/

Changing the emphasis doesn't amount to much: if the FDA is not conducting, or compelling companies to conduct, sufficiently rigorous safety assessments prior to the marketing of a GMO product and instead presumes such products to be safe until evidence to the contrary arises, they are failing their responsibility to protect consumers. Of course the FDA retains its enforcement powers; my complaint is their being reactive instead of proactive.

Sorry if my selections were unsatisfactory--I didn't think /. would appreciate the whole text. My concerns then, in general terms, are:

1) The FDA permits companies themselves to make the determination of whether the genes introduced by GM are "generally regarded as safe" (GRAS). When companies determine GM modifications are GRAS (and I'm unaware of an instance they haven't), those foods are exempt from the food additive regulations.
2) Regulatory authority is, as you point out, split across the FDA, USDA and EPA. Each of the agencies only considers a subset of a proposed product. In the case of Bt potatoes, for instance, the FDA doesn't care about the Bt protein since it's a pesticide and therefore the EPA's problem. The EPA figures the original potato was safe and the Bt protein is safe, therefore the new Bt potato is safe. Interestingly, when it comes to labeling, the potato is back to being considered food and the FDA regs prohibit labeling of pesticides so Bt potatoes are anonymous when sold.
3) When GMO crops are evaluted, they are not done so with sufficient rigor. Consider again the Bt potato: the EPA supposedly tested the effects of Bt on mice but they didn't feed the mice Bt potatoes, they fed them pure Bt. If complications arose in the production of the protein within the potato itself, they couldn't have known.

How's that for process? Does the USDA do better? That second link you provided describes how the USDA 'streamlined' its regulations in order to "reduce the length of the petition process by more than 50 percent". I don't consider that an improvement.

Ultimately, though, you bring up the trump card: regulatory authority. I have no doubts whatsoever this will result in litigation which ultimately sees the ban struck down.

It isn't unreasonable to be opposed to monopoly. I doubt you will find many academic scientists who would disagree with that. It doesn't follow that you should oppose GE crops for that reason though. First off, there is not really a monopoly: there's Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer Cropscience, Pioneer Hi-Bred (DuPont), BASF, Dow Agrosciences, and various smaller companies. And of course, nothing stops farmers from doing the old fashioned saving of heirloom seed. In fact, if you look at the USDA's page on approved GE crops you can see more than just Monsanto, including a small company in Canada trying to get approval for a consumer oriented trait and a university developed crop, the Rainbow papaya developed by the University of Hawai'i (unfortunately, it is the only currently approved university developed crop, because unfortunately most university scientists do not have the funds to get a GE crop through the over strict approval process, which effectively favors large companies).

Another thing, when you buy organic, who do you think sells those farmers the seed? Monsanto, ect. sell more than just GE seed you know. You may very well be paying extra for more Monsanto seed.

except that they tend to be proprietary

For one thing, there's more than just GE crops that are patented. Ever had a pluot? Patented. Ever had a Honeycrisp apple? Formerly patented, until the patent expired. Neither of those are genetically engineered. Farmers who grow those things are willing to pay extra for those plants because then they can get an advantage out of them, no different than any other investment, and the people who develop those plants patent them so that they can make further investments, like the pluerry or SnowSweet apple (which is my number one favorite apple and would recommend anyone with a back yard buy a plant since the apples aren't commercially available, so I'm rather glad the apple breeding program that developed it was able to support itself on the patent royalties from Honeycrisp).

I don't really see the problem with plant patents. Developer gets exclusive control over the thing they developed for a period of time and hopefully makes enough money to reinvest it, then the patent expires so everyone can use the thing freely, like what happened with the Honeycrisp apple. Isn't that how the system is supposed to work? Unlike the copyright system where things last the life of the universe plus five years, I think this looks pretty good.

Untested, unproven, with insufficient research on safety.

Ignoring all this perhaps. Hey, if they are so untested, why is it that all those things currently awaiting approval listed on the APHIS site are not yet on the market? Is it our of Monsanto's altruistic concern? And why can't university labs muster up the funding to jump past the regulatory hurdles? Which is it, not tested, or Monsanto cares?

Also, GM crops have thus far failed to deliver on the higher yield claims

Note how they specify 'in the United States' with the implication that GE crops were supposed to improve yields. You do realize there is more to agriculture than yield, yes? If you are already tilling and spraying insecticides/herbicides, as is the case in developed countries, do you honestly expect insect resistant and herbicide tolerant crops to improve yields? Of course not, though if you talk to a farmer about the Round-Up/LibertyLink systems, they still prefer it (hell, there's even some evidence to indicate that sometimes they have lower yield in those systems, but railing on that makes the silly assumption that agriculture can be measured with a single number). If the UCS's report is news to you than you are pretty uninformed.

Naturally of course, they conveniently ignore the Rainbow papaya that saved the Hawaiian papaya industry, which should undeniably demonstrate that GE crops can serve a purpose for yield gains, even if we assume that preventing insect damage, by some curiously unexplained phenomenon, does not reduce losses.

As for your criticisms, first off, you must be looking at a different graph that I am, second fails to point out anything of interest, and third your criticism is basically 'we might lose the benefits already provided by GE crops therefore GE crops are bad' which is pretty silly, especially considering that not all herbicides are the same, a fact Benbrook consistently ignores (sort of like a liter of wine has more mass than a line of cocaine but less impact, which is the true measure of a substance), that same scenario, and similar cases with respect to pests and pathogens, has happened with numerous crops in the past, yet it is only with GE crops that people direct criticism for basic issues of agriculture.

I would think "manufactured products made of bamboo" would be an even more appropriate fit. I don't know of any breeds that naturally grow their own carved finger-holes and mouth-pieces.

And if we follow the actual APHIS manual cited and linked by that CBP webpage, it turns out the CBP webpage incorrectly cites Table 3-22, which applies to broomcorn and broomstraw, rather than Table 3-57, which applies to bamboo.

As I commented in another post, sufficiently advanced incompetence can be indistinguishable from malice in its consequence to the victim. It's not like customs hasn't screwed up like this before.

(checks McGruber's comment) It's a mistake either way. Either it's not bamboo, and they applied the wrong rule, or it is bamboo - but a handicraft, see http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/manuals/ports/downloads/miscellaneous.pdf - and they applied the wrong rule (also, the CBP website cites the wrong table; table 3-22 is broomcorn and broomstraw, it should be citing table 3-57 instead).

Re "power corrupts", that's why I added "It doesn't even have to be intentional, that just speeds things up". Corruption occurs at both the individual and organisational level, the latter doesn't actually require malice on the part of the former (incompetence and/or unaccountability can accomplish it too), and there is a feedback loop.

Or to put it another way, "sufficiently advanced incompetence can be indistinguishable from malice in its consequence to the victim". And this sort of thing has happened before (e.g. a concert pianist travelling to the US had their piano destroyed because it smelled funny according to the agents involved).

Apparently no-one even read the title, and immediately jumped to the assumption that TSA is at fault. TSA doesn't inspect inbound international luggage, that's the job of Customs, Border Patrol (CBP). Customs has very clear restrictions on bring in plants, timbers, etc and obviously they felt the raw flute making materials qualified under those restrictions.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/id_visa/kbyg/prohibited_restricted.xml#PlantsandSeeds
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/permits/index.shtml
http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsroom/fact_sheets/agriculture/olympic_ag.ctt/olympic_ag.pdf

Had he known about the restrictions and he declared them, it wouldn't have been an issue.

If its approved by default, why do they spend millions testing it? Is it out of the goodness of their hearts? Why are they waiting for regulatory approval of their dicamba tolerant cotton & soy? Do they just care that much? You must have a lot more faith in them than I do.

when your government is in the pockets of large corporations

If that were in any way true, I think we'd have more than just seven species that are genetically engineered on the market sold by corporations. But keep on playing that conspiracy card & weasel words like 'frankenfood' in the absence of an actual point.

Wow....where do you live where junk food is cheaper than healthy, home cooked veggies, etc?

http://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/foodDeserts.aspx

That said, why not make the agro businesses that make huge profits pay for unbiased testing in order to license the product?

The problem is that if they fund it, how do you ensure that the "third party" is unbiased?
And how likely are opponents of GMOs to consider it unbiased? I suspect that even if it did reduce the level of bias, you would hear as many people complaining that it can't be trusted. And perceptions may be as important as facts when it comes to getting the regulations changed.

...some pro-GMO person claims "Well our vitamin A rice".. but they neglect the "Terminating seeds" which reap huge profits for these companies.

There's a couple of things I'd like to point out:
1: If someone objects to all GMOs, they object to even the most beneficial ones. Vitamin A rice is a reasonable argument against those who want to ban GMOs. It's not a good argument against testing, but I've not seen it used that way myself.
2: If you are referring to the "terminator" traits where F2 is infertile rather than male-sterile lines, those have not been included in many seeds. In fact, the USDA currently does not list a deregulated corn or soybean terminator trait.
My understanding is that Monsanto had developed such a trait, which they intended to use to prevent accidental cross-pollination; but when people objected to it, they dropped it.

Male-sterile is quite different from the "terminator" trait; it prevents production of fertile pollen, so that a hybrid seed breeder does not need to hire people to go through the whole field and remove the male flowers from every plant that's supposed to be a female parent in the cross. It does not influence fertility of seeds.

But the reason for not saving and replanting seeds is that almost all seed is hybrid. This means that the second generation is likely to give you a level of variability that renders mechanized harvest impractical, as well as having lower productivity. And hand-harvesting corn is not something that pays off.

The FDA is swamped, sure. They don't need to be the testing company, they could be the gatekeepers for smaller independent companies to do testing. In other areas, like pharmaceuticals the cost of testing is assumed in the product. The same thing should be done with GMO foods, because the majority of the purposes are not altruistic but profit driven.

I did not mention cost as an issue because I'm well aware that there's quite a bit of testing in development of any crop.
I interned at Pioneer one summer collecting soil moisture measurements for drought stress trials, and they mentioned the scale of the testing.
A crop is usually tested for at least five years. Trials runs about $2000 per acre per year for corn, and there are always
several evaluations (resistance to pests, drought tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, and so on) and they are replicated at 4-5 sites.

In pharmaceuticals, you still hear people claiming that there is bias, and once in a while you hear about trials that were tampered with.

Don't forget about Lenape potatoes. Even if the study was correct, the same sort of problem has happened with conventional breeding.

"Plant-incorporated pesticides," to use the ag term, are not new pesticides. They are old ones in a new place.
For example: BT corn. It gets its name, and its effectiveness, from Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium that is a selective insect killer (different strains target different insects).
B. thuringiensis has long been used as an organic pesticide.
Pesticide resistance and tolerance are also not new traits; they come from species that were exposed to the pesticide and turned out to be resistant or tolerant.

The reason for the focus is that a farmer can lose most of his crop to certain major pests and diseases. It makes more sense to prevent crop loss while keeping yield potential constant than to increase yield potential 20% while still risking 80% of the crop.

Besides, that's not all that GMOs are developed for, though most are. Drought tolerance research has been in progress for a while, and at least one of the varieties has been approved.
And there's high lysine corn, high oleic acid soybeans, soybeans modified for improved yield, soybeans modified to produce stearidonic acid or have a better fatty acid profile, reduced nicotine tobacco, and reduced lignin alfalfa.

I'll buy your bullshit but until then GMOs are just that,bullshit.

So if somersetting isn't happening naturally its bullshit? Nice fallacy.

You have Monsanto (who seems to be in a race with Goldman Sachs on who can be the most like Wolfram & Hart)

Right, they freely liscense technology to charitable GMOs like rice that could prevent blindness and disease resistant cassava, then Greenpeace and others work hard to block it (because GMOs saving lives would make their anti-GMO donation pitch look really bad), and somehow Monsanto is the evil one in that picture.

not only creating plants that frankly shouldn't even be considered plants

What? They shouldn't be considered plants because they have a transgene? Do you have any idea what a plant even is? Really, if you are proposing adding new kingdom, you really need to re-evaluate your confidence in your level of biology knowledge.

God knows what else mixed in,

Today I learned APHIS is God. But you do have an unintentional point: we don't know how many things have transgenes. Probably everything seeing as how it happens in nature. Even humans have syncytin 2 transgenes.

So please don't try to feed us that "no different than crosbreeding" horseshit

Did I ever actually say that? No, I didn't. Of course they're different, that's why we have different terms to describe them, just like the mass selection breeding method is different from the pure line breeding method. You are stating a fact in a way that makes it look as if just stating something is a valid point. Well, I can do that too: everything has DNA, which is universal.

And that isn't even addressing the elephant rotting in the corner which is how this shit seems to be able to contaminate everything from neighboring crops to weeds

That's an ignorant statement. Ban a plant because it cross pollinates? You've just banned all outcrossing crops then. Oh, you want to hold GMOs to a double standard that no crop could possibly live up to? How convenient. It's almost like making an argument that cannot be falsified.

Just wait until Roundup Ready ends up in the Kudzu and we'll see how much you like that crap.

Yeah, right after God punishes the evil evolutionists. Highly unlikely.

I have to speak up here on the agriculture thing. I own about 500 acres of row crops raising wheat, soybeans, and rice primarily. Every now and then there is 20 acres of corn on one field. At any rate I monitor global agriculture trends pretty closes. For instance the growing seasons in S. America are the single biggest factor these days on what the price of Soybeans will be come harvest time in the US.

I'm not sure where this 1.2% GDP comes from exactly. Because right now food and food stuffs are one of our largest exports. Now I do believe that we don't have nearly as many people involved in that sector because we are highly mechanized. The framer who rents my 500 acres farms 4500 acres with himself, his father, an uncle, and two hired hands. I imagine the Chinese use quite a bit more labor and as a result has a larger percentage of GDP involved in that sector than we do. Now we are approaching a crisis in farming because the average age of a farmer, at least a couple years ago, was something like 58 years old. Young people have not replaced the aging workforce.

However take a look at this: http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/ogamaps/Default.aspx?cmdty=Corn&attribute=Production

When it comes to global trade, it's an extremely powerful weapon, especially against China. One of China's main imports is food other than rice. Even in the world, while we don't have the dominance we once did, if the US withheld it's grains from the global markets just watch as the prices jump and parts of the world literally erupt into flames.

Kids naturally start counting at zero. "I have zero breakfast from my parents today, I'll be fed for zero dollars at school." "I'll learn zero about ... today..."

Why does it feel like there's some kind of comment being made here about the National School Lunch Program?

I think it's delightful that someone is bright enough to identify this as propaganda. Please help me fight such pernicious lies that Heritage purports to justify these "facts".

It seems to be amply footnoted, with 50+ references:
[1]Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, âoeIncome, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,â U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports: Consumer Income, P60-239, September 2011, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf (September 13, 2011). The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family cash income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2010, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $22,314. A family of three was deemed poor if its annual income was below $17,374.
[2] See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, âoePoverty Pulse, Wave IV,â January 2004, at http://old.usccb.org/cchd/PP4FINAL.PDF (September 7, 2011). Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level.
[3]These surveys include the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, What We Eat in America, Food Security, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the American Housing Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. See U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/ (June 22, 2011); U.S. Department of Agriculture, What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007â"2008, Table 4, at http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/0708/Table_4_NIN_POV_07.pdf (June 22, 2011); Mark Nord, âoeFood Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics,â U.S. Department of Agriculture, September 2009, at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB56/EIB56.pdf (September 7, 2011); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, âoeAbout the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,â at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/about_nhanes.htm (September 7, 2011); U.S. Census Bureau, âoeAmerican Housing Survey (AHS),â at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs.html (June 27, 2011); and U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003, at http://www.bls.census.gov/sipp_ftp.html#sipp01 (June 27, 2011).
[4]U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States: 2009, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/h150-09.pdf (September 8, 2011).
[5] U.S Department of Energy, Residential Energy Consumption Survey.
[6]Derek Thompson, âoe30 Million in Poverty Arenâ(TM)t as Poor as You Think, Says Heritage Foundation,â The Atlantic Monthly, July 19, 2011, at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/30-million-in-poverty-arnt-as-poor-as-you-think-says-heritage-foundation/242191/ (September 7, 2011).
[7] C. T. Windham, B. W. Wyse, and R. G. Hansen, âoeNutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977â"1978: I. Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,â Journal of

I think it's delightful that someone is bright enough to identify this as propaganda. Please help me fight such pernicious lies that Heritage purports to justify these "facts".

It seems to be amply footnoted, with 50+ references:
[1]Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, âoeIncome, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,â U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports: Consumer Income, P60-239, September 2011, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf (September 13, 2011). The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family cash income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2010, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $22,314. A family of three was deemed poor if its annual income was below $17,374.
[2] See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, âoePoverty Pulse, Wave IV,â January 2004, at http://old.usccb.org/cchd/PP4FINAL.PDF (September 7, 2011). Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level.
[3]These surveys include the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, What We Eat in America, Food Security, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the American Housing Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. See U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/ (June 22, 2011); U.S. Department of Agriculture, What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007â"2008, Table 4, at http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/0708/Table_4_NIN_POV_07.pdf (June 22, 2011); Mark Nord, âoeFood Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics,â U.S. Department of Agriculture, September 2009, at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB56/EIB56.pdf (September 7, 2011); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, âoeAbout the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,â at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/about_nhanes.htm (September 7, 2011); U.S. Census Bureau, âoeAmerican Housing Survey (AHS),â at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs.html (June 27, 2011); and U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003, at http://www.bls.census.gov/sipp_ftp.html#sipp01 (June 27, 2011).
[4]U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States: 2009, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/h150-09.pdf (September 8, 2011).
[5] U.S Department of Energy, Residential Energy Consumption Survey.
[6]Derek Thompson, âoe30 Million in Poverty Arenâ(TM)t as Poor as You Think, Says Heritage Foundation,â The Atlantic Monthly, July 19, 2011, at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/30-million-in-poverty-arnt-as-poor-as-you-think-says-heritage-foundation/242191/ (September 7, 2011).
[7] C. T. Windham, B. W. Wyse, and R. G. Hansen, âoeNutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977â"1978: I. Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,â Journal of

No-till is already used on a mass scale:

The data show that approximately 35.5 percent of U.S. cropland planted to eight major crops, or 88 million acres, had no tillage operations in 2009.

It's harvested using standard equipment.

At least the DEA website is up, letting us know they are still operating. Gotta get those pot smokers.

http://www.justice.gov/dea/index.shtml

Meanwhile the USDA is down, but don't worry, there's no problem with our food supply.

http://www.usda.gov/

Makes sense to me. Going after the druggies is far more essential than the food we eat.

Incomprehensible.

... http://www.usda.gov/ because of another attack.

Growing carrots, sweet potatoes,mangoes, papaya, or other vitamin-A rich crops is a much more sensible answer -- unless one is devoted to the current exploitative system.

Thank God the poorest people in the world can afford that and the refrigeration and transport necessary to facility that. Stupid poor people for not thinking of hoping down to the local Walmart sooner.

Golden rice only contributes to the problem (economic and ecological) of monoculture.

Bullshit. You think people want to live off rice their whole lives? They aren't going to get this and decide they want nothing else; this is to help until a more varied diet can be available to everyone. Of course Golden Rice isn't the ideal solution, but good luck changing the socioeconomic problems of global poverty before more people die.

Its purpose is to provide good PR for the biotech industry:

So the good that biotech can do is simply dismissed as PR. Nice spin. I suppose vaccinations are just good PR for big pharma and serve no other purpose.

our GM crops are largely untested for safety, and most of the studies on safety that do exist are ones we've done ourselves (trust us!)

Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

they have led to increased pesticides use

In the same sense that switching from a weekly line of coke to a weekly class of wine is an increase in drug use. Now look at the overall environmental impact of switching form less harmful herbicides and tillage to no-till systems using glyphosate and glufosinate...but of course a holistic point of view wouldn't fit the technology bad narrative.

It's not science, it's scientism in the advancement of corporatism.

Everything's a conspiracy when you're wrong.

It already has. According to this report the US used almost 20% of its land area for crops (an example of solar power). In comparison, it used only 2-3% for urban areas. This link states that a mere 0.02-0.1% of US land is disturbed by mining. So at a glance, it appears that currently solar power covers two to three orders of magnitude more land than mining of anything, including coal, does.

Really? I don't see the answers in that article. With controlled logging you can remove the smaller stuff and keep the bigger stuff. And you have far better control than "controlled burns" which don't always go as planned.

Anyway the real answer is in different articles and it's "Yes something like that is already being done" and it is called Forest fuel reduction/Mechanical Fuels Treatment:
http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5393869.pdf
http://cnr.ncsu.edu/blogs/southeast-fire-update/2013/07/24/ga-forestry-commission-offers-new-service-mechanical-fuel-treatment/

But burning stuff is faster and cheaper (assuming the burn doesn't go out of control).

What the hell are you talking about? Protein? All of 0.3% you mean? Before lecturing me about checking MY facts, you might want to at least read the Wikipedia page on honey and corn syrups. Honey is almost entirely sugar, and the largest single component is fructose at about 38%. Regular corn syrup is almost identical with around 42% fructose, and HFCS-55 is 55% fructose. The rest of honey is mostly glucose at about 31% - again, almost identical to regular corn syrup, though glucose can vary quite a bit. HFCS-55 is around 42% glucose. Honey also contains small amounts of other sugars like maltose and sucrose, but sucrose almost immediately converts to fructose and glucose in your body - it is table sugar. Maltose almost immediately converts to glucose - maltose is often used in high concentrations to make hard candies.

Around here Soybeans are used much more than Alfalfa, but according to this paper they should be doing corn soybean and alfalfa in rotation, it returns $245 per acre on average versus $95 per acre for just corn/soybean.

The government is just as capable of producing wealth as any other entity.

Capable != actually doing it. The private world has the profit motive for keeping it productive. The activity has to generate some sort of value to the actor beyond its cost or it isn't generating a profit.

If the government spends money on a program that adds more value to the economy than the cost of the program (such as food assistance, which has close to a 2:1 return), then the government has produced wealth.

Where is this study that claims a 2:1 return? I decided to google for this and came across this study. The money quote:

SNAP brings Federal dollars into communities in the form of benefits which are redeemed by SNAP participants at local stores. These benefits ripple throughout the economies of the community, State, and Nation. For example:

* Every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates $9.00 in total community spending.
* Every additional dollarâ(TM)s worth of SNAP benefits generates 17 to 47 cents of new spending on food.
* On average, $1 billion of retail food demand by SNAP recipients generates close to 3,000 farm jobs.

Note that $5 in spending produces $9 in spending not wealth. So right there we don't have a 2:1 return. As I see it, we take $5 of someone's money and use it to generate far less than $5 of value - feeding someone who can feed themselves. That's negative return on investment right there.

It's a destructive economic gimmick to conflate spending or economic activity with wealth creation. They aren't equivalent or even correlated. For example, a disaster creates a lot of spending and economic activity (from reconstruction efforts), but it results in a net loss of wealth.

I don't have to think or believe that a lot of Americans are struggling to feed themselves and their families, because unfortunately I have the luxury of knowing it. 14.5% of US families suffer from food insecurity. SNAP (food stamps) only provides $4 / day.

Page with summary statistics
2011 USDA study

There is nothing arbitrary about it - I oppose requiring producers to affix labels that have no scientific value. It adds cost and accounting issues with no demonstrated value. It wastes regulatory time and money as the regulators make sure that this meaningless gesture is being followed properly. And for all that, there is already a "non-GMO" label: "organic".

It seems arbitrary to me inasmuch as you require "scientific value" and fail to acknowledge that GMO is in fact distinct (or was at one time) AND genetically distinguishable from naturally occurring strains of wheat. Or is that not the kind of 'scientific value' you are talking about? The idea of 'scientific value' is in the eye of the scientist/beholder and you've hardly provided any concise definition of 'scientific value.'. As for the cost issues and regulatory time wasted, I would argue that regulating tobacco quality without realizing that it gives you fucking cancer is a waste of time and money. On the other hand, food producers no doubt once claimed that providing nutritional information was expensive, onerous, and a "waste of time." I disagree entirely.

As for the 'organic' label, you'll note that the USDA regulates certain phrases (e.g., 'free-range' and 'cage-free'). Why not add GMO free? That sounds voluntary and not particularly harmless -- until you consider that containment of GMO crops is not really possible, which is the thrust of the original article what we are all commenting on.

I fully support taking action to stop CCD once we know the cause. GMO stickers will not help bees.

You and I agree that CCD is bad, but here you assert that we don't know the cause of CCD and also assert that GMO will not help bees. Strictly speaking, you cannot assert this. This suggests that you somehow have a crystal ball to know that GMO strains are not the cause of CCD. I know I sound like a Luddite here but not without reason. It took a very long time for people to acknowledge that tobacco is bad for you. I would hardly be shocked if GMO had problems too.

Penn and Teller did a hilarious (but biased) episode of "Bullshit" on this. They quite obviously selected produce that would favor the conventionally grown product, but it was still funny and they made a solid point: organic can be just as flavorless as conventional. There's nothing inherent in a GMO regarding flavor.

P & T do everyone a great service by dispelling ignorance, but just because a food is labelled 'organic' doesn't mean it tastes better or that it's even grown ethically. On the other hand, a GMO crop that is 'pest resistant' or more likely to completely fill an ecosystem than a strain that lacks such an advantage. I have no proof for thinking so, but I can't imagine that Monsanto spends a great deal of effort cultivating rare strains of heirloom tomatoes or boutique strains of wheat that have superior taste. The old myth that everyone will have brown eyes in 50 years comes to mind.

It certainly would be, but notice that you had to use the word "imagine". Tomatoes are probably a bad example since they self-pollinate, but your point is valid. The nice thing about demonstrated harm is that represents a valid lawsuit in civil court. Seed companies probably have a strong incentive to make their plants sterile in any case.

I'm glad you've touched on non-scientific aspects of this discussion because they are entirely relevant. 'Demonstrated harm' as a legal concept is somewhat different and not nearly as tidy as "scientific value" inasmuch as Monsanto has been bankrupting farmers who grow crops if they don't pay up their Monsanto license but happen to have Monsanto genes in their crops. Given that they have such high market share AND that you must pay them every year for the privilege of using their seeds, it suggests a problematic future from a legal and economic standpoint.

Issue: If a producer adheres to all aspects of the NOP regulations, including never utilizing genetically modified seeds, but a certifying agent tests and detects the presence of genetically modified material in the crop, is that crop's status determined to be no longer certified organic?

Reply: Organic certification is process based. That is, certifying agents attest to the ability of organic operations to follow a set of production standards and practices which meet the requirements of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 and the NOP regulations. The NOP regulations prohibit the use of excluded methods (i.e., “GMOs”) in organic operations. If all aspects of the organic production or handling process were followed correctly, then the presence of a detectable residue from a genetically modified organism alone does not constitute a violation of this regulation. This policy was established at the promulgation of the NOP Regulation in the Preamble to the Final Rule (FR Vol. 65, No. 246, p. 80556), December 21, 2000. The Preamble stated that:

As long as an organic operation has not used excluded methods and takes reasonable steps to avoid contact with the products of excluded methods as detailed in their approved organic system plan, the unintentional presence of the products of excluded methods should not affect the status of the organic operation or its organic products.

So, this is offtopic but I thought humped bladderwort was a pretty unfortunate name. However a Google search and a couple of clicks later I land on the broom-rape cancer-root, of which there is an alpine, a Mexican, and an American variety.

ah yes
"Combining these results with global estimates from previous studies, the erosion induced terrestrial carbon sink can potentially offset as much as 10 percent of the global fossil-fuel emissions of carbon dioxide in 2005." http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/nri/highlights/2007_no9.pdf
Nothing to worry about, then. Everybody back to sleep.

Pardon me for pointing out that DSM-5 is the replacement. Currently they're using DSM-IV, which is a lot smaller.

The larger point, exposed by this "update", is that the categories are essentially arbitrary and apparently not based on anything falsifiable, ie not anything resembling science.

Yes, I know. That is why it need to be replaced, preferably with something systematic, as indicated above.

As it stands, brain imaging can identify psychopaths , and is showing useful things about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder . I expect there will be more to come in that regard. Then there is also the fascinating feedback that can occur between behavior and brain function and activity. Good and bad behavior can become self-reinforcing. Then there is the role of nutrition in various aspects of brain function and behavior. Biochemistry is continuing to provide new insights, and new approaches. We are continuing to learn important lessons about something so seemingly common as sleep and its disorders that effect people's memory, attention, and behavior. Even classic psychology and psychiatry have insights that will have to be considered. It all plays a part. On the other hand, in a lot of ways it seems like we are still groping in the dark there is so much to learn. One thing seems likely to me is we are likely to find more conditions that will end up requiring a multidisciplinary approach to treat.

Another interesting question will come when various aberrant behaviors are scientifically identified as such, but they end up being politically protected in either the scientific community, or the political establishment.

Choices, choices.

http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/nri/highlights/2007_no9.pdf

Cool.

And that's really the problem with GMO, testing sucks.

Not true.

Lots of short term test and tons of grandfathering in genes because they came from other organisms where they were not a problem.

What are you talking about? They didn't 'grandfather in' any of the genes inserted into crops. The genes are the various cry genes from Bt, the C4 EPSPS from Agrobacterium, the pat gene from Streptomyces hygroscopicus, the cspB gene and the NptII gene from E.coli, and the genes for coat proteins from papaya ringspot virus and cucumber moasic virus. Although I can find no cause for concern among those genes, I don't recall any grandfathering going on during the deregulation process. You are misinformed. At best you could argue that the herbicide applied to some GE crops is dangerous, but contrary to some very poor papers that attempted to make that case, that is not the case and ignores both modern weed management (surprise! It's more complected than simple talking points make it out to be) and the properties of those herbicides. And even if it were the case it would still say nothing of the rest of the GE crops.

But when it comes to comprehensive testing that could reassure the general population of the safety of GMO crops, there just isn't any.

No amount of testing is going to stop hard core denialists from spreading fear among the public. There's plenty of proof that vaccines are safe, that climate change is happening, and that evolution is real, yet those topics are still controversial. Genetic engineering is just one of those topics, unfortunately. Stuff like this is easily dismissed as part of the giant Monsanto conspiracy that controls everyone who doesn't say GE crops are poison.

Given the history we have with things like thalidomide, DDT, leaded gasoline, fen-phen, etc it is not unreasonable that people be genuinely concerned about GMO crops

And the based, emotion, belief, and politics driven bullshit doesn't help any either.

especially given how widespread they've become with such little public notice

Silly measurement. Did you know that the last apple you ate was probably a bud sport? Do you know what that is? I rest my case.

Dismissing those concerns as the equivalent of creation science is at least as bad as creationism itself because it is just another misplaced faith.

No, giving into baseless nonsense is what is bad. Do you have evidence suggesting that GE crops are, in any way, bad for you, or do you just have the same appeals to ignorance and fallacious tactics everyone else opposing scientific consensus has?

"this may suggest that our ever increasing use of EM may be responsible for colony collapse disorders."

Except, it doesn't. Maybe if the bees wore tin foil hats?

I'm not discriminated against because of my looks or gender.

You are fooling yourself. Try getting a job in a maternity ward. Try getting a job as a kindergarten teacher. Try giving a neighbor kid a hug. Try complaining about domestic violence. Try getting custody of your kids in a divorce. Try getting public assistance if you cannot afford to eat. We literally have federal programs that specifically exclude you. The fact that you can claim that you are not discriminated against when one of our national safety nets specifically excludes you because of gender is indisputable proof that you are a "self hating dude who seems to enjoy a bit of self-flagellating ( of the decidedly non sexual variety) in order to feel modern and right."

The USDA has updated its map of plant hardiness zones to reflect the new, warmer conditions. You can argue about whatever you want to argue about, but the reality is here that you can grow things further north than you could before.

And yet somehow, because of the words "global' and "warming" being in this story, we'll continue to argue this fact as if it's a bad thing at any point in our immediate future (sorry, I tend not to model thousands of years into the future, my give-o-shit meter tends to fall off after the next couple hundred due to general instability unrelated to weather)

Oh, and fuck you very much Al Gore, for tainting this topic forever with politics. Appreciate that.

The USDA has updated its map of plant hardiness zones to reflect the new, warmer conditions. You can argue about whatever you want to argue about, but the reality is here that you can grow things further north than you could before.