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Starving Nation Turns Down Bioengineered Corn
The Washington Post has a story about Zimbabwe turning down shipments of genetically engineered corn, even though the country is experiencing a severe drought and starvation. Zimbabwe is afraid some of the corn will end up planted instead of eaten -- and growing patented corn is a no-no, of course! If the corn is planted even once, it may contaminate all future crops grown in those fields or any fields nearby, leading to huge lawsuits - and then the fields are contaminated, exacerbating the food shortage. So, starve or be bankrupted, and Zimbabwe appears to be choosing, "starve". Tons of ethical issues here, which have hardly been touched upon in the U.S. press.
I really wish US multinationals would stop pushing GE onto other countries.
If they wanted to be nice they could have given normal corn.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
One other point regarding many patented "wheat products" - as a seed it is effectively infertile... any crop from it used as seed will never germinate, and if that cross-fertilises with an exising native strain, blammo!
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It's a concern, but not the reason. RTFA.
What the Zimbabwean government says they are afraid of is losing export business to Europe, which does not allow BE food. That, and the president is stupidly independant.
The fact that everyone involved on the USA side says the IP concerns are stupid doesn't stop Slashdot's journalism.
Some people have things against genetically altered food. For a lot of reasons other than the patents associated with them.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
If it is possible to supply third-world countries with food, but only of the genetically-altered variety, then perhaps we should genetically engineer the plants such that they cannot reproduce. This way, there is no fear of the plant spreading uncontrolably. I have no idea how difficult this would be, but it is definitely not impossible. No need to mill the corn, or handle it any differently from 'normal' corn.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
As usual, slashdot editors fail to see the larger picture.
The problem here is not about patents - it's about
Europe's refusal to import genetically modified food. Europe is Zimbabwe's primary export market.
If Zimbabwe's crops were tainted, they could lose their primary source of revenue.
Furthermore, Zimbabwe is willing to accept the corn if the US will agree to mill it before shipping. The additional cost of milling is minimal, but is not covered by the aid package. Classic snafu.
I doubt many of them would care about either one and just take the food.
I can't believe why there is such a big fuss over genetically altered corn. It does not pose any more risk to the soil than normal corn. If farmers would practice simple crop rotation, they would not need to worry about this. Also with corn prices so low right now they could import natural or genetically engineered corn from the US and Russia, both of which could feed the rest of the world.
Concerns over bio-engineered corn may be the excuse he gives in public, but in reality he is using food as leverage over his political opponents. It has been reported that he has halted shipments of food into areas that did not support him in the recent elections. It also ties into his siezures of white owned farms. Apparently he is trying to starve his country.
the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe is the same guy that told his people that it was OK to kill white farmers and take their land. He also rigged the last election to keep himself in power. I'm not suprised that he'd ignore the starvation of his own people to show the world how 'powerful' he is.
On the subject of patented crops, only.
I find it quite disturbing that African Countries are prepared to starve their people, rather than contribute money to big overseas giants. This must speak volumes about the problems with patented crops.
Food should never come patented, as it is THE basic necessity of life. What next, patented water?
While Mugabe's regime is corrupt to the core, and the government bought this on themselves, there should be no excuse for forcing third world countries into a subservient like existence, where they have to pay multinationals for their basic food.
Get rid of patents on food. The companies deserve to be paid for advancing food technology and supply, but this isn't they way to go about.
(Disclaimer: Yes, i have read the article (it was on Fark the other day), and yes, it's only meant to be used for feeding, but that doesn't mean it will be.)
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
The famine in Zimbabwe is mostly the creation of one man, el presidente for life Robert Mugabe. Mr. Mugabe tried to circumvant the constitutional limits on his terms by inciting black on white genocide. This has turn Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of the Southern African countries into needing to import food just to survive.
Seriously, even if God should rain mana onto the starving masses, the problem is still there. I see no future for that country as long as the thugs are in charge.
So blame Europe, fate, and a cynical, Machievellian leader, not insanity for this one.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
Ideological distortion that benefits the right: "ignorant 3rd world government listens to tree-hugging granola crunchers and selfishly lets its own people starve."
Ugly, complex reality: if Zimbabwe's own corn crop were adulterated with GM corn, they could lose their primary market for food exports, Europe, and then could end up suffering more down the line; if they get their local production back on track, the survivors would probably better off not having GM corn in the fields. I have always felt the complexity trumps ideology, and this is a classic instance of it.
...the more likely reason the grain was refused is that the Zimbabwe government is currently on a militaristic campaign to take land away from white farmers and give it to black ones as part of a Land Acquisition Act. President Mugabe can use the starvation of his own people to further cast blame on the white farmers and rally more support for the governments policies. Pretty good K5 article on the whole situation here.
Please note, also, that I'm not trying to make commentary on whether land distribution in Zimbabwe is right or not, only on the methods used by the government to achieve that end.
I was talking about Europe.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Wide scale irradiation would seem to be cheap and sterilize the corn, no? Also, couldn't they just mill the damn stuff? Hard to grow something from seed when it's been pulverized to powder. There has to be more to it than this.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
They are starving due to "drought and political mismanagement". In other words, they don't have enough food to feed themselves. However, the food that could feed them is not politically correct in the EU, therefore they couldn't sell it (or its proginy if planted) in Europe. So, they would rather let half their population starve rather than at some point become the breadbasket of Europe... now it's all making sense! The government doesn't want to feed their people, they want to resell the food and buy new cars, if you're really cynical. If you're not then this makes very little sense. Starve or not? I bet the people that are starving (as opposed to the people making the decisions) would have a very different take on this if they were allowed to express it.
It always is more broad, but losing their export business is more important than current food supply.
Feed a man a fish type argument. That was mostly the point I was making.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
There isn't any other kind. Corn as we know it today did not exist at all until it was selectively bred for several dozen generations. Prior to about 7000 years ago, there was no such grain.
I realize, of course, that GE as used here means "trans-species", which is just a newer form of selective breeding.
Corn is good for making farm animals gain weight very quickly. Works on people, too. In a way, the farm animals are lucky, because they are killed and eaten before they have a chance to develop heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and other maladies caused by excess carbohydrate consumption (especially grains, which were not parts of the human diet prior to about 7000 years ago).
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Famines happen, but actual starvation generally only happens when its in a tyrant's political interest for certain people to die.
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I am Jack's writable stack pointer.
Mother Jones had an article last June about the same problem with GM (genetically modified) crops, this time happening in Oaxaca, Mexico, where corn originated. The government is trying to silence scientists sounding the alarm. -- http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/MJ02/seeds_con troversy.html
This is actually an excellent idea. Create a GE crop that contains a birth control enzyme. Very simple, and if it spreads, no biggie. The trick is, if a woman wants to get pregnant, she goes out and buys a pill, which would counteract that chemical for a set period of time.
But license the pills,and you get a better system for controlling births. With the exception of a giant review process before the granting of the pill, the pill should only cost $1 a pop.
This would be the most amazing thing ever created. Easy, simple, built-in birth control. What you can do is just pass out the pills once every 50 years in third-worlds that can't afford to buy them and go through the UN review process.
There's a lot to iron out here, but its certainly an idea.
Also, keep in mind that Mugabe ordered a halt to the winter wheat harvest in June. This is part of a plan that will redistribute 95% of commercial farmland. Some 60% of commerical farms, 2,900 farms, where ordered to halt work. This was done during a food shortage, with the country on the brink of salvation. The plan is redistribute the commecical farms from white to black ownership. In practice, the land becomes gifts for Mugabe's cronies. Cereal production has fallen 67% since 1999-2000 accoridnig to the World Food Program, and will certianly tumble further.
Rather than looking for grand conspiracies by US firms to starve Zimbabwians, look at the corrupt government of Robert Mugabe. It seems unlikely that someone who has wrecked such havoc on his nations agri-business would be interested in protecting his crops for the European market. If he is, then its the nature of the dictator to set absurd priorities.
Zimbabwe is a country towards the bottom tip of Africa. It's above South Africa which is the Southern most country.
Nominally it's a democracy - a long and vicious war was fought against the colonial-style white dominated government to gain democracy. However the winners, lead by Robert Mugabe, crushed any opposition soon after independence in a terror campaign involving at least tens of thousands of murders.
In recent years another generation of oppostion has arisen. Mugabe is still president; he recently won an election that was marred by intimidation, the large-scale use of terror as a political weapon and the persecution of the opposition. Despite this, and huge electoral fraud, the opposition hold a significant number of seats in parliment.
One of Mugabe's chief tactics in the recent election was to support land reform. Even after more than 20 years of indepence, white people still own most the farmland in Zimbabwe. Mugabe supported a campaign to drive farmers and their workers off their land, and the government has passed laws to seize farms from their owners which are now taking effect. Many of the farms seized have been re-distributed to members of the government. (Corruption is rife; amazingly president Mugabe was the winner of the first lottery!) As a consequence, Zimbabwe which previously had an agricultural surplus (agricultural produce was one of their major exports), now has a huge deficit.
Whilst the drought is a regional problem, a huge amount of blame can be laid directly on Mugabe. His farm policies and use of terror have hugely exacerbated the problem, his war in a neighbouring country has wiped out the Zim dollar and made it impossible for Zimbabwe to afford to import food. In a saner world he would be standing trial on many counts.
Readers should take the claims of not wanting to use genetically modified wheat because of contimination with a whole shipload of salt. Nothing that he or the Zimbabwe government says can taken at face value; you can only judge by his actions, which speak nothing about caring for his nation.
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Is that in dollars, or DOS licenses?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
ok, a few things. first, any company that GE's food products does one thing first of all. make them sterile!! ;) have to buy every year or you grow nothing!
what the hell is the point of creating a great strain of a plant that someone only has to buy once. much better to have agricultural assurance
on top of that, the fear of GE crops for the most part is unfounded and ignorant.
for example, BT corn was given all sorts of crap for possible killing monarchs. however, it was basiclly unfounded paranoia based on one crappy study that was completely worthless. (the scientist himself said it was pointless to draw conclusions from, his first test was just to see if Bt would do anything)
on top of that, no one seems willing to accept the fact that if the corn didn't have Bt in it already, farmers would just be spraying the corn with pesticide. which do you think is worse, a perfectly targeted weapon or one of spray and pray?
by putting the Bt straight in the corn you keep it from getting to beneficial insects, from running off the plants when it rains, and you don't have to keep reapplying it any time a new infestation occurs
as a whole, GE plants cut way back on dangerous pesticides, and are likely much better for people overall
the only thing better, IMO than GE plants would be pure organic grown plants. problem with them is that yeilds are so low you can't support the population on them.
i used to work at a bio research facility, and i can tell you right now the shit they spray on the plants that you eat is waaay worse than anything they're trying to put straight into the plant.
and if you think that 2 second rinse job you gave that fruit or veggie before you ate it cleared it all off, you're delusional.
If a choice between dying and paying, (let them try and sue a poor starving farmer (isn't worth the court costs)). It sounds like another oportunity for open source, open sourced GM foods to feed the world. How does one prove that you are using GM corn??? All life (by the theory of eveolution is a mix of parents, all food is crossbred to gain benificial characteristics, i.e. all tomatos were small and not particularly tasty, but with crossbreding they are now, small, large juicy, meaty etc... GM is only the manual version of random selection. So once the GM corn is planted in a field with other corn species won't it cross and become a hybrid of the native/GM???? This is all kinda mute as if the people are starving they aren't targets for payments. The other simple solution is the grind the provided corn a meal or flour, which is what the poeple would probably do to eat it anyway. This doesn't have as long a storage life, but if you are feeding the starving how long does it need to last anyway??? I have never understood this patenting of living things (DNA, plants etc...) they don't invent, they just mix existing materials which would in general mix on a random basis in the environment anyway. There are some extreme cases where a fish gene is placed in a plant but for the most part that is rare. I can see that the food companies have the right to charge more for a optimized product but once they have sold/provided the material they shouldn't have any rights to future use and if thats what they want then they should make the equivalent of seedless grapes that don't reproduce just provide a single harvent and not generate seed.
Zimbabwe is afraid some of the corn will end up
planted instead of eaten -- and growing patented
corn is a no-no, of course! If the corn is
planted even once, it may contaminate all future
crops grown in those fields or any fields
nearby, leading to huge lawsuits - and then the
fields are contaminated, exacerbating the food
shortage.
a) Plant patents pre-date genetic engineering: much of the none-"GM" corn they are receiving will have been grown from patented seed.
b) "GM" corn (maize, in Europe) varieties are hybrids. The seed companies do not need to file lawsuits to protect their patents as hybrids do not reproduce themselves. The yield from planting the donated "GM" corn would be extremely disappointing and the problem self-limiting.
c) The putative lawsuits would have to be filed in Zimbabwe. I doubt that they would get far.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Interesting.. as some posters have pointed out, Zimbabwe's government is a bunch of thugs. But in America, the corps are the thugs:
The article then mentions how Monsanto says the "policy would be adapted to accommodate local traditions in other countries". I'm not a farmer, and I'm certainly not a modern farmer dealing with this patent nonsense, but it strikes me as pretty damn fucked up that saving food seed from year to year is now illegal and considered a quaint "local tradition" in a few backwards third-world countries.
Though I suppose they should be thankful that King Monsanto is merciful enough to "accommodate" this "local tradition" of growing plants from your own seed. As soon as Zimbabwe is finally paved over and the shopping malls put up, we can revert back to the usual policy.
When will the "intellectual property" madness stop?
So, in order to pay for the cost of this research and, what the heck, even make a buck or two, what ways can this fictional company hope to receive compensation? They could lobby various governments to tax their citizens to pay for the research, they could attempt to sell the seeds at a higher cost than regular seeds, or they could patent the process and then sell licenses to produce the new grains.
The tax option is used, but it generally doesn't come anywhere close to paying for the research. Not only that but people are constantly complaining about taxes and these kinds of taxes are ripe for corruption and pork-barrel politics. Not exactly a great path to travel.
If you simply produce and sell the grains at a premium then it won't be long before your competition gets a stock of seeds and begins producing their own supplies to sell. The problem here is that the research company used a lot of money in developing the seeds, while the company that sat on its butt didn't spend dollar one. So the first company needs to recoup expenses and can't lower prices on the food, but the second company can sell them at normal prices without going broke. No company will do research under these conditions, so no research will get done and no improved grains will be made.
The last option is patenting. If you patent the genome which you created (remember, this now is not a grain found in nature - it is something INVENTED), you can then protect the patent and make sure that no one is undercutting you. You can then sell the seed at a higher cost, due to its higher production potential. You can't ask an arm and a leg for the grain, if you do so then the higher production will be offset by the cost of the seed.
Overall, I would say that it is just fine to patent a new grain that you have genetically engineered. I do think that these patents should be given short time limits, be strictly monitored, and that the requirements for granting be stringently reviewed. In other words, ideally these patents should be difficult to obtain and last just long enough for a company to make back its investment plus a bit more.
Sapere aude!
"This is actually an excellent idea. Create a GE crop that contains a birth control enzyme."
Umm... isn't it a bad idea for a guy to take chick birth control?
Sorry, but my boobs are big enough.
There's a lot of misunderstanding about genetic engineering. It's treated as some kind of highly secret art in the media, but genetic work of the
kind we're talking about in the corn is done routinely in undergrad biology labs. It's not rocket science. It's not even differential calculus. It's just upperdivision lab work in any university worth a damn. Hell, you probably do some of it in junior college these days.
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The issue about GE corn is not about risk to the soil. The issue is
1) If planted, its GE genes will contaminate the native corn, making it unsellable in places where GE crops are banned. (Europe)
2) GE crops are patent protected. Already, one farmer in Canada has been sued for growing crops that contain the GE gene, who didn't purchase the seed from Monsanto. 10 years down the line, it could mean Zimbabwe could not have an agrocultural industry. Its a choice between starve now, or starve later.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Whoever said that either gets all his news from ESPN, slashdot and the onion, or else they have selective filters that shelter them from news about Africa.
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"Genetically modified seeds imposed on farmers in developing countries trigger famine and social devastation"
Sowing the Seeds of Famine in Ethiopia by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
The above article shows exactly what happened when Ethiopia accepted GE grains from the U.S. It's a must-read for anyone involved in this current discussion about Zimbabwe. Self-appointed 'president' Robert Mugabe isn't going to let others have all the fun of ruining the peasant economy; he'd rather do that himself.
They DID ask for the seed to be ground! The US refused. Now that just seems dirty to me...
I really dislike the idea of the people starving, but if they accept this food, they are destined to become slaves to the "Intellectual Property" slave owners of this century....quoth the article...
"Some biotech advocates are criticizing the Zimbabwean government for balking at the humanitarian assistance, saying President Robert Mugabe seems to care more about his political independence than his citizens' lives."
Of course they're going to say that....they're shills for the biotech industry.....this same scenerio happens with software too (insert un-named company) donates so many liscenses to third world country A. Country A is now on the hook to make the payments for upgrades, keep other software out or be forced to return "gift"...we all know the drill.....on President Mugabe's part, it seems clear that he's interested in not having to make payments for this "product" into perpetuity....allowing something like this to start is equivalent to selling yourself into indentured servitude. So really, his choice isn't quite as clear, and it's not really about HIS independence as much as it is about the independence of Zimbabwe...if he accepts, his citizens become slaves to the west FOREVER...
I wouldn't be surprised if there is "diplomatic" pressure to accept the corn too, something like "...if you want us to approve your loan from the WMF, you'd better accept this generous offer." Nothing bothers the biotech people like customers that don't want their product....they give it a bad name....again, quoth the article...
"That response has fueled suspicion among some observers in the United States and Africa that Washington is using the food crisis to get U.S. gene-altered products established in a corner of the world that has largely resisted them."
EXACTLY RIGHT!....for two reasons, 1)get the public to accept a genetically modified product and break down their resistance to it and 2) to extend some level of "Intellectual Property" control over the continent of Africa! Remember the uproar over South Africa's plans to copy AIDS drugs without royalty? Handled by quiet dealings on the part of the drug companies, the issue got swept away by the lawyers...can't have anyone breaking step with "World Intellectual Property" laws....
If they really wanted to give a "gift," they would also lift the IP restrictions on this corn...forever...so the people of Zimbabwe would not have to worry about this....then they could just eat in peace.
--"it's a trap! it's a trap!..that's MY individual fruit pie!"--Benny Hill
Best evidence we have is that prior to the agricultural 'revolution', the maximum lifespan was around 70-75 years. The *average* was lower, due to infant mortality, and accident (hunting was a hazardous job). But those folks who managed to get past childhood diseases were actually likely to live to a ripe old age, provided they didn't get eaten by something. Take a look at this article on Dr. Loren Cordain's research on that topic.
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and what was the human lifespan 7000 years ago - they were lucky if they made 30.
I believe this kind of thinking has been widely debunked. Mean lifespan != median lifespan != typical lifespan. If you have a high infant mortality rate, that can really skew your average, even though most adults will live to a relatively old age (except in very warlike societies). It says in the Bible that man shall live for 3 score and 10 years, and that was written several years ago. Take a look at some modern "primitive" societies, such as the Inuit or historical accounts of isolated tribes. They all had plenty of tribal elders.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
GM food-related patent problems can be a real bitch. I remember a story from a while back about a farmer who was sued for using GM seeds without permission and didn't know why... until it was revealed that a neighbouring farm was using the GM seeds, and those plants were cross-pollenating with his own.
Until 1960, American cars had chrome. They had chrome everywhere you could put chrome. They had chrome around the windows, long, wide solid strips of chrome all around the body outlines, big solid chrome hubcaps, chrome grilles, chrome!
A large part of that chrome came from Rhodesia, which is, guess where?
Civil unrest in Rhodesia led directly to shortages of chrome, and American cars suddenly had far, far less chrome in 1961 than they did in 59-60.
The country hasn't had a minute of peace since then. In the last few decades, Africa has basically fought World War III, in both political and sociological terms.
The only explanation I can find for the perception gap is that, while most people in the Rhineland were light skinned, most in the Congo basin are dark skinned.
Seriously, a full scale war has been fought, and tyranny won, and the west doesn't give a f?ck.
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Zimbabwe has a corrupt government: It drives white farmers off farms so there is little incentive for people with money to invest in agriculture; It rigs elections for political power. In many ways it makes Microsoft look like a friendly guy. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this decision.
Zimbabwe would love to accept the food. But just as Zimbabwe must feed its population, it must also protect its income and if a single farmer anywhere plants this corn it could destroy what remains of the country. If it sacrifices future earning potential in return for food then it has no chance of getting out of the third world ever.
This has nothing (directly) to do with Monsanto's patents on GE corn. A starving man will happily ignore his fears about GE being dangerous or his ideologies about patented food in order to feed his family. Perhaps the EU could be more tolerant about accepting GE imports, but then perhaps the US could be more willing to supply consumers with what they want.
Normal corn is not genetically engineered. It is crossbred but it has only ever been crossbred with other grains, never with soya beans or frogs. It may be that crossing it with these things doesn't make it any more dangerous and the EU's policy is unnecessary caution, or it might not be. Either way there is a difference between GM food and selective breeding.
I hope that clears up some of the FUD being posted. It still leaves open a number of possible solutions:
Oh, and if GE grain is shipped to NZ it is destroyed by customs; No sane exporter of food can dare import GE food. The market for GE food is just too small with the US on its own making ten times more than the total demand for GE food, it isn't just Zimbabwe that fears GE imports because of its export market.
>So yeah, I'm all for killing off humans in third-
>world countries
You're making me wish we had a draft. Would you still be up for it if men with guns took you to the front, to be the means to this end, or be killed doing your part? Or do you think "other people" should take this responsibility and
leave you alone?
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If so, slashdotters should apply for the patent.
It's not either (export rights)/or (IP rights). They _will_ lose the ability to export crops to Europe if their crops are contaminated, unless the EU changes it's policy. Also, they should get an undertaking from certain biotech companies to avoid situations like this.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Must be you that caused it. It wasn't socialism.If you're dumb enough to confuse despotism with socialism you're not worthy of discussing the topic.
Liberty.
Much ado about Zimbabwe
Much ado about Zimbabwe - Redux
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
...and you're not an economist?
In 2002, I plant natural corn, using seed kept from last year's harvest. My neighbour upwind plants GM corn bought from Monsanto. During the year, pollen from his corn blows across my field. My harvest at the end of the year seems normal, but in 2003, 1/3 of the corn I plant does not grow, and a small percentage of what does grow produces grossly deformed kernels which I cannot sell, and would have to locate and remove by hand if I wanted to make my massively reduced corn crop saleable.
Note that, not including the cost of removing deformed kernels, my costs have not changed but my take is down 30%. If my margin was 20%, I just made a minus 10% profit that year. Since it's not economical to hand-pick deformed kernels, I just made considerably less.
Oh... wait...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The Bible also has a lot of mentions of 500+ year lifespans, so using it as a source for lifespans probably isn't the best idea...
What annoys me about this story is the way it's being presented here. This isn't a technical story at all; given Robert Mugabe's past record of 'using' valid issues as an excuse to terrorise his own people (black or white), I'd bet my life that this is a political move- Mugabe being responsible for the destruction of Zimbabwe's agricultural system in the first place.
If this had happened in another "poor, starving, bankrupt" African country, the GM-based concerns may have been more relevant- and here's the problem. It seems the poster mentally grepped the original article for tech-friendly fodder- "Yeah! Here's something interesting about GM foods- good excuse to criticize^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h have a valid discussion about them"(*)- and ignored any other issues. In this case, taking part of the story out of context has totally altered what it was really about.
So much (valid) mistrust of Bill Gates in geekland- so why the naive (or lazy) willingness to take everything else at face value?
(*) I don't like them either; primarily because of the reasons they're being pushed- but that's not the point here.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
It's always heartening to see people suggesting stuff that they're eager to try out on themselves before sending the technology to someone else's backyard!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm eating food that even starving people won't eat :) I never thought that day would come.
The problem with the aides drug thing is that patents should require a *percentage* of a sold drug to be IP royalties, and not a total amount.
That way reduced manafacturing costs are encouraged. And, it would be more in line with local incomes.
Table-ized A.I.
Tens of billions of dollars. The fact that he can be a slimy businessman doesn't mean he can't do good things too.
Considering that he's giving all but a few million to charity upon his death, he still does. By then he may have a couple hundred billion to give away to charity, and will likely have spent much less than a billion in his whole life - pretty good percentage.
All the fuss is because if the trojan corn somehow gets planted and grows, then that represents unlicensed used of the product and Zimbabwe's corn can't be sold because the crop was "stolen" from Monsanto or Ortho or whoever's GM seeds it came from.
Even if the corn manufacturer didn't come after them for theft, Zimbabwe still wouldn't be able to sell ANY of their corn to countries that don't accept GMO food becuase they're very picky about tiny amounts of contamination. It's kinda like to be "organic" fruit or the fields have to have been free of pesticides for thee years -- only then do they say it's organic. Before that it's transitional.
Now, I have strong feelings about GMO foods. It's one thing to cross this rose with this rose and make a new rose. It's something else when you splice a gene from a salmon into a strawberry. Maybe it's no different from a functional biology perspective but to me, selective breeding is very different than molecular level manipulation of DNA.
The other thing is: how do we know this stuff is safe? Who tests it? What is so wrong with non-GMO food that it's reached the end of its useful lifespan and needs to be "overclocked" to provide any value?
And this whole concept of the "terminator" seed, one that only grows once, and the seed it produces is sterile. I don't think I'm being alarmist whey I say I'm very concerned about those kinds of seeds being introduced in the wild. Who is to say it wouldn't cross-breed with "normal" plants and keep them from reproducing? Don't many of the variations in life around us stem from mutations or genetic mishaps of one form or another?
If you want me to believe that GMO food is just fine, then I need to see empirical data. Show me leukemia rates for children who eat "normal" crops and ones who eat GMO. No such studies exist, to my knowledge. I'm not going to just take the word of the salesman that the product is safe, and the USDA shouldn't either.
Guess that puts an end to that saying...
Give a man some corn, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to plant it, and you'll be feeding him for 25-to-Life.
No, a dictator in an African country has finally ... er ... once again ... killed thousands.
I can not belive this! Mill the God Damn corn so they will be able to eat it! They cannot just allowed genetically engineered frankenfood to be planted. All the reasons they cite are valid. The idea that a living thing such as a corn plant can be patented, and therefore, someone's intellectual property is a crime against nature. Making crops that only grow once so farmers must buy new seeds each year is so obscene that I think my brain will melt if I think about it any more. "Beggars can't be choosers" is the battle cry of self-serving horn tooters who think throwing away their garbage at a Goodwil or Salvation Army center is giving charity, and of bastards with ulterior motives who are doing a disservice with their Giving.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Milling it adds 25% to the cost of the aid, and I imagine irradiation would add even more than that.
> ok, a few things. first, any company that GE's food products does one thing first of all. make them sterile!!
Wrong. There was a move to do this - called "terminator" technology, but it was abandonned some time ago.
Currently, GE seeds are viable.
In 20 years time, the anti-GM people will have 'won'. Automated genetic sequencing will allow standard Mendellian techniques to be much more precisely targetted.
Before GM, researchers irradiated a bunch of seeds to induce mutation, then planted them. Then cross-pollinate plants with interesting characteristics. Rinse and repeat.
With gene sequencing and modelling software, the cycle time can be reduced (ie, you don't have to grow the corn to see how it will turn out). Whammo, GM without GM.
Of course, it's actually worse, because they're be undesired mutations in the crop as well as the ones they were trying to induce. But they'll be able to sell it as "organic' GM free.
Humans have been doing GM work for 10,000 years now. There is no such thing as wild corn, for instance. The scientific method did much more to improve the rate of change than tools like genetic modification.
Bryan
This is just more Robbie Mugabe genocidal paranoid maniac horseshit. He's already ordered the army to STOP people from farming and harvesting because he wants to take the industrial farms away from their owners and give them to his cronies in some kind of deluded Marxist land distribution scheme. He doesn't want the corn because he doesn't want to feed his own people so they will rise up and support him in his war against the farm owners.
world medical fund
click (free) to give food
mercy corps
second harvest
help out.
I don't know enough about this situation to be able to say whether this is a reasonable decision in the short term or whether it will condemn millions of people to starvation. If it's the latter, I think we are morally obligated to donate food products, not give these people loans.
In the long term, one way or another, poor nations must eliminate their dependency on food imports. They need to address their internal social and political problems, they must work on infrastructure, commerce, and population planning. And they need to develop crops domestically that work well within their countries.
What kind of sick right allows the government of Zimbabwe to starve its own citizens?
--
Benjamin Coates
Big numbers and biblical times don't get along very well, anyway.
These were folks, after all, who used 40 to mean a very long time.
40 days and 40 nights of rain, 40 years wandering the deserts, etc.
If it says forty, it means a long time, whatever that may be.
Once I realized that this was all over a stupid PATENT DISPUSE, I vomited.
It's not the fear of eating a plant that has been genetically modified, apparently this Mugabe is more educated than most Americans who assume this has just "been done" to the plants and distrubuted without and FDA or company-internal testing. THAT MAKES IT ALL THE MORE SICKER. Why doesn't Mugabe mill the corn and create jobs for his starving people? He wouldn't have to pay them much, would he?
I guess he doesnt' want his people's problems to go away. Or he wants to whorde all his government's money as if it where his own riches. Bastard.
Or maybe we shouldn't be able to patent lifeforms, merely the TECHNIQUES USED TO ENGENEER THEM.
And no, "planting" does not count. Plenty of prior art.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
The European Union has rejected genetically engineered food based not on any reliable scientific studies but on public and political pressure from small special interest groups.
Yes, and they are right to do so. Perhaps this has become an unfamiliar concept in the US, but by and large democratic governments are supposed to listen to their citizens. A large majority of EU citizens do not want genetically modified food, and there is no economic reason to do so - the EU already produces far more of most foods than it requires to feed itself. So much so that in fact the EU spends a lot of money paying farmers NOT to grow certain crops - because some countries within the EU are more efficient than others, and having massive surplus generated by these countries would kill agriculture in some of the less-efficient EU countries. Using GM crops to increase yield would only exascerbate this problem. Perhaps you think this is a stupid idea and that the free market should sort it out, but most Europeans would disagree - national identity is a key issue within the EU, and part of that national identity in most countries is being able to feed your own population. In addition, since most of the GM crops developed so far are US in origin, use of GM crops widely would change the balance of trade negatively. Instead of the seed company->farmer relationship being entirely intra-EU trade, it changes to a drain of money from the EU to the US. So both the EU agriculture and financial bigwigs are against it, because it would cost them more money.
Because of this slightly funny way agriculture works within the EU, gains in yield from GM foods would be unsellable, and since the GM seed is more expensive, and is a recurring expense due to the inability to use saved seed, GM crops actually end up in less profit for the EU farmer, who is on average quite poor anyway. So the farmers are against it too.
There is also the cross-pollination problem, as illustrated by the Canadian farmer that some other have written about, who suffered exactly this problem. Once GM crops are established in an area, it becomes impossible for non-GM crops of the same species to grow in that area without becoming 'infected' by the genes of the GM crop. The GM seed producer can then clamp down using patent laws and extract money from farmers who weren't even growing the GM crop in the first place - because patented genes from the GM crop end up in the genome of non-GM crops. It could become an effective non-governmental 'tax' on all EU farmers, and worse, chances are it wouldn't even be collected by an EU company but rather a US one.
The fact that most EU consumers would rather die than eat genetically modified food is helpful to EU farmers and ministers in banning widespread use of GM crops and keeping the ban in place, but it's not the key issue here.
It isn't that the EU is behind in genetic research and is playing Not Invented Here - after all, 1/3 of the human genome project was done in the UK, not to mention that the structure of DNA was discovered there too. The EU could develop its own GM crops, which would sidestep some of the issues but not most, and indeed it is and has. But still the ban on commercial GM agriculture remains, so these crops remain research tools, and have met with fierce opposition wherever they have been test-planted.
Has there been ANY reliable scientific study relating ANY harmful effects to bio-engineered food?
As far as I'm aware, no, not directly. However, research in this area is still young, and more importantly, mostly corporate-funded. It's the same kind of situation as with the pharmaceutical industry - we ingest these substances, so we'd better make damn sure they're safe, yet most of the research is funded by the companies that want approval. I shouldn't have to remind you that the pharmaceutical industry managed to get things like thalidomide on the market, and no-one had any credible evidence (that hadn't been suppressed) against that for several years after it was available on the market.
It was interesting to read that somehow two extra genetic fragments that shouldn't have been in the genome of the Monsanto GM soybeans ended up there. Are we really sure we know all the knock-on effects? What else was missed? What if those genetic fragments had coded for a protein that switched off one of the human body's immune responses to cancer, or were themselves carcinogenic? Unlikely perhaps, but it took 3 years after commercial growing of these crops had started for the discovery to be made. Are you willing to take the risk, just so some company you've never worked for, never met anyone from, never bought anything from and which could well not even be in your own country or continent can make a few extra dollars for their shareholders?
Perhaps the general mistrust in the EU of genetic modification is due to other food safety scares like BSE, caused by considerably less obvious tinkering than with genetic modification, but with the same aim - increasing efficiency and yield. The US hasn't had to deal with a food scare of similar scale, which is perhaps why the US public are so dismissive of the dangers. From an EU perspective, it seems the US consumer simply doesn't care what they eat, as long as it's cheap. The widespread use in the US of growth hormone to fatten livestock is another example of this, but this too is banned in the EU and repugnant to EU consumers.
There are indirect environmental reasons to dislike some GM crops too. As an example, take Monsanto's GM soybeans, which are resistant to the Monsanto weedkiller Roundup (glyphosate). Here is a product that is designed to encourage use of Roundup and to allow farmers to spray willy-nilly without worrying about the effects it will have on their crop. If this doesn't mean farmers end up using more weedkiller than they would have done with a non-resistant crop, I'll eat my hat. The farmers are supposed to do this - it maximizes their yield. Goundwater contamination beckons...
As an EU citizen, I am very glad that the EU has rejected genetically modified food, and I am glad that Zimbabwe has taken the same viewpoint, whatever I may think of their political leadership. GM foods are being used as a tool of economic imperialism, encourage environmental bad practice, encourage patent system abuse, are insufficiently tested and understood and simply aren't necessary. Chalk up another one on the US image problem score board.
The government of Zimbabwe has agreed to accept the corn, with the proviso that it be milled either before being shipped, or immediately on arrival.
AllAfrica story
Financial Gazette story
There have been a lot of thoughtful comments on this story. It's true that Zimbabwe's immediate economic problems -- plumeting agricultural production, inflation, industrial collapse, an exodus of skilled workers -- are the result of a corrupt and repressive regime that is determined to hold onto power at all costs. But it's also worth considering how difficult it would be to solve the country's problems even were a democratic and functional government in place.
Like most African countries, Zimbabwe's foreign debt load is enormous (US$1 billion; the country has a GDP of roughly US$5 billion). Even if the country were to somehow turn itself around and bring production back up to pre-turmoil levels, the debt ratio is almost unbelievable. And the country has been terribly affected by the AIDS epidimic. It is estimated that one quarter of the adult population is infected with HIV/AIDS. There are predictions that within a decade, half of Zimbabwe's children will be orphans.
And what do you do about land ownership? The violence against white farmers is indefensible, and Mugabe's cynical manipulation of that violence is vile. But the problem is serious. At independence (in 1980), perhaps half the country's farm land was owned by 1% of the population. These (white) farmers had been on the land for generations, and believed that the land belonged to them -- legally, morally, emotionally. But this economically- and racially-skewed distribution didn't come about by accident. The colonial government systematically expropriated and "re-settled" the "native" population. Most of this redistribution happened this century, so we're not talking about ancient history, here. And even if you choose not to think about the problem in historical terms, how do you build a free and egalitarian society in an agricultural economy with such unequal land ownership?
I work at allAfrica.com. We distribute news about Africa, most of it from African newspapers and magazines. If you want to understand what's going on in a country, it's worth reading the local press occasionally. We have half a dozen Zimbawean papers, from across the political spectrum. (Which is a polite way of saying that one of them is controlled by the ruling party. We don't make judgements about a newspaper's integrity; we try to get as many "read-on-the-street" papers as possible and let readers make their own judgements.)
You can take a look at our Zimbabwe headlines page. Here are some stories relating to the issues I've mentioned:
I admit, I think destroying your own agricultural capacity is a pretty dumb way to keep people fed, but I can understand the reasoning for not allowing GM corn into the country. There /have/ been problems with GM crops that are engineered to be unable to reproduce cross-pollinating with normal crops, producing a second generation of said crop with the gene that keeps them from reproducing properly. Should corn that has been modified to carry genes like this make it into Zimbabwe and be used as seed corn, Zimbabwe could go from little food to no food in a few growing seasons.
Since biotech firms aren't always very forthcoming about the products they make, I think I'm going to have to say that Zimbabwe's fear/paranoia is not unfounded in this case.
They're still blathering idiots for destroying most of their agricultural infrastructure, though.
Corn is also fed to farmed fish, fowl, dogs, cats and every other livestock/pet. Corn has taken over america.
War is necrophilia.
The patents surrurnding their use are bad.
Just another example of "intellectual property" laws running amuck.
Anarchists never rule
You are correct in your assessments.
I know I'll be modded way down for this, but in Robert Mugabe's pandering to the European view that genetically-modified foods are not a good idea, Zimbabwe have refused food imports that could have done much to save the country from a very serious famine.
It is a classic Catch-22 with tragic results.
Ok, what about for hogs and chickens?
I guess I'm also curious what your credentials are and if you have read any articles from other sources?
Why are so many slashdotters keen on blaming Mugabe for this famine?
- Is Mugabe the President of Swaziland?
- Is Mugabe the President of Lesotho?
- Is Mugabe the President of Malawi?
- Is Mugabe the President of Zambia?
- Is Mugabe the President of Mozambique?
- No, Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe, only one of many countries in Southern Africa faced with famine.
By the way, other sources report that a settlement has been reached between Zimbabwe and the United States. Let's hope they get it milled and distributed ASAP.On a lesser note, nobody has pointed out that Africans prefer their own varieties of maize to American maize because American maize makes lousy nsima (nshima in Shona). Crosspollination is a real concern for everybody, not just the exporters. If the US intends merely to provide assistance, they should just go ahead and mill the stuff. Or send rice.
Your website seems to indicate you've spent the last 20 years working on computers for small business interests.
I'm curious what your background is to know whether I can trust your statements.
There are several conditions:
Combine the three, and you're in for some serious starvation.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
"If these crops get in, then farmers basically lose their rights to their own agricultural resources," said Carole Collins, senior policy analyst for the Washington-based Africa Faith and Justice Network.
Uh, did Ms. Carole Collins miss the part where the insane leader decided to take all the land from the people who actualy knew what to do with it?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is an elaborate catch-22 that the US has set up to make Mugabe look bad no matter which way he decides to go. Without delving back into Mugabe's internal policy regarding starving out his opponents, consider this scenario.
If he accepts the grain, he becomes seen as hypocritical by his people by admitting that there is a food shortage while at the same time he is telling his own people to stop farming. Additionally, if he accepts it, it sets up the US to be able to make him do what they want, lest the food shipments stop. Shant bite the hands that feeds, you know...
If he declines the grain, he sends a message that the country's situation is fine, and when the Zimbabwean people begin to starve in mass numbers, he will be labeled as a blundering fool, a ruthless dictator, and as a person who the world can not trust. It sets him up for failure in this case as well.
This is a carefully crafted ploy by the US to use Mugabe's own policies against him. They are forcing him to either change his ways or to send his country into mass starvation by way of politics. Either way, this is a brilliant move by the US in the chess game between these two countries.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Both Bill and Microsoft fail this measure miserably regardless of tax deductability arguments.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...and thanks for your support. (-:
:-)
Pity I have karma to burn. Wanna hold a Karma Bonfire? (-: I have a list of topics
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If the U.S. Postal Service can afford to think about irradiating every piece of mail, I think they could probably irradiate some grain. It isn't all that hard, as you can do it in bulk. I'm sure there must be a facility already set up somewhere, as companies and organizations have already done market testing of irradiated food to the public. People don't like it, but we certainly have the techonology laying about.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
Zimbabwe have a record of developing crops to meet their climate. Wheat in particular. Crops just do not grow once planted they have to be suitable for the climate. Most the GM designs so far do not meet the needs of countries outside the developed world. No doubt some used in australia may. Either way I would bet zimbabwe have devloped their own strains of maize for their environment, just importing things ad hoc is normally bad news.
Most anglers in the states ae begining to realize this now due to the snake fish infecting lakes and eating everything in sight. Australia have very strict import requirements to stop pests entering. The same goes for crops.
The maize is GM and may reduce the amount grown, since it may not be adapted to the climate. Low water. low nutrients. Where as Zimabawean strains of wheat are designed to make the most of this.
Also GM crops have a tendency to cause resistancy to infections and investations grow. This would hit those farmers that do not use GM doubly hard.
THis would be bad for zimbabwe.
IN china were they have llet GM cotton grow for over a decade there are very mixed reports of its effects. The scientists on the ground tend to say that the yeilds are dropping from the records as resitance among the infections/investations has grown. Also over bugs have grown hardeir as well, affecting other crops as well (they had to compete with these attacking the cotton). THos not on the ground tend to refute the claims. The net effect is that current GM methods look like they will not very effective.
One post here about Ethiopia woes due to IMF and USa interference is stunning. Sell your grain stores that save guard u from famine and then have reimport the lot when famine stikes a year later. IMF and USA enforcing free market polices that further there national interest when the those that they enforce them on are not an economic threat is confounding.
Enjoy, well never give up.
Dude, you're an idiot.
Since he's cooking the books to avoid paying income taxes on over $15,000,000,000.00 a year, have you contra'ed those taxes against even those commercial exchanges?
Funny how you're the only one accusing him of cooking the books. The accounting is all legal.
Ignoring all of the above considerations, it has been truly said thay Trey Gates gives less, pro rata, to charity than the average single mother.
Again, don't know what you're smoking but that is just plain untrue. He's already given away about $15 BILLION to charity in cash - that's about 30% of his net worth today. You show me a single mother who's given away 30% of their net worth to charity and I'll show you someone who's lying.
WHG3 is greedy, and AFAICT has always been greedy. The above items are just the tip of the iceberg of greed.
You are a bloody idiot and have always been a bloody idiot. Your clueless comments are but proof of it. He made some great decisions, had some lucky breaks and made a walloping of money. He's now proceeding to give it away by the truckload. Doesn't sound like the definition of greed to me.
Mmmm.. Donuts
In static dollars -- not by percent.
Who gives a rats ass about %? A billion dollars is always better than and does more to help real causes than $38.74 - regardless of how much percent of the givers salary it is.
Mmmm.. Donuts
no, zimbabwe would have an agriculture industry. however it would essentially owe a tax to the gm corn company from every farmer in zimbabwe.
isn't private industry great! no more of this progressive tax system from icky governments, no, private industry loves leeching on starving people to enable people in richer, developed countries to send their kids to college and see friends on an even bigger tv.
it just makes ya proud, don't it?
sigh.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Both of these assumptions are flawed for many underdeveloped countries.
And you seem to believe that there aren't starvation in democratic capitalist countries, which is another fundamentally flawed assumption.
Sorry, but the world just doesn't work the way you think it does.
Starvation and poverty is a much more complex issue - most of the third world countries today see starvation now and then because not only is their population to poor to buy imported food, but the government itself is so badly in debt that they have no way of buying themselves out of the disasters.
I agree that food aid won't stop famines from happening, and that yes. Food aid like this is there to save lives when something catastrophic happens, not to bring the countries out of poverty. Not donating money or food to save lives because it won't help long term is just as cynical as not giving people medical treatment because they'll die soon enough anyway...
But food aid alone isn't enough, which is why most rich countries give a lot of their aid to development programs to improve infrastructure, food production and availability of education, clean water etc..
That these famines still occur, even in democratic, capitalist countries. In this case: Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique are all democratic capitalist countries according to the CIA world factbook, and all of them face famine at the moment just as much as Zimbabwe.
While I don't like Mugabe (he's a power crazed maniac in my eyes) or the way he's handled the land distribution (lots of violence and threats, oppressing the opposition, and violating Zimbabwes own laws), the white farmers got their land in the first place because it was given to them by the UK in some kind of deluded fascist land distribution scheme, where the native population was forced of their land - so Mugabe has just taken a leaf out of the book of the colonial powers that preceded him.
Since I remembered the lawsuit by Monsanto, I entered into Google:
farmer sued genetically corn patented
And these articles came forth:
The farmer's page
Article"
Another
Another
Tale of the Absurd
Monsano wins
Commentary
and on...
and on...
Comment
Good ol' Mother Jones
Y'all see, there is a damned good chance that such corn will contaminate the other crops, and then Monsanto or whomever will own their souls. Or GNP, whatever works.
I'm surprised that the Canadian case isn't common knowledge. Then again, it wasn't exactly Evening News material for the U.S. No network news department head wants to seem "liberal" nowadays, which translates to "damned few stories critical of corporations" (balance), which of course is not connected to trying to please conservative corporate owners who have become quite.... proactive in their news departments of late.
The submitter of the item is correct in identifying IP lawsuit threats as an important datum in the decision to decline the food, even if the article cited doesn't make a point of it. An informed person would already know about the enormous lawsuit potential, and add that to the stack.
First yes, Mugabe should go to hell, he is a bastard.
/.ers seem so incensed about restrictions on receiving US GM crops given the fact that anybody that goes to the US knows that any fresh produce or plants will be confiscated on arrival and destroyed, one can be subjected to heavy fines for failing to declare any such products.
But second, it is quite amusing to see how many
Would that be yet another example of double standards? Naaaah, the god ole U. S. of A. can be as touchy as they want regarding importing agricultural products, but if it is Europe who refuses then all of the sudden serious issues become "unfounded fears".
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Iraq does not have the right to complain about being attacked because it _WAS_ a bully in the past.
Iraq _is_ a bully. You let Saddam Hussain free from the restrictions, and he'll do exactly what he did before.
But obviously American have become so selfcentered in their view of the worls, that you don't notice how many people are starting to hate your foreign policy.
But obviously, you have become so anti-American in your view of the world, that you don't realize that there is no nice solution. A nation must react to threats to the lives and interests of its citizens. Moreover, people and the nations composed of them naturally want to help those being unjustly oppressed or slaughtered. Superpowers, like the US, are frequently directly invoked for help, and will likely get blamed for the deaths if they do not help. On the other hand, nations object to actions taken by other nations on their soil, whether just or unjust, and people will complain if it didn't go perfectly. There is no obvious, perfect path; neither complete isolation nor world conquest are acceptable solutions, and which point between those two is the right answer is an open question.
Well there's been a fair amount of:
The USA sucks becuase they are trying to _________.
And
Mugabe sucks because he is ________.
Bottom line the poor people of Zimbabwe are _starving_. (Note poor.) Mugabe is not a nice guy or leader.
So I ask you USA bashers, WHO THE FUCK ELSE IS GIVING ZIMBABWE FOOD? Is Great Britan rushing their corn to them? Is Austrialia? Germany? Finland? Canada? Oh. Well then, you pompus assholes, why not piss off? While your countries are barely able to feed YOU, continue to piss and moan about the USA and how the USA continues to feed the fucking planet. The USA gives away more food/supplies/money than the other side of the fucking PLANET (mostly because the shit is going there.) So go ahead and continue to bash the USA. I, for one, don't want my tax dollars going where they are are OPRESSING you.
If the USA went isolationist your economies would fall and you'd take glowing corn.
This
The problem here is not about patents - it's about
America bowing down to mega corps and allowing genetically modified food to be grown that has the potential to pass modified genes into other crops, viruses, bacteria and species.
Europe recognises that genetically modified foods should be treated as a bio-hazard until at least 30years of research in extreme conditions prove that the inserted genes have a lower mutation rate than once in a thousand years. per billion plants.
Europe is Zimbabwe's primary export market.
If Zimbabwe's crops were tainted, they could lose their primary source of revenue.
Why doesn't Zimbabwe sue the fuck out of monsanto or whoever if there crops get contaminated, it shouldn't be the other way round!!!!!
Anyhows Zimbabwe probably doesn't recognise patents on genes.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but:
If the concern is that this corn is going to get grown instead of eaten, why not just grind it before distributing it? I've never tried growing flour, but I don't imagine it'd work :)
And a million people will starve to death. Hooo-Ray for postcolonialism!
In my opinion this is nuts.
I plant a field of corn, someone else plants a field of corn, it contaminates mine. I get sued for infringement.
THEY contaminated ME. I should have to right to not have my crops contaminated.
Your right to swing your fist ends at my face.
This is like pesticide spraying on lawns, I should have the right to not have my neighbhours poison in the air I breath.
I am a South African living in Switzerland and even though I've been gone for many years I still love my country of birth for it's diversity of culture and it's survival despite so many problems. On top of this I was born and grew up in the South African version of the corn belt.
My worries and thoughts on reading this:
I find it starnge that US companies and organisations have this view that what other nations think is of no consequence. Here in Switzerland where I live, GM maize and animal hormone feeding are illegal and in the EU GM products have to be clearly marked as such on the product (similar to tobacco) and the EU has had a long runing argument with the USA because the view in the EU (quite correctly IMO) is that the hormones that are pumped into the animals destroy the animals natural growth potential and eventually end up in human bodies. In the USA it seems to be the norm to eat food that is technically processed and yet you Americans are one of the world's most overweight nations. Your government attempts to combat this with laws and even more high technology. Come over to Europe and look at the average weight of people here. You are what you eat!
Moving on to Mexico, a country that has readily adopted GM maize only to discover that the GM maize has taken over from many indigenous species, making some of them extinct. And it is spreading. Does anyone care? Will Mexico be the next recipient of USAID?
Zimbabwe has a government that is under sanctions for the abuse of power and the taking away of land from white farmers that up until now were profitable and producing a large crop surplus. The sanctions are by the US and the EU (amazingly agreeing on one issue for a change). This makes Zimbabwe an easy target for whatever action the west decides to take because it is a regional pariah. Mugabe is an evil bastard IMO, but he isn't stupid. One only has to read one in depth article on what happend in Mexico to know that it isn't something one would wish for one's own country. Being a slave to large food companies, supported by their government, is no joke I would imagine.
As a South African I would also worry that this maize would spread to South Africa and wreak it's havoc there as well. South Africa has enough problems without needing GM crops added to them.
Monsanto has the dumbest patent that is *severely* hurting innovation in the plant genetics research field. Basically, as far as my wife tells me, their patent manages not only to cover what they have discovered regarding certain plants, but also covers things, but in certain cases things not yet discovered by them, in certain cases. I do not know the patent number, but it seems that they patented everything about certain key plants and managed to get words to the effect of 'and all discoveries not yet known' to persist in the patent. So if someone else tries to beat them to the punch regarding something with these plants, they'll be sued into bankruptcy before they can get anywhere with it.
Would this part of the patent stand up in true due process of law? No way in hell. But as we have seen time and time again, the US justice system does not fairly handle civil cases. Almost always the party with more money wins, and for this reason this patent may never go away, unless a behemoth company sees fit to do so...
Still, in this case it is likely just an excuse. Mujabe exercises control in part through starvation, and if food were in large supply, his power would be weakened.
I've seen some of the stuff they are doing with corn and have been given a pretty good description of it. Most of the Genetic Engineering is ultimately just an extremely controlled and fast way to do what breeding does in the long term. Pesticides hold more potential harm than pure genetic engineering. The questionable thing is when they bring in hormone treatments to cattle and stuff, that, like pesticides is ultimately eaten by the consumer...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Let's stick this issue to Zimbabwe, please.
First of all, Zimbabwe became the breadbasket of Europe and Asia because the farmers came in and INCREASED THE YIELD. Increasing the yield allowed more people to live off of the land in higher density.
Then Robert Mugambe said that he was going to take all of the land from the high yield farmers... and give it to a people that have not traditionally had much interest or ability at high yield farming. So the Mugabe government is letting people starve instead of GRADUALLY letting black farmers into the food business with incentives. After all, America doesn't have this good of a growing season, and Americans seem to always be shipping food to Africa. ALL THE TIME. Constantly. You put American farmers in Africa? You'd have corn flying out your ass. I assume the currently displaced farmers were doing the same. Africa should be shipping us food on the cheap. Instead we always seem to be sending it to them.
Matter of fact, it appears to most US citizens that we are constantly sending food and resources to countries that have an abundant ability to make and refine food and resources. Countries that have been around for hundreds more years... countries that should have taken us under their wings and showed us how their culture "works SO WELL and is better than ours" generations ago. Cultures that are thousands of years older.
Cultures that had more than enough time to really start giving a shit about agriculture.
IMHO it appears (please note appears, because I know there are some that are) as though most native groups in Africa have absolutely NO INTEREST IN AGRICULTURE. And with no interest in agriculture and a increased population brought about by the arrival of cheap food from whites, people starve. No interest in agriculture means no civilization.
No civilization means constant bickering and war over the table scraps instead of sitting at the head of the table like the big boys.
funny munging
Yeah, it also defines Pi as 3.
(Well, a lot of people believed it did, because it says some part of Solomon's temple was 10 cubits in diameter and 30 cubits in circumference. Eventually some Jewish scholars decided 30 cubits was the INNER circumference, while the diameter went from outer end to outer end. Read the whole story from a guy who takes it way too seriously.)
grep -ri 'should work'
Just for all those who are making the US out to look like the good guy here, try some statistics The US consistantly ranks dead last among the 22 richest nations in terms of its foreign aid as a percentage of Gross National Product. The kicker is that it is behind Italy (which is in the midst of a political crisis) and Japan (which is in the middle of a decade long recession). If anything, the US should be apologizing for not having milled the corn in the first place.
More points:
a) Half of all US foreign aid is directed towards military purposes.
b) Of course, you might think this is just the democratic process at work. Americans don't want to spend that much on foreign aid. Of course, Americans also don't know how much we actually spend on foreign aid. Since they think we spend 15%, and we actually spend less than 1%, the first poll mentioned holds no water.
Look, I'm not here to demonize America. I like it here a lot. I just want to get it out there that as far as foreign policy is concerned, the American people are in the dark, and the American government does whatever is in its best interest. While I don't suddenly expect everyone to become foreign policy gurus, and the American government to be totally self-less (it shouldn't) some steps towards a nice middle ground would be a good start.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The "guy in Canada" is named Percy Schmeiser, and he's still in court on appeal, after getting squashed by Montsanto the first time. Read about it here [percyschmeiser.com]
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Does that make this situation a 'kernel panic' ?
No it's a recent phenamenom. Corn is now the most succesfull species in the north american continent.
War is necrophilia.
You seem to be taking the stance that "the ends justify the means." On the other hand, it's been the morally questionable conduct of the US government in our Middle East policy that led to the arming and propping up of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the Saudi dictatorship, and Israel. We sell them all arms, watch them kill each other, then shout, "Hey, stop it!" Some foreign policy.
If the US government had listened when many Americans were warning them not to arm bloodthirsty, criminallly-minded people like Hussein and Bin Laden while it was happening, we wouldn't be stuck in this predicament. Now these same people are anti-American, of course. I say Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were anti-American for arming and supporting these assholes.
If the US government had listened when many Americans were warning them not to arm bloodthirsty, criminallly-minded people like Hussein and Bin Laden while it was happening, we wouldn't be stuck in this predicament.
How can you know that? Hussein would probably have stuck his hand in the cookie jar earlier. Bin Laden's troops wouldn't have been as well trained, but there's no reason to think he wouldn't have done the same things. Of course, as Afganistan was in some ways the Soviet Union's Vietnam, it's possible we would still have the Soviet Union breathing down our neck while this was going on.
In addition the the article the Post also has an editorial today which explains how President Mugabe has run the country into the ground, including the agricultural industry.
(* sue Monsanto for contaminating your crop. *)
I am surprised nobody with this problem has counter-sued their Monsanto-using neighbor farmer(s) for contamination. That would put a hex on the product and nobody would use it in fear of down-wind pollen pollution suits.
What a fricken mess. Lawsuits seem to be a bigger problem than any risks in the food itself so far.
Table-ized A.I.
Dude, I encourage you to look up the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation as well as their record and plans. Then ask yourself how much you know about what the foundation has done so far. The very fact that I've never heard a single ad on the radio or anywhere about how much they are doing for charity leads me to believe that they are doing it because they want to, not because they are trying to "buy" public appeal.
I think it's a disgrace that they should be accused of doing so by people who have done little or nothing of any note in their entire lives.
It's very easy to cast aspersions on someone elses good deeds. It's very hard to emulate them, though.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I think what will happen is that by 2022 genetic engineering will be good enough that we'll never run out of the "original" gene foodstuffs, since it'll be very easy to genetically make the original version of corn, wheat, oats, barley, alfalfa, etc. as reference standards for genetically-improved footstuffs.
Besides, today's yellow and white kernel corn are completely nothing like the maize originals with their reddish and bluish kernels.
Anyway, by then genome sequencing of grains will be so good we can pick and choose the exact traits down to the last DNA sequence we want for the grain, whether it's higher starch content for livestock feed, higher sugar content for human consumption, better disease and insect resistance, etc. The genetic engineering will be so precise that it would be almost impossible to tell from the unmodified original.
In the long term, one way or another, poor nations must eliminate their dependency on food imports. They need to address their internal social and political problems, they must work on infrastructure, commerce, and population planning. And they need to develop crops domestically that work well within their countries.
That is EXACTLY the problem brought on by Robert Mugabe's use of food production and distribution as a weapon against his enemies.
If the farms in Zimbabwe had been working at full capacity with proper planting and harvesting of foods and proper distribution of foods, the starvation that 50% of the population of Zimbabwe now faces would never have happened in the first place. The problem is that Mugabe has essentially short-circuited the entire agricultural infrastructure in the country, not only stopping food production but also channeling what foodstuffs are left to his closest allies only. This is the EXACT policy that has caused untold suffering all over Africa since the 1960's.
The USPS can also afford to keep raising postage rates, whereas we can't start charging for food aid - it stops being aid.
He already does, in smaller amounts - "smaller" meaning tens of billions instead of hundreds of billions. Nonetheless, I doubt the original poster donates 10%+ of his income...
"But obviously, you have become so anti-American in your view of the world"
It saddens me that the educational system in this country has sunk to such low depths. Here is a guy who is so unable to grasp complex issues that he distills it into the simplest terms possible (suitable for any two year old) "If you disagree with me then it must be because you hate the US".
We used to have the best educational system in the world now it spits out people who fall apart at the slightest hint of complexity. Sad sad sad.
As for the rest.
"A nation must react to threats to the lives and interests of its citizens."
Iraquis never attacked the US, that was saudi arabians. You should be calling for the bombing of saudi citizens.
"Moreover, people and the nations composed of them naturally want to help those being unjustly oppressed or slaughtered."
This of course is pure bullshit. We are extremely selective about who we help and who we don't. It has nothing to do with morals, ethics, justice or anything and everything to do with oil, corporate interests amd money. Look no further then palestine for an example. They are opressed, occupied, under curfew, tortured, imprisoned without due process and the US does nothing. In fact the US gives money and arms to their opressors. There have been about a dozen American Citizens that have been killed by Israel and not a peep from George Bush. Imagine if any other army of any other country killed US citizens. When Bin Laden killed American citizens we bombed an entire country to bits. When Israel kills American citizens nothing.
War is necrophilia.
A nation must react to threats to the lives and interests of its citizens.
Iraquis never attacked the US, that was saudi arabians.
Where, pray tell, did you get your education? I said "threats to the lives and interests of its citizens."
Look no further then palestine for an example.
You seem to look at things in black and white. Israel is a nation surrounded by enemies who support Palestine. Palestinians have been sending a consistent barrage of terrorist attacks on Israelites, and has had trouble making peace treaties and keeping them. Israel is not perfect, but the Palestines are far from saints.
There have been about a dozen American Citizens that have been killed by Israel [...] When Bin Laden killed American citizens we bombed an entire country to bits.
Bin Laden set bombs in the World Trade Center. After that, he blew up _two_ US embassies, killing 224. I don't remember the US bombing an entire country after that. It wasn't until they killed 5,000 people that we released our full fury on him and his associates. Unlike Bin Laden, Israel has never targetted American citizens for extinction and has never stated an intent to attack us.
Got started in AlphaBASIC on an AM-100 in 1980, helping out the odd business, did some work for Computer Choice, a retail computer store in West Perth, 1981-82, on the likes of Apple ][, //e, //c, ///, Lisa, Macintosh, Hitachi Peach, NAC APC II thru IV, Osborne-1, KayPro II thru 10 etc (including Z80 assembler work in a display manager for K2s, whose only screen atrribute was `blink' - top choice, and an interactive realtime blast-the-spaceships game written in Z80 assembler for the O1 to see if I could find a use for the CPIR instruction). All sorts of stuff. Wrote and supported ForTran and RatFor programs under RSX-11-M-PLUS on PDP-11/23 and /73 systems, also touched BASIC-PLUS-TWO apps and the DECUS C compiler. Spent roughly eight years, on and off part time, working for ChiroSoft producing front-desk apps for Chiropractors in FoxBase Plus, later FoxPro, gave it up when Microsoft bought them - that included a software barcode scanner written in assembler and a record/replay for DOS and FoxPro written in asm and C. Built a FoxPro2-based order processing system for my brother in law which ran on a 386DX16 with a full-height full-length RAM board to give it a staggering 2MB of RAM. First Linux exposure was Slackware on a 386SX20 laptop with 2MB of RAM (which I still have, but the 100MB HDD has since died). Currently tinkering with LTSP systems and wanting time to write a 3D toy train sim for my son's 3rd birthday in 3 weeks. Lots of other stuff in between those.
You still have no particular reson to trust me, but at least you have a smattering more background. Why do you want to know?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...I have farming rellies.
It was a nice, neat margin. For the purposes of illustration, it could have been 50% and still made no practical difference.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...I don't support that, because it's not GPL and has tainted my kernels? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
There are a lot of knock-on problems which are often buried under a wave of zealotry. Not the least of which is being totally controlled by foreign seed suppliers.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
We're talking second and successive generations here. You get all manner of interesting recombinant effects.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Nett worth is a linear measure, donation is time-dependent. A typical single mother will have a net worth of close to zero dollars (and not always on the positive side of that), so anything she gives would by your measure be essentially infinite.
Try rating Trey's donations against his income and when you're finished doing that, have a closer look at the charities he gives to and how he does that giving.
Y'know, if you hadn't over-reached yourself and used that word `all' in front of `legal', you might have escaped unpunished for that one sentence. However, read this and weep. There's a lot more elsewhere.
Sorry, what was it that your clueless comments prove?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The less said about that, the better.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Or does that go too much against the grain?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...control over their own crops.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Better players don't shaft the other players at every opportunity.
He's using whatever power he has to get more power, the dollars are nearly incidental.
Again I say, have a careful look at the charities he's giving to, the conditions attached, and so on. He's more than getting value for money, and that makes it not a donation any more.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"I said "threats to the lives and interests of its citizens.""
What interests? Oh I see you mean cheap oil.
"Israel is not perfect, but the Palestines are far from saints."
Israelis are attemting to domesticate palestenians. Throughout history there have been numerous attempts to domesticate humans. We did it with the africans, the south africans did it with the blacks and now the israelis are doing it with the palestenians. In the long run it never works because human beings are unable to be domesticated. Eventually they set themselves free one way or another. Look at what happened in soviet union or yugoslavia.
The palestenians are fighting for their freedom and independence with the only means they have. they have no guns, they have no tanks, no planes, no army, no navy, no air force. All they have is terrorism and so that's what they use. How else should they fight for their freedom?
As for israel. It is an uncivilized nation.
When a terrorist action occures it does not punish the guilty instead it kills civilians. This is not civilized behaviour.
It rounds up males and jails them without due process. No lawyers, no charges, no trial. This is not civilized.
It tortures prisoners. This is not civilized.
It takes over other peoples lands and forcefully drives out people who have been living there for hundreds of years. This is not civilized.
Sure you can make all the excuses in the world but there is no denying the fact israel stands alone as the only nation which does these things and the only nation with a system of apartheid in place. Let's see if theirs lasts as long as South Africas.
BTW perhaps if Israel acted in a civlized manner it might not be surrounded by enemies.
Also consider that those so called enemies are toothless. Israel has biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and the might of the biggest army in the world behind it. The US military will anhialate any country that dares to attack israel. Israel has nothing to worry about as long as Arial Sharon can dictate to George Bush the US middle eastern policy.
"Israel has never targetted American citizens for extinction and has never stated an intent to attack us."
nevertheless Israel has killed US citizens by their routine use of indescriminate bombing in civilian areas. These US citizens deserve the protection of the US army but unfortunately because they are arabs and moslems our born again president does not give a flying fuck about them. Have you ever heard him condem israel for killing americans? of course not! IF they were white christian americans you can bet your ass he would say something.
"It wasn't until they killed 5,000 people that we released our full fury on him and his associates"
We did no such thing. We did not bomb him, we did not bomb his associates. We bombed Afghanistan where he happened to be living at the time (he probably left before the bombing even started). Tens of thousands of people died who had nothing to do with WTC. But it sure got the presidents approval rating up didn't it?
War is necrophilia.
What interests? Oh I see you mean cheap oil.
That's certainly one interest.
[A bunch of half-truths deleted]
So you hate the American president and everything that America has done and does, but you aren't anti-American. Right...
So you hate the American president and everything that America has done and does, but you aren't anti-American"
Ah yes once again it seems like I have overloaded your meager reserve of synapses. You are now reduced to accusing me of hating america because you are unable to think any deeper then that.
Like I said it's sad to see the kind of idiots the education system in this country seems to spit out.
War is necrophilia.
First of all, you are pointing to what happened in Zimbabwe without context: Zimbabwe was very concerned about the future of their food production. If they had accepted the GM food, they would lose a very substantial part of their income - longer term that would cause a lot more death than the current famine. Zimbabwes food production is important to many countries in Africa, as it is under normal conditions one of the largest food exporters on the continent.
No matter what a creep Mugabe is, it would have been a distater for Zimbabwe and for Africa in general if he'd let Zimbabwe be bullied into in effect destroying their opportunity of reaching major export markets in the future, effectivel ruining the remainder of the economy in the country.
You also conveniently ignore that the situation in Zimbabwe was resolved: an agreement was reached to ensure that all donated corn was milled before being handed out.
You are also trying to use Zimbabwe as an excuse for explaining away democracy in the other countries I listed: Yes, Zimbabwe has a leader that most people will agree is a dictator, but Zimbabwe is just one of a whole range of countries with famine at the moment. The original claim was that famine and starvation wouldn't happen in democratic, capitalistic countries. Of the countries near Zimbabwe that currently experience famine, it is as far as I can see only Zimbabwe and Swaziland that aren't democratic, and all of them have market economies.
Nothing is stopping anyone in these countries from, as suggested, setting up supermarkets all over the place. Nothing is stopping charities from funding that by giving out food coupons. Yet millions still die. Capitalism and democracy isn't a cure for famine.
You also wrote: Famine is nature's populations control. This underlines exactly the cynicism I saw in the original post. You're equating humanity with animals, and in effect saying that we should accept millions dying without doing anything about it.
You end it by pointing to "famine" even in the US, and use it as an argument to stop helping other countries. So you are willing to let millions die, to save a few thousand? Why not do both? The US already spends less on development aid than most other industrialized countries, and at the same time spends less on social security and food aid in USA itself than most other industrialized countries.
Trying to set these up against eachother is just a piss-poor excuse for not spending money on either.