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GM Crops Create Herbicide-resistant "Superweed"
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article GM crops under test in the UK have cross pollinated to weeds, giving them the same resistance to herbicide as the GM crops. The article also mentions that this has been reported as occurring in Canada, which like the US is well past the test stage and allows widespread use of GM crops. What's worse, in Canada crop rotation has conferred multi-herbicide resistance to some of the weeds!"
From TFA: "Unlike the researchers I am not surprised by this. If you apply herbicide to plants which is lethal, eventually a resistant survivor will turn up."
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact. I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods -- all I see is rhetoric that makes that assumption.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists. A few decades ago they were crying about how we'd have no food to feed the overpopulated earth (Malthusians). Then they were crying about how the world will freeze from global cooling. Then they were concerned that Florida was be flooded by global warming. Then we would die from mega-viruses created out of medical research. Now we're dying from genetically modified foods that are feeding millions of starving people (who happen to be starving because of the socialist government they live under, not because of lack of opportunities).
I fully support genetically modified foods and the continued promotion of such foods not only to feed the poor, but to offer us a more stable yield and a less expensive standard of living. My other half prefers organic food, and it definitely hits her pocket book (about 400% more expensive). She's no greenie, though, she just prefers natural foods.
You really think these companies do it to feed the poor ? Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year. Do you think they do it to reduce the usage of chemicals ? Actually, they also produce the chemicals, that you cannot use without agreeing to use their seeds. Their tactics are disgusting, and moreover, these practice are a danger for the environmenet, because it is impossible to prevent dissemination of the resistance genes into other species.
And yes I am a scientist (biologist), and no I am no "greenie" (I am in favour of nuclear power, but next to renewable energy sources). But it is because I am a scientist that I can grab these issues. This has nothing to do with socialism or idealism, there are very rational and scientific reasons to think there are real dangers.
This was predicted years ago. When Monsanto and other firms first started applying for patents for "terminator" genes (plants that will not generate viable seeds for the next years crop) and for plants specifically resistant to the use of "Roundup" many biologists warned of the danger of cross-polinization. Monsanto, et. al., and their political backers scoffed at the suggestion.
It gets far worse. Let's say a GM crop was planted next to your farm. Due to wind, bees, eh, nature the GM plants spread to your field, and soon you're growing GM plants. And then you're sued for stealing the GM crop. For the basics of wacky Monsanto GM chaos see Organic Consumers.
So, if Monsanto, et. al. want to own and control the GM crops - and the GM crops now spread to destructive speices, what do you think the odds are that the firms responsible for creating this mess will have any liability?
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
...they mean of course regular weeds that have an immunity to a single specific brand of pesticide. These weeds aren't any hardier (with the exception of this one resistance), nor do they spread any faster. It's kind of like calling me a "Superman" because I have a specific resistance to one type of influenza virus.
Weeds developing herbacide resistance has been going on as long as evolution, and that's a long time. I'm so sick of these "omgtheskyisfalling" environmentalists, their headline-grabbing falsehoods are taking away from legitamite science. grrr.
"Peace, Love and Apathy"
You really think these companies do it to feed the poor ?
Of course not -- I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart. I have yet to meet a person (even the diehard communists I know) who don't do everything out of self sufficiency and personal profit.
Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
This has nothing to do with socialism or idealism, there are very rational and scientific reasons to think there are real dangers.
I'm not so sure -- I see lower prices for food all over the world. I see people who used to work half their hours to afford food now work a tenth of their labor hours for it. The population is growing, the cost of living in most areas goes up (housing, transportation, heating, and electricity all going up) but food costs stay constant.
Biologist or not, it doesn't mean you're a good one. A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit, not from doing what is good for man. We'll constantly take a few steps forward AND a few steps backward -- I know we have crop products that are harmful. Yet that is the wonder of the free market: we learn from our mistakes even when we don't want to make changes.
It's not just "greenies", Europeans are wary of GM foods (especially in England, where there have already been too many food and meat scares in the last few decades). GM foods are closely regulared by the EU.
Farmers in China who grow GM crops were shown to use fewer insecticides and are living healthier lives for it, but I'm not sure where you're getting the bit about starving people from, I haven't heard of that happening. As you said, those people aren't starving for lack of food in the world (and I've never heard the "greenie" argument that there is not enough food, only that food distribution is poor -- this is called a humanitarian issue, not an environmentalist one).
It's pretty hard to find non-GM foods here in the US. I haven't noticed any difference for the better in their shelf life, either. In England, I bought all-organic for the same reason as your better half, but it's far too expensive to do that out here (in the States). When I bought the cheaper GM foods, I was surprised at how quickly they rotted, even in the fridge.
You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't: truly organic food (insecticide free) is too expensive and time consuming for us, insecticides make my wife sick (she grew up in a farming community and was thus exposed to too many nasty chemicals), and GM foods are just plain rotten.
Stick to Soylent Greenies.
Perhaps the dateline would have given the submitter a clue: "Monday July 25, 2005".
You mean in the same way that you get charged more for a tin of peas to which salt has NOT been added, right?
So are you a tool of Monsanto, or are you simply a tool?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
Except that Monsanto sues farmers that have been contaminated with the RoundUp Ready crops. This is documented in many media. Moreover, they put pressure on governments of third-world countries to get a monopoly on seeds used in these countries. Farmers don't need to buy it when they have something else to buy.
Biologist or not, it doesn't mean you're a good one.
Sure. The same way, what you write may be complete bullshit. May I ask you what is your expertise about biology and GMO ? And by the way, I wish to be the only scientist to say there is a danger in the attitude of Monsanto. But if you search a little, and look at all the links that have been posted here, you may learn a lot of things.
And by the way, I wish to be the only scientist to say there is a danger in the attitude of Monsanto. But if you search a little, and look at all the links that have been posted here, you may learn a lot of things.
I read the link -- and some sublinks beneath it. All I see is Monsanto taking advantage of the rules you allowed your government to create into law. In a free market, Monsanto would never have gotten this power and control. If you read my previous posts, you'd see I am again patents and IP -- part of the abuse of the little farmer. I'm again subsidies and farming labor regulations -- again part of the abuse of the little farmer. I'm against every government manipulation of the industry (look into the restriction on farming peanuts for scary tactics) that causes the industry to have to use megacorporations that have taken advantage of the law YOU wanted (if you ever voted even once for an elected official, that is).
well said. It always amazes me when people cheerlead companies like monsanto (previous products include good old napalm!) on the basis that they are somehow the good guys. These companies want to make stockholders rich, period. I don't see anything inprinciple wrong with GM food, as long as
1) I can 100% trust the motives of the people carrying out the research and field tests
2) That it is not used as a way of locking poor farmers into a product supplied by a foreign owned mega-corp
3) That some SERIOUS long-term testing is done in the lab so we can be 99.99% sure that releasing GM organisms into the food chain is not going to fuck up the food chain. (We only have 1 ecosystem remember).
4) The industry goes along with public demand to label food as GM, leaving the ultimate deicision in the hands of the public.
If governments came together to form a truly impartial and publicly funded research body to work on GM tech, that would be great, but as it is, its always the big biotech companies with their paid lobbyists and paid-off members of government that wave the flag for it. Would you trust Microsoft to re-engineer the potatoes you eat? Would you trust Sony to do it? Neither would I.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit, not from doing what is good for man.
You're talking to a biologist, not a sociologist. A "good scientist" is someone who applies scientific methods. Sociology is a science, it is not all science.
I find it amazing that you believe there is little or no link between GM crops and this new superweed, but you believe there is a connection between the steady cost of food and GM crops. The latter is more a coincidence than the former.
What a hard decision...
Do I believe the frothing at the mouth idiot slashdot poster.
Or do I belive the experts in the field who claim that it appears that the risk of cross polination between the GM plant the the wild relative plants (ie. the plants that were once upon a time breed for better characteristics via the old fashioned "keep the plants which are better" technique to give us the crop plant) is higher than was originally thought.
Of course the slashdot poster must be the better source. The fact that they found the GM gene expressed in the wild plants is just because evolution came up with the exact same gene in a couple of years of evolution. Strange that that didn't happen decades ago really...
There was a Wired article awhile back, talking about herbicide resistance in the coca plant. The point is, evolution happens all the time. If resistance in an organism can occur, either naturally or by getting genes from another species, it will eventually happen.
Pesticides have revolutionized agriculture, but like antibiotics, must be used with caution. Eventually it won't be as amazing as it once was. Older, more primitive techniques, may eventually come back into favor.
I don't know - I'm rather confused as to how this cross-pollination from one type of plant to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT type of plant occurred.
I mean, we know farmers get a bit lonely, and can "cross-pollinate" their sheep or other livestock from time to time - why don't we have man-sheep hybrids that are as smart as us?
How does GM corn cross pollinate with weeds to produce the same weed, with it's weedlike properties, conferring only the GM aspect of herbicide resistance?
Wouldn't you be more likely to produce ragweed-corn or some such? Sure, if the weed happened to be genetically VERY close to your GM crop (since same genus different species 99% of the time aren't capable of interbreeding) they might be able to cross-pollinate and produce a hybrid with some characteristics of both species. It might even confer all of the herbicide resistance. Maybe.
But then, under those conditions, wouldn't the end result be very very little different from the original plant you started with, since they have to be so similar to begin with?
Inconceivable!
You seem to be under the impression that free markets exist. They do not: they have never existed and never will. They are an abstraction, which is not found in nature. In particular, nothing that has happened int his world is due to "free markets".
"Free markets" are a idiological tool, like lots of other things that do not exist.
You clearly live a life of a kind that has been made possible by the very fact that those free markets do not exist.
Like with anything, chemical pest control has its limits. I am currently reading a book about permaculture. Basically permaculture is a way of life, a way of life that premotes working with and/or in harmony with nature to create a sustainable life style that does not damage the planet or its inhabbitants. One of the things it suggests is that crop growers incorporate echosystems into thier cultivation scemes so for example plant root vegetables with flowers and fungi and then plant fruit tree in between. Doing that would increase in lots of insects and bacteria (etc) which help each other by making the leaves dropped by the trees into good soil for the root vegetables and so on, thus giving each other the benefit of what they "consider" as "waste". It also encourages in natural predators like ladybirds against aphids. By encouraging say ladybirds you no longer need to use up so much pesticide and through that the pest is less likely to gain an immunity again that particular defense against it. Also it takes organisms longer to adapt against natural predators than chemical, not to mention that predators also adapt to keep the prey within thier grasp.
Michael-m.co.uk - Home of Michael Mulqueen
1) Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year.
2)That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
I agree with you, however, Monsanto has been suing farmers who have not planted Monstano's Canola seeds yet the farmer's crops get cross-pollinated from a neighbouring Monsanto Canola field. Farmers call it 'Nature', Monstanto calls it 'Theft'.
A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit
Again, I see your point, but given my point above, is it really a good thing to be pursuing our profits to the point where it harms others? Where's the cooperation in that?
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
(1) There is nothing "super" about the weeds, they have merely acquired resistance to herbicides. They don't grow faster or crowd out crops more aggressively than their non-resistant cousins. It just as stupid as calling anti-biotic resistant microbes "super" germs. "Super" is a term meant to imply something new and unusually powerful and deadly. Every weed growing in every crop area in the developed world is largely immune to pesticides that entered widespread use over 30 years years ago. Are they "super" weeds as well?
(2) The article presents no evidence that the acquired resistance is in fact the result of cross-pollination and not natural evolution. In fact the artical says that:
"The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically engineered to be resistant to only one."
This strongly suggest that the resistance is naturally acquired. It also doesn't seem that anyone took the elemental step of sequencing the pest-plants to see if they are actually using the same genes as the engineered crop plants. Unless someone can show that weeds contain engineered genes this article is nothing but hysterical supposition.
(3) We have been breeding herbicide resistant crop plants using radiation and mutagenic chemicals for over a century. Where is the evidence that gene transfer has occurred using the older technology? After all, nature doesn't care where the genes came from only whether they benefit the species they jump to. If acquiring herbicide resistance from crop plants was a major problem we would have seen it long ago.
(4) The supposition that crop plants will spread quickly through the wild is garbage gainsaid by centuries if not millennia or practical experience. We force crop plants to divert resources from their own survival in order to produce the plant products we need. As a result, they cannot survive in competition with natural plants that do not have the artificial overhead. If not protected from natural competition they are quickly wiped out.
Opponents of GM crops also neglect to mention that if genes jump across species as fast as they claim then the problem will be economically self-limiting. The GM crops are only used because allow the easy killing of associate pest-plants. If the pest plants acquire resistance rapidly then the GM plants lose all their economic advantage. No one will use them because they will offer no benefits for their increased cost.
"An assumption like yours is probably what caused the problem. Think of it, assuming the chemical will kill all of something? Killing 100% or at least enough such that the remaining survivors doesn't reproduce? There aren't many times that absolute assumptions work like that."
Between the before-market testing the herbicides were put through to make sure the chemical would be competitive and the after-market continual use over the course of decades eliminates any need for me to assume anything; it was designed to kill things, it was tested to ensure it killed things, and it is still used today because it kills things. If it were not extremely effective, it would likely not be used and this entire fiasco would be a non-issue.
And as for potential survivors, we're talking about "herbicide resistant" rather than "herbicide immune" (if you use enough herbicide, even the GM crops would be killed). If an herbicide resistant strain of a weed is going to develop independent of cross-pollenization, it is going to develop in fields where the dosages of herbicide used are survivable for the weed, and perhaps strengthened over time to be strong enough to survive in GM fields where higher dosages are used.
If a herbicide-resistant weed is going to "just happen" to pop up in a GM field, it must also "just happen" to pop up in non-GM fields and we should have seen this weed years ago (especially because of the lower dosages used). Either this is a remarkable coincidence on the verge of being miraculous, or it comes from cross-pollenization.
There was no serious public discussion of GM in the United States. I presume someone paid the politicians, as has happened in so many other areas.
Support campaign finance reform!
McCain has the right idea.
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact. I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods -- all I see is rhetoric that makes that assumption.
That still does not mean GM crops are harmless. GM crops can and will cross pollenate with non-GM crops of the same species or even other related wild subspecies. They can also cause great harm indirectly. Take for example honey production. A bee does not care whether it is gathering nectar from a GM plant or an non-GM plant. Humans however do care and as a consequence US and Canadian honey producers have great trouble exporting their goods to the EU where they are classified as GM products even though the GM pollution of their honey was inderect and not something the manufacturer wanted. And before you start harping on about the fact that nobody cares about honey exports to the EU keep in mind that it is a larger market than the USA and Canada combined which makes it hard to ignore for any businessman with a modicum of sense. This sort of thing has happened to more people than just a few honey farmers and that includes farmers within the EU it self. There is a number of examples of some idiot planting GM crops on his land with the result that the crops of neighboring farmers failed to qualify for 'Organic' status due GM pollution (aka. cross pollenation with GM crops) which, in the EU, at least radically reduces the value of the crop since organic foods are increasingly sought after by consumers and GM crops avoided.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists
While I deeply dislike the really radical greenies I am getting just as sick of you whining neocons and quite frankly I don't know which faction is worse. According to the right wing we are supposed to believe that pollution and global warming (assuming the day will ever arrive when you people are prepared to admit it can even happen) is not affecting the earth in any way shape or form, that strip mining and oil drilling in nature reserves does no harm to the environment, that due to the unchanging nature of god's devine creation extinction cannot happen and that those WMD's really are there in Iraq... somewhere.... They just haven't been found yet... I mean if the GWB says so they must be there... Right?
My other half prefers organic food, and it definitely hits her pocket book (about 400% more expensive)
While crafting a good and sneaky troll it should be kept in mind that the easiest way to screw it up is hugely exaggerating the obvious. I regularly purchase organic food and while I will admint that it is more expensive than the factory made crud, is certainly not 400% more expensive.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Holy crap, dada21, you are a corporation brainwashed cog! Oh well, all hail the almighty dollar!
Heh.
I am an anti-corporation businessman who believes that corporations are shills for avoiding personal responsibility. Most anarchocapitalists, like me, avoid supporting any corporation's right to exist.
If you consider that the average college graduate in the US is brainwashed into supported Keynesian economic theories, I'm sure you'd realize that I'm not brainwashed -- I study the true effects of economic manipulations, and see the end results.
I do not support the dollar -- I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver. The rest of my currency is tied up in inventory in my businesses (hard assets) and non-appreciating real estate (not the housing market).
I'm no bongo playing, bandana wearing hippy with dreadlocks but Genetically Modified (GM) seeds have caused at least one incredibly unjustified lawsuits here in Canada.
A farmer's field had some Monsanto seed mixed in with the farmer's regular seed (probably from a nearby field, seed in manure fertilizer...whatever). He was sued by Monsanto (I think they have a new name), and they won. I forget the details but I think it was similar to copyright infringement or pirating, because they owned the organism that someohow got into his field.
How they could tell which plants were their's among the millions of others, is creepy.
Poor farmers? Myth.
I was going to argue against this, but then I realized all the people I knew that used to be poor farmers aren't any more. They all either rent or sold their land to corporate farms.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Great freaking zork. You must be a lawyer: your declaration that nuclear power plants have no responsibility to ensure that they don't release radiation is monstrous prima facie. Your claim that corporations have every right in the world to dump toxic waste in your neighbor's backyard because somebody is willing to pay them to do so is about as indecent as I have ever seen on slashdot.
Actually, you are the dense one. Well, you would be if your head wasn't shoved far enough up your backside that you're sucking tonsil. Monsanto is a cruel and ruthless beast: haven't you been paying attention to the world you claim to be traveling? They have no right to sue farmer B just because farmer A couldn't keep his pollen to himself. None whatsoever.
Until Monsanto's wander pollen drives everybody out of business except for those who pay for their product.
Let me refresh your memory - Manufacturers have ZERO responsibility to do anything more than create a product that their customers are willing to pay for.. I want to pay somebody for a product that does nothing more than create laws to control you. Now sit down, shut up, and accept that whenever this provider appears you have no right to whine about it.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
I do not support the dollar -- I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver
How's that market going for you?
By the way, I would seriously reconsider your truly asenine sheeple position on the economy. In the meantime, you might want to try reading the works of, say, the Nobel Prize in Economics winners of the past 50 years, including John Nash. You also might want to read about William Hamilton's work on altruism (beginning around 1963). At that point, you'll realize that not only is communism the objectively best system, but has a strong biological basis. This is not an ideology, this is not wishful thinking, this is not a social experiment. It's a hard, solid fact, proven by Princeton PhDs in Mathematics AND by the process of natural selection which you seem to hold in such high respect. The only question is whether it can possibly be implemented on a large scale in human institutions without someone taking advantage of the trust that has to be given to make those kinds of changes. But if it can't, it's because of free market winner-take-all looking-out-for-number-one avaricious snots like yourself.
Next time you get into an argument, try not to come across as an absolute idiot. It's generally considered bad form to tell a professional you know more than he does. I think you owe the biologist an apology.
How's that market going for you?
Considering my currency is safe, my land is paid for, I only have to work 10-15 hours per week earning more than 4 times the average income and I get to travel for pleasure about 1/10th of the year -- very well, thank you very much.
including John Nash
The Nobel prize committee supports socialist positions, so I'd rather not trust it. I read authors like Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, and Bovard. William Hamilton's writings I have read, and I disagree with them completely. Mises and Hayek convinced me of it in more recent works -- such as Hayek's works against socialism.
But if it can't, it's because of free market winner-take-all looking-out-for-number-one avaricious snots like yourself.
Actually, in a free market, the best outcome is born out of mutual profit through cooperation -- not dog eat dog. My biggest successes came out of trading my skills for income when my customer made a profit from the trade. This is the free market.
It's generally considered bad form to tell a professional you know more than he does. I think you owe the biologist an apology.
Quote where I said this.
I don't know the biologist from Adam, and I never said I knew more. I have a different premise for my beliefs, and the scientists that I am friends with admit that even they know other scientists who research in order to justify a belief or an end result. I don't trust any research without it being found to be true by others who I do trust. Generally speaking, the best scientific discovering have an impact in the market -- results that can be sold for a profit. Other discovering that can not be sold for a profit are not ready for society, and may never be. Their hidden costs outweight the results of their use.
Hee-freakin'-haw. Every biologist who doesn't actually work for Monsanto or Cargill saw this one coming decades ago. Families like the brassicas are more promiscuous than a San Francisco bathouse. They cross breed all the time with their wild relatives.
It doesn't even take sexual reproduction to do it. Plant viruses transfer genetic material from one plant to another sometimes completely unrelated one. All it takes is one or two out of billions to start the evolutionary ball rolling.
The whole point of the exercise was to sell more herbicides. By making the crops herbicide resistant you encourage farmers to change the way they farm to buy tons of the stuff. There are other methods that produce more nutrition per acre - and even per dollar - but they don't sell the product that the agrichem industry is pushing.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
"Come visit, with a weapon. I guarantee they won't find you."
I think you are missing the OP's point entirely. You require everyone to be armed to the teeth just to protect themselves, throwing civilization back in the 1500s, and only because it's a system you feel comfortable with.
You are also a bit naive to assume that everything happens in a direct face-to-face confrontation, which allows one to defend himself. There are unfortunately plenty of other ways to "never see it coming", and major figures in world history are testament to this fact. Maybe you can devote a lot of energy for your defense; you should however not require everyone to have to do the same thing.
This has been studied, and it is shown that by spraying 90% wiht pesticides or herbicides, and leave 10% of the original population untouched, the poison tends to be effective for a longer period (up to 10 years longer on the same pest). The only issue is, is that 10% of the harvest needs to be sacrificed to the pest.
And this is why farmers widely hate "advice" from scientists and researchers. If you leave 10% of a grasshopper or army worm infestation untouched you lose not 10% but 100%. Growing up on a farm I've seen it plenty to know leaving part of a field unsprayed with pesticides can be as futile as not spraying at all. For that matter I've seen the need to spray the same crop more than once to stop a pest that was widespread in an area. Herbicides are another matter.
The modern scientific community's attitude is a lot like my 8 year old brother at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
You mispelled corporate.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You obviously know next to nothing about farming. I do, it's my business. Farmers are going broke all over the place. They despise the big agcos but are locked into dealing with them for the most part. The big agcos are destroying agriculture as they create a handful of global cartels. They don't care, get it, because eventually they get to own all of it, that's THE PLAN. Just like when walfarts moves in and cleans out all the local competition by undercutting prices. Eventually, they are going to stick it to everyone, including you, price wise for your "cheap food". WAKE UP. Think RIAA with seriously advanced DRM that can spread enforced by legislation, but applied to food. Now just STFU and think on it more than ten seconds. Extrapolate a decade or so. Do some google research on what's been going on with Iraqi farmers, what's being imposed on them from the US corporate boys and their puppet politicians to see what will be coming to the US shortly, because it's the same greed filled goons in charge, they just are using Iraq as a test bed. Go LOOK, learn something. And you haven't even addressed what crap produced pseudo food has done to peoples health, that's an actual true mega-cost that doesn't show up in your overly simplistic analysis of food prices. Or do you think food and nutrition and health are totally unrelated subjects?
Stick to your expertise, you make occassional decent points there, but you aren't an expert in everything.. Where I live out in the boonies that's where we draw the line, there's rednecks, then dumbass rednecks. The dumbass ones know everything, or they think they do. Oh, and another thing, I feel real sorry for you if you don't know any actual non-greedy people. That's pitiful man, just pitiful.
I was going to say I Told You So, but that's just too easy.
Just wait till the Terminator gene cross pollinates into our food chain and I'm left with no choice but to KILL the inventors.
You call it a threat, I call it a promise. I knew, from day one, it was a huge fucking mistake to fuck with our food supply like this. I can say I Told You So all I want, though, and we'll still all starve to death thanks to some greedy ass corporate asswipe pigs.
Isn't science grand?!
Personally I was not in the slightest bit suprised to read the headline (n.b. this is Slashdot so I haven't actually read the article or anything radical like that !)
The moral of the story is that Nature will always adapt no matter what us Humans do. Life will always find a way round the problems facing it. That's not to say we shouldn't try stuff out (we are questioning beings after all) but if we change conditions (via the introduction of weedkillers etc.) then eventually some sort of "stuff" will adapt to the new environment. You only need to look at how many bacteria are now resistant to antibiotics to see how things work out.
The only way we could stop life on Earth evolving to thrive in whatever conditions we create would be to blow the entire planet into little pieces. And even then I bet gravitational pull would eventually assemble some of those pieces back into a small "plantoid" which, if there were an observer to see it, would be seen to have some sort of life on it (evolved from some micro organism that was on one of the little fragments of Earth)
Natures bigger, badder, smarter, more cunning and tougher than all of the Humans that ever lived put together. We should see ourselves for what we are. A small temporary blip on the graph of "dominant species who lived on Earth".
So whilst I think the Monsantos of this world are a bunch of evil bastards who are trying to corner the world market for seed crops I'm not worried that they ever will. All that'll happen is that they fuck things up real bad for us humans. But nature won't care 'cause there's plenty more species waiting to take our place.
Or as an insect once said to me "Behold I am the mighty cockroach, give me 100 generations alone with them, and I can eat your poisons for lunch".
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Link? Every time I've heard this alleged, it turns out it's just some cheat farmer trying to plant Monsanto product he didn't pay for, or seeds he illegally harvested and re-planted without paying for them.
The case I am thinking of, the Monstanto genome was infecting HIS crops. He had no contract or agreement with Monsanto. Yes, he selected for roundup resistance.
Now.
Suppose the neighbours dog has a habit of leaving a deposit on your lawn every morning. Suppose that neighbour is aware this is happening (they are letting their dog out every morning) yet takes no steps to control their pet or to compensate you for the damage being done to your lawn or the effort you must take to clean it up.
Question:
Should the neighbour be able to prosecute you for theft because you are throwing the turds on your compost?