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BASF Moves GM Plant Research From Europe To US
ananyo writes "The German chemical giant BASF is moving its transgenic plant operations from Europe to the U.S., it says, because of widespread opposition to the technology. The company on 16 January announced that it would move its plant science headquarters from Limburgerhof, Germany to Raleigh, North Carolina and no longer develop plants solely for cultivation in Europe. The division employs 157 people in Limburgerhof, plus another 63 at facilities elsewhere in Europe. BASF said it would relocate 123 of those jobs to the North Carolina facility. In statement, Stefan Marcinowski, a member of BASF's Board of Executive Directors, cited 'a lack of acceptance for this technology in many parts of Europe – from the majority of consumers, farmers and politicians.' The company instead plans to focus on plant biotechnology markets in the Americas and Asia."
And freak food that is genetically modified in an unbridled fashion ! what more can one ask .........
Read radical news here
The BASF facility in RTP has never been terribly large and/or important when compared to their neighbors.
These jobs will be a nice addition to the area and help elevate Biotech even further.
Thanks Limburgerhof!!!
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
You have to admit, you weren't expecting to read that headline.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
This is nothing new, for years business has been shifting manufacturing to impoverished countries to take advantage of cheap labour. They are just thinking ahead!
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
If the UPC starts with 9, it's organic.
If it starts with 8, it's GM.
If there's another number, it's conventionally farmed.
For once, lazy programming helps slashdotters.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
And they are against GM food, because it's patent creep - doodle around in a little corner of the genome and patent the whole plant afterwards, thus gaining power over all people doing business with similar plants and destroying traditonal seed circulation.
Wow!
BASF still exists? To me BASF is this, and I haven't heard them since. :)
BASF is the largest chemical company in the world - more than twice the size of DuPont. 2010 revenues were almost 64 billion €.
And that fear is an irrational fear of the science behind it. Many of the crops have been in use for several decades and proven not only safe but in the case of corn, highly effective at reducing pesticide use yet they are still banned in Europe. Not because there is any evidence showing that they are bad, but because the public at large fears them. In fact there has been lots of studies showing a complete lack of harm and not a single study showing harm yet they are still banned.
They were erring on the safe side in the first 5 years this stuff was used, 20 years down the road they aren't on the safe side anymore, they are on irrational side. And yes it is most certainly anti-science (anti crop science), it's just a different variety than the kind in the US.
In Europe the market gets to decide if they want GMO food. That happens because they have labeling and menu laws that require the disclosure. It's capitalism at work. BASF is free to grow all the GMO it wants. But they have to sell GMO to the consumers. Here in the US you can pretty much put what you want into foods without nearly as much disclosure.
"if they are tested for safety properly" Right. With emphasis on "properly". Any GMO research done by the industry itself can obviously not be trusted, unless you are extremely naive and gullible. Let's see what independent researchers say about it: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/13/opinion/la-oe-guriansherman-seeds-20110213 Oh, wait. I find it pathetic that this "Anti-Science" garbage is thrown around any time someone is skeptic of something presented under the guise of "science". Perhaps that's part of the strategy though. Use some critical thinking, people, if you are capable of it.
Wow! These were the times, when we cared about chrome dioxide tapes. Then the CDs came bout and everything went downhill. Seriously, this is one of the largest chemical companies in the world. you don't here about them, because they no longer market to consumers, at least in the US. But if you need 100 metric tons of a pigment, or a polymer, or any other chemical they are the guys to go to.
30 years of Conservative ideology has finally paid off.
Is it so irrational? Look at Japan. People there believed in progress, in technology, with an almost religious fervour. Until a disaster laid bare not flaws in the science, mind you, but flaws in the humans profiting off it. The same goes for our European anti-GM sentiments: Do you in all seriousness trust the likes of Monsanto or BASF not to put cash over lives? No matter how sound the science behind GM is, there already are enough reasons to be very mindful of what food I buy. And all of them are down to some greedy fucks trying to skim off just a little bit more. I do not need another layer of adverse interests thrown into the mix.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
In 1992, the FDA declared that biotech foods were the same as conventional foods – because the biotech companies said so. The number 8 was then instituted since the produce industry thought consumers would prefer genetically modified food moreso than conventionally grown food. It did not take long for them to find out differently. Although the number 8 designation can still be found, it is rare. The biotech industry is also fighting any sort of labeling for their inventions – now that they know consumers really do not want them. As it stands now, Hawaiian papaya is about the only food you will find that has the number 8 in front of it.
It's funny - the IP/Patent Creep angle is actually the most compelling and possibly only legitimate argument against GM food. If this is the real reason behind the protesting, then it's doing the right thing (fighting GM food) for the right reason (Patent Creep / IP / Corporate greed controlling food)
However, I bet there really are a lot of "frankenfood" protestors there too.. folks who are doing the right thing (fighting GM food) for the wrong reason. I worry about that crowd because it's like handing the corporate apologists a giant strawman.
The Digital Sorceress
OK.
1. Failure to use turn signal.
2. Speeding.
3. Driving while intoxicated.
That's three.
You are welcome on my lawn.
GMO is not about making plants that produce more, or are resistant to cold or heat or drought.
It is the control of the food supply, that is what it is about.
Ask any Biologist, and they will tell you, genetically creating strains of identical plant lines to maximize a trait is a truly dangerous thing to do. Whenever you take and engineer biological entities such as plants, that are gentically identical and create entire artificial eco systems that have low diversity, or in the case of GMO, _NO_ diversity, all sorts of catastrophic destruction can happen to the population.
Whether it be a GERM, a BUG or BAD WEATHER, having a food supply that is genetically diverse and NOT engineered is the safest and will produce the most food, consistently over a wide variety of environmental conditions.
GMO has got to be the worst possible idea of all time. It won't produce food for anyone except the rich, and it will not produce food that has the ecological diversity requirements to provide a safe consistent yield.
It isn't by accident you know, they will not put GMO labels on food. They know it is not safe, and they do not want you to know about it.
GMO also is causing massive extinction rates in our grain crops from gene contamination. If this isn't stopped, there won't be any grain species left that are safe to eat.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
The thing is no one knows for sure the effects of GM on human bodies, animal bodies, plant bodies and Evolution in general, over a long period of time.
That, by definition, is true for anything. There is always the possibility of an unknown unknown. However, that notion cannot be falsified and as such is a poor point. A better question would be if any of the genes inserted into GE crops pose known any risk. Right now, the few that are (EPSPS protein, various cry proteins, bar enzyme, CMV/PRV coat protein) do not. The moment anyone has evidence supporting the notion that there is any harm from these, or any other inserted protein (since that must be taken on a case by case basis), or the process itself (though strangely not any other plant improvement method) then maybe that notion will have merit.
Also, I notice you're not applying the same logic to any given conventionally bred trait. You could ask the same question about the Cry1Ab gene as you could the sd-1 gene, and it would make about as much sense. The comparison I like to use is lets say you decided to apply that thinking to the smallpox vaccine. Hey, it might have some long term potential but as of yet unsubscribed side effect that could hurt a lot of people, so should it have been used. Yes, because you have to consider KNOWN facts, not what-ifs that may or may not (probably the latter) actually exist.
Safety of consumption is just one of the safety concerns. A much bigger problem is crosspollination, and escaping to the wild, messing up the ecosystem. By these standards even safely consumable GMO plants aren't safe.