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Scotland To Ban GM Crops
An anonymous reader writes: Scotland's rural affairs minister has announced the country will ban the growing of genetically modified crops. He said, "I am concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand, thereby gambling with the future of our £14 billion food and drink sector." Many Scottish farmers disapprove of the ban, pointing out that competing farms in nearby England face no such restriction. "The hope was to have open discussion and allow science to show the pros and cons for all of us to understand either the potential benefits or potential downsides. What we have now is that our competitors will get any benefits and we have to try and compete. It is rather naïve."
in case you missed the last twenty years, they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed), b: specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye), and most importantly c: as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Lots of people like to say things like 'there is no evidence that GMOs are dangerous.' But that is mirroring the hippy-dippy types who say that anything 'natural' is healthy.
Just because no one's found a problem with the corn that most of us have been unknowingly eating for decades, that doesn't mean the latest and greatest GMO won't have its own unique risks. The more GMOs that are engineered, the more chances there are to screw something up.
Do these people want us to go back to the Stone Age? Because that's what's going to happen.
These people are opposed to any progress that might actually solve the problems we face, which only leaves us with the option of going backwards.
From http://www.savethepinebush.org...
Who Owns Life?
Canadian Farmer Sued by Monsanto
by Lynne Jackson
ALBANY, NY — The First Lutheran Church was the setting for the talk by Percy Schmeiser, the Canadian farmer being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. [...] Around 1995, Percy told his wife he was thinking of retirement. Louise expressed concerns about what he would do with himself, so Percy decided to keep farming for a while longer. What to do with his spare time was decided in 1998, when Monsanto sued Percy for patent infringement. Monsanto said that it had found GMO (genetically modified organism) canola seed in Percy’s field, and that Percy had to pay a $15 an acre fee for using its patented GMO seed. Percy never had anything to do with Monsanto. He never purchased seed from Monsanto. He was concerned that Monsanto seed had contaminated his farm. The GMO canola plants got into his fields by the wind blowing pollen or seed onto his land. It took two years for the pre-trail motions and paper-work to be completed. During this time, Monsanto dropped their charge that Percy had illegally obtained the GMO seed. Because this was a patent case, the case would not be heard by a jury but by one federal judge. The trial took two and one-half weeks. The federal judge decided that it did not matter how the GMO crops got into his field, he must pay Monsanto their fee of $15/acre. In addition, the judge ordered that Percy pay Monsanto all of the profits from his 1998 crop, and that he must turn over all of the plants and seeds to Monsanto. Two of Percy’s fields were not contaminated with Monsanto GMOs and 60% of the GMOs Monsanto found were in the ditch by the road. Percy appealed his case to the federal Court of Appeals, which upheld the ruling against Percy by the first judge.
There is nothing Luddite refusing GMO.
Of course, you realise that the Terminator Seeds thing is effectively a myth - right:
http://www.monsanto.com/newsvi...
Of course, we're quite happy to eat effectively some of these kinds of plants (seedless grapes and seedless watermelon).
And of course if you were worried about some of the GM gene's getting into the "wild", this would be a good thing. Then again, you'd expect one to be more concerned about our traditionally GM'd crops (i.e., bred) inter breading with their "wild" relatives.
So long as by "the rest of the world" you mean North America, Australia and New Zealand, then yes, you are correct.
I guess I'm lucky that Australia and NZ get included. The average American doesn't know that ANY of the rest of the world exists.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed)
If they are, they're not blocking anything, as Monsanto has never sold terminator seeds.
specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye)
If they are, they're not blocking everything, because all crops are being constantly bred for disease resistance
as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
There has never been a lawsuit for accidental wind sprouting. The closest case was Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser, in which Schmeiser bred roundup-ready seed, pretending to have had it been part of a wind-blow, but actually having purchased the seed before, and simply bred a new crop without paying for it:
Lots of luddites on slashdot right now. I thought I ought to correct the record.
A crop designed to be sterile. Even though it has seeds these seeds are nonviable by design. That for me is enough to dislike it. It attempts to bypass natural selection, and in the event of an emergency makes us dependent on the supplier of the seeds which is supposed to be the plant itself. This methodology promotes mono-cultures, and is a long term dead end from an evolutionary position.
forcing terminal
Nobody is 'forcing' anybody to do anything, and there are no 'terminal' crops. Two words, two lies. Seems about right for the anti-GMO bunch.
There are quite a few farmers on the wrong end of Monsanto's legal team that would fucking disagree with you, particularly over Monsanto's claims that the natural cross-pollination of patented seed constitutes patent infringement, forcing farmers who don't wish to participate in the Monsanto way of life to succumb or be driven out of business.
Natural Ignorance. Two more words often used to describe those who sit around uneducated on the matter.
Seedless watermelon involves crossing two lines (diploid and tetraploid) annually to generate a sterile fruit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I understand it seedless grapes are typically grafted from plant to plant and are perennial but I expect the "first" generation of them are produced in a similarity. That's how you could get multiple seedless varieties (green, red, black, etc.)
The "accidental contamination gets you sued" argument that they made is also a myth. The most famous case usually cited is that of Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser, where they sued a Canadian canola farmer for growing crops from seeds wind-pollinated from a neighbor using their plants. But Schmeiser always admitted to deliberately trying to get the glyphosphate resistance. He roundup'ed his own crops that were grown next to his neighbor who was using roundup-ready canola, saved only those seeds from the survivors for the next year and planted his whole crop with the resistant seeds, achieving a 95-98% concentration of the gene. He was deliberately attempting to acquire the gene without paying for it - it was in no way, shape or form "accidental contamination". Monsanto confronted him about what he was doing and insisted he pay a license fee since he was using their crop. He refused saying that because he grew it from seeds on his land, it was his own property.
Despite the fact that it was deliberate contamination, not accidental, Monsanto still barely won the patent infringement case, 5-4.
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
Take a close look at those cases. The lawsuits have only been people who were obviously intentionally selecting for the trait to grow their own roundup ready seeds. People who get cross-pollinated by accident have never been sued. The lawsuits generated a lot of press, so there's a pretty good amount of information in the public record about what actually happened, and it's nothing like what the anti-GMO activists have claimed.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Interesting perspective. Almost entirely wrong, but still interesting.
TL;DR:
1) Monsanto does not produce "sterile" seeds. They do hold a patent on that technology, but have promised not to create seeds using that technology. Yes, they could go back on that promise...but how about we wait until they actually do that before vilifying them?
2) They have never "litigated a farmer to death" over "marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows". The one lawsuit that occurred was a result of a farmer who intentionally replanted Monsanto seeds from crops adjoining his neighbors farm (who was using Monsanto seeds), after spraying those same crops with RoundUp, so he knew that was was left was pesticide resistant.
In this case, the amount the farmer (after appeal) had to pay Monsanto was: $0.
There are lots of crops that are purchased from seed year after year. That long predates transgenic products. The idea that patents and reseeding agreemtents are new is just nonsense propaganda, not to mention the fact that there are just some crops that are more practical to purchase seed for year after year. The farming industry hasn't collapsed and those terrible predictions haven't come true.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Simple answer:
The plants do produce viable seed. The sterile seed BS is just FUD by the anti-GMO group.
Really? You mean the book by this guy, who has literally no educational background in genetics (or for that matter, any kind of science).
And before you accuse me of ad-hominem (which is not always fallacious), a pretty good trouncing of every "fact" in that book can be found here
And yet, with all of the farmers out there, there are no examples whatsoever of inadvertent use resulting in a lawsuit. The only ones who have gotten sued are the ones who obviously intentionally selected the Roundup Ready seed and planted that. Monsanto's position on this is pretty clear, and they've acted on it exactly how they said they would. In fact, Monsanto used to have (and probably still does) a policy that they'll pay to have hybrids removed from your fields if you contact them.
Terminator seeds would completely solve this problem, but there was so much outcry and shit flinging when they were proposed that Monsanto has pledged not to produce them. This is 100% not Monsanto's fault. They'd love to sell terminator seeds and have 0% cross pollination and never have to worry about enforcing their contracts.
That's a tougher nut to crack. USDA rules allow some cross pollination without losing certification. I haven't seen a lot of data that indicates hybrids are taking over, and depending on the crop, there are techniques to mitigate the problem (adjusting planting times, etc.). But cross pollination happens and people need to learn to live with it. If I grew strawberries and claimed that my deity was angered by corn pollen touching them, how much of a right would I have to dictate what my neighbors planted? At some point, the public's demand for religious accommodation on this issue is going to start trampling on other practical goods and we're going to need to draw a line.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
When I did a search, Schmeiser did not come up, but this did: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/monsanto-wins-lawsuit_n_3417081.html and to quote in part, "Monsanto filed 144 patent-infringement lawsuits against farmers between 1997 and April 2010, and won judgments against farmers it said made use of its seed without paying required royalties."
The assertion on slashdot is that everyone they won against stole the Monsanto seed, but cross-contamination is well documented which places the burden of proof on Monsanto's many and loud defenders. Monsanto does not claim cross-contamination doesn't occur, though they claim to not sue for it (that PR statement being the subject of a lawsuit that was the subject of the linked article). Yes, in the linked article it appears that being a public statement it is binding -- but Monsanto has refused to sign anything that would clearly be legally binding -- despite: "In its ruling Monday, the court noted that records indicate a large majority of conventional seed samples have become contaminated by Monsanto's Roundup resistance trait."
And, again, *Monsanto* admits to cross-contamination so any claim that they have not wrongfully sued needs to be examined on a case by case basis. Just offering one case (there are 144 mentioned in the article) does nothing to support Monsanto's claims to not wrongfully sue.
I know, Monsanto's astroturfing wants the discussion to be about "GMO is so good farmers steal it and then lie about it" but that isn't what is happening. That isn't why the lawsuit in the linked article happened. Free market proponents want the market to settle things and... the free market has said there is a market from selling non-GMO products. And companies that wish to cater to this are being harmed by cross-contamination as their product is no longer non-GMO.
I realize the Monsanto narrative is about dishonest farmers who steal Monsanto's imaginary property, but Monsanto's GMO is a *liability* for farmers. They don't *want* it no matter what Monsanto lies are spread around. Why don't they want it? Because it costs them money. Not from paying Monsanto, but from not being able to see their product. http://www.rt.com/usa/monsanto-lawsuits-gmo-wheat-603/