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Majority of EU Nations Seek Opt-Out From Growing GM Crops
schwit1 writes: Nineteen EU member states have requested opt-outs for all or part of their territory from cultivation of a Monsanto genetically-modified crop, which is authorized to be grown in the European Union, the European Commission said on Sunday. Under a law signed in March, individual countries can seek exclusion from any approval request for genetically modified cultivation across the 28-nation EU. The law was introduced to end years of stalemate as genetically modified crops divide opinion in Europe. The requests are for opt-outs from the approval of Monsanto's GM maize MON 810, the only crop commercially cultivated in the European Union, or for pending applications, of which there are eight so far, the Commission said.
It's not about science. It's also about the stupid IP stuff that comes with it.
I call myself anti-monsanto. Them monopolizing agriculture is the most evil and reckless act i've ever seen. And that includes the oil companies killing all living in the oceans.
Monsanto play with all our lives. I'm not fearing of a sentient corn, i'm fearing of famine due to their corn one day becomes scarce because they are unable or unwilling to sell seeds.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
The problem isn't to do with GM, it's to do with the way in which profits are derived from GM. The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependancy on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.
What compounds the issue is that the US patent system is known to be desparately broken. Intellectual property and copyright law are bracketed into the same brokenness. What that means is that not only do consumers of GM products become dependant on the product, but the producer is able to sustain an indefinite monopoly of it.
This isn't about science. Never was. It's about becoming Monsanto's bitch and not being able to do anything about it.
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We'll see all the usual "you're anti-science!" strawman arguments flung around here, I'm sure. A lot of us (my self included) happen to think the science is sound.
My beef is I don't like how Monsanto behaves, and I don't want to (knowingly) spend my money purchasing a product they might profit from.
And GMO is really a euphemism for Monsanto. They're the *only* meaningful player in this industry right now.
Their loss is our gain.
Two things: there's been mounting evidence Monsanto has been outright lying about the evidence they have on the toxicity of their crap, which means trusting them is idiotic. The evidence we have that their crap is safe is them saying so ... which means it's self-serving stuff which as like as not hides any information they had to the contrary.
And, hey, if the 'market' speaks and says it doesn't want this shit, Monsanto doesn't have the "right" to sell product to countries which don't want it. Monsanto has the right to piss off an go away.
So, boo fucking hoo ... countries tell Monsanto to piss off. That's Monsanto's problem. Nobody is under any obligation to allow Monsanto to sell their product, as much as the assholes who run that corporation think otherwise.
So if "the market" is sending a big fuck you to Monsanto ... too damned bad for Monsanto. They may have hoodwinked Americans into believing their crap, but that doesn't mean that countries shouldn't be able to say "we don't want your shit".
Because when all of agriculture is beholden to Monsanto, we'll all be pretty much fucked.
This isn't "anti science", this is anti Monsanto, and people simply not buying the notion that GMO is safe until proven otherwise. Sorry, but how about we put the burden of proof on Monsanto, instead of just taking them at their word?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The headline says "crops". The articles specifies one crop (MON 810). Adjust your level of outrage/rejoicing accordingly.
It's only a thin line if you want to be a facetious ass and make it one. Genetically modified crops are just that, They're crops that have had their DNA altered with DNA from other species. Cross pollinating a grapefruit with a tangerine to make a tangelo is not GM. Adding the DNA from a jellyfish to a potato pant, just to make it glow when thirsty, is.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
there's been mounting evidence Monsanto has been outright lying about the evidence they have on the toxicity of their crap, which means trusting them is idiotic. The evidence we have that their crap is safe is them saying so ... which means it's self-serving stuff which as like as not hides any information they had to the contrary.
[Citation Needed]
And, hey, if the 'market' speaks and says it doesn't want this shit, Monsanto doesn't have the "right" to sell product to countries which don't want it. Monsanto has the right to piss off an go away.
Are you insinuating that the market is always rational, and it is impossible for people with an agenda to manipulate the market by spreading FUD?
I am more concerned one day they screw up and their transgenic crops do pollinate / seed in the wild. They displace natural varieties without anyone noticing until its to late. Finally the genes to make them sterile or only grow in the presence of certain chemicals etc do get flipped back on and we have massive crop losses in a staple food product like maize.
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As opposed to the current system in which farmers buy non-GM hybrids from seed companies (upon which they're entirely dependent), pesticides from chemical companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), fuel from oil companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), etc. Clearly you've never interacted with a real farmer, and are entirely ignorant of how your food is produced. Farmers buy GM seeds because it makes economic sense. No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time. When GM seeds first came out, most farmers only planted a portion of their fields with them to see how they'd work out. The next year, most switched over almost entirely. Farmers can do math, and the math for GM crops works well for most.
So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? These things cost billions of dollars in very hard R&D to develop and bring to market. Without a patent then anyone will grow some of your seeds and then sell them next year to compete with your seeds and they had to do none of the work.
If you want to replace this system you must come up with an alternative.
No patents on living organisms would also screw over the biotech industry. What if I make a new tumor supressor gene from scratch that is better than any human gene and would 100% prevent cancer. As soon as I treated the first person someone would just have their DNA read and find the sequence and sell it without doing any of the R&D.
I understand not liking patents on living things but if you want technology developed our current economic system required a profit motive and without that motive the technology won't be created. This is not like computer programming where a few people on no budget can do amazing work and change things. This stuff is insanely expensive and hard to do. Reaction ingredients alone would bankrupt most people.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.
mutating plants with radiation
That's not what GMO is.
That's what organic is.
I have farmers in my family. I've, -er-, interacted with farmers from Nebraska, Ukraine, Nepal, India, UK, Germany, Holland and France.
Many of the farmers have used hybrids, sure. Many of them have decided against using hybrids for exact the same reason that they don't want to choose GM seeds. Some have heirloom crops that they are very proud of. Not all.
Some of the farmers I've talked with hate the other dependancies that you mention - pesticides are a pain, and farming legislation is increasingly tough. But there are choices, and there is competition. You have an idea about what your spend will be, you know what the current environmental risks are for your own farm, and you can do something about that. GM grain sells poorly in Europe. Legislation requires that, when used as ingredients, all GM crops are labelled as such, so that the consumer can make a choice. Blame an incredibly bad PR department from Monsanto if you wish, but GM has a truly bad reputation in the consumer sector of Europe.
You state that 'most' farmers switched over entirely to GM crops within the second year of using them. The USDA disagrees. In the USA, its true that most (ie, over 50%) soybean, beet, cotton, corn and canola are GM crops. but that's it. GM is a choice, yes. But actually there's a far greater move towards premium value crops in EU - such as the organic market, which is high risk, but very high reward. The reward is so high that it covers a bad year without difficulty. What may surprise you is that EU consumers will prefer a small non-uniform non-hybrid organic vegetable to a beautful, big, bouncy GM one.
So, why was MON 810 barred from some countries? It's yet another Bt maize, so what's the fuss?
Wickson and Wynne suggest that debates over the quality of science for policy in the case of MON810 are inherently shaped by unstated normative commitments and value judgments. Finally, they argue that for agricultural biotechnology, there are a range of conditions that make current practices of assessing the quality of biosafety science unethical. These include: a lack of open access to testing materials; limited resources for independent research; lack of transparency concerning the transgenic constructs in use; lack of consistency in the application of evidentiary and interpretive standards; and no clear processes ensuring accountability and consistency in assessment processes.
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It has less to do with the Science of GMO and potential issue that my come with the new combo of genes. It has more to do with the Patent on a core food and even more to do with pesticides.
GMOs are designed to resist the negative effects from pesticides so more pesticides can be applied. That is great that more bugs are dying and more plants are living. But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food. Then we eat the food that now has absorbed the poison. That must be real healthy.
love the taste, hate the texture
If they become unwilling or unable to sell corn seed, buy it from another company.
What's the issue?
Monsanto's business model: You buy seed from company X or make your own seed. Monsanto sends private detectives out to take samples from your crop. If they find signs of patented DNA sequences which will happen because of cross polinization, Monsanto threatens to sue you into oblivion unless you switch to Monsanto. (Legally you're guilty of "DNA piracy" unless you can prove your innocance...It's your word against Monsanto's.) Once you switch to Monsanto, you sign a contract that prohibits you from reseeding your own corn. So you have to purchase new seed from Monsanto each year. Competing seed suppliers go bankrupt because all their customers were forced to switch to Monsanto. Repeat above over and over again in market after market until Monsanto runs out of markets to monopolize and farmers no longer are able to reseed. Profits!!!
such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic.
You're absolutely right! We should ban all sources of radiation that might affect the DNA of an organism in a way that could result in the appearance of a specific characteristic.
His point doesn't address what the OP said.
He is making a line you can't cross in the taxological tree because reasons. Why can we manipulate the genes in species but not Kingdom? Oh, I know... God did it, right? That was the whole point of OP when he said: "It's a very hazy line there... is it just stuff made by Monsanto or *all* GM stuff, like... say just about *all* corn that's grown on the planet?" There are concerns with Monsanto, (see below in thread) that seem legitimate. But to label "ALL GM is bad" is proclaiming ignorance. Just like the GP misunderstanding what a species is.
"DNA that's totally foreign." What is foreign? When do you define DNA as foreign? How far up the taxological tree do you have go when it becomes foreign? how far back in evolutionary history do you have to go? How do you define that line in taxonomy? As if our DNA does not have the remnants of endogenous retroviruses, or the 60% of DNA we share with a banana plant.
The misinformed nature of his post is modded (as of now) +4 informative. It just shows you that the anti-GMO camp is mostly uninformed. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.
"No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time."
No you cant. Once you grow a GMO crop your fields are contaminated with the crap for years. and if your neighbors are growing it, you are FUCKED. as the cross pollination will taint your entire crop and then yuo get fined for growing a monsanto crop without a licensing fee because the genetic markers are there.
Why dont you actually TALK to a farmer, I have 3 in my family and I know the reality of this. You grow what your neighbors are growing because you have a legal nightmare trying to sell your crops if it's patent tainted by cross pollination.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They're banning it for the same reason that requiring labeling for cell phone radiation levels is now banned: It's a pointless indicator designed to create consumer FUD because of somebody's silly religious belief.
Seriously, GMO food is safe people. So far the best argument against GMO food is "We haven't found any actual scientific evidence that there's anything wrong with it, but you never know, therefore it should be labeled and/or banned." File this under other phobias like Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity.
In fact one more thing to add: If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit and limiting pasteurization.
http://www.geneticliteracyproj...
Meanwhile, guess how many got sick or died from GMO food? Zero. Not a one.
Another thing: Organic food requires a LOT more farmland for the same yield, and it's worth pointing out that making way for farmland is the biggest cause of deforestation.
Possibly, but if I want to wear a tinfoil hat, I don't want someone to sell me a shiny plastic one because it is nonsense to wear tinfoil
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Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.
Bullshit. I am a food scientist for Agriculture Canada and earlier worked at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
There are no properly executed studies showing what you claim.
Zero. Nada. Zilch.
I'm not sure, but they sure didn't object to evolution by natural selection being the only theory of the origin of the species to be taught in schools.
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We've been eating genetically modified food since before the dark ages. Hell, broccoli is pretty much entirely man made. Maize that we eat today has never existed in the wild. Fear for fear's sake is anti-science.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
My opinion of GMO food has nothing to do with Monsanto. When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.
In fact, that's another reason why the anti-GMO movement is so full of bullshit that it's falling out of their ears: They constantly create false dilemmas. "You support GMO? You must support monsanto then!" or "You support GMO? You must eat frankenfood!" It's all a load of crap.
Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.
And guess what? All of them have been debunked. Furthermore, they're mostly done by people like this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In other words, people who have an ideology they want to push, so they use borderline fraudulent tactics and gross scientific misconduct to try to push their "studies".
Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.
So, how do you feel about selective breeding processes that include drenching the organisms in radiation or mutagenic chemicals in order to dramatically increase the mutation rate? Nearly everything in your grocery store was bred via this method, which has been in use for at least a century, because it works really well. By massively increasing the mutation rate you can get your desired characteristics orders of magnitude faster than relying on natural mutations and cross-breeding.
If you're not okay with that method, then there's not much available for you to eat.
If you are okay with that method, can you explain how insertion of single gene to produce a desired effect is worse that thousands of random mutations, all of which are completely unknown outside of the immediately-observable phenotypic effects?
The fact is that humans have been doing various degrees of genetic engineering on our food crops for millenia, and massively increased it in the last couple of centuries (once Darwin explained how it worked). The methods of the last couple of decades are refinements which, if anything, should be dramatically safer than what came before, since the changes are smaller and better-controlled.
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No, Monsanto is actually doing both things. Some traits are improved more rapidly through transgene technology (ie herbicide resistance or insecticide production in the roots), whereas most traits that they farmer actually gets paid for (ie yields) are more rapidly improved through "traditional" cross breeding. Monsanto does both. May sound like a nitpick, but it shows your ignorance (as in lack of specific knowledge, not stupidity) on this matter.
Also, they are not "entirely different". The same technology that can be used to insert a transgenic trait can also be used to transfer a single gene between cultivars within the same species. IIRC, the LPA (low phytic acid) allele was original discovered in corn by accident, and then using the same gene insertion technology was inserted into more productive strains of corn. The product ultimately failed on the market due to practical considerations (lower viability of the plant, and problems associated with segregating LPA corn from commodity corn in order to be able to get a higher price). More recent work along this line has solved the first problem by delaying the activation of the LPA allel until after the plant is fully grown so that it primarily affects phytate P deposition in the seed (which is desirable), but that doesn't adequately address the basic logistics question of how to get the higher priced corn to someone who will pay the higher prices. Especially since feed enzymes (phytase) can be used to break down the phytic acid in cheaper commodity corn just fine.
Furthermore, new CRISPR technology will make it possible to edit genes in place with no need to transfer DNA from another plant or species in order to get the desired gene into the genome. It is expected that this will be used to modify plants in all sorts of ways without crossing the species barrier. The future is here, and it has been shown to be safe thus far. At some point you need to just get over the fear and accept that we've got this covered, so you can worry about something that might actually hurt you.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Do you mean DDT? Instead of using your memory you might want to look into that. The science used to ban it was based on fraudulent data and the WHO has since allowed its use again because it turns out to not be all that bad when used properly. What they do mind is that it shouldn't be used as a treatment for crops but they've since realized that the whole egg shell thing was crap and the health issues were also (mostly) crap. It does, indeed, turn out that using it to soak down children daily is in fact not healthy but used properly it works to control mosquito populations and is quite safe to be used in conjunction with other preventative methods.
No, you don't have to worry about waking up to zombie corn stalks.
Nothing, not ever, is proven safe. Science does not work that way. Everything is potentially harmful. Instead, we've found these reasonably safe to date and I suggest more studies be done while not crippling ourselves with fear because you think you've an obligation to tell others what to do based on your feelings.
Finally, stop with the strawman shit. Nobody is arguing that we should deregulate anything. This isn't a corporate thing - it's an anti-science and fear mongering thing and you're partaking in it. That's fine but please, for all that is good, do it quietly and stop trying to prevent progress because you're scared. If they were, in fact, bad we'd have a huge outcry based on the science and not FUD.
"Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand, for the times they are a-changing." Bob Dylan
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
DDT was widely used because it is highly effective at stopping the spread of infectious diseases by killing the vector.
This was before anybody took a critical look at it, and it had already been in use for nearly a century before anybody had. The people saying it was still safe were the ones following the long term momentum, much as the anti-GMO crowd is saying that millennia old organic farming is safe (and in reality it's not safe compared to modern synthetic farming methods.)
I'll tell you what: If glyphosate shows up in any material quantity (one or even a hundred parts per million isn't significant at all) then we can put it on the food labels.
glyphosates are now being shown to definitely be harmful
It's only been shown harmful to people coming into direct contact with huge quantities of it. Though I think coming into direct contact with cow shit used for organic farming is probably more hazardous to your health, yet people like you don't go around espousing the dangers of organic food.
Furthermore, glyphosate isn't the only application of GMO food. If you want to attack glyphosate, then make your issues with glyphosate instead of genetic modification.
But you won't, because that would actually make sense. You're in this for an ideology, which doesn't necessarily have to make any sense at all, just so long as it fits your personal world view.
Since the scientific consensus on the safety of current GMO crops is HIGHER than the scientific consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming, YES it is anti-science.
If you don't like gene patents, get involved in politics and lobby to have laws passed that strongly curtail or eliminate gene patents (I'd be right there with you, BTW). But blaming a technology because you don't like the ways in which one company is using it, is a little like railing against incompetent hammers because the contractor you hired to renovate you bathroom fucked it up.
Aside #1 - The original patent on glyphosate resistance should be expiring in the next 12 months (if it hasn't already), so we will see how reviled that particular technology is once everyone can use it free of charge.
Aside #2 - Much of the practices documented by politically biased film makers like Polan have been industry standard practice for longer than GM technology has been available. For example, no-seed-saving clauses have been pretty standard in contracts for generations. Farmers consider them a fair trade because dedicated breeders can improve seeds much faster (even without modern molecular GM techniques) than busy farmer can do it themselves, and there are plenty of places one can buy non-contract encumbered seeds if one is so inclined. The fact that the vast majority of farmers have chosen the GM seeds (despite the higher costs) should make it pretty clear that farmers consider them worth the cost.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Sorry, but if banning GMO foods is the only way to rein-in Monsanto, I'll accept that price.
That's like saying that if banning computers is the only way to reign in Microsoft, you'll accept that price. It's an asshole ideology.
And banning GMO labeling is just authoritarian bullshit. Now requiring GMO labeling might be unreasonable.
Umm...you completely misunderstand. You're welcome to stick a GMO label on food if you want; the ban is against laws that require labeling (i.e. governments telling other governments what to do.) The laws that require labeling are authoritarian.
. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.
What happens when a GMO is released into the wild is irreversible genetic pollution of non-modified organisms.
Your reading comprehension seems poor. Emphasis added.
Lets talk about what is on the table. On the one hand you have the ecological factor of pesticide producing plants and the pests that grow resistant to them. On the other hand you have limited pesticides to give to various populations. In one decision people are fed and in future generations of pests they might become more resistant to modern pesticides, but people do not starve to death. On the other hand, crop yields are halved because no good access to pesticides, people starve to death.
Which would you choose? Save thousands now for an unknown. Or risk the unknown and let thousands die? Before you make a decision starve yourself for 2 weeks and then tell me about your pompous opinion.
As if our DNA does not have the remnants of endogenous retroviruses
As for your reductio ad absurdum argument about the non-dangers of "foreign" DNA: how does such an argument stack up against "foreign DNA" when it's wrapped up inside "invasive species"?
Holy reading comprehension... What the fuck do you think an endogenous retrovirus is you twat? Where did I say "non-dangers"? No technology is prefect. But let's not forget that the same virus that causes aids could be used to cure leukemia. But who cares right? Fuck gene therapy because scary GMO.
You underestimate how many people starve to death, how many people have been fed because of modern advances to agriculture, how every technological advancement to agriculture resulted in a population boon, how many more people could be saved with GMO, and the amount help the environment could get from GMO.
If you actually provide scientific evidence for ecological damage or some kind of "consequence" then DO IT. Just remember your belly is full because GM has increased the food supply. That is a fact.
If you keep it a secret, it makes people much more nervous about it as if you tell. If there is no problem with it, why not be honest about it? If people realize that they are eating GMO food all the day, and they are still healthy, wouldn't that be much better for proving that GMO food is ok? Everyone thus can see it.
Also, all your work is based on thousands of people before you, are you going to let them share in the profits of your discovery?
Finally, if you want to make a profit, find another field to do it in. Become an investment banker, football player or the next Justin Bieber. I don't care, but getting a PhD in science is not supposed to be a guarantee of vast wealth in the future.
If everyone had your attitude, things like the LHC wouldn't exist.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it