France bans GM crops

make no mistake, this is all about profit.....disgusting indeed!!

Originally posted by Pro-genetic

Personnaly I think this stuff is a load of ****, not the crops but rather the people who say its bad for the enviroment and all that carry on,in 20 years of this stuff growing in the wild I have yet to see any adverse effects on the enviroment or mutants walking around after eating the stuff!

20 years of what growing in the wild? Genetically Modified Plants? What kind and where? Who modified them, and then illegally released them into the wild? In 1988, no GM plants were mainstream in anyway. Sure, plants had been altered, I even altered wheat plants as a H.S. Freshman in 1990*, but nothing in the food supply or released into the wild that I know of.

Personally, I think Genetically Modified Organisms are an extremely bad idea. The risks involved with Terminator Genes and such are too great when one realizes the possible effects on the human body in the long term. Too many people just go with the flow, and don't really care what is put on their table to eat. For all we know, GMO corn DNA may recombine with GMO canola DNA, and change human DNA because of the mutating radiation of TVs and Cell Phones. Not to mention the GMO plants who create their own pesticides, that now we eat instead of wash off... Bad News...

To each their own, for sure. But I try to only eat Organic, Locally Grown foods if I can. My health has been amazing since I did.
DocMoreau

*-I was a part of a Freshman Honors Biology class that did internships. Mine was at the University, genetically modifying wheat plants. I did everything but create the 'magic' elixir that contained the bacterium that did all the leg work of the recombining. In all, I was a young, glorified lab tech, but the professor like my work, especially when it came time to cut the embryos out of seeds. My smaller than adult size seemed to give me more room to do seed surgery. I could go into more detail... but not at this time.

reply to post by Animal


1) read the link, the farmer in canada was clearly stealing
2) what about every other crop that when first introduced threatened every other thing around it, what abot the stuff that was growing in those hills before farmers came along, your point makes no sense
3) anti capitalist post if ever i saw one
4) touche, but this is just another turn moving further away from agrarian society
5) link wont work

In case you all haven't heard, the insecticidal properties of GM crops have already been 'hacked' by nature.

So much for genetic engineering -- evolution has got it beat

reply to post by Beachcoma


Its an uphill struggle against nature which make no mistake wants us all dead, it was only a matter of time before this happened and well just have to counter it, and nature will counter us, this will go on and on!

reply to post by Pro-genetic


Dude...You got it all wrong.

Nature doesn't want us dead. Where do you get your information from?

We are part of nature. We should be working with nature, not against it.

How do you think you are here in the first place? Due to the grace of nature not killing your family before you were born.

I don't think you understand how fragile we are and how close we are to extinction.

We don't need genetically modified food to help us. We need to use organic methods to do so. Otherwise when "it" hits the fan, and there's no petrochemicals left to power the laboratories, and there's no chemicals for use in the laboratory, natural methods will be our only way of food production.

I suggest you start reading up now and going out into the field and growing instead of relying on terminator seeds.

You're playing with fire and you will never win.

reply to post by biggie smalls


totally agree with you 100%there we all need to be learning to grow food and nature will help us! we are nature and we work with nature and we will be shown the right direction to go in to keep us all healthy and living!

All this artifical means of making our food is just so messed up, I wish someone could educate the masses on how wrong it is! The people need to be told and those pushing for GM need to be taught and stopped. Power within the people we must act!

reply to post by misuneko

nature might be our mother but she is a cruel bit** and has it out for humanity, the only way to survive acording to you is to cull quite a lot of humanity as there aint enough room to grow food to feed us all the "natural" way, plain and simple truth of it folks, what land there is will soon be used up, we have to use that more efficently and nature does not provide that for us, by your own argument nature gave us brains, we are useing that gift and solving problems that nature has set in our path!

Unfortunately this discussion already shows the first signs of turning into an emotional battle of pro and contras.

I really would like to participate, but I'm an emotional being too, and being a mod also I better desist, and just give a friendly reminder of civility and our T&C.

Here I have to remind the author of the OP, that there's nothing wrong with 'anti capitalist' opinions here. Please adhere the T&C.

Let me just say I'm proud to be a member of a community that cares more for it citizens than its corporations.

And about GMO, they affect every cell of your body nourished by it, all the way down to your very last brain cell.

And, oh yes.. don't forget to deny ignorance.

edit>

Seeing the last post, I have to add

It's so much more rewarding to work with nature than against her. In every sense of the word rewarding ...maybe except for profit.
The keyword is balance.

[edit on 10/2/2008 by khunmoon]

reply to post by Pro-genetic


Land is not an issue. Introducing, vertical farming:

Vertical Farming: Apple Store Meets Greenhouse Meets Skyscraper

For more than a decade, Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier has argued that agriculture needs to expand upwards, not outwards. Forget the noble farmer in his fields; enter the 30-story greenhouse running on solar energy and urban wastewater, churning out food year-round.

Once seen as an amusing novelty, Despommier's vertical farms went mainstream in 2007, garnering widespread press attention and investor interest. No wonder: by 2050, Earth's population will swell to 9 billion people. Feeding them -- especially if they demand protein-rich Western diets -- will require a doubling, even a tripling of global food supplies. But more than a third of our planet's surface is already devoted to agriculture; there's not much arable land left. Droughts, floods and soil depletion will only grow more destructive as climate change intensifies.

reply to post by Pro-genetic


OK let me break it down for you.

(without emotions khunmoon ).


We will die if we rely on GMO foods for sustenance. Our bodies were not made to absorb chemically altered crop. We evolved with the environment and we did so for a reason; so we could stay alive.

If we cut our environment's interaction out from us, we would be relying on food stuffs that we can't be guaranteed will grow every year.

Not to mention that terminator seeds imply a healthy profit for Monsanto who "produces" the seeds annually.

I will not buy GMO foods no matter what. I care too much for the world to do so and about my own body. What you put in yourself is your choice, but make sure not to reproduce so your genetically modified genes don't affect the rest of us.

I want you to do some research on your own, away from corporate financed studies about GMO safety. Go out into the field. Eat only locally grown organic food then come back into the city and eat what is provided there from GMO crop. You will notice a difference. If not immediately, soon after.

As for 'beating' nature at its own game: IMPOSSIBLE. We cannot do better than nature, but we can improve on its efficiency.

While you are noble in your pursuit to 'feed humanity' you are going about it the wrong way.

I suggest you look up ecological design methods with Permaculture in mind.

With permaculture you can increase the yields of natural systems without the use of biocides. Nature works better when you work with it anyway.

The basic idea I want to get across to you is the concept of guilds.

You take one tree, grain, or whatever it is your main crop is, and use other plants to aid in its production.

Since I am most well versed in the orchard area, let me start with this.

An apple tree does not grow well next to a walnut tree as the walnut's leaves contain toxic substances. However, if you grow let's say a mulberry, acacia, or mesquite tree next to it...well now we got the making of a guild.

The mesquite fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere and puts it into the soil (also food and wood). The acacia does the same. As for the mulberry, well its more of a buffer and food plant for small animals.

SO let's say we put the apple and mesquite next to each other. We then use smaller shrub plants, vine plants, flowers, etc etc so each level of the canopy is full.

We can recreate a 'rain forest' canopy with a 100% beneficial plant guild.

I won't get too much into guilds, but that's the jist of it.

And you'd love a 'super guild' where multiple guilds come together as one entity.

So with nature we can have even higher yield than with GMO crops, we just have to situate everything in a manner that uses less energy than we put in.

You are looking for a regenerative system: you put less work in than you get out.

Do the research, you're on the right track although misguided.

Think less about profit and human benefit, and more towards natural beneficiaries (to benefit all of life).

You are thinking in terms of human needs and not the whole planet. Do that and you may find yourself in a completely different scenario.

"WORK WITH NATURE NOT AGAINST IT"

[edit on 2/10/2008 by biggie smalls]

reply to post by khunmoon


GMO do effect every cell of your body just like non GMO!
I was merly stateing that the link put up was anti capitalist in nature and attacked business practices rather than provided evidence of any kind.
which i am still waiting for by the way? I have provided evidence showing that GM crops are healthier where as all i have gotten in return are opinions!

reply to post by Pro-genetic


Yes a valid point to keep feeding the masses keep on feeding them and find more things to feed them like GM food.. if thats the earth you wanna live on.. Until one day there are to many people on earth to house them and feed them or we have a mass turn over of our own species like we do in chickens for example living extremely short lives cus of breading etc and we just end up killing ourselves out anyway... GM makes sense if we all wanna die in the long run! maybe your not thinking of the future of our planet?

I prefeer the Earth were we live in nature, Earth is our mother and she aint not Bit** she gives us food water the land to live on. I would prefeer just enough Humans on earth to live and feed in a healthly way and the powers of the world help the 3rd world countries witout GM means.. and we stop over populating the Earth. The amount of money that goes around the world today and the 3rd world still suffers! its appauling... I know where i stand with Nature, and the Earth is my mother and my natural instincts are still connected to her conciousness and her love and she will provide for those who understand that working with the her is the only way to survive as the human race.

reply to post by Pro-genetic


I think you are off base. Mother Earth is not cruel. Mankind is cruel. The earth feeds and shelters us. Mankind figures out a way to screw his fellow man out of food and shelter. Then he makes them use the fruit of labor in order to get 'Life's Necessities' from him, sitting back, getting fat off other people's work.

I can't find the link right now, but at one point I read that Cavemen had more hours of leisure a day because their work was 'getting food', once they had food, they could focus on whatever 'entertainment' cavemen did. Wall painting? Invention? Sure, life was cruel sometimes then too.

Now, we live in a cruel world, but it is more Man's fault than Mother Earth. I guess we really shouldn't complain if our slave masters want to corrupt our food supply, I mean they are our masters after all. We work for them. We think we are free because we are able to do what we want within a certain rule system created by our masters. But we are not free. We are Serfs to Monsanto's Realm, to Big Pharma's, to the Military Industrial Complex's. Sad but true.

But we can be free. We can grow our own foods, and medicines and not fight wars for petrochemical fuels and fertilizers. The choice is yours. You can believe the slave master who tells you that petro coated GMO foods will feed the world, or you can eat foods that were grown for generations on the same lands, naturally modifying through natural selection to grow the most they can for the local environment. One major problem with GMO foods is that it is one seed lot for the whole line. The chances for a food blight, created on purpose or not, is too great. I wonder if that is why the elite have created a seedbank in the arctic filled with heirloom seeds? I think so.
Heirloom Plants
Seedbank

Arctic Seed Vault

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, or the Doomsday Vault as the media have nicknamed it, will be the ultimate safety net for the world’s most important natural resource.

The world's seed collections are vulnerable to a wide range of threats - civil strife, war, natural catastrophes, and more routinely but no less damagingly, poor management, lack of adequate funding, and equipment failures. Unique varieties of our most important crops are lost whenever any such disaster strikes, and therefore securing duplicates of all collections in a global facility provides an insurance policy for the world’s food supply.

For more info here at ATS:
Doomsday Vault
Svalbard Seedbank: Ready to start storing seeds in Jan 08. [Video & Pictures inside]

JUST SAY NO TO GMOs!
DocMoreau

The issue here that pro-genetic doesn't seem to understand is that every action we take has unintended consequences. On a local level, this can usually be corrected. However, when it is a global action, the unintended consequences are also global.

It is a fact that every action has unintended consequences, so to blatantly say "This is a load of crap" doesn't really take this into consideration.

The seed companies (of which I used to work for) really only care about profit and figure if there is a problem the law will push back, and then they will have to deal with that.

The consumers on the other hand are very concerned. Yes some of their concerns are unfounded when looked at specifically, but in general they are not unfounded. One of the laws of capitalism is that the system knows something much quicker than any of the individuals, so if France as a collective is banning these, that speaks volumes to me as a capitalist. This is the market speaking here folks.

This is very dangerous territory due to the fact that capitalism is a formal system, and life is an informal system. Informal systems are usually delicate, and formal systems are not. Formal systems will collapse quicker than an informal system, but only after it has had cataclysmic effects on the informal systems.

Originally posted by Pro-genetic
reply to post by misuneko

 

nature might be our mother but she is a cruel bit** and has it out for humanity, the only way to survive acording to you is to cull quite a lot of humanity as there aint enough room to grow food to feed us all the "natural" way, plain and simple truth of it folks, what land there is will soon be used up, we have to use that more efficently and nature does not provide that for us, by your own argument nature gave us brains, we are useing that gift and solving problems that nature has set in our path!

Wow you have got one LONG sentence there man. I thought you might find this article interesting:

"Organic Farming Can Feed The World, Study Suggests"
IT is a write up on a study done by the University of Michigan to study the common claim that Organic Agriculture is not capable of feeding the world.

ScienceDaily (Jul. 13, 2007) — Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food as conventional farming on the same amount of land—according to new findings which refute the long-standing assumption that organic farming methods cannot produce enough food to feed the global population.

link

My personal experience with agriculture was working on a biodynamic farm. From this experiance I know first hand the power of working with the forces of nature. Wiki Biodynamic Agriculture

reply to post by biggie smalls


I think i saw a show on that once, an old japanese man just throwing seeds haphazardly into a field full of every plant you can name, as you said efficency is key, that is not an efficent way to do things, what about collect the food?storeing it?distributing it? all these foods would need different techniques!Im from the country(ireland) and I personaly think free range chickens and eggs and all that stuff taste bad, but taste is a personal thing!

I don't know what you are referring to.

If you want efficiency, you do not 'haphazardly' throw seeds into a field.

They are placed with care and conscious in mind for them to grow.

Of course you store it, distribute it locally. The techniques may differ slightly, but that doesn't mean a person can't learn how to do it.

Once you learn the basics, it is easy to figure out each individual varieties needs.

Free range meat does not mean its organic or will taste any better than what you get in the supermarket. It does mean you are eating a healthier bird.

I cannot guarantee the methods of any other farmer on this planet, only what I know.

What I do know is that conventional farming will kill us all, very efficiently at that.

If you want to be healthy, stick with nature. Eat food that you know where they came from. Grow your own, even better.

Trade or commerce will not stop with a more available food supply. The more food, the more we will be able to help those starving and in turn, teach them how to grow their own surplus.

Originally posted by Pro-genetic
reply to post by biggie smalls

 

I think i saw a show on that once, an old japanese man just throwing seeds haphazardly into a field full of every plant you can name, as you said efficency is key, that is not an efficent way to do things, what about collect the food?storeing it?distributing it? all these foods would need different techniques!Im from the country(ireland) and I personaly think free range chickens and eggs and all that stuff taste bad, but taste is a personal thing!

are you a vegan? or are you stating that that you prefeer chickens that are kept in pens and have a horrible exsistance of life?

Originally posted by misuneko

Originally posted by Pro-genetic
reply to post by biggie smalls

 

I think i saw a show on that once, an old japanese man just throwing seeds haphazardly into a field full of every plant you can name, as you said efficency is key, that is not an efficent way to do things, what about collect the food?storeing it?distributing it? all these foods would need different techniques!Im from the country(ireland) and I personaly think free range chickens and eggs and all that stuff taste bad, but taste is a personal thing!

Ireland is the land of the godess.. you should go and research mother nature and the history of Ireland and realise what a bond you are ment to have with it! and GM food will definatly not be part of that connection.