Last week, Nature magazine reported the results of one of the biggest agricultural experiments ever conducted (2). A team of Chinese scientists had tested the key principle of modern rice-growing - planting a single, high-tech variety across hundreds of hectares - against a much older technique: planting several breeds in one field. They found, to the astonishment of the farmers who had been drilled for years in the benefits of "monoculture", that reverting to the old method resulted in spectacular increases in yield. Rice blast - a devastating fungus which normally requires repeated applications of poison to control - decreased by 94 per cent. The farmers planting a mixture of strains were able to stop applying their poisons altogether, while producing 18 per cent more rice per acre than they were growing before.

Originally posted by HoorahUSMC
I like this, people who think waiting 20 minutes for food to arrive is a bad sign of things to come are telling starving people "Hey, you're not me, die."

CHina, Africa, and parts of Mexico are reliant on GM crops. Without them they wouldn't be able to grow enough food. So, if you want to get rid of GM foods be prepared to kill off about 1 billion or so people. Oh sure they're just blacks or asians or mexicans, as long as you can order a vegetarian pizza at 3am who cares? Right? Let those African villages starve to death since organic crops are raped by the insect and other wildlife and even if they weren't produce less then most GM crops of the same type. WHat? Have them buy the same herbicides and pesticides we use in America? If they had that kind of money they wouldn't be worried about growing enough food they'd buy it.

Hell, China wouldn't have the population it does now if it wasn't for GM foods. The GM rice produces, sometimes 10x, more rice then normal non-GM foods. So if you want to commit genocide on the Chinese go ahead, remove GM products.

Know what, are you the KKK? Neo Nazos? GOP? Hitler's plan called for troops to round people up and kill them, your way not only costs less it kills more! Good job people, committing genocide on a billion+ people so you can buy raw foods at the ConAgro store for 30 bucks a pound.

Originally posted by soficrow

One question - anyone notice how the word "organic" is gaining/has gained a new connotation - and it's become a dirty word?

How about we fight back, and call it real food?

Maybe?

...It's another phony "debunking" marketing campaign. Check out how it works here.

Source
The first of the studies, conducted by Russian scientist Irina Ermakova, showed that an astounding 55% of the offspring of rats fed on GM soya died within three weeks of birth, compared with only 9% in the control group (1). The second, conducted by Manuela Malatesta and colleagues in the Universities of Pavia and Urbino in Italy, showed that mice fed on GM soya experienced a slowdown in cellular metabolism and modifications to liver and pancreas (2). And the third study, conducted by CSIRO in Australia, showed that the introduction of genes from a bean variety into a GM pea led to the creation of a novel protein which caused inflammation of the lung tissue of mice (3). So serious was the damage that the research was halted, and stocks of the GM pea have been destroyed.
The developers have now made a commitment that the "rogue" variety willnever be marketed.

These studies, all revealed in the scientific literature within thepast few weeks, have caused widespread alarm throughout the world, sincetwo of them suggest that GM soya (used in a large number of foods) mightbe very dangerous, and since they appear to confirm the findings of Dr Arpad Pusztai and Dr Stanley Ewen, whose paper on physiological changesin rats fed on GM potatoes caused a worldwide sensation in 1999 (4).
The authors were given the full "shoot the messenger" treatment; they were widely vilified by the scientific community, and following an intervention from the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair Dr Pusztai was sacked, his research team was dismantled, and his funding stopped. The Ewen/Pusztai research has never been repeated, let alone extended, for fear that their results will also be replicated. And there has never been a comprehensive human feeding trial involving GM food.

Source
Unstable genes make accurate safety testing impossible. It also may explain some of the many problems reported about GM foods. For example, nearly 25 farmers in the US and Canada say that certain GM corn varieties caused their pigs to become sterile, have false pregnancies, or give birth to bags of water. A farmer in Germany claims that a certain variety of GM corn killed 12 of his cows and caused others to fall sick. And Filipinos living next to a GM cornfield developed skin, respiratory, and intestinal symptoms and fever, while the corn was pollinating. The mysterious symptoms returned the following year, also during pollination, and blood tests on 39 of the Filipinos showed an immune response to the Bt toxin—created by the GM corn.