US says biotech key to easing food crisis

Originally posted by TheObjectReport
It is insane to think we can modify natural plants and our food. This will be a disaster, no doubt. This is simply an effort of corporate power to control a commodity. The spin, of course, will be that it will save lives just like the war on drugs or the war on Terror.

All food crops have been modified from their original form. Food crops have been selectively modified for hundreds or thousands of years. The strongest and most hardy have been selected to save seed from to improve the crop. Some of the original plants are useless for food production, but possess useful genes. An example would be corn. The original corn was not much more than a grass. Selective breeding over hundreds of years have developed what we have today.

I didn't realize this until we let a seed company grow some research plots on our farm. I think they had something like 4,500-4,700 different sorghum varieties. Some were old original parent lines that didn't even look like anything that I would think was grain sorghum.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS

Anyone have a source on there being lower yields, though? If so, that's troubling.

It has been my personal experience that some of the GM crops have lower yields under certain conditions. The first year they had GM cotton, I planted a variety and its GM counterpart. The original out performed the GM by about 200lbs/acre.

We started complaining that there were problems with the GM variety's and wanted to go back to the original variety's. We were told that research showed that there was very low demand for the original so the company was not going to produce much seed. We told them that we were telling them there was a demand for the original, but were ignored.

Originally posted by XBadger
Look, its simply true that the US does provide 1/2 of the world's food. They are able to be so productive in part because of wheat and grain that is resistant to pests, etc. I am sure that the rioters in teh streets of Alexandria a few months ago would take the risk of Morgellon's diesease, they were probably more concerned with giving their family food. But what do I know. I only eat probably 2500 calories a day due to the hyerproductivity of American farms.

If there is a choice between (1) pricing the developing world out of food or (2) giving GM seeds that result in higher cropyeild even if there is a non-prooven risk for a non-prooven diesease, then you know what, I'm going to chose the second one every single day.

I know that the USA is the most productive food grower in the world, but half the worlds food? Proof please.

Also, you present a false dichotomy here between unaffordable food, and using GM food. GM food does not in fact increase yields. What is does is increase profits.

www.centerforfoodsafety.org...

There are much more natural ways to develop disease and pest resistant crops. Raul Robinson has made a career of showing people how. Here’s his book, Return to Resistance. He basically just takes the traditional method of selecting the best specimens to use as seed for the next crop and speeds it up. This is just an improved version of the same method that led to the development of nearly all of our food crops over the last several thousand years.

www.idrc.ca...

The US produces more food because of our technology of production, not because of our technology of bio engineering, and studies have shown that most agriculture harvested in the US now has a Fraction of the vitamins and minerals that vegetables had in the last century, due to our overproduction and bad farming practices. The land can only maintain so much nourishment, and all the forcing and modification in the world wont make it more.
As to the US people having longer lives, actually in the last couple years the average life expectancy in the US has DECREASED, and is much lower than other industrialized nations. That statistic is besides the point however, because there is a difference between Living and Surviving. Yes, our people survive longer due to being kept artificially alive due to chemicals and surgeries and such, but they do it in such MASSIVELY bad health, with our skyrocketting rates of alzheimers, add, autism, diabetes, and many new illnesses spreading each year, which im positive science will show in the future is drastically linked to the toxins in our environment, and the chemicals and modifications (preservatives, excitotixins, artificial sweeteners, processed food, refined bleach flower and sugar, hormones, antibiotics etc) in our food. I have worked in hospitals 7 years, and see all kinds of patients with all kinds of disease and the one common factor they are all lacking ALL, is clean fresh food (and that is only meat vegetables and fruit...bread, pasta, chemicals, processed food, sauce, all of that is crap having nothing to do with nutrition) and simple relaxing lifestyles. We are all eating and working our way to run down bodies and run down minds with our lifestyles, and 99% of all diseases in the hospital are LIFESTYLE illnesses. From cancer to heart disease, to diabetes, to obesity, to liver failure, and those are the majority causes of death right there.

and one more point on genetic modification. One study followed soybeans genetically modified to produce pesticides. The only problems were that first off, each cell produced MASSIVE amounts of the pesticide, so that the actual plant had 500 times more pesticide than farmers usually spray. Also when fed to mice it was found the stomachs of the mice absorbed the DNA of the plants and the mice's stomachs started producing the same pesticide as well. One example of how we never know how our folly may turn out.

Originally posted by pexx421
The US produces more food because of our technology of production, not because of our technology of bio engineering, and studies have shown that most agriculture harvested in the US now has a Fraction of the vitamins and minerals that vegetables had in the last century, due to our overproduction and bad farming practices.

I agree, but the GM crops allow us to use chemicals as a replacement for labor and equipment. You can take a sprayer and cover many more acres in a day than you can with a cultivator. It is hard for us to find people that are willing to work long hours for little pay under harsh conditions.

The land can only maintain so much nourishment, and all the forcing and modification in the world wont make it more.

We are forced to produce food that meet the specifications of the buyers. I was at a restaurant one day when a farmer asked another older farmer if he could get some collards from his garden. The older farmer said that he could get all he wanted, but asked if he could ask him a question. The younger farmer said what do you want to know. The older farmer asked why did he want collards from his garden when his brother had hundreds of acres of collards. The younger farmer told him that his brother had to put so much nitrogen and water to his collards that when he ate them, he got diarrhea.

The public thinks that a perfect looking vegetable is the only thing they can buy. It is not always the best tasting or the best for you. Produce has to be harvested immature so it will ship well. If you taste food from a store and then taste food that a farmer grows in his garden for his own use, there is a huge difference.

using chemicals as a replacement for labor leaves us with the problems of ....well....chemicals! but i agree as im sure most healthy eating people will....about the eating food that looks worse but tastes better. ugly tomatos are AWESOME!!

reply to post by pexx421

Well,we can't get the American people to do the work and the American people don't want the Mexicans here. That alone is a problem. When you look at the cost of machinery, it's sky high. One man can take a $50,000 tractor with a sprayer and cover the same land that four men with four $50,000 tractors with cultivators can. It's just a case of economics. The price we receive for our products have stayed the same for decades, up until this year, but our input costs have steadily increased. We are always told we have to produce more for less. We have been below the cost of production for a long time now and something has to give.

Again, here we are,

We have a huge problem (conveniently) and here comes a "hero" to save the day.

Another law, another freedom taken, another drug for our "problems," world bank enters the picture on struggling banks. 911 ripped appart our constitution. Now, we have a freakin' food shortage which "necessitates" intervention. More intervention folks. More bars.

Now, I speculate we are headed toward food sources that are outside of our control, because we can no longer plant seeds for ourselves. So, some other big stupid, power hungry, money hungry, piece of crap, non-caring organization owns the food product.

Is this where we are headed?

Monsanto sucks! Do you think they give a rat's pooter about humanity?

Troy

[edit on 1-6-2008 by cybertroy]

Originally posted by Scramjet76
reply to post by Scramjet76


Source please? People in the USA are living longer than ever?? Although all the chemicals we ingest through food might not be "nourishing," do they really do that much harm (generally speaking)?

Harvard University disagrees with you.

According to Healthnews.com, "Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington used the National Center for Health Statistics' mortality data and data from the U.S. Census Bureau for the time period of 1959 through 2000. The research analyzed data on a county-by-county basis, making it the first to explore mortality per county over such large time span."

SOURCE - www.healthnews.com...

Doctors in these areas of the country are seeing high increases in cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and it seem to be increasing because of obesity, lack of education, and lack of health care, amongst other factors.

The research found that the lifespan of men has decreased 4% since the 1980s and by an INCREDIBLE 19% in women!

www.empowher.com...:-life-span-of-americans-is-decreasing

Just another "event" to increase profiteering for a US industry.

1. Create scenario
2. ????
3. Profit!!!!


I for one will avoid all modified foods anyway the only US food products stores have here are rare and usually are just Oreos anyway.

Anyway this is a non issue in Europe, we will ban modified foods and boycott them and usually we use locally produced foods or foods from within the EU Zones.

We are very Socialist here and good luck getting US products to take off in this region You have a very uphill battle and you will lose it.

Over 80% of my shopping bag consists of organic food. The stores I shop in is also mostly organic and local products.

You have no hope in hell to get US products and especially modified foods to sell here.



[edit on 1-6-2008 by mOOmOO]

its crap that americans wont do the work to grow food. In fact small farmers are intentionally put out of business by lobbyists forcing congress to level massive amounts of paperwork and fees that make small farms impractical while at the same time minimizing such requirements for large industry farming. There are plenty of people who WANT to farm but cant due to massive regulatory practices put into effect for the express purpose of crushing big agro's competition. as to Moomoo, i hope that remains so for you. I know most of the world keeps fighting america's attempts to make labelling GMO foods illegal, and i hope they keep it up. Its a shame that here in america 80% of food Is modified, and yet its not labeled here because the powers that be decided that average people are "too ignorant to understand what GMO means and it would adversely effect marketing" which is EXACTLY what labelling would do, and rightly so. heck, now they can even irradiate our food and not tell us! not to mention they have close to 50 different names they can give msg so we cant tell if its in our food or not. "spices, natural flavorings, hydrolyzed etc etc"

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
..

Anyone have a source on there being lower yields, though? If so, that's troubling.

www.btinternet.com...

www.organicconsumers.org...


i would advise against focusing on yields alone, because these numbers do not tell anything about the amount of pesticides and fertilizers used, the amount of soil depletion incurred or the banal aspect of 'money per bushel' if you want to call it that. GM soybeans for exampe do not even accumulate nitrogen anymore.

follow the links i gave, GM crops will only tighten the stranglehold on food supplies it should be common sense that the best wqay to increase harvest is to re-seed and make use small units.

coincidentially, that's exactly what governements told people to do during WW2 - Victory Gardens anyone? make these Survival Gardens.

the 3rd World has plenty of people who could make use of more labor but less energy intensive agriculture.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

PS: The USA might as well be the largest exporter of food, heavily subsidized food at that, but that does not mean that half the world's food is grown there. in fact such a notion is laughable seeing as only less than 1/20th of the world population lives there.

Originally posted by MBF
We were told that research showed that there was very low demand for the original so the company was not going to produce much seed. We told them that we were telling them there was a demand for the original, but were ignored.

which isn't all that surprising seeing as biotech corp's are buying up all seed banks. one example can be found at

www.organicconsumers.org...

you can bet your hat that if 98% of farmers had the same complaint, all of them would have heard that single phrase

..research showed....

...that 98% of all sheeple will swallow anything if you use the right words.

PS GM soy doesn't accumulate nitrogen, the normal variety does, more fertiliser anyone?

www.non-gm-farmers.com...

Argentina: "RR soya crops also yield 5% to 10% less compared with the non-GM varieties grown under similar soil conditions, confirming findings in the United States. Scientists at the University of Arkansas showed that root development, nodule formation and nitrogen fixation worsened in some varieties of RR soya and the effects are exacerbated under strong drought conditions or in relatively infertile fields. That is because the symbiotic bacterium responsible for fixing nitrogen in soya, Bradyrhizobium japonicum, is very sensitive to drought and to Roundup."

reply to post by resistor

+ In the last decade, cotton production has declined in the majority of countries that have adopted GM cotton like Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, South Africa and Australia, and significant drops in GM cotton production are forecasted in 2006 for South Africa and Mexico.

thanks for the links, Resistor, i just know that some people are afraid to click links because they might contain tidbits which conflict with their spoonfed ideology, therefore i decided to quote this paragraph.

now put two and two togeher, if these significant drops affected the food supply which is already strained, the result would be..? is that what you want?

[edit on 1.6.2008 by Long Lance]

While things remain "natural" they are essentially free for everyone:

You can grow a plant from a seed, then when it seeds, you can then take those seeds and propagate more free plants and seeds.

However, with GM, this could be made impossible. They will be able to take out the part that allows you to create new seeds for free. Essentially, they will be making and selling "one shot" seeds. The original species seeds will become lost forever, hidden away, protected (or should I say prevented from access) in these "seed banks". Of course, they are also a backup supply in case things go wrong...

If you want crops again the following year you will be forced to buy some more seeds from the big corps. We will all become dependent, like drug addicts on artificial seeds. The rich, the poor, every country on earth will be "enslaved" to using artificial, copyrighted, patented nature.

The big corps see GM as a chance to finally OWN nature. Which is...

... very, very bad.

which is why im giving up on veggies those evil plants of the devil, and going strictly meatatarian. ...after all, I am doing it for the people...its the only moral thing to do!

Originally posted by pexx421
which is why im giving up on veggies those evil plants of the devil, and going strictly meatatarian. ...after all, I am doing it for the people...its the only moral thing to do!

most GM crops are incidentially used as animal feed. that way, customers don't complain because they don't understand that the danger of GM agriculture doesn't have much to do with their beer guts but a whole lot with conservation of soil and biosphere.

Sorry I don't have any links, but last year saw record high yields in the US for every grain except 1 which I believe was barley. I researched this subject months ago. For something like this you should satisfy yourself that you have reliable data. This is easily researched.

Those rumors about decreased yields were utter B.S. We can see now why the report which caused that news feed was falsified.

The report caused concern over grain supplys, preparitory to the current panic. It was just another Psy Opp.

Haha!!!

I can see it now:

Next we'll have campaigns promoting for Euthanasia, and people won't think it's related.

Biotechnologists and people working in the nursing homes will begin covert operations, selling Senior Citizens to private companies for Euthanasia, and then they'll convert the nutrients and proteins and such into a special food bar.

SOYLENT GREEN!!!! IT'S PEOOOOOPLEEEE!!!!!


i'm sorry, but in a world full of darkness, you gotta make a joke or two.

Originally posted by mOOmOO


Over 80% of my shopping bag consists of organic food. The stores I shop in is also mostly organic and local products.

You have no hope in hell to get US products and especially modified foods to sell here.



[edit on 1-6-2008 by mOOmOO]

First of all, you don't know where your food comes from. With the global trade the way it is, deals are made all the time to swap buying products. The store you buy from itself may not know the origin of the food.

I know an organic farmer that is certified. He will buy conventionally grown produce and carry it out of state and sell it as organically grown. You don't even have a guarantee of a food being what it is labeled even if it is certified.