World Food Day and Non GMO Food Month

[Jonathan]

I'd like to hear the opinions reguarding GMO vegetables and the foods made with them. Are they good, bad or indifferent? Many parts of the rest of the world bans their use but we won't even label when they are used. Today there are rallies nationwide calling for truth labeling of GMO food, is there something too it?

[rec head]

I know is that the food grown in my garden is GOOOOOOOOOD. Strictly from a taste perspective I think there are a lot of things wrong with how food is produced.

[joosttx]

I'd like to hear the opinions reguarding GMO vegetables and the foods made with them. Are they good, bad or indifferent? Many parts of the rest of the world bans their use but we won't even label when they are used. Today there are rallies nationwide calling for truth labeling of GMO food, is there something too it?

My question is how did blasting seeds with radioactive rays to get their genes to mutate into something more desirable not as bad as inserting a gene into a plant to get something more desirable. This is the difference between conventional v gmo breeding programs. Or what is a company like Cibus is doing???

To me the issue is not GMO but diversity.

[sonny]

its all about making traditional food crops fit better into monocrop production while driving the competition out.

real ugly stuff if you look close.

[joosttx]

its all about making traditional food crops fit better into monocrop production while driving the competition out.

real ugly stuff if you look close.

Famine looks really ugly from any distance.

Disagree with your premise. It really about 1) a need which is a growing human population with a demand for better foods and an equal to decrease amount of farmable land to produce it; and 2) solving the need while bring share hold value.

.

[sonny]

Famine looks really ugly from any distance.

Disagree with your premise. It really about 1) a need which is a growing human population with a demand for better foods and an equal to decrease amount of farmable land to produce it; and 2) solving the need while bring share hold value.

Are there not enough calories to feed everyone? Maybe not corn-fed steak dinners, but..
Better foods? Like non-indigenous ones?
Loss of arable land? Like desertification thru salting and topsoil loss?

I daresay that reducing the global trade of food would go a long way in feeding local populations. Our cheap corn, wheat, soy, etc. undermines local cultivation of foods, because now that world bank and imf have visited the many corners of the globe and successfully brought traditional cultures into the fold of 'modernization' and international currency, they can't even afford to buy what they themselves produce(d). When time became money and all that..

Cheap inputs have ruined the balance between population growth and available calories. Thank oil and the haber process for that.
It won't last..

[XR2]

The biggest problem in GM seed crops is the spreading of the mutated gene through cross pollination which destoys heirloom crops on neighboring properties. These seeds aren't made to feed humans it's for livestock as the meat centric diet spreads with affluence. Not to mention ethanol production here in the USA. I'm not a vegetarian nor do I wish to be. However these crops threaten crops grown for human consumption with cross pollination which is irreversible. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. They are patented and lawsuits have been filed against those unknowingly growing protected crop seed via cross pollination. It's about money not feeding the masses.

[joosttx]

Are there not enough calories to feed everyone? Maybe not corn-fed steak dinners, but..
Better foods? Like non-indigenous ones?
Loss of arable land? Like desertification thru salting and topsoil loss?

I daresay that reducing the global trade of food would go a long way in feeding local populations. Our cheap corn, wheat, soy, etc. undermines local cultivation of foods, because now that world bank and imf have visited the many corners of the globe and successfully brought traditional cultures into the fold of 'modernization' and international currency, they can't even afford to buy what they themselves produce(d). When time became money and all that..

Cheap inputs have ruined the balance between population growth and available calories. Thank oil and the haber process for that.
It won't last..

And GMO's offers a solution..... Less nitrogen, less pesticides, better distibution, control of the seed, stabiliztion of commodity prices, reduction of distribution. All this helps In the problems you cite about modern agiculture. And most importantly has a better chance to execute than what i think you propose.

GMO, has done very little to homogenize the Global agriculture scene. I would argue like you cheap inputs are more the cause. I feel GMO offers solutions that the academic and elighten folk choose to ignore and protest. I think Monsanto is happy about this because it allows them to control the technology. And without academic and enlighten to guide the administration of this powerful technology then is will become what they fear.

Regarding out crossing that is a huge issue. Just recently, rice growers were awarded huge sums for said issue. But that can be remedy by producing flowerless varieties or sterile plants. Plus increase production per unit of land could allow for other land to become wild.

[0nelove]

Millions of years of fine tuning or a few years of hap hazard experimentation? I´m tired of man.

[Jonathan]

I think we are going to learn more and more about the unintended consequences of our actions, not unlike climate change.

[Jayme]

Not sure this is totally on topic but very interesting none the less.

The Farming Systems Trial

[HSTFixed]

There's nothing good about GMO food. It's most definitely not about feeding people, and if it is, it is not a healthy way to feed people. GMO is about big companies making lots of money. Eat a lifetime of bullshit "food" and you're almost guaranteeing cancer/diabetes/heart disease which require drugs from other huge corporations. How many Monsanto execs/board members are or have been big pharma execs/board member.These things are not coincidences. It's not about health or food. It's about money. This is capitalism. Money is always the goal.

Small Local Diversified farms are the answer. How many thousands of acres in the mid-west are devoted to growing "food" in the form of corn/wheat/soy, that never actually makes it to the shelf without extreme processing, either by industry or cow. 94% of the entire soy crop in this country is GMO soy. The only companies that put any money into the research of these things are Monsanto and similar huge corporations. They're never going to release any report or study that says anything negative about their own products. As far as I can tell though it's so unnatural that it needs no research or consideration. Eat real food. Soy crisps are not real food. Crackers are not real food, not even if they're "whole wheat". Meal Replacement bars aren't real food. I might seem extreme but Cows that ate Corn for their whole lives are not real food. That's not what cows eat. They eat grass.

How many people do you know that go days without eating any real food? Maybe dinner contains real food but breakfast and lunch are on the run if they're even eaten. If you've never seen it before go to a Wal-Mart supercenter and look at the jumbo carts filled to the brim with food-like products. It really isn't about trying to feed 7 billion people because if it was they'd want more farmers growing more kinds of food, not less farmers growing 2k acres of 1 plant in soil that may as well be petrochemical sludge. If it was about feeding 7 billion people, than why are so many people starving? It's about making Money.


Gambling with food on the stock market is a really bad idea, like most gambling. Commodity futures, and all the other bullshit/made up gambling is the problem. It's all about making money, not about food.

Lots of small farms that grow meat milk fruits and vegetables in a sustainable way with minimal input from Oil are the answer to the future of healthful food. There are plenty of other possibilities but I feel that few of them include actual food production.


Sorry for the rant but i'm way over the legal limit for caffeine right now, and food is a topic I feel strongly about.

[sonny]

case in point:
monsanto recently came up with gmo roundup-ready alfalfa.

ever seen an alfalfa planting?
there is no weed pressure to begin with.

why then would you ever need to apply herbicide?

hmmm...

[Jonathan]

Hstfixed,
I hear you man any I agree on almost every point. The one I don't is about commodity futures. There are two sides to every trade. Speculation and hedging. Hedging future price movements has been important in agriculture, especially to the family farmer. We can and should regulate those financial markets to keep them from becoming only trades, but at the end of the day they are there to support the farmer.

[classtimesailer]

As a general rule, big is bad.
I eat food. Not so much commodities.
If investors are involved, long term value (by my measures) decreases.
Latest pro food propaganda film. "Forks over Knives" is worth watching.

[Joel Benjamin L]

every once in a while, a thread on this forum restores my hope that something might go right.

[omnigrid]

good video:

[Jonathan]

I made the decision this weekend to convert a part of my back acre and a half to a multi-family organic community garden. I'm working on the details now, but I hope to have 4-5 families interested by the new year so we can plan the work. My wife and I currently have 400 square feet. I look forward to sharing and screwing monsanto one tomato and ear of corn at a time.

[happycampyer]

I made the decision this weekend to convert a part of my back acre and a half to a multi-family organic community garden. I'm working on the details now, but I hope to have 4-5 families interested by the new year so we can plan the work. My wife and I currently have 400 square feet. I look forward to sharing and screwing monsanto one tomato and ear of corn at a time.

Don't let any of their seeds blow your way or they'll come after you.

[joosttx]

I made the decision this weekend to convert a part of my back acre and a half to a multi-family organic community garden. I'm working on the details now, but I hope to have 4-5 families interested by the new year so we can plan the work. My wife and I currently have 400 square feet. I look forward to sharing and screwing monsanto one tomato and ear of corn at a time.

The latest speculation in the Industry is once china acquires MANA they will buy Monsanto. bTW monsanto only sells GMO corn and cotton seed. If you look at their job postings they have been hiring vegetable breeders, but that maybe for their conventional seed.

Anyway, i will say my point again, I sincerely do not see the greater evil in GMO technology compared to the current technology out there. Specific which is worse bombarding seeds with radioactive waves or chemicals which cause mutation in the DNA of plants vs. Precisely inserting genes into the DNA of plants? To me this is the questio , not monocultures, corn, soybeans, corporations. It about technology and how its is used. GMO technology is a more effective and effiecent way to breed plants by altering their DNA, a practice which has been going on for decades.

My concern and fear is that people who care about over population, nutrient diversity, environmental stewardship, etc. Turn their nose at GMO technology leaving the "evil" corporations to create their vision of agricultural policy by using the technology solely.

I do believe the technology can be used for good or evil, much like the printing press and all other game changing technologies. The wiiners will be the ones who embrace the technology. The losers will be the ones who dont.

I know this is unpopular but seriously answer this question, "is changing the DNA of plants better done by blasting them with radiation to cause random mutations vs. Inserting genes into them" to me this is the GMO debate. Everything else is about how the technology is used.