Why GM crops are vital

[child of Thor]

i'm still looking at this grey squirrel.........and digging my heels in

and a website that will no doubt make your blood boil if you so wish:

http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/real_food/press_for_change/email_la/index.shtml

intrestingly the front page has another example of the 'strongarm' tactics these GM companies are employing. It sucks and just stiffens the resolve to do my bit - not buy GM food stuffs.

[Dinner]

Your red squirrels are poorly adapted and deserve to die out. Long live the great North American Grey Squirrel.

[child of Thor]

damn you yankie invaiders

[Sikander]

I think the market will deal with the sterile seed issue in time. Either people won't buy them because they have a choice, or there will be enough surplus that buying seed will be a negligible expense even in the 3rd world. Hopefully both will occur.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Sikander
I think the market will deal with the sterile seed issue in time. Either people won't buy them because they have a choice, or there will be enough surplus that buying seed will be a negligible expense even in the 3rd world. Hopefully both will occur.

This is a big worry to me - will we have a choice(see the friends of the earth link i posted for Oerdins blood pressure ). The FACT is GM companies(and bribbed governments - lets call a spade a spade for the momment) are playing dirty tactics to avoid us having this choice. Its not something i'm pulling out my arse like i often do when to lazy to argue a point

We might not have that choice if they get there way

thats why i'm super anti-GM, for the momment.

A case in point is that six months ago the welsh assembely(a weak self governing body) were at the fore front of the 'GM free zone' campaign - now looking at that same 'friends of the earth' map that shows what the current status of the UK's GM free zone is, i see that wales is now only in the partialy GM free braket.

Bribes have always been our downfall(it cost us against the english ) - time to get writing the councils again

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Oerdin
And which new irrigation techniques are those? Sprinkler heads to water pipes? Drip irrigation? Any sort of mechanical irrigation what so ever? Heck even primative flood irrigation relies upon large public works to create canals and plume gates. Let's once again have a reality check; subsistance farmers in the third world can't afford these nice 1st world irrigation practices just like they can't afford chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Most of them live on tiny plots of land which are unable to suppot them or their families and that's why they don't have enough food to eat much less to sell and buy state of the art irrigation systems.

Dams, ranging from giant constructions like the Aswan Dam to small village-level ones allow water to be saved, and used to generate an extra growing season later in the year. Irrigation techniques are hardly the sole preserve of the first world; they've been used for thousands of years.

How does attacking GM crops achieve that? What other realistic option is there to increase farm yields enough to provide enough affordable food for these people? GM crops will provide more food, more nutrious food, and more drought & pest tolerant food. Will it solve all of the world's problems? Nope, and I haven't heard anyone claim it will though I have heard lots of people say it is the best hope we have to feed everyone with the food they need.

Two thirds of the world's GM food is grown in the US, presumably with the help of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, machinery and subsidies. It's fairly safe to assume that these crops are adapted for input-intensive agriculture, and are not suitable for the barren wasteland you describe subsistence farmers as working on.

Maybe charitable stuff like Golden Rice will make a difference, although I note that it required free licences for 70 different patents to be created, and that a farmer who earns more than $10000 from golden rice is expected to pay royalties to the corporate sponsors of the programme, Syngenta. Such ludicrous arrangements aren't exactly going to speed the development of humanitarian GM foods.

[Impaler[WrG]]

freedom to grow food for free

This is adsactly the kind of rediculously idealized view of farming in Europe that distorts the whole continents view on agricultural policy.

Let me be quite clear YOUR FARMERS DONT GROW FOOD FOR FREE, we all know they are subsadized up the ying yang. The only people in the world who "grow food for free" are the cronicaly malnurished perpetualy indepted subsistence farmers of the 3rd world who actualy do save and replant seed from each harvest, purchase no pesticide or fertilizer, own no tractor and buy no fuel, who inherit their measly little plot of land from their father after he dies in his mid 30's.

THAT is growing food for free and guess what the returns are proportial to the amount invested. No self respecting industrialized nation farms this way anymore. It takes money to make money and farming is no different, GM crops are an option for farmers who have money to invest and thats just what they do. The near mythological obseshion europe has with farming seems to place it outside of all economic or social reason and it fasinates me that a people so politicaly well informed can have such distorted views.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by mrmitchell

Why do people lament the loss of the family farm? Let's throw back 100 years to the time when most Americans were farmers...farmers were poor, usually in debt, were threatened by drought, lived at hte mercy of crop prices, worked long hard work weeks, and had little or no education. Thankfully, the family farm is already dead. The efficient, massive company farms we have today are necessitated by economic and societal needs, and no one really wants to go back to toiling on the farm to make ends meet.

But that's another thread's concern.

GM foods

Its not soo much the lament of the family farm although that strikes me personally (and is in keeping with the loss of all small business in favor of large business). Its moreso as the small farm does go away, it more likely goes to developers than to large agribusiness. Once developed it 99.999999% time never reverts back to farm land.

The set aside programs simply hastened that inevitability.

[Dinner]

True. Aspalt is forever and if a farmer can't find a way to make a living then typically they sell the land and it is normally a developer who has the money and who's willing to buy land WAAAAAY out there.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Let me be quite clear YOUR FARMERS DONT GROW FOOD FOR FREE, we all know they are subsadized up the ying yang.

So are yours.

[Barnabas]

not the latin american / australia / kiwi farmers

it is the yurop-yankee-japs axil of evil who subsidiezes their farmers

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
not the latin american / australia / kiwi farmers

it is the yurop-yankee-japs axil of evil who subsidiezes their farmers

You forgot Canada. We have minor subsidies, but nothing on the level of the US or EU.

[DanS]

I can't really offer an opinion about whether GM crops are "vital", but it seems silly to get worked up about them.

At a minimum, insect-resistant GM crops reducing the use of insecticides seems of obvious high value. On the other hand, I wonder about the overall good of GM crops that allow for use of more herbicides, such as glyphosate-tolerant (i.e., Roundup-ready, etc.) GM crops.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by DanS
I can't really offer an opinion about whether GM crops are "vital", but it seems silly to get worked up about them.

At a minimum, insect-resistant GM crops reducing the use of insecticides seems of obvious high value. On the other hand, I wonder about the overall good of GM crops that allow for use of more herbicides, such as glyphosate-tolerant (i.e., Roundup-ready, etc.) GM crops.

indeed - another 'pandora's box'. We have far too many of these going on at the momment, across many different fields of human 'progress'. To me its all about greed, but i suspect you'd disagree with me

So i tend to advise caution and proceeding slower than we are in many of these kind of topics we all argue back + forth about.

The way i see it is untill we have more than one planet to live on, anything that endangers this world and our existence on it just isn't worth any ammount of money in some account in the now.
Once we have the safety net of another 'home' then sure go crazy and experiment like hell - it is what has driven our progress so far.

The key point in all this is imho, that the human race has reached that stage where its developed to the point of actualy being able to destroy everything living in the world on just about any level. we are clever monkeys now.

It's a unique time in our development, and a dangerous one, especialy so in a world where we seem to have put money on a pedestal above all other concerns?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by child of Thor


indeed - another 'pandora's box'. We have far too many of these going on at the momment, across many different fields of human 'progress'. To me its all about greed, but i suspect you'd disagree with me

So i tend to advise caution and proceeding slower than we are in many of these kind of topics we all argue back + forth about.

The way i see it is untill we have more than one planet to live on, anything that endangers this world and our existence on it just isn't worth any ammount of money in some account in the now.
Once we have the safety net of another 'home' then sure go crazy and experiment like hell - it is what has driven our progress so far.

The key point in all this is imho, that the human race has reached that stage where its developed to the point of actualy being able to destroy everything living in the world on just about any level. we are clever monkeys now.

It's a unique time in our development, and a dangerous one, especialy so in a world where we seem to have put money on a pedestal above all other concerns?

the problem is that the alternatives to gm crops also endanger the health of the planets ecosystem. The amount of non cultivated land is already much too small to sustain most of the biodiversity on this planet. It is damn near impossible to get cultivated land returned to conditions suitable for wildlife as it is. Any decisions made which make relinquishing cultivation of land even more difficult (such as going slow with implementing more productive GM crops) are helping to destroy the very planet you pretend to care so much about.