[Market-farming] GMO crops (was new potatoes)
juliew026 at netscape.net
juliew026 at netscape.net
Mon Jun 8 15:20:43 EDT 2009
You don't get it....or they don't get it
good today...gone tomorrow
?profit today at the expense of tomorrow
wise up people
corporate control of our food production systems makes us all sheep ripe for slaughter by eliminating inherent autonomy at many levels
Julie Winslow
-----Original Message-----
From: Brigette Leach <afhg at ctsmail.net>
To: Market Farming <market-farming at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 1:56 pm
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] GMO crops (was new potatoes)
Just to add to the comments....
?
Some farmers do think some aspects of GMO's are a
good thing. For example, the sugar beet grower who can make 3 trips across the
field with the tractor instead of 7. Fewer pesticides, less fuel, less soil
compaction...
?
Brigette Leach
Avalon Farms Homegrown
Share of the?Farm
www.avalonfarmshomegrown.net
----- Original Message -----
From:
Road's End Farm
To: Market Farming
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] GMO crops
(was new potatoes)
On Jun 8, 2009, at 8:45 AM, Franklin W. Davis
wrote:
?
Good?morning...what are GMO crops...
Genetically
modified organisms. Genes not natural to the crop have been artificially
inserted into the seed; once in there, they will generally be passed to the
next generation, if the seed is viable.
and
why are they bad news?
Franklin?
A proper
answer to this would take quite a long time and I'm too busy to do it right
now -- if nobody else fields it I'll try to get back to it. (I should note
that there are probably some on this list who don't think they are bad
news.)
For a fast and dirty answer: the inserted genes may have
additional effects not intended and not well understood, whether in the human
diet or in the environment as a whole. Also, in many cases, the companies
doing this are inserting things that may themselves be problematic, and/or
that imply characteristics on the part of the company that many people don't
like. One common GMO crop, for instance, is modified to express the pesticide
BT toxin in every cell of the plant continuously; another common GMO technique
is to insert herbicide resistance, which is likely to increase the use of
herbicides in the short run and is also very likely to cause that gene to pass
into weeds now controllable by the herbicide in the long run. Monsanto also
wanted to genetically modify seed to make it sterile in the next generation --
the Terminator gene -- so farmers would be forced to buy seed every year; they
pulled back on this one because there was such an outcry. If this gene were to
transfer itself to other crops being grown in the area, there could be
widespread disaster, for the farmers and the genetic base. GMO traits seem to
transfer fairly easily, at least from wind-pollinated crops.
--
Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small
scale
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