[NAFEX] seed market control- some more thoughts

Ernest Plutko ernestplutko at wiktel.com
Thu Oct 14 19:49:56 EDT 2010


Doesn't matter US is rapidly becoming a third world company.  We will
be eating weeds.

---- Original Message ----
From: cjustinwest at gmail.com
To: nafex at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RE: [NAFEX] seed market control- some more thoughts
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:58:23 -0700

>“Risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis really do have a place.”
>
>I would be interested in knowing how one can properly do a risk
>assessment
>on a genetically modified organism?  How long does the risk
>assessment
>process take?  A month, a year, a hundred years?  How can we even
>assess the
>risks if we don’t have any idea what the risks might end up being? 
>That
>kind of thinking can put us on shaky ground in a hurry.
>
>
>
>“Would you rather plant a crop that has a gene coding for a bacterial
>toxin
>targeted to impact one specific pest, or have the farmer spraying
>thousands
>of acres with a pesticide that kills 'beneficial' insects as well as
>the
>targeted 'problem' organism?”
>
>This statement makes it sound like gmo’s don’t need spraying.  This
>is very
>misleading to someone who is just trying to understand the issues. 
>Many
>gmo’s are specifically designed to utilize spraying, ‘Round-up ready’
>corn
>being perhaps the most famous example. – from ‘tin hats’ to wool
>blinders.
>
>Incidentally studies are showing ‘round up resistant’ weeds are
>already
>beginning to become problems in many areas where it is over used. 
>Round up
>is not quite the magic bullet the marketers would like us to believe.
> Perhaps
>glyphosate is not as toxic as some enflamed accusations have made it
>out to
>be.  But it certainly is demonstrating detrimental knock on effects
>that no
>one could quite predict from the outset.  Must have been a faulty
>risk
>assessment.
>
>
>
>“The genetically-modified 'Golden Rice', with increased amounts of
>beta-carotene(precursor to Vitamin A) in its endosperm, has the
>potential to
>significantly improve the health of children and stave off blindness
>in
>underdeveloped countries where rice is a dietary staple, yet some
>anti-GMO
>groups oppose its cultivation as "part of a package of globalised
>agriculture which is creating malnutrition".  They're 'agin' it,
>'cause it's
>GMO, regardless of the potential benefits.”
>
>
>
>I have been to IRRI the International Rice Research Institute in the
>Philippines.  I have been in the cold storage where over 60,000
>varieties of
>rice have been banked.  And I have talked with the director regarding
>their
>work to create this holy grail ‘golden rice’ full of all kinds of
>goodies.  The
>bottom line for me is this: who stands to benefit in the long run if
>those
>60,000 varieties of rice are replaced with the one super rice?  Do
>the
>billions of rice eating and rice growing people around the world
>stand to
>benefit?  Does the company that holds the patent on it?  Who would
>like to
>see the many thousands of apple varieties replaced with just one? 
>Who
>thinks one variety of apple will grow perfectly well on its own
>without a
>whole host of chemical and physical inputs in the entire range of the
>world
>where apples grow?
>
>The question is not about whether or not gmo’s are good or bad, but
>rather
>about what direction  we go down on the road of genetic appropriation
>and
>manipulation by companies who are, by necessity and through no
>inherent
>fault of their own per se, profit driven?  Perhaps there is a place
>for some
>forms of genetic modification, but in this country there simply is
>not
>sufficient oversight to insure it is done safely and in a way which
>supports
>diversity and health not homogenization and monoculturalization.  Can
>genetic modification improve ecological and agricultural diversity? 
>That to
>me would be a far more interesting question.





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