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[Ian Meyer <ianmeyer AT mac.com>]

On Jun 23, 2004, at 9:28 AM, Jeremy Portzer wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-06-22 at 18:11, Ian Meyer wrote:
> > my mom was briefly seeing a farmer for a short while recently, he owns
> > and farms a large area down towards fayetteville, and he uses roundup
> > ready corn. not to avoid using pesticides, but so he can kill the 
> > weeds
> > and not harm the corn
>
> It doesn't have anything to do with pesticides.  The reason
> roundup-ready corn is helpful to the environment is a several step
> process:
>         1)  Round-up ready corn/soybeans are resistant to Roundup
>         2) Therefore, Roundup can be sprayed on the fields to kill all the
> weeds
>         3) Roundup is only toxic to weeds/plants when sprayed on their leaves
> on a dry day.  If it runs off into streams/rivers, it is completely
> inert against all plants and animals.
>         4)  The use of roundup REPLACES other herbicides that were previously
> used to control weeds.  These older herbicides were much more damaging
> to ecosystems downstream from the fields.

aha

> Do you understand now?  I realize it's not simple.

>:o

> But I agree that the issue of the genes spreading to neighboring farms,
> etc, is something that must be controlled.  Will the roundup-resistant
> gene spread to weeds?  Will weeds develop their own roundup resistance
> through natural selection?  I don't have a perfect answer to the
> promblem.  My original post was really trying to understand why people
> have such a negative gut reaction, rather than just considering the
> benefits and drawbacks and arguing it sensibly.
>
> --Jeremy

im still weary of it, mostly because its being pursued in a manner that 
is open to abuse, i mean, look at the guy that got sued by monsanto 
because they found a patented gene in the corn on his farm, he claims 
the seed blew over form a neighbor's farm...

granted in that case there are unknown variables such as how much corn 
on his farm had the gene, but...

~ian