USDA deregulates GE alfalfa; opens door to new era of widespread genetic pollution of crops

NaturalNews.com ^ | January 28, 2011 | Mike Adams

[Razzz42]

Under these programs, the USDA uses chemical poisons to murder literally millions of birds each year, including an occasional endangered species animal by accident. This is all part of the USDA's insane program of death to protect the financial interests of conventional agriculture giants.

[Balding_Eagle]

>> “You do understand supply/demand, don’t you? A 10% oversupply of grains is deadly to prices” <<

. Now we see who the real Leftist / Statist is. - You’ve accused others here that are advocating the true conservative position of spreading “leftist tripe,” but you have no qualms about advancing the ideas of Lenin and Stalin.

OK, I don't get the point. Supply/demand is a capitalist theory, not a Stalinist theory.

[Balding_Eagle]

Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), colloquially known as terminator technology, is the name given to proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation seeds to be sterile.

While the 'terminator' seed of the 50s, 60s, and 70s weren't sterile, they might just as well have been, as they were all but useless.

In corn, the parent plant would produce 100 to 175 bushels per acre back then, the offspring maybe 25 bushels. No one even tried, except as a fun little experiment.

Today, that very same field, with modern GM plants, produces 200 to 300 bushels per acre, with seed being the single, key, component in the 100% increase in yields.

If you ever get a chance to ride a corn combine, jump at the chance, as the amount of clean, high quality grain flowing into the grain bin is absolutly astounding. It's nearly a flood. Farmers in the upper midwest have had to switch to grain carts and semitrucks to haul away the crop, as production has doubled in the last 25 years, and the crop comes in at an incredable rate.

[Balding_Eagle]

I absolutely would swear that corn is now grown for higher sugar content so it works better for corn syrup, sweeteners and of course make more ethanol per bushel.

I think you are confusing sweet corn (for direct human consumtion-eating), with dent corn, which is grown as livestock feed or ethanol. They are very different. BTW, ethanol corn is engineered specifically to produce more ethanol.

[Razzz42]

You see how moles work, by spreading mis-information to the unexpecting public that intervention is good for you just like salesmen selling stock in a company that uses the full backing of an industry’s domination of a sector. Little people are just an annoyance in the grand scheme of things where more lobbyists are what are really needed to continue the scam. Just ask Congress about it when money is available for some extra perks.

[padre35]

Hmm, so when the only seed houses in the area are Monsanto, and they require a exclusivity agreement to buy their seeds, one wonders “why” farmers would line up to purchase them?

Put it this way, if Monsanto's product was so universally loved, then why are they suing farmers who A)do not use their products B) did not ask for their crop to be contaminated with their pollen?

[padre35]

Well, hmm, odd as in the 50’s something like 40% of American Adults smoked, that number has dropped to 18% or less, so if anything cancer deaths should have declined with the reduction of smokers in the US population.

As for Diabetes, to be blunt, I think Americans have gotten very fat and very lazy.

[Patriotic1]

I buy some organic products and part of my concern is soil management. From what I’ve heard, our soils are not replenished due to rotation, and thus we’re overly dependent on oil for fertilizers to keep the soil “healthy”. If it were the UK France, or NZ, I might not have a problem with that. But... since it’s the Middle East, I get overly concerned.

Do you have an opinion on that? It’s hard to find a non-organic farmer that comments on such things.

[Balding_Eagle]

False premise. There are hundreds of ‘seed houses’ all with competing types of seeds.

For example, my former BIL sells for a small seed house that provides GM seed for maybe 1/2% of the seed planted each year. He and his company work hard to earn the business of the farmer, as do his competition. I’m not sure what percent Monsanto has, but they certainly don’t corner the market.

They just happen to be the big guys on the block, like Microsoft is for example, and thus are the prime targets of Leftists everywhere.

As to the lawsuit; Most Leftists think the average person is a dunce, and in this case they think they can portray the average farmer as too stupid to know that Monsanto is going to sue them out of business.

In fact the average farmer is far wiser than the average Leftist. He knows these suits (by and large) are founded on some farmer not living up to the terms of the contract they signed with Monsanto, or whatever company they are buying seed from. They know that they can live up to the terms, and thus, they aren’t afraid to buy seed from Monsanto.

Not the dunces Leftists like to call them.

In fact, come to think of it, YOU are portraying the average farmer as a dunce, just like the Leftists do.

If you’re not a Leftist, you best review your ‘facts’.

[Patriotic1]

Now that I live closer to cornfields, I’ve found a serious difference between corn on the cob from grocery stores vs a corn stand on the farm itself.

Even bigger is the difference between corn picked the same day vs those eaten a day or two later.

Most people shop for looks, so grocery stores sell fruits and veggies that stand up to the shipping times and transportation.

I’ve considered grinding my own hamburger (actually, finding a butcher to do it for me).

[padre35]

Hmm, Hyperbole: "Hyperbole (pronounced /haɪˈpɜrbəliː/ hy-PUR-bə-lee[1]; from ancient Greek ὑπερβολή 'exaggeration') is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally. Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton".[2] Hyperbole helps to make the point that the bag was very heavy although it is not probable that it would actually weigh a ton. On occasion, newspapers and other media use hyperbole when speaking of an accident, to increase the impact of the story. This is more often found in tabloid newspapers, which often exaggerate accounts of events to appeal to a wider audience." I can give examples of non contracted farmers being sued for having GM products via pollination on their land. Merely saying Leftist is about as intellectually lazy as it can be, I'm not necessarily hostile to Monsanto, nor am I a cheerleader or drink the "it will be Eden" koolaid either. I do think there are serious issues with GMO and GE products namely there will never be effective segregation of their products from other people's products or efforts, nature simply does not work that way, farming is a messy business and things do not turn out as planned often enough.

[Balding_Eagle]

Nitrogen, which is a large component of corn production, is produced using natural gas. We have hundreds, maybe thousands of years supply of natural gas, if only the government will get out of the way.

Potash, maybe the next most used fertilizer, comes from mines, the largest of which is located in Canada. Interestingly, the company stock symbol is POT.

I’m not sure where the critically important trace fertilizers come from, I think here in the US, but I’m not sure.

Crop rotation is determined by a number of factors, all of which boil down to profitability. Corn on corn for years at a time works on some soils, and with the advent of GM seeds, very effective herbicides and insecticides can be used to keep the fields weed and insect free. I’m still amazed when I see large weed free fields that have never seen a weed cultivator.

Farming practices have changed in the last couple of decades, and the crop residue leaves an excellent seed bed for the following years crops.

Nitrogen fixing crops, such as soybeans and alfalfa, are often used as rotational crops in the Midwest (were I grew up) and with the advent of GM soybean seeds soybeans have become more attractive to most farmers. The GM seeds allow for (esp.) herbicides that kill all the weeds INCLUDING any corn. Corn growing as a weed in soybeans has been a big problem in the past. GM solved that.

Generally, soils have improved over the years. It’s the very lifeblood for a farmer, and he treats soils like he would a newborn child, with great care. He wants his sons to have the same, or better soils than he has now.

Few, if any farmers are anti-organic. They just realize that as with everything else, the world has moved on, and true organic will only lead to mass starvation.

On the other hand, the advent of GM crops allows greater production of ‘organic’ because not every acre is need for food production for the general populace.

[Yaelle]

This is more scary than a lot of other news today.

[Balding_Eagle]

So explain why you have, on this thread, portrayed the farmer as a stupid dunce, unaware of the evil designs of Monsanto.

[truthfreedom]

If we take out GMO, one by one, we can see the effects on pricing.

I know that sugar is better than corn at making ethanol, but we still have restrictions of some sort at importing sugar and/or importing ethanol.

So, some of the GMO corn is going to the production of ethanol.

If we have 14 million bushels of GMO corn, 7 million for food, 7 million for ethanol, that is not better, necessarily, than 7 million natural, healthy bushels for food and the equivalent of 7 million bushels of corn for ethanol as imported sugar.

Point being, ban the GMOs, wait and see what happens to the price.

Alfalfa, non GMO, is not expensive. The price of alfalfa is not too high right now. We don’t need GMO right now in terms of alfalfa.

If the terrible GMO alfalfa gets out there, yields might improve, but there’s no real need for that. Things are fine right now alfalfawise.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “As for Diabetes, to be blunt, I think Americans have gotten very fat and very lazy.” <<

.
Perhaps, but it has been proven that the diabetes causes the weight gian in type II diabetics.

[editor-surveyor]

Irrelevant.

The high yield corn is not food!

It slowly kills the consumer.

[padre35]

Solventur risu table

You funny, it is you, yourself, who has said such a thing, and of course the best way to deflect from an inconvenient fact is to accuse the other side of the conversation.

Now that we have that out of the way, do tell, what exactly is Monsanto’s means of keeping their product from spreading throughout the food production pipeline via accidental dispersion?

[editor-surveyor]

I knew you had to be a wikipedophile.

The kangaroo court has been shown to have disregarded real evidence, and manufactured their own in its place.

I know that you are ok with that, but most of us are not.

[editor-surveyor]

I can see that your purpose here is pornographic comic relief.

[editor-surveyor]

SAve your bullshit for those that hunger for it (IOW: not here)