Monsanto

[Red Rim]

I am not trying to talk politics, but rather agriculture.

There is a ballot measure being voted on in Oregon, that will require labelling on GMO products. Pretty simple idea. Not asking big companies to stop producing genetically modified foods, just let us know when we are consuming them.

Monsanto and a few other companies have spent 25 million on advertising in Oregon alone to stop this.

Colorado and Hawaii are also voting on this as well.

What are your feelings? Again I don't want this to be a political debate but more a discussion from the people whose opinion I admire.

[bearriver]

My state put this up for a vote recently. It didn't pass. I voted for it...

[Tap]

It's unbelievable that north america cant pass GMO labeling.

even repressive countries like Russia and China have GMO labelling laws.

[Red Rim]

It looks like money can buy votes. Of course we knew that all along, but even a state like Washington that is forward thinking enough to legalize cannibus couldn't pass this law. Crazy.

[Red Rim]

Here is an article on it.

http://m.stltoday.com/business/local/74 ... touch=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[DAD300]

This isn't politics, or shouldn't be. It's science...

GMO's are already killing other crops and animals. Do we think it won't kill humans?

Monsanto and others are looking for a monopoly. Good business. Bad science for humanity.

http://liquid-investments.com/gmos-mode ... ror-story/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

This link is a mild account of science against GMO's.

Remember Agent Orange, well D2 is a watered down Agent Orange. GMO crops are being designed to be tolerant of D2 products. If you spray D2 on the crop...you also eat it at some point.

Most GMO seeds are sterile and when the cross pollinate with heritage crops the other crops become sterile. So you can't save seed from this year for next year. OH...But you can buy new seed from Monsanto!

Labeling is a drop in the bucket, but we need it. With proper labeling the consumer can choose to not buy GMO. Market driven choices will tell farmers to grow non-GMO.

Monster GMO crops are not here to feed the World...they are marketing tools for the giant agribiz.

[goose eye]

I can buy round up ready bean an plant them when
I pick em I can't save some beans to plant next year
without paying monsato.
I can have a field of regular beans and bees can cross
Pollinate without me wanting them another farmers field
and I can't save an plant them beans without paying monsato .

Support local farmers an but organic


So I'm tole

[moosemilk]

I'm not even in The USA and agree it should be labeled. People have a right to know what they are buying and consuming without having to do extensive research.

Look at all the problems with gluten. Why? Because gluten isn't what it was any years ago and we are not designed to utilize or rid it properly.

[Truckinbutch]

I think the entire practice should be abolished ! Geneticly engineering seed to the point that it will not reproduce destroys our ability to self sustain and care for ourselves . Control of food is control of the world . I have pole bean seed that has been passed through my family for , give or take , 300 years . These corporations would like to destroy that heritage for their own profits .

>Resist GMO and never cuss a farmer with your mouth full .

>Too high a stump for me to jump up on tonight to lament the slow demise of the family farm .

[jedneck]

I think the entire practice should be abolished ! Geneticly engineering seed to the point that it will not reproduce destroys our ability to self sustain and care for ourselves . Control of food is control of the world . I have pole bean seed that has been passed through my family for , give or take , 300 years . These corporations would like to destroy that heritage for their own profits .

>Resist GMO and never cuss a farmer with your mouth full .

>Too high a stump for me to jump up on tonight to lament the slow demise of the family farm .

Amen uncle

[woodshed]

Jedneck beat me to it.

[youngonce]

I think what people do not realize about GMO crops is they are called 'roundup ready' this means they will grow in soil that has been drenched in roundup weed killer. This means before planting the crop they spread roundup weed killer throughout the entire field. This crap then enters the water system and you drink it as well as every other living thing. I do not use pesticides in my lawn nor garden. I may be wrong but roundup is not safe to drink - not in any amount. It is evil evil evil...

[Coyote]

youngonce, You Sir are absolutely f^^^ing wrong,

If you don't know what you are talking about, at least
be smart enough to keep your fool mouth shut.

GMO does NOT mean Roundup ready - it means GENETICALLY MODIFIED,
either through gene splicing or cross breeding. No one drenches a field
in Roundup weed killer. No plant will grow in a soil drenched in herbicide,
Oh yeah Roundup is a herbicide, NOT a pesticide as you stated. You understand
nothing about soil and its ability to act as a filter.

Your comments are meant to create misinformation, misdirection, spread fear,
and just so you know you have succeeded in pissing me off.

You set in your cute little house, in your cute little cul-de-sac and bitch about
the very affordable, and abundant food I grow for you to stuff in your pie hole, and
say "I don't use pesticides in my lawn or garden" Lets talk about your world without
herbicides. It would be a much different place, even your cute little lawn would be
full of really,really nasty weeds. Crop production would drop nearly 75% world wide,
prices would skyrocket. Yep evil, evil,evil

You don't know shit about what you are talking about

I am in an elite group if you have not figured it out I am an American Farmer.

Now lets talk about ME growing YOUR food without Roundup

Coyote

[cob]

+1 Coyote you are a kinder soul than I.

Youngonce; look up the history of corn. it was once a grass, until modified.

about monsanto ETC. it says a lot about a company when it will prosecute
a farmer for growing a crop from second generation seed

[Jimbo]

Monsanto has armies of lawyers converting farmers who used to keep seed to Monsanto seed. Even if the farmer never ever bought GMO, the pollen carries from neighboring farms and corrupts their seed. Then the lawyers get busy, go to court with test results, the farmer cant afford the enormous legal bill and concedes to buying Monsanto seed. Its ridiculously unethical, but the big corps never gave a shit about ethics.

[Red Rim]

Well here is the outcome with 92% of the votes in.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/inde ... E_OR_SOC_0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Monsanto and Dupont win again. Cost them 25 million though. Probably just a drop in the bucket.

[bearriver]

This is off-topic, long day at work, I'm drinking, so lets let loose! I think GMO labeling and gmo's themselves are a double edged sword. Possessing a positive and a negative.

One company has destroyed the image of GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD doing bad business, and may, or may not have damaged the health of many people. However I see the possibilities this god like technology promises in generations to come. Being able to tailor the genetic code of living tissue to our needs and wants is mind blowing. Scientists are creating genetically modified life from every branch. From critters to protozoa. One day artists won't just be creating music or paintings. They will imagine new forms of life for our use and benefit.

Genetically modified food and animals might be costing some of us in terms of our health in it's implication, being the small picture. Being a gmo guinea pig myself I have room to talk. As this science grows we see the possibility of reversing desertification, the end of hunger, higher quality among our pets and professional animals, repairing hereditary genetic disorders, repairing otherwise permanent injuries, increasing human longevity... Fear and ignorance will only slow down the inevitable practices sure to come, which will be understanding and controlling genetic material to our desires. Fear not for this indeed is a wonderful world.

I'll leave you with an inspiring short (1:36) YouTube clip from Jason Silva - Shots of Awe - The Six Epochs of Evolution : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cITA2ysR ... YoWbcYANsA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[rad14701]

It's all part of the conspiracy, I tell you... Our diets are being modified at the request of the aliens, either to modify us for better hybridized cross-breeding, or in an effort to engineer a more palatable food source for them... That food source being us...

[bearriver]

at the request of the aliens

Lizardmen... You don't know shit!

Lizard men love some deep fried human.

[Jimbo]

Not an 'intoxicating idea'. I rather like my dogs quirks and my greenbeans all different shapes. The idea of a world full of genetically castrated automatons living in perfect identical predictability makes me want to go find somebody to punch.

[Truckinbutch]

"Little boxes on the hillside ....all made out of tickytac .... and they all look the same ......."

[WooTeck]

This is off-topic, long day at work, I'm drinking, so lets let loose! I think GMO labeling and gmo's themselves are a double edged sword. Possessing a positive and a negative.

One company has destroyed the image of GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD doing bad business, and may, or may not have damaged the health of many people. However I see the possibilities this god like technology promises in generations to come. Being able to tailor the genetic code of living tissue to our needs and wants is mind blowing. Scientists are creating genetically modified life from every branch. From critters to protozoa. One day artists won't just be creating music or paintings. They will imagine new forms of life for our use and benefit.

Genetically modified food and animals might be costing some of us in terms of our health in it's implication, being the small picture. Being a gmo guinea pig myself I have room to talk. As this science grows we see the possibility of reversing desertification, the end of hunger, higher quality among our pets and professional animals, repairing hereditary genetic disorders, repairing otherwise permanent injuries, increasing human longevity... Fear and ignorance will only slow down the inevitable practices sure to come, which will be understanding and controlling genetic material to our desires. Fear not for this indeed is a wonderful world.

I'll leave you with an inspiring short (1:36) YouTube clip from Jason Silva - Shots of Awe - The Six Epochs of Evolution : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cITA2ysR ... YoWbcYANsA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

+1 i agree that GM could change the world for the better if it was run ethicaly and for non profit. think of grain with twice the sugar would be good for hobys such as ours . on the other hand there is a natural order and if you tilt to much one way the rest will crumble.

p.s. i loved the way this thread went after the above post

[youngonce]

Spray the entire crop with glyphosate... I stand by my claim.. and my lawn sucks while my neighbors does not and I stand by that. Thanks to all the farmers but please do not use glyphosate.. We all talk about not using anything but glass and PTFE on our product but we use GMO corn? covered in glyphosate?

Wiki:
When planting Glyphosate Tolerant crops, a farmer can spray the entire crop with glyphosate, killing only the weeds and leaving the crop alive. However, one concern with the heavy use of glyphosate on RR crops is that it will lead to the development of glyphosate resistant weeds (sometimes referred to as "superweeds").[1] One variety of RR Corn, NK603, was linked to tumors in rats by a 2012 study.[2]

[Coyote]

youngonce, You are mostly correct in your last statement.

Glyphosate's such as Roundup are in fact a form of salts. Glyphosate's are also among the mildest forms of herbicides
available on the market (which is why the average homeowner can buy them without a license). Trust me when I tell
you there are some really nasty compounds being used.

Interesting fact: More is NOT better when talking about herbicides. At a very heavy application rate of 1 gallon per acre
that is 128 ounces per acre; 1 ounce would be applied per each 340 square feet. Not drenched as you stated. Most Roundup products
are considered "Rain Fast" in 2 hours. This means a moderate rain will not wash it off.

Farming is one of the only business's in the history of man that we buy everything we use at retail and sell everything we
produce at wholesale. The best price I have been able to buy glyphosate at in the past several years is $ 17 a gallon in 55 gallon
minimum lots = $935 a drum. Trust me I don't waste a drop of it.

"Super Weeds" are and have been a concern. However we have other herbicides to use. I raise alfalfa hay - We have in the past planted Roundup Ready seed. When it was time to rotate the crop we killed the Roundup Ready alfalfa with a product trade named Banvil.

One of the biggest abused of glyphosate's are the homeowners who over mix or over use thinking they are doing a better job of killing a weed. You all want to spray it and watch it fall over, dead and black in 20 minutes or less. Don't work that way.

You can link anything to anything else and find it causes tumors in rats.
The day 40 years ago that they announced that bacon in California caused cancer I figured they is all full of shit.

GMO can be a good thing. Think no more birth defects, Think not 60 bushel wheat, but 200 bushel wheat. Not 80 bushel Soy beans,
but 250 bushel. Feed the world.

With a full mouth people on this thread have cussed Monsanto and others for making a profit. Fuck really?
I want to see anyone here willing to go to work everyday, for 5 to 7 years, invest a couple of million of your own money, sit through government hearings to see if AFTER you have developed a product, IF the Gov will LET you take it to market.
Go to work everyday for 5 to 7 years and not get paid.
Not one of us here would go to work for a month without pay - well except for the farmers, small business owners, craft distillers,

Pounding on the drum is not the same as having working knowledge

Coyote

[cranky]

At the risk of incurring Cayote's wrath I would like to weigh in. I have done my research on the matter.
It is not Americas responsibility to feed the world at the expense of it's own people and land. GM crops are done purely for profit plain and simple, of both the GM companies and farmers. Testing of these crops has been shady at best and some researchers say they have linked increases of celiacs disease to GMO crops. Is it because of the glyphosates, or the gene modification itself? Or are these researchers incorrect? I guess that's something we all need to decide for ourselves. Oddly enough GMO wheat has not yet been approved but it has managed to escape in both Oregon and Montana. In Oregon it was discovered when a farmer sprayed (some might think of this as drenched) his wheat field with roundup and there were patches it didn't kill so he sprayed them again and again they didn't die, so he contacted the University of Oregon and they determined it was Monsanto's experimental wheat that was supposed to have been destroyed.
I know one thing, I am opposed to any single company owning 90+% of any single crop and Monsanto controls 90+% of the sugar beet crop and I have read recently 90% of the corn crop. If you want to support them that's up to you, I personally don't and because they continue to spend outrageous amounts of money to defeat GMO labeling bills. This is solely for the purpose of keeping people uninformed. Becoming informed is very difficult, for instance because I am informed I know that GMO seeds do not yet have the terminator gene rendering them sterile, which is why Monsanto needs all those lawyers to sue farmers and why they cant actually completely destroy a crop. I also know there are 2 ways to not support the GM companies and that is to buy organic or only Non-GMO project certified products. That's what I do, I also buy rice from Thailand or some certified Calrose rice. I don't buy corn except fresh that I have spoken to the grower to verify it is GMO free, which means I can't make corn whiskey or UJSSM. I'm also hording wheat because it is low risk at the moment but it is only a matter of time and I like a nice wheat whiskey. I don't buy yellow squash either, I grow my own and grow my own tomatoes and green beans because in addition to being safe I prefer the way they taste. In addition to all of this I also don't buy Pomwonderful products because they are busy buying up all they water rights they can. I sense something seriously scary there. Did you know that in some states it is actually illegal to collect rainwater that falls on your roof because somebody else actually owns those water rights?
I don't buy GMO, If you want to that's up to you but wouldn't it be nice to be able to pick up a box of cereal or anything else and know if it is or not? Just so you could easily decide?
I mean no offense to farmers, everybody needs to make a living but in my humble opinion it is pure bullshit for farmers and companies to stand up and shout that it is their responsibility to feed the world. It's not. It's your responsibility to feed your family. If you feel that means you need to grow GMO that's fine but you will not be feeding my family that's for sure.

[LBHD]

I dont have an issue with identifying GMO products in theory. Capitalism is (supposed to be) best when the consumer is most informed. If someone wants to choose non GMO over GMO despite the fact that GMO food is generally recognized as safe, I would love to give them that option.

However, In practice, what separating GMO (up to 90% of some common crops) and NON-GMO does is it takes a fungible commodity like CORN and turns it into a huge regulatory hassle. Can't mix this with that, can't buy from this place if you have some from the other, etc etc etc. Different grain elevators, what happens if there is cross contamination? What level of GMO product is acceptable while still calling it non-GMO? Who watches and regulates and monitors and prosecutes?

And for what benefit? If someone shows me a real study where GMO foods are causing harm, I will say that it is important information. I hear a lot of talk and appeal to emotion, and general frenzy, but I dont see a lot of hard facts.

[cranky]

And for what benefit? If someone shows me a real study where GMO foods are causing harm, I will say that it is important information. I hear a lot of talk and appeal to emotion, and general frenzy, but I dont see a lot of hard facts.

The benefit of knowing and deciding for ourselves what we consume. Some states have already passed labeling laws, so why not have a national standard? Other countries do.
One of the problems is studies have to be funded and only very short studies have been done on GMO because money controls everything including the studies and their outcome. Billions of dollars have been spent in the past few years to prevent GMO labeling as well as prevent longer studies from being done. Why would a few companies spend so much to defeat these bills instead of working on a national standard? Because you and me and every American is currently involved in one giant study on GMO products because it is approved for consumption and difficult to prove what harm it does on a long term basis. I personally don't like the idea of being a lab rat so I don't eat the stuff if I can help it but I think people need to be able to decide for themselves and thanks to those billions spent they can't.

[Jimbo]

With a full mouth people on this thread have cussed Monsanto and others for making a profit. Fuck really?

yes fuck really. Dont call us uninformed drum pounders just because you dont agree with what we say. My problem with Monsanto is on many levels, based on real facts. They go after small farmers with armies of lawyers so they can sell more seed. They own the FDA, top officers in the FDA and Monsanto are one in the same entity. Monsanto had a big part in creating the bullshit food pyramid that puts grain at the base and largest element of our diet, and muzzled the Surgeon General when he tried to say its causing epidemic disease, diabetes and obesity because grain starch spikes the insulin response in our Pancreas when metabolized, its like eating sugar. I could go on and on with examples of how they are completely unethical. So yes, fuck really.

Feeding the world is a different discussion. Pour a pile of grain on the ground and the rat population will soar. This world could use a few billion less people fucking it up.

[LBHD]

With a full mouth people on this thread have cussed Monsanto and others for making a profit. Fuck really?

yes fuck really. Dont call us uninformed drum pounders just because you dont agree with what we say. My problem with Monsanto is on many levels, based on real facts. They go after small farmers with armies of lawyers so they can sell more seed. They own the FDA, top officers in the FDA and Monsanto are one in the same entity. Monsanto had a big part in creating the bullshit food pyramid that puts grain at the base and largest element of our diet, and muzzled the Surgeon General when he tried to say its causing epidemic disease, diabetes and obesity because grain starch spikes the insulin response in our Pancreas when metabolized, its like eating sugar. I could go on and on with examples of how they are completely unethical. So yes, fuck really.

Feeding the world is a different discussion. Pour a pile of grain on the ground and the rat population will soar. This world could use a few billion less people fucking it up.

Not gonna get to your $1.70/fifth bourbon with organic corn..

[youngonce]

thought we were all friends? We can have cheap corn as long as it it poison? sign me up for that! Honestly from what i have read this stuff is bad.. what is the solution - well I think America is to blame. I took a trip to Switzerland and everywhere you looked people were growing food for themselves. What do we do - we plant houses in the fields along with a lawn and pesticides and herbicides - what should we do - each one of us that can should plant a garden. What would my urban neighbors say - well they would be pissed and THAT is the problem. But if I go inside and watch T.V then all is well - we are doomed!

It seems that like Monsanto the pro Monsanto crowd are bullies - 'full mouths' really... I provide internet access for a living - really - does that mean I should be able to control what you say on this here internet?

Oh and look around - roundup;
Glyphosate formulations induce apoptosis and necrosis in human umbilical, embryonic, and placental cells. Chem Res Toxicol. 2009 Jan;22(1):97-105. PMID

And this is the stuff that is harmless..I don't think I can link to to other sites but look around there is enough data..

One of our main ingredients is corn - just thought that we might be interested in what it is made of..