The World According to Monsanto

[techs]

If only Monsanto had concentrated on making crops more resistant to pests instead of making them more resistant to their pesticide.

But I guess you can make more money by selling both the seeds and a pesticide then just from selling the seeds.

 

[Iron Woode]

This, If i remember correctly that guy got sued because in the past he used monsanto licensed seeds and one year he just decided to replant the previous year licensed stuff, rathe than buying from monsanto again.

here is the rest:

It is truly as simple as this: Monsanto has a long-standing public commitment that “it has never been, nor will it be, Monsanto’s policy to exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seeds or traits are present in a farmer’s fields as a result of inadvertent means.”

The misperception that Monsanto would sue a farmer if GM seed was accidentally in his field likely began with Percy Schmeiser, who was brought to court in Canada by Monsanto for illegally saving Roundup Ready® canola seed. Mr. Schmeiser claims to this day the presence of Monsanto’s technology in his fields was accidental – even though three separate court decisions, including one by the Canadian Supreme court, concluded his claims were false.
In 2012-2013, two separate courts acknowledged that Monsanto has not taken any action – or even suggested taking any action – against organic growers because of cross-pollination.

The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) and others filed a lawsuit against Monsanto in an effort to invalidate Monsanto’s patents because of alleged fears of Monsanto exercising its patent rights and suing farmers if crops were inadvertently cross-pollinated. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the case and commented:

* There was no case or controversy in the matter because Monsanto had not taken any action or even suggested taking any action against any of the plaintiffs.

* Monsanto had a long-standing public commitment that “it has never been, nor will it be, Monsanto policy to exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seeds or traits are present in a farmer’s fields as a result of inadvertent means.”

* Plaintiffs’ allegations were “unsubstantiated … given that not one single plaintiff claims to have been so threatened.”

* Plaintiffs had “overstate[d] the magnitude of [Monsanto’s] patent enforcement,” noting that Monsanto’s average of roughly 13 lawsuits per year “is hardly significant when compared to the number of farms in the United States, approximately two million.”

 

[norseamd]

what is trace

 

[Iron Woode]

there are tin-foil hatters and then there is norseamd whose tin-foil hat is so thick it stops the evil mind control rays from as far away as Pluto.

give that man a high five!

 

[norseamd]

not sure what the fuck you are spewing

they sued a man from canada because a storm blew some of his neighbors seed into his 20 year old breeding efforts

they used the court to take all of his seed and his crops were contaminated so he lost all of his decades of breeding and there is monsanto gmo weeds on his property that he could not get rid of with herbicides

you seem obnoxious as fuck swaggering in here and blaring shit about something posted on the monsanto website and declaring anything crazy as you see fit and using some pr words from onsanto as some sort of tool

 

[norseamd]

not very hard to see what much of the business ethics of monsanto are and we can guess some of the morals of those on this board from what they are saying in this thread about the issue

this is not some arguement of the misunderstanding of science or technology

 

[tynopik]

and a lot of gmo crops use the pestisides by the proverbial shit ton

Monsanto's Bt-cotton is popular specifically because it REDUCES pesticide use

 

[norseamd]

Monsanto's Bt-cotton is popular specifically because it REDUCES pesticide use

fine

they still use them

and each pesticide has unique qualities so in order to know the effects you have to know about each one

 

[tynopik]

If only Monsanto had concentrated on making crops more resistant to pests instead of making them more resistant to their pesticide.

You mean like Bt-cotton?

But I guess you can make more money by selling both the seeds and a pesticide then just from selling the seeds.

The active ingredient of Roundup (glyphosate) is

a) generic, so it's cheaply available from multiple sources
b) the safest damn herbicide in existence. Increase glyphosate usage while decreasing the use of other more toxic herbicides is a win

 

[tynopik]

fine

they still use them

and each pesticide has unique qualities so in order to know the effects you have to know about each one

ok, so all crops use pesticides, i'm not seeing the connection to Monsanto

except that they're actually doing something to reduce pesticide usage

 

[norseamd]

And?

Plant tumors and humans tumors are very different. Our cellular structure, energy mechanisms, and well, everything about us is entirely different, other than the basic concepts (DNA, cellular-based structure, a need for energy and "respiration").

I'm against reckless genetic engineering just as much as the next reasonable guy, but genetic modification has worked some wonders for us.

There's a necessary balance to be maintained, of course, and how a company like Monsanto goes about their business can be bad for us, but there is so much potential good that we must continue investigating possibilities.

We wouldn't even have modern corn (Maize) if it wasn't for what is essentially genetic engineering. Entire plant species cross-bred, selected for mutations, bred some more, seeds sold, more mutations, more selections, and all of a sudden you get plants with multiple massive ears of corn where otherwise you might have gotten a few inedible seeds per plant (or none at all - a few different types of grasses were likely involved over the generations).

Within nature, genetics are constantly getting screwed with, and plants and/or other life made to incorporate new "code" utilizing bacteria, viruses, and bacteriophages (bacteria viruses).

this

especially the bold

areca nuts cause cancer regardless of whether they are organic or not

the main reason i am hestant about gmo right now is because we now so little about genetics and biology so we have no idea what the effects of what we are doing right now

of course most companies do not care in any fucking way

there is a lot to be gained from genetic engineering for things we do not consume or that would not affect us

and i am less afraid of gmo than chemicals or industrial practices

not counting the frankenfish

that does not look tasty or good for you

 

[norseamd]

there are tin-foil hatters and then there is norseamd whose tin-foil hat is so thick it stops the evil mind control rays from as far away as Pluto. give that man a high five!

what is your job?

 

[KlokWyze]

This thread has me depressed, but not because of Monsanto. The sheer amount of ignorance and FUD around genetic engineering displayed here is mildly horrifying. I won't comment on Mansanto's business practices, but I will dispel some of the scientific misinformation being thrown about regarding genetic engineering.

First off, we've been genetically modifying food for 10,000 years. The difference is that now we use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. Take wheat. The wild progenitors of modern bread wheat are diploidic, meaning that they carry two copies of their genome, much the way we do. These varieties of wheat don't produce enough gluten to rise and make nice bread, though. The only way our ancestors were able to get bread to rise was through hybrids containing the full genomes of both predecessors, making them tetraploidic (four copies of a genome). More modern (i.e. last thousand years) varieties are hexaploidic. Thus, in the pursuit of a more useful crop, we have tripled the genetic content of wheat. When you compare that to the movement of a single gene, it's insane to think that what we're doing now is "playing God" and what we were doing before was "natural".

A lot of environmental activists complain about the use of pesticides, forgetting that their use has saved the lives of a billion people. Now, use of long acting pesticides like DDT have real negative consequences that cannot be ignored, and we should do what we can to reduce their use as long as we can maintain our food supply. Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) is a bacteria that produces a toxin that only seems to affect pests. It's actually quite remarkable, as how the toxin is metabolized determines whether it is toxic. Bt is also a wide approved "organic" pesticide, and is considered incredibly safe both for humans and for the ecosystem. Bt corn, rather than requiring the spraying of bacteria on the plants, simply introduces the gene responsible for the toxin to the corn itself. It's use has led to an incredible drop in pesticide use on corn in the US. To me, this is an incredible environmental victory, and one that really can't be ignored when talking about Monsanto.

Regarding cancer, allergies and other concerns: there is absolutely no evidence that GMO foods have anything to do with them. Suggesting that an over increase in cancer rates and the increase of use of genetic engineering are causally related is akin to arguing that a lack of pirates causes global warming. The number one reason for an increase in cancer rates is that we're now all living long enough to get cancer. We've gotten so good at dealing with infectious disease, and we've greatly reduced mortality due to heart conditions, but you're still going to die of something, so now it's cancer. There is absolutely zero evidence that genetic engineering of foods has anything to do with it. In terms of allergies, while it is theoretically possible that whatever protein is being introduced by the genetic modification, no one has ever reported such an allergy. It seems silly to freak out over something that has never appeared in over 20 years of feeding billions of people.

So this was a bit of a rant. There's a lot more I can say here (such as other GMOs that are benficially for both our health and the environment, such as golden rice), but I'll leave it at that for the moment.

Thread seemed to be filled with emotionally thoughtless reaction until you showed up. :wub: :nohomo:

 

[tynopik]

they sued a man from canada because a storm blew some of his neighbors seed into his 20 year old breeding efforts

please read the full story. the initial contamination might have been accidental, but then the farmer took it and ran with, specifically selecting those seeds to breed

the court specifically said that if the contamination had been accidental they wouldn't have done anything

 

[KlokWyze]

this

especially the bold

areca nuts cause cancer regardless of whether they are organic or not

the main reason i am hestant about gmo right now is because we now so little about genetics and biology so we have no idea what the effects of what we are doing right now

of course most companies do not care in any fucking way

there is a lot to be gained from genetic engineering for things we do not consume or that would not affect us

and i am less afraid of gmo than chemicals or industrial practices

not counting the frankenfish

that does not look tasty or good for you

If you don't mess with something you won't learn about it. There will be positives and negatives than come with any new territory. IMO it's OK to be extremely cautious about stuff, please just don't try to kill companies with false accusations.

I always defaulted on the side of caution in re: global warming. Just use common sense. This is quite hard for many when so many media outlets appeal to emotion rather than fact and the majority of us are just incapable of independent thought.

 

[Iron Woode]

please read the full story. the initial contamination might have been accidental, but then the farmer took it and ran with, specifically selecting those seeds to breed

the court specifically said that if the contamination had been accidental they wouldn't have done anything

norseamd doesn't care about facts and accuracy, only how thick the tin-foil is in his hat.

I also heard he is going to rant about GMO causing tumors in rats because he found a study about it on the internets.

 

[norseamd]

please read the full story. the initial contamination might have been accidental, but then the farmer took it and ran with, specifically selecting those seeds to breed the court specifically said that if the contamination had been accidental they wouldn't have done anything

meh

he may have

but there is now way to tell what went on behind the scenes and whether monsanto did not spread a ton of money around

there is no way to tell if schmeiser is trustworthy

monsanto obviously is not

 

[norseamd]

If you don't mess with something you won't learn about it. There will be positives and negatives than come with any new territory. IMO it's OK to be extremely cautious about stuff, please just don't try to kill companies with false accusations. I always defaulted on the side of caution in re: global warming. Just use common sense. This is quite hard for many when so many media outlets appeal to emotion rather than fact and the majority of us are just incapable of independent thought.

i think there is much possibility in gmo

however monsanto is causing huge problems and it is not just monsanto

a lot of companies are causing massive shit with corruption and crony capitalism and false litigation

more or less what was predicted with cyberpunk mega evil corporations

defense industries
food production
content companies
communication service companies (telecoms and isps)
utility companies
retail companies (whether online or brick and mortar companies)
transportation companies
news and media companies

 

[norseamd]

norseamd doesn't care about facts and accuracy, only how thick the tin-foil is in his hat. I also heard he is going to rant about GMO causing tumors in rats because he found a study about it on the internets.

quit trolling

 

[HOSED]

I knew this thread would blow up- but I did not think Monsanto fans/employees would be posing ...opps I mean posing here. I wonder is Snowden needs a room mate? http://rt.com/news/159188-russia-gmo-terrorist-bill/

 

[silicon]

I found this well-researched documentary on YT, Damm, the kind of shit Monsanto has done to the worlds food supply-chain is off the chain, complete control of all the seed markets with their GMO product and if you resist somehow your fields "accidentally" wind up with GMO corn, soybeans then guess what? you have to PAY Monsanto royalties for next years seeds, even if they came from your own farm!, sure, go ahead and fight them in court, hope your pockets are deeper than the Grand canyon. Then the complete buy-out of the FDA in getting their product pushed through to market when THEY did the studies and handed the FDA the "cherry-picked" results. I for one am usually one of the last in conspiracy theory's, I have no tinfoil hat, but the person making this was highly praised and she was nominated for several awards for the book and this video, kinda long @1hr49min but I got drawn in and angered by this companies actions and what it has done to harm agriculture around the globe.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6_DbVdVo-k

you and the world's population are right to be concerned about the increasing dominance of monsanto and others who wish to control the world's food supply. one person by themselves cannot fight this huge company but by joining forces with other concerned citizens, then we can stand up to this giant.

 

[crashtestdummy]

It's true that mankind has been altering agriculture for thousands of years but the BIG difference is wheat with a better genetic profile was pollinated with plain wheat and you now have a "hybrid" but it was still all-wheat, what Monsanto (and others) doing is altering the genetic profile by inserting DNA from a completely different organism, they accidentally found the gene for the "Roundup-ready" soybeans when they were using Roundup on some slime that they found and were going to eradicate, when they found out this particular slime could not be killed by Roundup it's gene was "spliced" into the soybean's DNA and "Roundup-ready" soybeans were invented.

It's best to stop thinking of any of the plants (or animals) we use in agriculture as "natural". None of them would have a chance to survive in the wild, as we've designed and bred them to suit our needs, and not to match the environment. Modern corn, for example, makes no sense in nature. Its ancestors more closely resembled a non-digestible wheat than the gigantic ears we see today. We have made corn into an entirely new species through selective breeding over thousands of years.

This selective breeding process introduces new genes all the time by random mutation. These mutations, cumulatively, have an enormous impact on the distinguishing features of the plant. By contrast, genetic engineering only introduces a single gene, only for the feature we want, without any alterations to the rest of the plant.

IMPO I'm not saying these "roundup-ready" soybeans cause cancer but we are now going down a road that's irreversible since the "Roundup-ready" soybean will pollinate regular soybeans it would now be close to impossible to eradicate the Monsanto creation from the world and there would be not enough regular soybean seed to start over again. It just really boils down to common sense, until carefully controlled (and independent) studies were completed no genetically-altered creation should have been allowed to be used in agriculture, period. Also form the link you provided about pesticides/herbicides...."Three long-term cohort studies now suggest that certain chemical pesticides can interfere with brain development in young children. And some experts suspect that a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids are at least partly responsible for the recent collapse in bee populations (though this is still disputed).

You're crossing up a few subjects here. Let's go through them one at a time. First, regarding cross-pollination. There has been a lot of work looking into genetic drift across fields and the wide consensus is that it basically doesn't happen on any appreciable level. The maximum distance the pollen seems to move is about 30m. In other words, it won't reach the farm across the street (the recommended spacing between crops is 200m).

Next, regarding the need for more "carefully controlled studies", remember that the more burden you place on the introduction of genetically modified crops, the more monopoly on them big companies like Monsanto will have. Look at pharmaceuticals, for example. Drug companies spend over a billion dollars per drug (and that's just for the ones that work) to get those drugs through all the required testing. That makes it nearly impossible for an independent researcher to introduce a new drug. Now, for pharmaceuticals that makes sense, as there is a long history of promising drugs proving ineffective and/or harmful. There is not that history with GMOs. In fact, in the decades that we've used them, there have been no negative outcomes at all from the crops themselves (more on roundup later). Thus, the only thing that more extensive testing will accomplish is that it will keep out small players and ensure that companies like Monsanto have an oligopoly on GMO crops.

Third, you're conflating pesticides with genetic engineering. I'd be the first to agree with you that in an ideal world we'd dispose of raw pesticide use, but the ability to feed 7+ billion people depends on the higher yields they permit. The best way to maintain those yields while reducing pesticide use is to use genetic engineering to replace their function. This is the part I really don't get, this seeming conflation of genetic engineering and pesticide use when they're actually two completely different things.

There are other, lesser-known impacts as well. Australia's wheat farmers are now dealing with one of the worst weed infestations in the world — an issue caused in part by overuse of herbicides, which led to resistant weeds. And some 300,000 people kill themselves each year by ingesting pesticides, largely in Asia. That's one third of the world's suicides.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with the Australian weeds. It is only a "horrible infestation" because it is resistant to RoundUp. Being resistant to RoundUp doesn't magically make it resistant to all other herbicides or removal techniques. Genetic resistance doesn't suddenly turn the plant into a Godzilla that starts smashing cities. All it really means is that the plant infestation has returned to the levels it was before we were able to use RoundUp at all.

Regarding the 300K deaths, are you implying that these people killed themselves by intentionally consuming large amounts of pesticide? I'm not sure what that has to do with any argument here. By that same standard, we should ban Tylenol because I can kill myself by swallowing a bottle of it. (Please don't, by the way. Liver failure is a really awful way to die.)

And those are just the effects scientists know about. A notable paper from Heinz-R. Köhler and Rita Triebskorn points out that researchers still don't understand the full impact of many chemicals on broader ecosystems. "Although we often know a pesticide′s mode of action in the target species," they write, "we still largely do not understand the full impact of unintended side effects on wildlife."

As I said before, I thought this discussion was about GMOs, not pesticides. If you'd like to have a discussion about pesticide use, I'd be happy to participate in a separate thread on the subject.

there is nothing wrong with gmo on a theoritical level

one problem is that the bacterium they use to insert genes into plants causes plant tumours

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrobacterium_tumefaciens

I'm not sure you really understand the process by which genetic engineering works. By the time the seeds are sold to farmers, they no longer contain any of the bacteria, and will not themselves be tumorous. Also, as noted by another poster, plant tumors are very different beasts and you don't "catch" cancer from a plant (or even another human) tumor.

 

[BUTCH1]

It's best to stop thinking of any of the plants (or animals) we use in agriculture as "natural". None of them would have a chance to survive in the wild, as we've designed and bred them to suit our needs, and not to match the environment. Modern corn, for example, makes no sense in nature. Its ancestors more closely resembled a non-digestible wheat than the gigantic ears we see today. We have made corn into an entirely new species through selective breeding over thousands of years.

This selective breeding process introduces new genes all the time by random mutation. These mutations, cumulatively, have an enormous impact on the distinguishing features of the plant. By contrast, genetic engineering only introduces a single gene, only for the feature we want, without any alterations to the rest of the plant.

You're crossing up a few subjects here. Let's go through them one at a time. First, regarding cross-pollination. There has been a lot of work looking into genetic drift across fields and the wide consensus is that it basically doesn't happen on any appreciable level. The maximum distance the pollen seems to move is about 30m. In other words, it won't reach the farm across the street (the recommended spacing between crops is 200m).

Next, regarding the need for more "carefully controlled studies", remember that the more burden you place on the introduction of genetically modified crops, the more monopoly on them big companies like Monsanto will have. Look at pharmaceuticals, for example. Drug companies spend over a billion dollars per drug (and that's just for the ones that work) to get those drugs through all the required testing. That makes it nearly impossible for an independent researcher to introduce a new drug. Now, for pharmaceuticals that makes sense, as there is a long history of promising drugs proving ineffective and/or harmful. There is not that history with GMOs. In fact, in the decades that we've used them, there have been no negative outcomes at all from the crops themselves (more on roundup later). Thus, the only thing that more extensive testing will accomplish is that it will keep out small players and ensure that companies like Monsanto have an oligopoly on GMO crops.

Third, you're conflating pesticides with genetic engineering. I'd be the first to agree with you that in an ideal world we'd dispose of raw pesticide use, but the ability to feed 7+ billion people depends on the higher yields they permit. The best way to maintain those yields while reducing pesticide use is to use genetic engineering to replace their function. This is the part I really don't get, this seeming conflation of genetic engineering and pesticide use when they're actually two completely different things.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with the Australian weeds. It is only a "horrible infestation" because it is resistant to RoundUp. Being resistant to RoundUp doesn't magically make it resistant to all other herbicides or removal techniques. Genetic resistance doesn't suddenly turn the plant into a Godzilla that starts smashing cities. All it really means is that the plant infestation has returned to the levels it was before we were able to use RoundUp at all.

Regarding the 300K deaths, are you implying that these people killed themselves by intentionally consuming large amounts of pesticide? I'm not sure what that has to do with any argument here. By that same standard, we should ban Tylenol because I can kill myself by swallowing a bottle of it. (Please don't, by the way. Liver failure is a really awful way to die.)

As I said before, I thought this discussion was about GMOs, not pesticides. If you'd like to have a discussion about pesticide use, I'd be happy to participate in a separate thread on the subject.



I'm not sure you really understand the process by which genetic engineering works. By the time the seeds are sold to farmers, they no longer contain any of the bacteria, and will not themselves be tumorous. Also, as noted by another poster, plant tumors are very different beasts and you don't "catch" cancer from a plant (or even another human) tumor.

Your comparing hybridization with GMO but it's a totally different process, a hybrid is made by only allowing a plant to pollinate with another plant of the same species with desirable characteristics so yes, the DNA does get changed in the end but it's a natural type of process that has withstood the test of time as thousands of years of consumption have proven so, with GMO they are splicing in a gene from a completely different species to modify the DNA so in reality it's a completely NEW species your talking about and I for one DO NOT trust Monsanto or any other company to truthful if in fact the new species is going to create problems when people eat it, they've spent a lot of $$ on this, do you really think they are going to admit that they might be unsure if it's safe or not?, I highly doubt it.

 

[tynopik]

I for one DO NOT trust Monsanto or any other company to truthful if in fact the new species is going to create problems when people eat it, they've spent a lot of $$ on this, do you really think they are going to admit that they might be unsure if it's safe or not?, I highly doubt it.

What would be the point of hiding that it's unsafe? Millions of people will be eating it, they will be found out pretty quickly.

 

[William Gaatjes]

yep

thought of sickle cell anemia right away when reading your quote

seems malaria is a very strong influence on survival and that humans of african descent are now found in greater numbers than native americans in areas of malaria

seems this is why we have blood types and great apes have had them for tens of millions of years

all great apes share the same blood type workings

Really, apes do not have different bloodtypes ?