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MaynardKrebs
We did it. We heaved Steve. Yipee.
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MaynardKrebs

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Any Canadian farmers care to comment?

»www.huffingtonpost.com/2 ··· 598.html
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CanadianRip
join:2009-07-15
Oakville, ON

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Re: Any Canadian farmers care to comment?

Monstano corn is totally safe!

That's why France is banning it:

»www.bloomberg.com/news/2 ··· orn.html

Gone
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join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by CanadianRip:

Monstano corn is totally safe!

That's why France is banning it:

»www.bloomberg.com/news/2 ··· orn.html

... and if you read the article that you posted, you would know that they're temporarily banning it because of potential environmental impact, not because it's unsafe for human consumption.

This same bullshit is rampant in Canada over rBST. Health Canada to this day still maintains that BSA is 100% perfectly safe for human consumption and has never said anything to the contrary; it wasn't approved due to health effects on cows being treated with it, not the people who consume their milk. Yet, that sure doesn't stop the anti-everything troglodytes for going on and on and on about how horrible it is for people because Canada doesn't use it!

mazhurg
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join:2004-05-02
Brighton, ON

mazhurg to MaynardKrebs

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Study »www.pri.org/stories/scie ··· 677.html says that GMO corn is really bad to consume, akin to eating weedkiller.

EU »rt.com/news/corn-study-g ··· nch-711/ says not so fast as they have apparently not enough detailed information based on Monsato claims.

Short history - Smoking is good for you.

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· zjJjuxQI
booj
join:2011-02-07
Richmond, ON

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GMO plants aren't really bad for human health. They are bad for their long term agriculture effects, like OP's article indicates. This was predicted since the before the seeds were commercially available.

I'd be curious too to hear from any farmer that buys Monsanto's seeds (virtually all farmers who plant crops, as far as I can tell) what they think of them.

Ian1
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The HuffPo piece mentions the famous "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, without noting that it's one of the most infamous cases of Junk Science being used as a policy tool.

Making genetically modified crops that eventually spawn resistant weeds is a problem, yes. But so is feeding 7 billion people (and rising).

Wish this was an issue with easy answers. It isn't.
RTfM2010
join:2010-07-07

RTfM2010

Member

The problem/issue isn't about feeding 7 billion people. It's more about what some/most of those 7 billion is consuming on a daily basis. The easy, less tasty solution would have been to add the non-poisonous weeds to non-human and even human diets.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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join:2005-03-12

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said by Ian1:

The HuffPo piece mentions the famous "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, without noting that it's one of the most infamous cases of Junk Science being used as a policy tool.

Why should they note something that is nothing more than a trumped-up opinionated right-wing claim? From the start the criticism of the book was vicious, unrelenting, and entirely self-serving, and the attacks against Carson were sustained by virtually the entire chemical industry.

The scenario is one that many of us may find familiar. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Carson's book, The Guardian wrote:
said by »www.guardian.co.uk/globa ··· g-legacy :
Carson's critics have also been out in force this week. It is interesting to note that much of this criticism appears to be built on the same ideological foundation shared by many of today's prominent climate sceptics. So we have Matt Ridley writing in the Spectator, Ronald Bailey writing on Reason.com, and other similar pieces in Forbes and the New American (which itself links to a 2009 blog by James Delingpole on the Telegraph website).

This isn't an area in which I claim expertise, and there may (or may not) be actual deficiencies in Carson's work, but the accusations by the chemical and agricultural industries that she was nothing but "a hysterical woman" -- at the mere announcement of the forthcoming book in 1962 -- seem overblown to say the least, and the parallel with climate change denialism is as striking as it is expected and unremarkable considering where it's coming from. The James Delingpole fellow mentioned above, incidentally, is the same genius who claimed last year that "there has been no global warming since 1998" and that it's the objective of environmentalists to have us all living in "Maoist peasant colonies" and bomb us back to the Dark Ages.

Big industry is always going to react to any perceived threat to their financial interests with vicious opposition. That's been the political reality since industrialization, and the health and welfare of the population as a whole and the ecosystem that we inhabit seems always to fall to a small handful of heroic individuals who eke out what progress we've been able to make.
PX Eliezer704
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join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

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said by Ian1:

The HuffPo piece mentions the famous "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, without noting that it's one of the most infamous cases of Junk Science being used as a policy tool.

I'm sure that with 50 years hindsight we see that her work is not 100 percent perfect.

But junk science?!

And please don't blame her for malaria. The DDT rules in the US did not apply to Africa, and even the US rules had exemptions....

If we had kept on using DDT like water, it would have created even more of a problem of insect resistance, the same as happens with these crops, the same that happens with antibiotics, etc.

Ian1
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said by RTfM2010:

The problem/issue isn't about feeding 7 billion people. It's more about what some/most of those 7 billion is consuming on a daily basis. The easy, less tasty solution would have been to add the non-poisonous weeds to non-human and even human diets.

Uhhhh...


Ian1

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I'm not talking about big chemical interests. I'm talking about the 2012 scientific understanding. And I'm not actually faulting Carson with having a 1962 level of knowledge.I hadn't intended to make a big deal about it. What happened with DDT happened.

Some degree of caution needs to be exercised when dealing with this problem. Banning GM-crops and pesticides would likely have many unintended bad consequences as well.

Gone
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join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

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Dandelions grow everywhere and under just about any condition. They're edible for human consumption, and in fact are quite healthy. Knowing this, he's probably not joking, and I'm surprised (... not really) that you would claim he was.

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by Gone:

Knowing this, he's probably not joking, and I'm surprised (... not really) that you would claim he was.

Hate to surprise you, but I happen to know you can't replace the calories and nutrition of modern high-yield crops with an untended patch of dandelions in a salad.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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Wolfie00

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What does "high yield" have to do with calories and nutrition?

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

What does "high yield" have to do with calories and nutrition?

It has to do with feeding 7 billion people.

Yes, we could all go back to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle. It was able to sustain us by the millions.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

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Fair enough, but you made it sound as if having a highly productive and profitable farming assembly-line operation resulted in improved nutrition or food quality. As far as the end product is concerned, it often results in neither. As anyone would know who has a decent home garden, or ever picked wild berries.

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

Fair enough, but you made it sound as if having a highly productive and profitable farming assembly-line operation resulted in improved nutrition or food quality. As far as the end product is concerned, it often results in neither. As anyone would know who has a decent home garden, or ever picked wild berries.

That wasn't what I was trying to say. Yes, Dandelions are probably chock full of nice vitamins and minerals compared to a normal ear of corn from a modern farm.

My point has always been in this thread is that the problems of feeding the planet are not at all simple.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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elwoodblues

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So the feeding of 7 billion people trumps everything else, at any cost?

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by elwoodblues:

So the feeding of 7 billion people trumps everything else, at any cost?

Yes. That's exactly what I meant. Thanks for clarifying.

Isn't there a bridge you're meant to be under?
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digitalfutur
Sees More Than Shown
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GTA

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Re: Any Canadian farmers care to comment?

said by elwoodblues:

So the feeding of 7 billion people trumps everything else, at any cost?

There isn't enough capacity using 19th century farming techniques to feed 7 billion people.

And we certainly aren't going to deindustrialize and return to an agrarian society to satisfy an ideological viewpoint about corporations.

If you don't want corporations involved in food production, what is your alternate plan?
Tig
join:2006-06-29
Carrying Place, ON

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It's great the the corn is round up ready, but I always wondered if I was? How much round up residue is deemed acceptable in my food or well?

Gone
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Fort Erie, ON

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said by digitalfutur:

There isn't enough capacity using 19th century farming techniques to feed 7 billion people.

You might want to reevaluate that comment, since the number one reason why there isn't enough food is due to waste and mismanagement, not capacity. Some estimates state that 40% of all the food we produce is wasted merely for not meeting "appearance" standards, even though it is perfectly edible and just as healthy and sustaining as a prettier version of the same thing. Then there's the whole issue of corruption and mismanagement in developing nations which causes their food production to either be horribly inefficient when they wouldn't otherwise be, or to be wasted due to lack of infrastructure for delivery (this is a -big- problem in India, as an example)

We might want to actually starting using the almost half of all food that is wasted before we start crying about non-existent capacity issues that lead to product which, while I feel are perfectly safe, can make things extremely difficult for farmers to deal with. While genetic modification can certainly play a positive role if done properly, it is not the end-all solution. Not by a long shot.
booj
join:2011-02-07
Richmond, ON

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said by digitalfutur:

said by elwoodblues:

So the feeding of 7 billion people trumps everything else, at any cost?

There isn't enough capacity using 19th century farming techniques to feed 7 billion people.

And we certainly aren't going to deindustrialize and return to an agrarian society to satisfy an ideological viewpoint about corporations.

If you don't want corporations involved in food production, what is your alternate plan?

Would it be too much to ask to have it both ways?

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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I find it deeply ironic that the same crowd that seems so concerned about feeding 7 billion people is not the least bit concerned about the most important prerequisite for successful and productive agriculture: a stable climate. The destabilization of the earth's climate systems being caused by their wonderful industrial and transportation systems burning fossil fuels with reckless abandon is potentially the greatest threat to the world's food supply since humanity invented agriculture. You can't grow crops or get decent yields when farmlands are either flooded or stricken by drought, destroyed by storms, or when crops are attacked by newly migrated non-indigenous pests.

Efficient food production is not the concern of the pro-business right-wingers, it's profit, pure and simple, and nothing but profit. If crop yields suffer the industry can of course charge astronomically higher prices for lesser quantities. None of which does a damn thing for the overall food supply or a starving population.

digitalfutur
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According to this article, food product will have to double by 2050. That isn't going to happen without investment from the private sector. Reducing waste and improving efficiency is always part of the solution, but it's only a part of the problem. Capacity has to increase as well...the best management won't solve the problem if capacity is not increased by improving crop yields.

»www.scientificamerican.c ··· age-maps

What is never part of the solution is an ideological war against the private sector by zealots with their "we know what's best for you because our values are better than yours."

Still waiting for the alternate plan if the private sector is out of the food production business...

Gone
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Gone

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said by digitalfutur:

According to this article, food product will have to double by 2050.

... sure, if we continue to waste half the food we produce I have no doubt in my mind that food production will need to double by 2050.

Still, you - no surprise - completely and totally ignored the point I was making we have a solution now - stop wasting bloody food! 40% is thrown out for cosmetic reasons, 15-20% is wasted in North American homes by being purchased and never eaten. God knows how much is wasted in the developing world due to corruption and distribution issues. Production is not the issue. Efficient utilization of resources is.

Sure, the so-called conservatives get all pissy when someone points out the obvious that our way of life is unsustainable and that a very simple solution to food production is to stop throwing perfectly good away, but then again so-called conservatives are known for using the most elaborate and expensive method to solve a problem, rather than the more obvious simple one staring at them right in the face. Then again, I've never considered these people to be conservatives in the first place.

For what it's worth, the article you posted, aside from conveying the exact point that I alluded to with regards to waste, was also quite clear that reducing our consumption of meat would also be a big benefit as far as food production goes. Looks like that so-called ideological war you were rambling on about even exists in your own cited material.

Ian1
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Good point. Global warming is a long neglected topic here on BBR. We should discuss it and shoe-horn it into each and every topic, regardless of any relevance, or attempts to separate topics into discernible sub-divisions like "threads". When your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look a lot like a nail, eh?

The good thing about it, is that, as we transition to 18th century farming technology, the resultant population die-off will have the much-needed benefit of having a lot fewer people around to drive cars, run factories, or require heating for their homes. So soon enough, the CO2 levels ought to pop right back down again.