Garber writes: "Despite growing worldwide concern over the health and environmental risks inherent in genetically modified crops, the government of Mexico is toying with the idea of growing GM corn."
Mexico may authorize GMO corn. (photo: Natural Society)
Mexico Officials: Allowing GM Corn Will Devastate Crops
24 November 12
espite growing worldwide concern over the health and environmental risks inherent in genetically modified crops, the government of Mexico is toying with the idea of growing GM corn. This is the opposite of what other nations such as India are doing, where scientists gathered in New Delhi to discuss the need for the Indian government to ban GMO trials in their country. The gathering was a media briefing organized by Aruna Rodrigues, "the lead petitioner in a public interest litigation" seeking the ban.
"Every indication shows that a decision could be taken in the coming weeks," says Silvia Ribero, spokeswoman for Canada-based ETC Group (an ecological impact monitor). Ribero adds that although legal paperwork remains to be prepared in full, President Felipe Calderon could authorize the motion before leaving office in December to reduce Mexico's food imports.
Destruction of History and Humanity
All the big players - Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow - are waiting for the go-ahead from the agriculture ministry to plant their poison in natural corn's indigenous soil in an area roughly the size of El Salvador (2.4 million hectares).
"We are talking about damaging more than 7,000 years of indigenous and peasant work that's created maize," says Veronica Villa from the Mexico branch of ETC, "one of the world's three most widely eaten crops."
It is because of this crop's versatility and prevalence in the contemporary human diet that so-called philanthropists like Bill Gates have invested so much into GM technology. In 2010, he purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto, claiming that GMO crops were the answer to starvation.
Why GMOs Don't Fully Address Starvation
None of us here likely know who Bill Gates truly is at the end of the day. But let's be frank: at best, he's yet another one of the billions funding biotech and Big Ag propaganda. Does he truly believe that genetic modification comes without consequences.
At worst, however, Gates, Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow simply do not care that farmers across the world commit suicide in the thousands after going bankrupt thanks to overpriced, ineffective GM seeds.
They do not care that Monsanto's insecticides are creating resistant weeds and insects, forcing farmers to spray more insecticides that pollute soil and therefore ground- and still therefore drinking water.
They do not care that our GM food has pesticide residue contributing to countless diseases in both animals and humans (and humans who consume animals), and have the gall to hide their dirty hands deep in their cash-lined pockets.
But what do we know?
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
 16 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 17 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 19 June 2013
|
 18 June 2013
|
 18 June 2013
|
 19 June 2013
|
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
Yesterday I saw a study out of CDC, if I remember correctly, showing that the incidence of cancer has gone down. Any environmental causes still in effect are much more likely to be from petroleum in all its forms, including the use of plastics, than from GM crops.
Furthermore, bacterial and viral diseases have no relation at all to any of the modifications that have gone into plants. And when people hyperventilate about the production of resistant pests caused by GM, you have to shake your head in wonderment at the lack of critical thinking. How do you think these organisms were combatted before if not by pesticides? Prayer?
http://drfoxvet.com/info/Monsanto-Roundup-Disease
Lower rate of cancer? Why are the cancer infusion centers so crowded all of a sudden? The only lower rate is lung cancer caused by smoking; colon cancer is growing. Try having colon cancer: you'll really love it (and normally I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy).
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
GMO crops have been around for thousands of years. Any deliberate crossing of one species of plant with another is a genetically modified plant. Cross-pollinati on is a GMO tool to improve the quality of a plant, make it hardier, shorter, more productive, and drought resistant, etc. This kind of GMO work takes time, and usually years, to create improved plants. That kind of modification has bee gong on for thousands of years, literally. It is GEO, or genetically engineered organisms, that we are trying to stop around the world-- and that is the kind of plant modification done in the lab. It includes technology that allows the intermingling of DNA from different living organisms, including animals, plants and microbes. It is the technology that has been around it the last twenty years, and is a far different animal that GMO, which has been around for nearly as long s man has cultivated crops.
This point is important, but both sides of this battle still don't use the terminology corrdcclty and don't identify the real culprit accurately. We can’t win this argument if our anti-GEO campaigns mistakenly include GMO as the villain. All GEO foods are GMO, but not all GMO foods are GEO.
In our day to day world without getting into specifics,most people recognize the term "GMO" and the act of interfering genetically with the plant.
Yes maybe for people like you,the terminology makes a difference.Why muddy the waters.We all know what genetically modified foods are.
They could be poisonous to us,because some degree of a natural poison has been inserted into the plants that we eat.
And that is the bottom line not to be picky.
May I be allowed to point out that this line of thinking is not at all logical? The problem is that the end result is either helpful or harmful, not the technique. The studies of the use of pesticides released into the environment show that herbicides have gone way up and insecticides way down because of two DIFFERENT genetic additions. To equate them is to be very foolish.
That IS the whole point here. Cross-pollinati on is a gradual process, proving its viability over time. Effectively firing a shotgun full of chunks of DNA from bacteria, or insects... You get the idea.
A Texan might say "That ain't natural".
What chance does poor Mexico have? Perhaps a better one than us, if their democracy still works. But we export corporatocracy better than anyone, and have no problem using gunboat diplomacy in doing it.
Any person who is selling these "frankenseeds" is a villain, owned and operated by the same people who spent $45 million to stop Americans from knowing what they're eating.
We lost sight of those villains and America has now become 1938 Germany, suffering from "corporatism" rather than Fascism.
The terminology is important, and it is important to make this point because much of the hybridization done with grain crops over the past century, ironically by companies like Dupont, has gone a great way to improving food supplies around the world in a safe way-- engineering new species in the lab.
If we want to win the fight against GEO foods, we will be up against scientists and scholars who challenge us as being stupid and anarchist and ignorant of factual information. It is also important because pro GEO forces site the need for improving crop production for world hunger, as though it is an continuation of the more noble GMO, (hybridization) . work done in the past century, without the significant risks posed by GEO techniques.
The best way to counteract that line of thinking is to be correct, accurate, and knowledgable about the fight you are fighting.
If we stop relying on emotion alone, (which is real and valid), and be more scholarly about the subject, we can only be better defended to stop this movement toward GEO.
Although this article only alluded to it, other articles in the same vein have said that the use of GM crops has increased the use of pesticides. They conveniently forget that the study they cite found the use of insecticides went way DOWN because of Bt added to the genomes of corn and cotton. The difference comes in the use of herbicides because of the Roundup ready crops that have been introduced recently. To equate Bt added to the genome that results in the decrease use of insecticides with glyphosphate resistance added to the genome is a good example of not having the faintest idea of what you are talking about. The former reduces the use of pesticides thereby reducing effects on nontarget insects while the latter is an abomination.
First -- GM grains/ foods (like beets) are NOT the same as cross-pollinate d plants. NOT. Watch the old film: THE FUTURE OF FOOD. It makes it easy to understand that GM means just that - modified. Genes from such things as cancer viruses and pesticide resistant genes, even human genetic material and antibiotics and so on are INSERTED into the plant's genes using either electric prodding or gold. This becomes a FRANKENPLANT, not hybridized by nature & bees (& GMO kills bees). GM scientists are creating animals also (watch the more recent FOOD films). For example, a pig with the skin of a cow and rats with human parts! Pesticide use has violently skyrocketed due to superweed creation. Then you have the breeding of terminator seeds (VERY DANGEROUS).
Recent studies in OTHER COUNTRIES have shown hideous tumors on rats after eating GMO food. Other studies show dramatic sterilization effects.
Farmers in India commit suicide due to unpayable debt as they can't save seeds. Plus with cotton crops they used to let their goats eat the plants after harvest. With GMO crops, the goats die. Then we mention the trespassing, surveillance, threats and lawsuits Monsanto uses on 'its' farmers. Especially if they try to go organic or who sue because their organic crops are deliberately trashed (as in Oregon).
YO! TROLLS. WE KNOW THE TRUTH.
I am not a talking head or a spy for Monsanto!
I am vehemently against GEO foods. I think the entire GEO effort needs to be stopped dead in its tracks, and must be studied further for its harmful potential.
However, hybridized food crops are genetically modified. Major work was done in this field in the twentieth century and it resulted in significant advances in stopping world hunger. This kind of plant modification is laborious, slow, and a noble effort-- it is the "old fashioned way" of improving crops that we should stick with while we should abandon the methods currently used in the laboratory which are called GEO, a subset of GMO. If you don't get the terms right and fight again GMO foods in general, you are denigrating important and life-changing work done by scientists and researchers all through the twentieth century. For God's sake, a Noble Peace Prize was given to Norman Borlaug in 1970 for his work in developing strains of wheat in his research fields in Mexico, of all places, funded by none other than DuPont!!!! (During the 1940’s, 50;s and 60;s.) Those developments drastically improved the plight of world hunger.
Unfortunately, these companies are not involved in such noble efforts now because they are engineering these changes in the lab rather than the more tedious and time consuming ways of the previous researchers.
Getting the terms right is not “muddying the waters” of this battle.
It's just a matter of time before Monsanto or Dow come to test for taint and demand payment before seizing property.
This is how it really works, you don't even have to get into the science of GM crops. It's a bad deal anyway you look at it.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_26656.cfm
Dr Gerson( probly murdered) 50s. Discovered a cure for cancer and a thousand ailments: Organic.
So, one recent cancered woman tryed it and cured 3rd stage cervical cancer and went back to the Mayo clinic for her doctor to test. He called security reporting her as a terrorist.
Greed and pride have yet risen again to poison our babys. All others get aborted. About 50 million now. Take a number.
RSS feed for comments to this post