GMO Banning Battles

[mas]

Did Two Oregon Counties Just ban GMO crops?

Six giant agribusinesses sought to stomp out similar measures in two neighboring Oregon counties that would effectively ban genetically modified crop cultivation. Despite Big Biotech shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence the two small counties, residents voted for an all out GMO crop ban in Tuesday’s election.

Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, BASF Plant Science, Dow Agro Sciences, DuPont Pioneer and Syngenta Crop Protection contributed at least $455,000 towards a campaign to try to sway county residents to abandon the ban.

That proposal was two years in the making, upon concerns of GMO contamination via wind drifts to non-GMO fields.

http://oneradionetwork.com/latest/two-o ... s-article/
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The fight for banning GMOs by this community and others has been long and arduous, but the small victories keep adding up. All communities trying to get rid of this GMO disaster are up against the scale of these big megacorporations along with their power politically, legally, and economically. The battle has just begun.

 

[Such_Saturation]

I frankly wouldn't say their power is political, legal or economical. Rather the contrary of those.

 

[Ben]

At least RP will remain safe in his home in Oregon, lol. I hope the executives of these destructive companies will be exposed and financially ruined. Monsanto should have been shut down after Agent Orange.

 

[mas]

Hi Ben,
At least RP will remain safe in his home in Oregon, lol. I hope the executives of these destructive companies will be exposed and financially ruined. Monsanto should have been shut down after Agent Orange.


Yes, good to know RP is safe! I totally agree. Vermont is the shining example for each individual state to emulate- they voted for mandatory GMO labeling in the state. Next stop will be to vote all GMOs totally out of existence!

Megin

 

[j.]

Next stop will be to vote all GMOs totally out of existence!

What about letting people decide whether they want to eat it or not? Too much freedom?

The idea of banning substances is very dangerous. If you ban GMOs, you set the precedent that it's OK to ban things, and they could use that precedent to ban saturated fats or other healthy substances.

 

[Ben]

Next stop will be to vote all GMOs totally out of existence!

What about letting people decide whether they want to eat it or not? Too much freedom?

The idea of banning substances is very dangerous. If you ban GMOs, you set the precedent that it's OK to ban things, and they could use that precedent to ban saturated fats or other healthy substances.

Saturated fats are naturally-occuring, and GMOs are specifically engineered using millions of dollars. GMOs are harmful to the soil and dangerous to surrounding lifeforms, not to mention they can be used to feed farm animals that are later slaughtered for meat, and pass on toxic substances. Should something without any practical usage that's dangerous to life stay legal? I don't think so. GMO crops, although proven to be expensive to grow due to soil damage, would go down in price if more people knew about their toxicity. Does this mean the poor should have to eat this toxic food? History has had many bad ideas, and sometimes ideas should be completely aborted. Of course, Monsanto has influence over the FDA and USDA, so it won't be easy. Actually, both of the administrations tried to pass a law making labeling of non-GMO food as non-GMO, illegal, so nobody could legally know if food was GM or not.

 

[j.]

Yeah, dangerous substances should be legal, otherwise politicians and big corporations will get to define 'dangerous', and their definition will ban all sorts of healthy substances.

 

[j.]

Of course, Monsanto has influence over the FDA and USDA

Abolish them both. That's a better goal than dreaming they will be good regulators, or that they won't be puppets of big corporations. That will never happen.

 

[mas]

I suggest that you take a look at Dr. Thierry Vrain on You Tube to understand GMOs better.

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What about letting people decide whether they want to eat it or not?

The GMO crops are polluting by pollination non-GMO crops at an alarming rate. If you go to the supermarket, you may well be getting GMO in your food, even organic food. Vermont set the precedent to GMO labeling due to an informed public who mobilized for GMO label disclosure.

Too much freedom?

Freedom for whom? Monsanto or the general public? The term "freedom" is an ill-defined buzzword unless the context has been fully explained.


The idea of banning substances is very dangerous. If you ban GMOs, you set the precedent that it's OK to ban things, and they could use that precedent to ban saturated fats or other healthy substances.

Dangerous to whom? Certain interest groups are always attempting to ban something. The issue is GMOs and conflating GMOs with every dangerous substance is a gross generalization.

Abolish them both. That's a better goal than dreaming they will be good regulators, or that they won't be puppets of big corporations. That will never happen.

Who is going to abolish them, and who said that they would be good regulators, anyway? Yikes!!!!!!!!!


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In the 1900s up to the present, certain substances were banned due to extreme toxicity. An example is organochlorides, which arrived with big agribusiness. Unfortunately, more toxic agents arrived, and so-called EPA and judicial decisions almost always rule in favor of bigagribusinees, which by government definition comes under the designation of a "person", but is also a global corporation.

Small farmers have been devastated by the nasty coercive tactics of Monsanto and Big Food because as their aqisitions of more small farmers land expands, the consumer now gets more and more GMO food. Also, purchasing organic food is getting progressively more expensive, and GMO foods reproduce and carry in wind drifts, and this pollenates and contaminates small organic farm produce. Many American farm crops have been contaminated.

As Monsanto is a large monopoly, they have been using coercive methods on farms in the third world- India is an example, by forcing farmers to purchase their "Terminator seed" which only yields a crop for one year. Then, they are forced to purchase the "Terminator Seed" again at high prices. Their coercive policies are implemented in major industrialized nations are also.


As people become more and more educated on this subject worldwide, they are coming together in a common cause to stop this: an example is the Russia. They have banned the use of GMOs, and the European Union was approaching this, but the big biotech interests are still influence peddling with their legislation. Every soverign country has to determine their policy re GMOs.

People who are becoming educated concerning GMOs are coming together ito act in common interest to bust this crap from infiltrating our food, economy and political sphere. The consequences of not addressing this are grave: Monsanto would essentially control global food production totally along with grave health effects that people would suffer.

As Ray Peat stated in one of his articles, one needs to just use common sense.

Common sense is not so common these days, however.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Let me explain this to you. Take Italy: you can't plant any genetically modified organism into the ground, you must have it analyzed. Well it turned out they were throwing so much stuff away that they had to raise the legal limit to 7 GMO seeds per thousand. Even if seven seeds out of a thousand are GMO legally it's not GMO. This logic can be applied to every one of the "safe" countries, we are in too deep, we broke those species technically. Farmers have land next to a GMO crop and what they do is cut the outside of their crop and discard it. That is their only protection and that's all they can do.

 

[mas]

Take Italy: you can't plant any genetically modified organism into the ground, you must have it analyzed. Well it turned out they were throwing so much stuff away that they had to raise the legal limit to 7 GMO seeds per thousand. Even if seven seeds out of a thousand are GMO legally it's not GMO.

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Legal definitions are arbitrary and determined collectively within each specific jurisdiction, and these terms will differ per each sovereign state's determination.

By Italian legal definition,your countries crops would not be designated "GMO" per no more than seven seeds pr /1000. This seems low indeed, and because the 7 seeds are "Terminator" seeds and don't reproduce after one growing season, on the surface this seems inconsequential and the cross pollination with the large portion of non-GMOs

Problem solved? Absolutely not.

Monsanto initially created the "Terminator" seed for the purpose of coercing farmers to repurchase seed again every year, along with gene splicing these crops for certain conditions. These US GMO crops have been increasing in more and more crops in BIG AGRABUSINESS which is unfortunately subsidized in the US The small and mid level farmer organic or not, is now faced with increasing costs because they get no subsidies and they have the potential to have their crops taken over by GMO pollination. The US policy is obviously not the same as your Italian policy.

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Even if seven seeds out of a thousand are GMO legally it's not GMO.

Use Italy as an example, and totally different from US policy. Today your policy in Italy is the 7 seed pr thousand policy. Fair enough.

Monsanto's "Terminator Seed" policy of being an annual crop only was and is a brilliant strategy to initiate these crops into Big Agribusiness world wide.

Monsanto is a Mega Conglomerate Monopoly and their "Terminator" policy of one year crop only yield today may be eliminated favor of traditional seeds propagation and STILL BE GMO,. The 7 seed policy now would year after year infest all your crops, too.

 

[Such_Saturation]

I am quite interested in hearing from the companies how it is spreading so fast (ancient corn strains in Mexico are ruined forever) if it really is infertile. And as you said, seven parts per thousand is not a solution, you still get to eat the deranged proteins without being told so.