MONSANTO

Anyone hear or know anything about the "Monsanto Protection Act?"  Anyone been reading bad things about GMO crops like Round Up ready corn?

http://www.responsibletechnology.org

I have followed this story.. while everyone was worried about a social issue the government has no business in being, our gangster in chief signed this in. The ironic thing is Monsanto and the White House serve organic food (non gmo)

Has anyone actually read the resolution?  This goes right along with the Marlin rifles talk higher up on the board.  I would be curious to see the studies cited that link GMO's to kidney/liver problems and would like to see a list of the countries who have banned GMO's.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2428/was-rachel-carson-a-fraud-and-is-ddt-actually-safe-for-humans


You can bet if a lower con traction of DDT came out it one that was more mosquito specific and less harmful to eggshells that emotional public opinion would never let it happen.

That's why the democrat party doesn't "let any crisis go to waste" to enact legislation.

If it would just save one life argument is never used in the abortion debate.

As previously mentioned, its difficult to find accurate information both supporting or not supporting the campaign. WHen I read about a new product I always like to see evidence based articles for utility or lack there of. It seems alot of the studies used to discredit the corn have flaws that somewhat discredit the outcomes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/20/monsantos-gm-corn-and-cancer-in-rats-real-scientists-deeply-unimpressed-politics-not-science-perhaps/
http://saludify.com/monsanto-corn-risk/
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05556.html

GMO products have been out since the 70's (tomatos) but just passed few years people want something to complain about. If you dont want it, dont buy it, and grow your own.

I may be wrong but unread a article stating Canada and the USA were the only countries that allow it anymore. Studies in Europe on GMO corn showed massive tumors and growths on rats. Another study suggested GMO crops are responsible for the severe kill off in honey bees. I'll try and find that article again for the link.

trevorgreycattleco said:

I may be wrong but unread a article stating Canada and the USA were the only countries that allow it anymore. Studies in Europe on GMO corn showed massive tumors and growths on rats. Another study suggested GMO crops are responsible for the severe kill off in honey bees. I'll try and find that article again for the link.

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i think the rat study was discredited, and actually discussed on this site.

the bees sounds more plausible, would have to look into that one.

If the US and Canada are the only ones allowing it now are a large part of our production shipped overseas?  South America also grows a large amount of GMO crops for not "allowing it."  Europe has not outlawed GMO crops, much of their livestock is fed GMO grain, they have made the paperwork so cumbersome to include GMO grain in food that most producers aren't including it.  I would t expect most of you to know this, it has not been circulated on Facebook.  It's a little disappointing that agriculture can't stand together with a united front instead of believing everything posted on Facebook and listening to the extremist.

nkotb said:

If the US and Canada are the only ones allowing it now are a large part of our production shipped overseas?  South America also grows a large amount of GMO crops for not "allowing it."  Europe has not outlawed GMO crops, much of their livestock is fed GMO grain, they have made the paperwork so cumbersome to include GMO grain in food that most producers aren't including it.  I would t expect most of you to know this, it has not been circulated on Facebook.  It's a little disappointing that agriculture can't stand together with a united front instead of believing everything posted on Facebook and listening to the extremist.

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I agree with you on that. It seems to me that people in agriculture can be their own worst enemies sometimes. I also feel social media is a major contributor to forming biased opinions towards agriculture. More often then not, news reports and and paper articles are sent out without the proper research being done. A good example of that is the "Pink Slime" scare. If you ask me, the world cannot keep growing without GMO's. How else are we going feed the world with a growing population and tillable acres?

Here are a couple of good links.  The guy that pushed so hard world wide against GMO has changed his position 180 degrees on the subject.  It isn't because he is getting more money now.  He realized the false claims by a biased study was not true.  I think we have enough to fight (cancer, heart disease, genetic defects) without having to "invent" something to fight.  But we do it anyway.  If you look deep enough into the ban in some of the eastern European countries, I think you will find regulatory capture as the reasoning- special rules for special individuals creating an unfair playing field and financial advantage.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/global- ... 130123.htm

I discovered that one by one my cherished beliefs about GM turned out to be little more than green urban myths. I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest-resistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide. I’d assumed that GM benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs…. I’d assumed that no one wanted GM. Actually what happened was that Bt cotton was pirated into India and roundup ready soya into Brazil because farmers were so eager to use them. I’d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more precise than conventional breeding using mutagenesis for example; GM just moves a couple of genes, whereas conventional breeding mucks about with the entire genome in a trial and error way. But what about mixing genes between unrelated species? The fish and the tomato? Turns out viruses do that all the time, as do plants and insects and even us—it’s called gene flow.”

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http://www.npr.org/2013/01/20/169847199 ... d-his-mind

"One of the case studies that really changed my mind about this was the saga of golden rice, which was developed to be vitamin A-enhanced, because something like a quarter million children per year die from a vitamin A deficiencies in developing countries, particularly in South Asia ... Greenpeace has been waging a campaign to stop this rice from ever being developed ... You can make a pretty strong case that tens of thousands of children have died because they were denied access to this purely because it's GM, and there is a ideological bias against that."

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In regards to the executive order, something is very wrong with most of them.

Thought I would never post about this on here but am glad to put in my opinion. The debate between GMO and NON-GMO is getting stronger daily. To start with I sell Seed and Fert. inputs and can tell you right up front that GMO hybrids are a total waste of money and produce absolutly no more yield then a NON-GMO. They actually have increased a farmers inputs per acre and do not convert into a nutrient dense food. They are very inefficeint in how they grow and use nutrition and water. As far as the statements made by the person that was anti GMO then converted to them, there are more that have done just the opposite.
  I think right now there are 60 mayb e 70 countries that have GMO bans in place. As of right now Russia and China are implementing them and I believe it is in two years that they will not accept them.
  This is the thing, when RR Soybeans were brought on-line in the 90's Monsanto had a lawyer of theirs in D.C. working for the FDA I beleive, they got it pushed through by giving the Government their data from their research. After that he was given a V.P. position at Monsanto and is currently  some sort of food saftey czar at the FDA. After they were dergulated some people in the FDA/USDA and wherever else started to realize what had happened.  Upon that they had their own research conducted , Dr. Don Huber from Purdue and DR. Bob Kremer form Missouri were two of them. Google them and read up on their findings. This stuff is real, people think that the rest of the world is extreme for not wanting GMO but their Governments have done the studies and they are consistant with one another in their findings. The GMOs are bad enough but couple it with the extensive use of Glyphosat ie. Roundup and it's the worst thing that has hit mankind.
  I will try to get some things posted the next day or two on this as far as studies etc., and I have some DVDs with several speakers on them if anyone would like them. The thing is people were never educated about them and have had the wool pulled over thir eyes, the Government and Corporate America are crooked and that's the bottom line.
 

What exactly is a GMO? It is a "genetically modified organism". Plant or animal. 
Nature does it every single reproductive cycle. Genes change for unknown and known reasons. A-T-C-G are proteins that make up DNA. That's it. Only 4. It is the combination of those 4 that create whatever it is. 
Humans have developed the technology to change the order of, insert, replace, and add combinations of DNA to "create" organisms that are resistant to things, tolerate drought, have strong stalks, etc.  Nature also does this, by allowing the adaptive organisms to survive while the non-adaptive organisms die, therefore passing the DNA combination on to the next generation that allows it to survive. What takes Nature many decades, centuries to achieve, humans can now do in a lab in a few short years.

Humans consume DNA every time they eat, yet they do not turn into that organism. DNA is protein, nothing more, nothing less. Genes are a series of DNA. Nothing more. Nothing less.  If you eat ONLY angus beef, you are not going to turn black, just because you ate the "black gene".    Just because you eat lots of apples, doesn't mean you are going to change YOUR DNA to increase the sugar content in your tissues.  So, by conclusion, just because you eat something that has been "genetically modified", either by humans or by nature, doesn't mean you are going to express those "modifications" in your own tissue.  (That is why it is so hard to mate a sheep with a goat, or a cow with a horse. Different genes do not cross species)

Many of those that are against GMO's are uneducated and do not have the scientific knowledge to defend their opinion. That being said, it is there choice to buy it or not.  Just do not force that opinion on anyone else. I have nothing against vegetarians, just don't expect me to become one because you are one! 

So, buy what you want, but just be clear that 100% of your food is now GMO, either by nature or man.  Unless of course, you go to the Swiss International Seed Bank and get some seeds from the original seed plant (first plant known of its species, sub-species and variety)!!

Huber?  You're pushing the Huber stuff, Matt?
Huber won't submit any of his 'data' or research findings for peer review or scrutiny for scientific or statistical validity (maybe it would or would not stand up to reasonable examination - but we don't know)  -  he's just foisting it off on the low-information anti-GMO crowd - so, yeah, Google it up - you'll find the same old blurbs, published over and over again, virtually verbatim, on a myriad of sites denigrating Monsanto and DuPont as the Devil incarnate.  I don't work for either company, or have stock in them, but show me the science.

Same deal with the thoroughly-discredited Seralini rat tumor paper, which is still trumpeted as gospel on the 'Monsatan'-type blogs.

Sorry, I don't buy your claim about increased in puts, either:
"October 18, 2011 - American farmers have doubled their corn production from 1980 to 2010 using
less fertilizer, according to The Fertilizer Institute.
In 1980, U.S. farmers produced 6.64 billion bushels of corn nationwide using
3.2 pounds of nutrient inputs for each bushel. In 2010, they grew 12.45 billion
bushels with 1.6 pounds of nutrient inputs for each.
"Through improvements in modern technology and old-fashioned ingenuity, our
farmers are using fertilizer with the greatest efficiency in history and
have again shown why U.S. agriculture will continue to feed the world," said
Ford West, TFI president""
I'd hazard a guess that a majority of the corn grown in the US, since 1996, is GMO.

Roundup's the worst thing to hit mankind?
You'd rather us be spending more $$ on fuel for multiple trips across crop fields tilling/cultivating - leading to increased soil erosion and more air/water pollution - and using much more persistent herbicides, like atrazine, etc.?

It always struck me as odd that the anti-GMO crowd squawks about inserting the Bt gene - which codes for toxins detrimental only to specific species of caterpillars (like corn borer, corn earworm) - resulting in less damage to cornstalks/ears, which, in turn, results in lower mycotoxin levels in grains - but they're just fine with 'organic' growers sprinkling Bt around like it's sugar.

GMO bans in the EU and elsewhere are not science-based; they're political.

When I originally posed the question, I really didn't think it would begin a debate on the merits of Round Up ready corn. What I REALLY wanted to know was what people knew about the LAW that has just been put in place that protects a company, in this case a specific company against a court finding it to be liable.

I know NOTHING about grain farming. But I will tell you what I do know about the statistics quoted by Lucky_P. As in most things political, the is nothing untrue in the statistics quoted, but they are "spun" as to make them appear to favor one view point or another.  "The Fertilizer Institute" of course is associated with commercial fertilizer and it's usage. So when they name "nutrient inputs" what it is really referring to is commercial fertilizer inputs. The growth of confinement swine operations producing natural fertilizer and the explosion of poultry houses from the south to the corn belt has partially been the reason that traditional commercial fertilizer usage has gone down. So I think that logically it's a stretch to say that TOTAL nutrient inputs have gone down just from the data submitted from "The Fertilizer Institute."  I have had people tell me that Round Up ready corn doesn't yield like other varieties from people here who irrigate corn to produce max yields. I know none of that to be factual.

I wish I could actually find to be false or verify reports that animals fed GMO corn over the time it takes to finish develop ulcers and lesions in internal organs at a much higher rate than before GMO corn was all that was grown.

BUT what I was mainly concerned with was the government saying that Monsanto cannot be liable for any findings in a court of law that may prove them liable. They are above the law.

First of all, Why just Monsanto? Why not Temple-Inland (paper company) or a power company that uses coal or say General Electric who has spent gazillions since being found liable for PCB contamination in various locations? Why should the government be allowed to pick winners and losers in business. It's like they are doing with all this "green energy" crapola. They are shutting down coal powered power plants and stopping drilling on public lands in order to make that type of energy more expensive in order to help  "green energy" businesses. The government shouldn't be in the business of choosing who wins or loses.

But what I find most intriguing is why does there need to be a law to protect Monsanto? Hmmmmmmm? Let's think a minute. Do you have a law that protects you from someone claiming damages if a court of law finds you liable? Nope. But you don't need one unless you have done something that would allow someone to sue you and win. So................what does Monsanto know about their GMO's that you don't?  Automobile companies (and their unions) have so much influence that they were about to get bazillions of your tax dollars to keep them from going bankrupt. But they don't have enough clout to get a law passed that says you can't sue 'em if they screw up. So tell me why Monsanto needs one if they don't already know something that you don't know. Add to that the undeniable fact that this administration makes Nixon's bunch look like Goldilocks and the Three Bears as far as corruption goes. Add to that that it's not like Monsanto hasn't been tied to illegal and unethical practices in the past. I think there is certainly enough smoke to say there must be a fire somewhere.

And did you know that if you grow Monsanto GMO's that you can't save part of the crop to use for seed next year? I don't mean it's against the law to resell it, which MAYBE I could see, but it's against the law for you to plant it for your own use. That is about the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. You own something but the LAW says you can't keep it and use it, you gotta sell it or feed it. That's just wrong.

So it's the law that I was questioning mostly. And the fact that in order to need such a law there must be a skeleton in the closet somewhere.

People don't seem to have a problem with government employees making revenue projections on best case scenarios to fund pensions.

Why Shoukd anyone be liable for anything.

What the law is trying to say, is that if the USDA/FDA has found the product safe, it cannot be tied up in a court case to prevent farmers from growing a product.  It does not specifically protect Monsanto, but all biotech companies.  Just like you said in your post, you have to be careful who you listen to.  Your source for this information is the anti-GMO crowd.  GMO's are not banned in the EU, and I would interested to see where Matt found that 60-70 countries have banned it, and one of the biggest importers in the world is going to ban it.  I also call baloney on the fact that GMO's don't produce more.  This could potentially be true in an environment where there are no weeds/insects present, and growing conditions are perfect, but not in the real world.  If you plant "non-GMO," you are going to have to spray a lot more chemical to control the insects present, and use much more expensive herbicides to control weeds, or burn a lot of fuel cultivating.  I have trouble believing most of what Matt says as most of his statements are followed by "I believe, and I think," not facts.  You can't replant the seed because it is patent protected, not because it's "Monsanto."  The same applies for other patent protected products.

http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/monsanto-protection-act-separating-the-facts-from-the-fury/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=040213

here is a link to the article that explains the above post.

I also sell seed, chemical and fertilizer and I would also like to see where matt got his information from because, especially after a year like last year, we truely seen the capabilities that these scientifically enhanced crops can do. Sure there were places that didn't get any rain at all and therefore didn't get a crop, but where I live we had dang good yields for the amount of rain we got. Places that got as little as 4 inches of rain this year were still bringing in 80-90 bu. corn which go back thirty years there would have been no crop what so ever with that little of moisture. Also for the fertilizer people are not using as much fertilizer as they use to because the crops are much more effiencent in the way they take it up. The only fertilizer that would be getting used more than it has been in the past is Sulfur because with all of the emission regulations there is not as much "free" sulfur due to acid rain.

if you want to see the effect of car exhaust on plant growth, drive along side the highway and then look just beyond about 20 feet or so.  in california, rye grass grows very well next to the highway, so much so that biologists are concerned it interferes with butterfly migration as the butterflies don't do well when they hit different heights grass, not to mention cars.

knabe said:

if you want to see the effect of car exhaust on plant growth, drive along side the highway and then look just beyond about 20 feet or so.  in california, rye grass grows very well next to the highway, so much so that biologists are concerned it interferes with butterfly migration as the butterflies don't do well when they hit different heights grass, not to mention cars.

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So, plant growth is retarded only by car exhaust and not gravel, asphalt, gas/oil runoff, tire pressure, garbage? 

Your statement is what is wrong with many opinions and that is seeing only one aspect or issue with something. EX: Many blame American obesity problems on high fructose corn syrup food additives. The experts say Americans started to get fat when those ingredients were added to food. The problem with that is, while that is true, Americans also became more lazy because of cars, technology, video games, inside jobs, high stress levels, phones and living in the city about the same time those ingredients were introduced. It is far easier to blame an ingredient, than to tell people to get off their fat butts and do something.


So while car exhaust could and might be retarding plant growth along highways, don't forget the other factors.