@ VK3AUU
<b>I have yet to see a list of situations where GM food has produced an undesirable outcome</b>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/779265.stm
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-01-13-biotech-pirates_x.htm
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=monsanto+sues+farmers&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Since when should any company have the right to control our very most basic of requirements for survival, the need to grow food!
A restriction on the freedom to grow food is the last thing this planet needs.

Wake up! This is the most sinister of all capitalist endeavors.

Agronomist.
These researchers worked for a research project in Philippines. The program was on some of the trial farms.
What you still don't want to address is the issue of market manipulation, the real issue. The cases I mentioned are all real cases and clearly show abuse of abuse of power.
You of all people would know of the plight of the desperately poor farmer whose crops are small and often more about survival that cash crop farming. Surely you aren’t saying that these individual subsistence farmers have the same market power of choice as we do here V the mega conglomerates.

I have lived in 3rd world countries and I know that local farmers are often so desperate they can be easily persuaded to get onto the GM treadmill. Especially by the big seed sellers selective seed inventories.

I personally know of one such older peasant farmer who didn't understand the fine print or consequences of his choice. To be fair the local seed dealer (the only one for several k s) was the primarily the vector. Suitably influenced by the ‘bonuses’ he received for converting the locals. This dealer’s inventory was influenced determined by deals to buy exclusively from the major in question. The farmer in reality had little real choice initially. Enough to say unpatented seed was independently brought in and distributed by outside help.

I think you and I are discussing two different topics I am curious about the origins of your stance ignoring the real issue and simply quoting market penetration details and Company spun reasoning.
As I keep saying I have little concern about the science but the ethics of these wannabe gate keepers bother me no end.
But enough, you don’t want to comment on the issues the author and I raise, so be it. Thanks anyway

Isn't it amazing. There is a tribe if people out there who believe that the solution to the world food shortage will be overcome by technology, but when successful technology is staring them in the face, they bury their heads in the sand and refuse to use it.

David

Strange indeed.

Just as an aside, I am not defending Monsanto, although what they are doing is probably legal.

I am just defending the technology and trying to point out to the dimwits, that eating GM foods has never been shown to be deleterious, so why all the fuss.

David

I am in complete agreement with Greg's comments and it has nothing to do with knowledge or lack thereof of scientific or biological processes. If GM foods are so "safe" and so "necessary to feed the world" then why is there so much exception to the idea of clearly labelling GM foods as such? No one, least of all Greg, is denying that farmers should make a profit. They should just as we all aim to do. But the problem is this. By a group of individuals exercising their right to having GM foods, they are denying my right to GM free foods. I don't want GM foods, but either through inadequate labelling or through the mixing of genetic material in nature I am denied my right to GM free food and in particular organic food. This is scandalous. Science is not the ultimate deity. Just because you can do something does not mean you should or that it is benign. Those pro-GM, please show me the data, over at least 2 human gnerations that GM is safe and does not cause any ill effects on people (and please only provide studies that are independant of any multinational seed/GM companies). Without that, as far as I'm concerned, you are simply speculating and experimenting with the health and well-being of the world's populations.

So examinator, when you made this claim: “There are clear examples of the negativity of the above system in The Philippines. Where tests have shown that the 20%(promised) increase in productivity is cancelled out by the increase in cost of ‘Roundup’ and additional pesticides/fungicides the native crops had natural resistences to.” You were really talking about a crop that is not even close to regulatory approval for planting in the Philippines. If indeed the field trials were rice, they could only have been one of three events: Golden rice trialled last year; contained trials of bacterial blight resistant rice approved in 2003 and 2004; and Bt rice in 2003. This is the trouble for me, reality is warped with false claims and despite this I am supposed to believe these claims show something is wrong.

I work with farmers, some of whom use GM technology, so I am well aware of the issues regarding its use. Frankly, after 13 years of use it is still virtually impossible to find serious evidence for the sort of market manipulation that you claim occurs.

The so-called patenting of Indian rice actually only covered the use of 3 rice lines with specific traits derived from a breeding program between Basmati rice and American varieties. The Indian government was concerned this patent might exclude Indian Basmati rice exports to the US. Several claims in the patent were withdrawn by the applicant during the review process, settling the issue.

Revell makes the mistake that living organisms can be patented, they can’t. Only novel uses can be patented. Revell seems to think this is bad because it means companies control our food sovereignty, whatever that might be.

Revell’s claim that 4 companies own 60% of the world’s commercial seeds is spurious, given that more than half the seeds sown in the world are farmer-saved. It is also wrong. Even the ETC group state that the top 10 seed companies only account for 55% of the commercial seed market. http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=615
Even so, I can buy soybeans in the US from one of more than 200 seed companies.