Curmudgeon

I’ve concluded that you know little about GM crops because the herbicides listed in my second item are glyphosate and Roundup. These are chemicals used predominantly in the growing of GM crops.

All those involved in making decisions about growing Roundup Ready canola in Australia must attend an accreditation program provided by the seed companies, including Monsanto Australia and Nufarm (no competition there since they're affiliated!)

Growers are only able to buy Roundup Ready canola seed once they have been accredited.

Four of every five acres of GM crops worldwide are Monsanto's Roundup Ready varieties, designed specifically for use with glyphosate, the weed-killing chemical that Monsanto sells under the name of Roundup. Weed-killers, or herbicides, are the largest class of pesticides.

U.S. government data reveal a huge 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate on soybeans, corn and cotton in the U.S. from 1994 to 2005, driven by adoption of Roundup Ready versions of these crops.

However, weeds are becoming resistant to glyphosate hence the increased use of these chemicals and of course the increased residual ingestion of this chemical by the consumer is of no consequence to the chemical corporations.

In addition, increasing weed resistance to glyphosate has led to rising use of other toxic chemicals. In the U.S., the amount of 2,4-D applied to soybeans more than doubled from 2002 to 2006. In Argentina, it is projected that 25 million litres of herbicides other than glyphosate will now be needed to tackle glyphosate-resistant Johnsongrass.

Item 2 of my previous post is entirely to do with glyphosate and Roundup formulations – yet another horror story about a hazardous agricultural poison, foisted on the public by the grim reapers. These chemicals kill human embryonic cells within 24 hours.

Frankly, the public do not need you to tell them that glyphosate and Round-up are *NOT* used with GM crops. They happen to be a little more au fait than you.

Do some homework Curmudgeon. If you want to flog a product for the grim reapers, you need to know what you're flogging first.

GM crops produce more food for less input costs, which is why farmers like them.

The scare mongering by the Greens has not come to pass and has lost credibility, and even the premium on non GM foods is shrinking.

Round up ready crops are not the only GM foods, but the best known.

GM is not the only arrow in the quiver for improved food yields but is one of the best.

Shadow Minister...
What a laugh...
In their dreams "GM is not the only arrow in the quiver for improved food yields but is one of the best."
GM crops don't produce higher yields - they produce higher pesticide sales. So what are you thinking? - what have the biotechs inserted into your ear next to your brain? Can you get some advice from someone who isn't a beneficiary of a biotech?

Anyway, bit of a story today - I was researching PBDE's (flame retardants - PolyBrominated Diphenyl Ethers) in breastmilk in the pubmed abstract database. Breastfed infants have the highest levels of these neurotoxic chemicals, toddlers have three times the levels of their mothers.

And so when I read the line about Monsanto and the chemicals it made me think of the PBDE's (because there are still PCBs and OrganoChlorines in breastmilk).

In European populations women have in the range 1-4 ng/g of PBDE's in their breastmilk lipids. Australian women have 11.1 ng/g. Women in the USA have a median level of ~34 ng/g. It made me think that the rest of the world (including the Africans) should consider invading the USA and Australia for humanitarian reasons.

These numbers reflect the care that the society is taking for it's children. In Europe all but animal products have GM labels, in Australia a few GM products are labelled. In the USA, none. In many European countries many GM crops are banned. In Australia has told some biotechs not to bother applying for approval in respect of some GM products. But in the USA it's open slather.

And we're being asked to perform a miracle in suspended belief that the 'benevolent giant' Monsanto is going to exercise duty of care in Africa? Uh ha.

Who was/is making the PBDEs? In the USA one of the two manufacturers was the Albemarle Corporation. And then I googled Albemarle and Monsanto together because great chemical minds think alike.

Protagoras,

I have heard someone tell me that all Australian farmers spray their fields with that nasty Roundup stuff. And that the railways use it, the local government uses it on roadsides and people can even buy it in hardware stores. Must be truly nasty stuff to be that widely available? In fact, it is so widely available because of its low toxicological and environmental profile.

Those canola growers in Australia who can't access GM canola are having to make do with atrazine-resistant canola. Now there is a herbicide with a problematic environmental profile.

As for the 2009 publications, one was a scare article where no data exists, one was a complaint that companies were making people sign agreements to test their products. I am not sure what you thought the 2007 one was about. To get your seed put in that vault, you have to sign the rights away CGIAR. I don’t think we will see too much GM seed going into it.

The paper from Benachour and Seralini is silly in the extreme. They soaked placental cells, umbilical cells and kidney cells in solutions of Roundup for 24 h. I bet if you soaked your rear-end in Roundup all day there are likely to be some issues arising, but it bears no relationship to the reality of using the herbicide. Also it is the detergent in the formulation that did the damage. Soaking you nether regions in dishwashing detergent for 24 h is unlikely to improve them much either.

I might also add that you shouldn’t apply 2,4-D to soybeans, because the herbicide will kill them.

Kesha, the evidence does not support the contention that BT cotton is driving Indian cotton farmers to suicide.
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/dp/IFPRIDP00808.pdf
http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/Govt/faculty/Herring%20docs/Whose%20Numbers%20Count%20Warangal%20RH%20IJMRA.pdf
http://www.agbioforum.missouri.edu/v12n1/v12n1a02-herring.htm

Protagoras - as you have so handily confirmed, albeit not in a constructive manner, the few pieces of evidence against GM foods in fact relate to chemicals used in its production - not GM Foods themselves. So change the chemicals and the objection vanishes - yes? Or to put it another way, Roundup is widely used in Australia - as has been noted by Agronomist - so your problem is with Roundup, not with GM foods. Now look again at the evidence you present. As you would realise for your vast experience with GM foods, both are lab studies and the field can be a vastly different place. Remember that the residue (at least for the first piece of "proof") has to survive processing and achieve some sort of above-threshold concentrations in the human or animal body, for the lab results to have any relevence. So what levels are present in humans already exposed to this stuff?
As for the second piece of "proof" the Argentinian authorities have expressed some concern - quite rightly, they have to check these things - so they should undertake field checks and tests. But bear in mind that this is related to roundup not GM foods, and there does not seem to be any direct evidence against the chemical, although one would think there would be by now. Worth checking again, though, you can never be too sure

Madelaine Love,

So all the farmers that want to buy these expensive GM crops are morons?

There are plenty of independent studies showing that the yields are higher and the chemical use is as low as 25% of normal crops. On top of that the chemicals used are less persistent than those for non GM crops.

The fact that GM crops are more environmentally friendly must stick in the craw of the Greens who have painted themselves into a corner on this issue, especially since after more than a decade of use, none of their dooms day predictions have come to pass.