Examinator

For someone that claims to "have no Absolute (written in the stars) opinions my pantheon of omnipotence includes logic, and context."

To quote an anti industrial site whose sole purpose is to slag off Monsanto and others, and who does not even pretend to present diverse opinion, then to requote Foxy's ridiculous claims of 90% control of the grain market by a monopoly seems rather contradictory.

The blind acceptance of "facts" supporting your position and ignoring anything contrary would indicate that your position is idealogically based.

In addition given your advoidance of the points I did make i.e.
-that buying round up ready crops and using something else was idiotic, (sort of like buying a diesel car and wanting to use petrol)
-Your claim that 90% of the market is controlled by monopoly is proveable when the majority of the worlds production is outside their control,
- 80% of the grain seed market is not controlled by Monsanto, and buyers are free to buy from where ever they want.

Would suggest that you and objectivity are strangers.

To top it all you say that Miguel d’Escoto's speech would have "been written for him by ‘Qualified boffins’ with the resources of the UN and dare I say a World perspective" So assuming him to be a puppet with no control over what he says. As M d'E is a paid up marxist, I would think that would be naive at best.

The quip about Howard being treasurer is purely to provoke considering that head of the GA has actually no real power (and can be filled by any twit and usually is), whilst treasurer has.

Dear Shadow Minister,

For your information:

The statistics I quoted in my
earlier post came with a cited website.
One, if you had bothered to look up,
you would have seen that the source was
a credible one.

Heather Pilatic is a PhD, communications associate
at PAN (Pesticide Action Network North America).
Her article, from which I quoted the statistics
(that you claim are "rubbish") , "Food is for
Eating, Not Profiteering," was published in the
Fall issue of PAN magazine.

On what Sir, do you base your assumptions, and
what are your qualifications to do so?

examinator, it would be interesting to know more about your contact in the US wheat belt. The actions you have described are illegal in the US and people go to jail for such things. In any case, most US farmers don’t spray their own crops, but have them sprayed by a contractor. Frequently it is the contractor who makes the product decision, but farmers can request that particular brands are used. There is not a “no name” glyphosate in the US, but a series of brands sold by different companies. There are well over 50 brands available and most companies have at least one. In the industry they are known as generics because they can only come into the market once the patent finishes and they typically use the data package the first company submitted to get a registration.

examinator, I don’t believe anything I have said could be construed as Monsanto becoming an LSC “to lock in a market”. Loss of sales to generic brands sourcing cheap active from China played a role in the move of chemical companies to diversify their businesses. Another factor was the relatively small return on investment once the Agchem arms were hived off from the more profitable pharmaceutical arms of the original companies.

As to your question about ingredients: glyphosate formulations vary in the product loading, the salt used and the surfactants added, but all contain the same herbicide active ingredient.

I suggest a range of sites that contain data to readers, so we can discuss the real world. The last website I remember sending you specifically to look at was of the ETC group http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7685&page=0#119690 Hardly pro-industry.

First you wanted us to accept what D'Escoto isaid based on his position as President of the General Assembly, now when that has been shown to not stack up to expertise you want us to accept it because his “qualified boffins” wrote it. You haven’t yet tried to convince me I should accept it because it is true. Why not? Because it isn’t true.

Shadow minister

I’m sorry you feel that way . By the way I didn’t say I was anti industry that is your assumption. Nor did I say I blindly believed everything on the other side. As yet neither you nor Agronomist has offered independently verifiable proof (facts).
Your specific points …. As to why a farmer would use no name glyophos its cheaper. (In the absence of any chemical difference).
The 90% claim … there is a difference between a conspiracy/cartel and dominance. I think you’ll find that the 3rd world production is but a minor amount to that of the 1st world in tonnage and %.
I think you’ll find that options for non GM farmers are limited due to market manipulation. I think the comment referred to seed grain of GM and it mentioned other companies as well.
The fact that you call the President of the UN general assembly a puppet is sheer opinion . I would suggest that he didn’t get there because he’s stupid . As for the UN being an anti business conspiracy that is preposterous. The speech was taken from a conference about feeding the starving Africans. The idea of letting people starve in favour of an outrageous profit is an obscenity to me…if you see that as Leftie views then so be it. Albeit insulting. A bit like saying all Ausies are drunken louts so you as an Ausie must be a drunken lout.
If you read my posts you maybe surprised to note that I don’t fit any known stereo type. I also find you blind generalizations insulting.
In short I RESPECT your right to your opinion as I am, (without the insults.)
I see no way that we can come to an accommodation on this issue so I guess I’ll have to live with your scorn. Sorry to have bothered you.

End

Hi Foxy, I also have a Ph.D. Does that get me any credibility with you? At least my Ph.D. is in an area closely akin to the topic in question, not in Women’s Studies like Heather Pilatic. I much prefer to deal with what someone says, rather than what their qualifications are. Pilatic in her article makes some of the same comments I do about the causes of the increase in food prices and then goes on to blame three food corporations. How can this be? If the increases in food prices are the result of weather events, biofuels, oil prices, meat consumption and hedge funds, how can food corporations be responsible? I am not sure I would agree that all 400 players in IAASTD were experts either. Many were from NGOs and other ‘civil society’ some had no expertise in agriculture. This holding up the statements that reinforce our prejudices as being from ‘experts’ I find distinctly unsettling. Always you need to state what the ‘expertise’ is, how it is relevant and whether the data support the statement. Did IAASTD make all the statements Pilatic claims? I think not. In any case, the question from her article really should be is small holding across the world the best way to produce food for the world? What would happen to food prices if the efficiencies of larger operators using machinery and being able to afford inputs that increase yields taken out?

examinator, some resources for you on the causes of the ‘food crisis’. http://www.ifpri.org/PUBS/ib/FoodPricesPolicyAction.pdf http://www.fao.org/giews/english/fo/index.htm http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/ai473e/ai473e05.htm http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/CPIFoodAndExpenditures/

And now for some data on world grain production. http://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf Total world cereal production (wheat, rice, maize, coarse grains) for 2006/7 was 2.7 billion tonnes. Third world countries accounted for at least 1.2 billion tonnes of that – so more than 45%.

Examinator,

It would appear from your reply that you did not thoroughly read my post.

I did not call you an anti industrialist, rather that the site you were quoting was avidly so.

Secondly the minor 3rd world production you claim has no real significance includes Europe, Asia and africa and about 80% of the worlds population.

Thirdly, one can either purchase the round up ready crops or enter a contract with a warrantee on productivity which is voided if another product is used. To top it up the cost of Round up per acre since their patent expired is very similar to the other products (see link). There are case studies where other products are used.

http://ipm.uiuc.edu/bulletin/article.php?id=221

Fourthly I did not say EDM was puppet, quite the contrary, I said that your claim that his speeches were written for him implied that he was a puppet. I think he had a large input to his speech, and that as an unabashed Marxist, he is not stupid, but rather that he is using his postion to push another anti capitalist agenda.

Fifthly, I do not think that concern for the starving millions is a left wing position rather that this concern is being used as a pretext to peddle a anti industrial populist agenda. Breaking up Monsanto would have the same effect on food production as the land redistribution in Zimbabwe. There are other ways to open the market that protect Monsanto's intelectual property.

Finally you find my comments insulting, yet you were the first to call my opinions idealogically based.

Foxy,

With all due respect PAN is an organisation bent on getting rid of pesticides and GM products, and includes such erudite articles as "organics can feed africa" and quoting them is like quoting reader's digest.

My qualifications include an degree in engineering, a degree in Commerce specialising in economics and analytical systems topped up with an MBA, which has a touch more relevance than a PhD in women's studies. Your qualifications?