Originally posted by Nohupperhaps, but if you look at the fact that
If a good part of the scientific community is not entirely against gm's or even slightly pro , i don t think that s the result of a conspiracy - it rather indicates we shouldn t judge too easily on the topic.
'a good part of the scientific community' is opposed to it
that it has been blocked in many countries
the research done into the negative effects
the 'world-domination' motivation behind GM (get your seeds from monsanto)
the players who profit from it
you may not wish to eat the stuff yourself.
if it is your concern that i am 'killing' the thread by 'unfair' means - i really don't see how this is possible - i will not use the same 'unfair' means anymore (provided i can figure out what these are in the first place). i may find other means, but then you may find them to be 'unfair' too 😀
if you wish to explore the science behind GM rather than the politics that may prove to be an interesting topic from a purely academic perspective. personally, i would much prefer to spend my time learning how to grow things organically - chaswray has kindly been given me both suggestions and encouragement to this end 🙂
in friendship,
prad
Originally posted by pradtfIf you wish to call the empty bellies of 800 000 000 people a purely academic perspective it be so.
if you wish to explore the science behind GM rather than the politics that may prove to be an interesting topic from a purely academic perspective
I rest my case. I will plant some carrots in my garden.
Originally posted by Nohupanother remarkable leap of faith, completely ignoring most of the content of this thread - as well as, miscontruing what i said which was that the science behind GM might be interesting to look at.
If you wish to call the empty bellies of 800 000 000 people a purely academic perspective it be so.
I rest my case. I will plant some carrots in my garden.
by your own reasoning: science is an academic matter and if GM science does solve the starvation problem, the solution will come as a result of an academic effort.
may your case rest in peace with your carrots.
in friendship,
prad
Originally posted by pradtfok you have till 11:59 pm jan 1, 2004 to answer correctly or i shall have to provide it myself:
no. so here's the question again:
what did monsanto say to farmers after distributing the latest corn seeds on dec31, 2003?
in friendship,
prad
what did monsanto say to farmers after distributing the latest corn seeds on dec31, 2003?
in frinedship,
prad
Many thanks to royalchicken for providing the link to the Grounswell library🙄 Found this there:
the groundswell information collective
library : Agriculture : George Monboit : Organic Farming Will Feed the World
Astonishingly, it's more productive than high-tech agriculture The advice could scarcely have come from a more surprising source. "If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world," Steve Smith, a director of the world's biggest biotechnology company, Novartis, insisted, "tell them that it is not. … To feed the world takes political and financial will - it's not about production and distribution." Mr Smith was voicing a truth which most of his colleagues in the biotechnology companies have gone to great lengths to deny. On a planet wallowing in surfeit, people starve because they have neither the land on which to grow food for themselves nor the money with which to buy it. There is no question that, as population increases, the world will have to grow more, but if this task is left to the rich and powerful - big farmers and big business - then, irrespective of how much is grown, people will become progressively hungrier. Only a redistribution of both land and wealth can save the world from mass starvation. But in one respect Mr Smith is wrong. It is - in part - about production. A series of remarkable experimental results has shown that the growing techniques which his company and many others have sought to impose upon the world are, in contradiction to everything we have been brought up to believe, actually less productive than some of the methods developed by traditional farmers over the past 10,000 years. Last week, Nature magazine reported the results of one of the biggest agricultural experiments ever conducted. A team of Chinese scientists had tested the key principle of modern rice-growing - planting a single, high-tech variety across hundreds of hectares - against a much older technique: planting several breeds in one field. They found, to the astonishment of the farmers who had been drilled for years in the benefits of "monoculture", that reverting to the old method resulted in spectacular increases in yield. Rice blast - a devastating fungus which normally requires repeated applications of poison to control - decreased by 94 per cent. The farmers planting a mixture of strains were able to stop applying their poisons altogether, while producing 18 per cent more rice per acre than they were growing before. Two years ago, another paper published in Nature showed that yields of organic maize are identical to yields of maize grown with fertilisers and pesticides, while soil quality in the organic fields dramatically improves. In trials in Hertfordshire, wheat grown with manure has produced consistently higher yields for the past 150 years than wheat grown with artificial nutrients. Professor Jules Pretty of Essex University has shown how farmers in India, Kenya, Brazil, Guatemala and Honduras have doubled or tripled their yields by switching to organic or semi-organic techniques. A study in the United States reveals that small farmers growing a wide range of plants can produce ten times as much money per acre as big farmers growing single crops. Cuba, forced into organic farming by the economic blockade, has now adopted it as policy, having discovered that it improves both the productivity and the quality of the crops its farmers grow. High-tech farming, by contrast, is sowing ever graver problems. This year, food production in Punjab and Haryana, the Indian states long celebrated as the great success stories of modern, intensive cultivation has all but collapsed. The new crops the farmers there have been encouraged to grow demand far more water and nutrients than the old ones, with the result that, in many places, both the ground water and the soil have been exhausted. We have, in other words, been deceived. Traditional farming has been stamped out all over the world not because it is less productive than monoculture, but because it is, in some respects, more productive. Organic cultivation has been characterised as an enemy of progress for the simple reason that it cannot be monopolised: it can be adopted by any farmer anywhere on earth, without the help of multinational companies. Though it is more productive to grow several species or several varieties of crops in one field, the biotech companies must reduce diversity in order to make money, leaving farmers with no choice but to purchase their most profitable seeds. This is why they have spent the last ten years buying up seed breeding institutes and lobbying governments to do what ours has done: banning the sale of any seed which has not been officially - and expensively - registered and approved. All this requires an unrelenting propaganda war against the tried and tested techniques of traditional farming, as the big companies and their biddable scientists dismiss them as unproductive, unsophisticated and unsafe. The truth, so effectively suppressed that it is now almost impossible to believe, is that organic farming is the key to feeding the world. - George Monboit August 24, 2000
Regards,
Charlie
Originally posted by chaswrayShit…
Many thanks to royalchicken for providing the link to the Grounswell library🙄 Found this there:
the groundswell information collective
library : Agriculture : George Monboit : Organic Farming Will Feed the World
Astonishingly, it's more productive than high-tech agriculture The advice could scarcely have come from a more surprising source. "If ...[text shortened]... c farming is the key to feeding the world. - George Monboit August 24, 2000
Regards,
Charlie
I'm all for small business and organic farming, but there is a good reason why the agribusiness could flourish as it did. The money mongers were not the prime cause of the agricultural reform of the last century, although they are now defending their territory.
Some other causes:
1. Before and just after WW II farmers were seen as rather uneducated and backward. Children from farmer families, who wanted a better life, were moving with the help of their parents from the country to the cities.
2. There was a general shared feeling that agriculture could be improved by scale enlargement (like anywhere else in society), by improving the land with industrial fertilizers and herbicides, by modernizing the equipment and by experimenting with new techniques with plant cultures. This belief was strongly supported by the agricultural high schools, governments, and financial institutions.
3. This modernization was indeed on the short and middle term an improvement of the living standard in the industrialized and they improved the hygienic conditions.
4. It helped the growth of food supplies. It made the explosive growth of our world population possible. The hunger in our world has in the first place economic reasons. There is plenty of food for everybody if we want. But we don't want to solve that problem. We are fooling ourselves if we think that organic agriculture would solve that problem.
I don't believe in a conspiracy of a certain segment of our society against organic farming. Their power will crumble if the consument decides for change. But we all wanted and believed in this modernization of our agriculture and cattle breeding. Now we have to face up to the consequences. They are getting bad, but WE asked for it, not THEM.
At this moment we are in a transition period. It is clear that agribusiness cannot be the solution in the long run. But are we ready for organic farming worldwide.
One thing that has to change is our sewer system. We probably have to abolish our whole sewer system if we decide to go organic. The development of our sewerage started in the 19th century and had obvious reasons: improvement of health and hygiene and reduction of smells and nasty sights. The other side of the coin was that the countryside didn't receive back what it gave to the cities. The consequence was an impoverishment of the farming land and the farmers.
An immediate side effect of the development of the sewage was an accelerating growth of the cities. And it broke the cycle between farmers and citizens. Even with the most modern techniques I wonder how you will transport your excrements from the top of a skyscraper to an organic farmer 100 or more miles away.
If we want to turn towards organic farming we need to find a solution for this problem. We take the nitrogen and phosphorus with our food from the land and flush it happily daily into the oceans. There it stays, mostly lost forever. Our natural reserves of phosphor are limited. If we keep using at the rate we use it now, it will last another 150 years before all reachable supplies are gone. Also with nitrogen we are faced with severe problems.
Of course, multi-national agribusiness obstructs the development of small and organic farming. But let us not fool ourselves; we are also obstructers of these necessary changes. If we can overcome our own obstructions we will have better munitions to fight the agribusiness.
Fjord
Originally posted by fjordHi Fjord,
Shit…
I'm all for small business and organic farming, but there is a good reason why the agribusiness could flourish as it did. . They are getting bad, but WE asked for it, not THEM.
. If we can overcome our own obstructions we will have better munitions to fight the agribusiness.
Fjord
Of course "we" are to blame! "We" are a society of instant gratification. "We" want it yesterday! Don't forget though "them" is also "we"🙄
Regards,
Charlie