Mon$anto vs. Mother Earth
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@mics_54 said:
OK then! The FAO is lying and there wont be a food shortage!
You said it: he didn't.
However, they are probably correct... 'but only if we do nothing about fixing things'.
There are many ways to fix problems.
GM crops is perhaps one way.
But so is distributing resources more equitably...
So is helping, educating or 'feeding' disadvantaged people...
So is not spending disproportionate sums on killing or oppressing people - just because they have a different idea about how the world should be set up...Once you disassemble a swiss-watch it's difficult to get its bits back together and working again like it was... if GM does mess up I think we all agree it would be 'bad' - look at the legacies of Smoking, DDT, HFCs/CFCs, Leaded-petrol, indiscriminate-antibiotic-use[resistant-bugs] etc - and GM could be worse... So what safeguards do we have - or rather should we insist on ?
"If your only tool is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail..."
Let's get some more tools...
'Don't put all your eggs in one basket', is an old adage.So IMHO we need a mix of ideas, several of which might offer solutions... and each of which must have know downsides, as well as upsides...
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@mics_54 said:
OK then! The FAO is lying and there wont be a food shortage!
huh? there already is a food shortage
over a billion people are starving as we're sitting here typing.but the food shortage, at least as i see it, is entirely manmade.. it's not as if we're going through some sort of worldwide drought or anything like that..
we, as a species, definitely have the means to feed the entire world ten times over.. but we don't. why? -
@unknownuser said:
but the food shortage, at least as i see it, is entirely manmade..
You are saying that "somebody" is creating food shortages on purpose??? Who?
@unknownuser said:
we, as a species, definitely have the means to feed the entire world ten times over.. but we don't. why?
exactly what is this "means" that would feed 70 billion people (7 billion x 10) and I am interested in your answer as to "why we don't"
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@mics_54 said:
You are saying that "somebody" is creating food shortages on purpose??? Who?
as in give you names?
i don't know.. i've never sat in on the board meeting of a multinational corporation and i'm assuming no one here has either.. i don't know who, you don't know who, neither does anyone else..
that's the beauty of it (well, it's a beautiful thing depending on where you sit and what your perspective is.. for me, it's far from beauty)@unknownuser said:
exactly what is this "means" that would feed 70 billion people (7 billion x 10) and I am interested in your answer as to "why we don't"
because we, as a whole, only care about ourselves as individuals.. that's why
but come on.. this stuff is being openly displayed every day & everywhere you look.. these are questions you can answer for yourself -
@unknownuser said:
The cables show that diplomats often specifically targeted scientists and academics to accept the biotech industry's uncritical approach to GM foods, and would simply repeat company's claims that GE crops increase productivity, combat global hunger and strengthen economic development opportunities - and all with a lighter environmental footprint.
@unknownuser said:
Partly because consumer opinion is against GM in Europe, the EU has remained largely resistant to US pressure so far, especially when it comes to its labelling system for GM products. But Moldenhauer warned that this could change soon, when new transatlantic trade agreements begin negotiations in June. "The so-called 'mutual recognition agreements' could mean that Europe would have to accept the US authorizations of its products," she said. "Then GM crops could be forced into the European market."
http://www.dw.de/report-us-government-in-gm-industrys-pocket/a-16819458
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@escapeartist said:
@unknownuser said:
Partly because consumer opinion is against GM in Europe, the EU has remained largely resistant to US pressure so far, especially when it comes to its labelling system for GM products. But Moldenhauer warned that this could change soon, when new transatlantic trade agreements begin negotiations in June. "The so-called 'mutual recognition agreements' could mean that Europe would have to accept the US authorizations of its products," she said. "Then GM crops could be forced into the European market."
http://www.dw.de/report-us-government-in-gm-industrys-pocket/a-16819458
Possibly accept, yes! Use?, not a requirement
Thats when the battle will start 
I think cross contamination will be the issue and as I have said I can see no way around this. Heritage seed growers will have the right not to have their crops / seed contaminated by GM stock ...... and I use the work 'stock' in its widest sense 
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Scared Of Genetically Modified Food? It Might Be The Only Way To Feed The World
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scared-of-genetically-modified-food-2013-01 -
Maybe someone can answer this question that has always been nagging at me.
If crops, genetically modified or not are capable of greater yields, does that mean that they would require more from the soils that they grow in?
If so, and we don't look at organic methods of supplementing the soil, does this mean more chemical fertilizers?
What is the fallout to this? -
I would hazard a guess that the answer is yes to both questions, but a quick search yields no particular data on how much soil is consumed by plants during a growth cycle. They must obviously consume something, because plants do not grow magically in nothing, however the physical amount of material must be negligible. Plants do consume nutrients in soil and repeated use of the land for crop growth would require replenishing those nutrients, ergo more fertilizers will be needed.
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Watch this video, you think water should be free to all or privatized? Nestle head tells what he thinks
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well what ever he said it sounds evil!
...maybe it's just the accent.
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Thought the guy was reasonable enough, at least straightforward. As Nestlé CEO he wants to make loads of cash for his company and if this brings jobs, all well and good as far as he is concerned! He did however remark on the robotisation of the Japanese Nestlé factory,
Yes, control of water is probably on the agenda for big business. This is actually afoot here in Ireland! To date, household water for towns and cities has been supplied by local authorities under the control of (in theory) elected representatives.
This is now changing for the worse I feel as there is to be a national central body in control, Bord Gáis (Irish for Gas Board). This body will meter and sell water countrywide to all town and city dwellers. Only problem as I see it, is that its very likely that Bord Gáis will be sold off to Big Business due to the Bank Debt that our politicians foolishly took on under unfair EU pressure. So! In time I imagine we will be paying through the nose for water and to make it worse, the money will more than likely be going abroad ...... maybe even to Mr Nestlé
I wonder what his opinion is on 'Fair Trade Coffee' ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_coffee Not a lot I imagine 
The more I think about Globalisation and these very large multi-national conglomerates the more I feel they are really from a past era. In the past, 20, 30, 40 years ago, having huge manufacturing plants made a certain amount of sense. Expertise / knowledge was not easily 'transported' quickly and it made sense to concentrate it in a central manufacturing location.
Today, with the use of the NET and other systems, 3D printing for example, its now possible to work remotely and change manufacturing processes quickly to more efficient methods as they become practicable. This ability would suggest to me that it now makes more sense to adopt the KISS approach broadly and in the case of manufacturing, smaller could well be better! It the past 'smaller' often meant low tech but today, this is most definitely not the case.
A case in point! Over the past few years I have been closely monitoring the advancement of car tech and manufacturing and in particular what is being done to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. In my opinion the very large manufactures are doing very little. It looks to me they are fumbling around with a technology that has been with us for over 128 years! History of the internal combustion engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_internal_combustion_engineIts the smaller firms that seem to be leading the way, Lit Motors for example! http://litmotors.com/c1/ Daniel Kim started the project in a SanFran garage (with offices overhead ) a couple of years ago and is steadily getting the job of building a practical eco-friendly vehicle that will suit up to 90% of daily commuters AND it will be a fun drive! I'm number 2078 on the waiting list!
Proof that small can work? Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/ and Indiegogo http://www.indiegogo.com/ are two crowd funding sites that have and are helping 'garage entrepreneurs' to get up and running. Its amazing to see some of the techie products that have been dreamed up and manufactured. SketchUp is also playing no small part in some of these ventures as its 'ease of use' is being leveraged to get the basic ideas conceptualised.
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indigogo and kickstarter have been in the news a few times...
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Monsanto will halt production of genetically modified corn in all of Europe
http://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/2013/05/monsanto-loses-in-europe.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/eu-to-check-us-wheat-for-gm-tainted-wheat-2013-05-30?siteId=
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Run Monsanto run, Chuck Norris is onto you...
http://mobile.wnd.com/2013/06/chuck-norris-battles-genetically-modified-foods/#RBjSjLUI4gsKoJWG.99
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lol go Chuck!! I hope he still had his beard when he wrote that.
I was tucking into a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal for old time's sake, which is imported into UK. Then I noticed the box read made with GM maize!! I threw it all away immediately!!
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Oli,
Have you noticed any new lucky charm shaped extremities budding on your body?
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No, but I gotta say, they passed the taste test. Shame I'll never taste them again!
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