Mon$anto vs. Mother Earth
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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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This is the kind of thing that is of concern.
U.S. investigating rogue GM wheat found in Oregon field
Monsanto abandoned work on strain more than a decade agohttp://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/06/05/science-gm-wheat-oregon.html
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@dale said:
This is the kind of thing that is of concern.
U.S. investigating rogue GM wheat found in Oregon field
Monsanto abandoned work on strain more than a decade agohttp://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/06/05/science-gm-wheat-oregon.html
What is your concern? The invertigation? Japan's reaction to restrict import of wheat?
Or maybe this:
@unknownuser said:(comment quote from the article)"It's actually a horror story in the making. What if some genetic material from cannabis was added to the wheat? You'd eat a pizza made with flour from this wheat, and you'd get hungry, so you'd eat more pizza which would make you even hungrier. It would be a never ending hunger. I can imagine pizza zombies roaming the streets, ravenously seeking more pizza..
or?.....
The protests around the world agains Monsanto at least had some positive effect in Europe.I think it's madness to honour GM plants with any patent. The plant is doing 99.999999999% of the work to reproduce itself.
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@wo3dan said:
@dale said:
This is the kind of thing that is of concern.
U.S. investigating rogue GM wheat found in Oregon field
Monsanto abandoned work on strain more than a decade agohttp://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/06/05/science-gm-wheat-oregon.html
What is your concern? The invertigation? Japan's reaction to restrict import of wheat?
Or maybe this:Actually my concern is the escape of rogue seed that are genetically modified. We have been told that all is safe and controlled, and as it has been stated in this thread several times, there can be no guarantees that the outcome of this research and development will not get, in one way or another, out of control.
I take part in another forum for the Digital recording software Logic. Thought I would link this piece by Ron Fuller, a fellow Canadian (what the hell, up his hits on YouTube a little)
A little Monsanto protest song.
Youtube Video -
Thank you Dale for the great protest song. Good to cheer you up and see/hear that there's a lot of protest against companies like More$anto.
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Time to stir up the debate again.
http://action.sumofus.org/a/world-food-prize-monsanto-syngenta/?sub=taf
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Thanks for posting the info ..... its sad to see this happening.
I recently watched Marla Spivak's talk on TED, 'Why bees are disappearing' Its well worth listening to this woman and supporting any way we can. The link to the talk is, here,
http://www.ted.com/talks/marla_spivak_why_bees_are_disappearing.html
The current situation with bees ....... NOT IMPROVING I am sorry to see. It appears that many Bee Keepers now routinely expect up to 50% of their hives to fail each year. They can only hold populations by manipulation.
At least the EU took a stern line on matters recently and hopefully this stance will hold fast. We really have to get back in tune with nature before its becomes too late for us to do so.
http://action.sumofus.org/a/world-food-prize-monsanto-syngenta/?sub=taf
Be sure to sign the petition if you agree, it only takes a minutes. The bees will thank you and keep pollinating with some help
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..... came across an informative article on how GM crops are pushing along with their agenda. The article is 'Monsanto, the TPP, and Global Food Dominance'
One of the main agruments for GM crops is that its the only way increasing populations can be fed. The last paragraph of the article puts forward a very interesting argument, it reads,
*Return to Nature: Not Too Late
There is a safer, saner, more earth-friendly way to feed nations. While Monsanto and US regulators are forcing GM crops on American families, Russian families are showing what can be done with permaculture methods on simple garden plots. In 2011, 40% of Russia's food was grown on dachas (cottage gardens or allotments). Dacha gardens produced over 80% of the country's fruit and berries, over 66% of the vegetables, almost 80% of the potatoes and nearly 50% of the nation's milk, much of it consumed raw. According to Vladimir Megre, author of the best-selling Ringing Cedars Series:
"Essentially, what Russian gardeners do is demonstrate that gardeners can feed the world -- and you do not need any GMOs, industrial farms, or any other technological gimmicks to guarantee everybody's got enough food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days of growing season per year -- so in the US, for example, gardeners' output could be substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the US is two times greater than that of Russia's gardens -- and it produces nothing but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry."*
Russia seems to be leading the way these days when it comes to sanity. Food for thought!
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