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GM = GENERAL MADNESS News about the Genetically Modified (GM) industry never fails to amaze in it’s outrageousness and audacity. It would be amusing if it wasn’t so scary. Like laughing yourself to death. WOULD I LIE TO YOU? Agriculture schools have provided vital information for years on crop performance, yields, insect damage and much more. This information is vital for farmers who don’t have time or space to perform their own field trials but need the seeds best suited to their environs. All GM crops are planted by contract with the seed’s “owner” (Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, etc) and all specifically prohibit research on these “patented products” unless authorized by the company. There have been few such authorizations granted. Every maker of GM crops will s trot out their standard line that GM crops are the most tested crops ever and therefore safe. What they fail to mention: they are the ones doing all the testing. And the testing is in breeding, development or pesticide-resistance (that’s pesticide, not pests) and not health, safety, taste or anything everyone really wants to know. Those test results are not available to the public. Controlling information & research on your own product is a pretty good way to ensure nothing negative can be said or substantiated. OOPS, SORRY! Speaking of feeding the world, 100,00 acres of corn--all Monsanto GM varieties--planted in South Africa failed to pollinate, leaving farmers with millions of cobs with no kernels. The GM giant has offered compensation to the farms but money doesn’t help the hungry mouths that were supposed to eat this stuff. No word on if compensation means for the worth of the expected crop (not likely) or for seed and maybe planting costs (probable). Monsanto blames the problem on “under-fertilization in the laboratory”. Oh. That explains it! STIMULATE WHOSE ECONOMY? Backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chicago Council for Global Affairs, two Indiana senators have introduced a Senate Bill that proposes handing over $7 billion for the development of new GM crops. GM corporations and their parent companies are among some of the wealthiest outfits around and want their hands deeper in the taxpayer’s pocket since the farmer’s pocket has already been picked clean. Umm why doesn’t this count as the new “socialism” everyone is in such a panic over? Somehow corporate welfare equals good but public welfare does not. SAY “OINK!” Brazil’s National Technical Commission on Biosecurity, backed by small famers and agribiz alike, has rejected Bayer’s GM rice in their country. Germany, France, Austria, Hungary & Greece have banned a new Monsanto GM corn. As nation after nation fights to resist the importation of GM crops from the US, foreign markets have opened for organic and non-organic non-GM crops. So, Americans can expect to eat food grown here that the rest of the world won’t take. That’s sorta like the idea in rural areas for keeping a hog in your backyard: feed them the stuff that no one else will eat. YIELD, STOP, DO NOT PASS GO After almost two decades of development and a little less of actual plantings, what has the development of GM crops gotten us? Not much except higher use of pesticides according to the Union of Concerned Scientists that issued the report “Failure To Yield”. Among many other conclusions, the report “debunks widespread myths about the superiority of GE crop yields”. In other words, the usual rhetoric about needing a high-tech solution to feed the world doesn’t hold up. Download a free copy at http://ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/ WILL THE REAL GREEN REVOLUTION PLEASE STAND UP? In the Third World, the infamous Green Revolution wiped out thousands of heirloom rice varieties, polluted pristine rural environments and put millions of farmers in debt to multinational seed, fertilizer and pesticide companies. The International Rice Research Institute is promoting the “Second Green Revolution” with GM rice as its foundation. Fourteen Asian countries (where rice of course is the staff of life) have signed onto their own program to combat this menace. For more information go to http://www.panap.net/281.0.html.
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