(Inspired by the Smoke-free thread)

The Government says it's OK now to start growing these things, and the good old Scottish Executive says it doesn't have the power to ban them.

IMO, the real trouble is that once you go down this road, there's no way of coming back - the genie is out of the bottle and you can't put him back.  To my mind, that is sheer lunacy, regardless of what the apparent benefits might be.  There's no way of telling what may occur a hundred or more years down the line, no matter how hard you test today - Nature has a habit of biting you in the **** when you expect it least!

The argument that "We've been breeding selectively for thousands of years!" doesn't hold water.  We've bred cow x cow, dog x dog, tomato x tomato - fair enough.  But this is NOT the same as breeding cow x tomato ( :D ) or breeding luminous mice.

As always, the GM companies are trumpeting the benefits - better disease resistance, greater productivity etc., etc. - but, IMO, these are potentially nothing compared with what could happen, and, of course, they are very, very quiet about the money they want to make out of it!

It makes me wonder about why there has been no suggestion of a referendum (other than the expectation that it would reject GM) - has the Government been paid off?

What do you think  a) about GM generally;   and  b) whether the Govt. is conniving at GM on behalf of the companies?

Snorri
Twilight Zone
(with non-GM tomatoes planted)
:D

Nooooooooo.....
Emma running away with a packet of fags and a bottle of wine.....

i dont agree with GM food, GM mice or and other GM bl**dy thing they can come up with, it all a load of tosh.

You said what I think, Snorri, only better!

Did you hear today that Bayer (the only company supplying GM maize in Britain) is not going to sell it in the UK any more because there are 'too many strings attached'? So none will be planted, according to the Government, 'for the foreseeable future'.

Hurrah!

QUOTE SNORRI: "It makes me wonder about why there has been no suggestion of a referendum (other than the expectation that it would reject GM) - has the Government been paid off?

What do you think  a) about GM generally;   and  b) whether the Govt. is conniving at GM on behalf of the companies?"

Even if a referendum were to be held the UK public do not have enough information available to them on the pros & cons of G.M. crops to make an informed decision.

What do I think ?

a) I have an open mind on this. :)

b) Probably ! ;)

I seem to remember from some geography lesson some time ago about a super crop being grown in 3rd world countries during the 80s (?). The crop (not sure what though, was quite a few years ago) was hardier and was introduced to combat famine and help people help themselves. If this was a GM crop (not sure if its was) then this is surely a good thing. However before everyone shouts me down :) I do think that more research needs to be done, crops should be planted in a controlled environment (is biosphere) where cross contamination with regular crops is avoided. Unfortunately because GM crops have been planted alongside 'normal' crop contamination has already occurred and so we can never be sure that anything is GM free. A case of not thinking everything through I think :(

* has the Government been paid off?* Of course they have!!!!!
And the crops should be wiped out never to see the light of day :(

Christine, Spain.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/CFACS.php
http://www.sgr.org.uk/GenEng/article_CamEveNews_06jun03.htm
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/genetics/commercialisation/monsanto.htm

Christine, Spain.
and forgot this about Lord Sainsbury!
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail/html-home/31-html/0505.html

Christine
you have echoed my exact thoughts... :(

Remember feeding bits of dead cows etc to other cows was also safe ( Hmmm didnt we have a BSE crisis?)

try also looking at supermarket gm link

animals being fed on GM maize and corn do NOT have to be identified as such - so they are still getting into the food chain without your knowledge :(

Exactly Lel :(

Christine, Spain.

On the other hand do we let millions starve to death because we won't give them food just because it's G.M even though G.M food could be grown which might save them?

http://www.sirc.org/articles/oxfam_berated.html

Oxfam agree that any food is better than no food, I have no axe to grind either way on the subject I can see both the pro's and cons.

But what about all the food mountains that are destroyed every year :(

They are in the wrong place, GM crops could be grown at the point of need in many cases.

Surely they could be fed with the EU mountains of food thats sitting rotting away while some officious people mess around with red tape. And I really don`t believe Monsanto are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Christine, Spain.

It's all down to logistics Christine, we produce more than enough food to feed every man woman and child living on our planet it's just all in the wrong places !

It's all down to logistics Christine, we produce more than enough food to feed every man woman and child living on our planet it's just in the wrong places !

Yes but Fablab, ordinary seeds will & do grow there, not just gm ones. They all take the same looking after ;)
:)
Christine, Spain

Not so I'm afraid Christine.

This from the link I supplied earlier..

Of particular interest to Oxfam are nitrogen-fixing crops and those which are drought or salt-resistant, and it sees a need for both public and private investment in GM technologies in these areas.

There are an awful lot of green manure crops to suit different soils & climates for nitrogen fixing F/L. As far as I know gm crops still need watering the same as normal ones.

Christine, Spain.

A lot of these surpluses Christine are entirely unsuitable to be distributed elsewhere, can you imagine the logistics of shipping and distributing butter, for instance, around central africa and what would they do with a pound of butter that had never formed part of their diet before, better that they can have a crop they know how to handle but is less likely to suffer during drought or is resistant to disease.

I agree with Fablab the benefits as they appear at the moment far outweigh the hyothetical downsides.  I'm fairly openminded though and would like to see a lot more research but then the antis are not making that very easy are they :)  I think a referendum is a waste of time as the tabloid reported has already confused matters for a lot of people for instance people have seemed to confuse the refusal to buy GM products not as a protest against their production but rather as a fear that eating the product is harmful which seems extremely unlikely (although perhaps not to the serously paranoiic ;))

But what happens when its in the foodchain and then problems start to appear . There would be no way of stopping it ?

If it can alter genes etc in crops whos to say it cant alter human genes too ?

Money shouldnt always come first

Our genes are far too different to the plants genes to be altered in the same way.

What problems are we talking about here Lel?

As far as I know none hvae surfaced so far & does the possibility that there MIGHT be problems in the future give us the right to condem millions to starvation ?

If you can point me to scientific data proving long term problems with GM food I'll gladly read it.

Isabel how are the anti`s not making it easy for more research??
And don`t care if I`m thought paranoid or not, but I still aint eating it & I`ll fight against it :D :D

Christine, Spain.

They trash the fields whenever they can Christine.

But surely Monsanto with all their billions ££££ can protect their research/trials better. Think you might be talking about a few antis that did that in UK Isabel, but what about all the other large countries where it`s tested & they own vast swathes of land?

Christine, Spain.

From what Ive heard the GM crops have to be reordered every year from Monsanto et al as the farmers cant keep seedcorn. I dont fancy the worlds food supply being in the hands of a few powerful companies, especially the small scale Third World farmers, who would be exploited still more despite the pro GM lobby claiming their products would benefit such farmers.  Also if it s such a marvellous doscovery, why is it being shipped out covertly or dumped on countries like Afghanistan as " Aid" ?  And what about the farmers whove invested time and money converting to organic then see their efforts ruined by GM planting just down the road? Its another example of money talking, government caving in and weve all been Sold for Monsanto's Gold. GM food? No thanks, it leaves a nasty taste......

Lorelei the Crabby Crone

I was talking to a Monsanto rep some years ago at the Royal Show, and he was enormously proud of the fact that farmers cannot save the seeds from Monsanto varieties to plant the next year. So all these poor third World farmers would be forced to buy new seed each year ...

Now Monsantos attitute is something we should be protesting about, Jeangenie :)  Perhaps if research was easier more companies would get involved I suppose I would like to see someone like Oxfam sponsoring an independent University to do some work but I guess they would never spend charity money on something that would be destroyed again and again.   It does occur to me though that Monsanto can only charge what these countries are able to pay year after year, you can't get blood out of a stone after all.

Fablab, the Governments of many of those countries don't want GM crops introduced there either! So what do you do then? Force them to have it?

Fair point, that's the political aspect to all this and what I think of politicians is a different kettle of fish ! :)

One of the reasons that there's no great amount of hard evidence about the potential dangers of GM foods well into the future is that nobody who has enough money has ever funded any.  All the research done (that we ever hear about) has been done to get evidence to support the growing of GM crops.

As to food mountains, I agree that the logistics are expensive, but a lot of that expense could be done away with if those-in-charge could get their heads round the idea of giving it away as opposed to the idea of selling it, even at reduced price!

What is lacking with the notion of distributing food mountains is the will to do it.  It is precisely on this basis that the GM seed producers are trading - "why pay for distributing, when you can buy our Frankenstein seeds cheaper instead?"

Snorri
Twilight Zone
(Monsanto board will be first against the wall, when I'm Fuhrer!)
:D

They don't want it untested, Jeangenie, can't say I blame them :), nor do they have the money or resources to test it themselves so its down to us rich nations really, do we want to help or not?

It appears to boil down to our choice - do we want to go down the GM or organic routes? They are mutually exclusive.

gm hazards link

Take a read its quite illuminating

there can be increased cancer risks , food allergies ,antibiotic resistance and damage to beneficial insects and soil fertility , new viruses and pathogens, creation of super weeds and super pests , genetic "bio invasion"  and hazards :(

I've had a look Lel I have to say though that it's all a bit vague with words like "potentially" banded about a lot and what is most interesting about this website is that it is completely unsigned and unattributed. There is no contact information. No email address, no phone number, no mailing address, nothing.

Still it's a different take on the matter. ;)

<<<There is no contact information>>>

there is a name- a website- an address and a phone number.

I see valid points on both sides of this discussion, I mean I don't agree with some of Monsantoto's actions and I can easily see the worries of organic farmers who have some very valid concerns but I think to condem G.M. food out of hand without looking at both sides of the coin is not the way forward.

Were we to hold a referendum on the matter I have no doubt it would come down on the side of banning GM food but how many people voting would realise that millions starving to death in Africa might be saved if we (and their governments) allowed them to grow GM food against the so far unproven possibility that there might (and that is a big might) be problems to face in the future ?

It's good to examine both sides of the arguement. :)

Yes it is good to see both sides but I think they should explore all the negative points before trying to force people to eat it .

Lets be honest here, Governments arent interested in starving people if they arent getting anything out of this for themselves. Why do the Govts of these starving countries spend millions on warfare when it could be spent on food, crops and seeds and ease the plight of their people ?

Are you willing to let your children run the possibility of cancer to feed someone else , when food is already available ( whether it is in another country).
Lets start seeing the Govts put their money where their mouth is and transport some of this food to the starving masses !!!

Generally the major reason for famine is drought. Where no rain falls for years, and not even native plants can survive, why would GM fare any better?

Yes J/G, thats what I keep saying. As I understand gm crops its the resistance to disease/bugs that`s their selling factor, not how they hold up in drought, but I might be wrong ;)

Christine, Spain.

There are certainly drought resistant plants, many mediteranean plants are doing better in English gardens in our current drier summers than our native plants, so I could well imagine their genes being utilised for crop plants, even in times of drought there may be some water in the well, if it can serve two acres instead of one all the better, perhaps I should conduct the research :)

The other thing about tests/research etc is what might look OK right now may be totally not OK in the future. Any hidden dangers to the human body would maybe take generations to come about & not just the few yrs the trials have been running for.

Christine, Spain.

Precisely, Christine.

Snorri
Twilight Zone
(one-time geneticist)
:D

But it might not. ;)

I might get hit by a bus but I might not the possibility of my doing so is likerly greater than that of G.M. crops causing a major problem in the future, there just isn't the evidence about to substantiate it !

nor the evidence to disprove it either :(

I am not prepared to put my kids at risk until I am sure they are perfectly safe

I don't trust the government, Monsanto or anyone else who is pro GM i am afraid. My choice is to eat organic where possible and affordable, and i may not be able to do this if GM goes ahead due to contaminaton. I worry about the ecosystem and our wildlife and the insects...... i beleive it will produce a silent countryside where we will all walk weeping for what used to be and can  never be again :(

I don't mean to be dramatic, and try to be open to the other side as it were, but the more i hear the more i want toput my hands over my ears and scream...no, no, no!!!!!

As Snorri said, it is the genie out of the bottle.

Lindsay
X

LOL, Guy! :D :D :D  Better look out, next time I'm down your way - I have a licence to drive automatic buses! :D :D :D :D

Saying "Let's do it because there's no evidence against it" is rather like saying "Let's light this fire, we'll think about how to put it out later" - and I don't think that any sane person would do that!  (Mind you, we did precisely that with nuclear power stations - set them going without working out how to decommission them).  Why is it that people see the wisdom in not doing something risky and small, but not when the something is vast and risky?  The argument is exactly the same!

We even (try to) teach our children not to touch something that might be dangerous, but then we rush off and do exactly the same thing ourselves.  Doesn't it strike you as just a little daft?

Snorri
Twilight Zone
:D

I'm not saying let's do it PURELY on the basis that there's no evidence against it more I'm looking at a from risk/benefit analysis (given the best information cutrrently available to us) and my view is more towards that there are possible risks but that the benefits currently outweigh them.

I guess that the prospect of you at the wheel of a bus shortens my odds on being right though ! LOL  :)

And where on earth did you get that "Frankenstine seeds" label from Dougie it must be straight off the front page of a tabloid newspaper !!!!! :) :)

I didn't have you down as a Sun reader. LOL  ;)

Well we`ve already got superbugs resistant to a/bs, TB resistant to a/bs making a comeback. As far as I`m concerned I have the right to eat what I wish without it being contaminated, along with everybody else in this world, the ones wanting to try improve on nature & have all the money have the onus on them to prove to me that gm crops are safe 100%, if they can`t why should I believe them?

Christine, Spain.