From: Keridwen (user-2ivfuch.dialup.mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: you're even funnier
Date: April 12, 2001 at 4:19 pm PST

In Reply to: you're even funnier posted by lucky on April 10, 2001 at 5:47 pm:

A lot of GMO is being done to allow farmers to use even more chemicals which destroy at an even greater rate. Roundup Ready Soybeans are a prime example--and soy beans are one of the most prevelant crops in this country making the extra chemical usage that much worse.

Roundup Ready Soybeans are engineered to withstand very high doses of Roundup Ready herbicide treatments. Normal soybeans would die at the application rate applied to the GMO soybeans. The idea is to allow farmers to saturate their fields and kill every other plant except their GMO soybeans...it's simply easier for them to kill everything than to take the time to weed.

Meanwhile, Bt corn makes it's own pesticide---and is actually classified as a pesticide, not a food, by the EPA. Yummy yummy. Meanwhile, the widespread introduction of Bt into corn may well drive organic farmers out of business as Bt is the substance they sparingly apply to their fields as needed. In nature, Bt is a natural pesticide that breaks down easily---but when every single kernal of corn contains it, then pests are going to grow resistant to it in short order--leaving mutant pests no organic farmer will be able to control through natural methods.

Moving on to pollen drift, the very existence of GMO crops threatens organic food period. At this time, organic seed companies can no longer guarantee their seeds are 100% GMO free--the best they will certify is 98%. In North America, organic canola oil is gone....every bit of it has been contaminated by GMO plants due to pollen. This strips organic consumers of the right to even choose organic...something Frankenfood producers like Monsanto and DuPont no doubt revel in.

And moving along to economics, GMO seeds are owned by corporations--farmers pay a license fee to use them. A Canadian farmer just lost a court case over this issue---some GMO seeds blew into his field and Monsanto found out about it. They sued him to force him to pay the license fee for growing their seeds. He said he didn't want the seeds, couldn't stop them from blowing in on the wind, and didn't use any of the chemical saturation methods to benefit from the seeds...and yet he lost. A Canadian judge said he owed Monsanto the money--Monsanto said it was up to individual farmers to go out and pull up any GMO crops that blew into their fields--even though you can't tell the difference without a microscope.

So the GMO problem is huge. Pretty soon, corporations will own the means of producing our food and have our farmers in thrall...not to mention doing untold damage to our health through their untested crops.