GM giant abandons wheat plan

The Monsanto Company has scrapped its plan to commercialise genetically modified wheat - in the biggest defeat yet for agricultural biotechnology and a win for GM sceptics who said the crop was not needed.

The decision, after hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in the crop over seven years, follows pressure from US and Canadian farmers who feared that GM wheat would destroy their billion-dollar markets in Europe and Japan.

Monsanto, the world's biggest seller of GM seeds, had looked to the introduction of GM wheat to fulfil a dream of dominating the world's bread market.

The company had shown that GM wheat increased yields by 5 per cent to 15 per cent, but consumer resistance to the idea of eating GM bread - particularly in Europe - meant the biggest part of the US export market would disappear overnight.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/11/1084041401052.html

The company had shown that GM wheat increased yields by 5 per cent to 15 per cent.

I bet a 5 to 15 per cent increase in the world wheat crop would go a long way toward solving the hunger crisis.

Hopefully, hungry Africans and Asians can be fed some way or another without upsetting the Europeans and Japanese.

This is interesting: Among farmers, "nobody has a scientific or technical or philosophical objection to using biotechnology in wheat", Coppock said.

Believe me, I worked on a survey that was probably paid for by Montsanto asking farmers in Montana about RR Wheat and YOU CAN BET THEY HAD PROBLEMS of a scientific, technical, and philosophical nature.

This fella's trying to cover his ass and blame their cancelation of RR WHeat on Japanese and European consumers.

I've honestly been wondering what the problem is with GM foods.

It sounds like the problem isn't really with the idea of creating better plants. Rather, the complaint is that a handful of powerful corporations have all the control over the distribution and use of the products. (This seems like the prescription drug issue, where the drugs are beneficial in many cases, but the companies that own them are the problem.)

But when words like "frankenfood" get tossed around, it sounds like people are objecting to the idea of using science to solve agricultural problems. In principle, this is not a bad thing.

I am personally for GM foods sort of, but I share the same objections that the farmers have.

The farmers I talked to had huge problems with Montsanto owning a seed patent, and were terrified that even if they had a regular wheat variety, it would get ruined by cross pollination, and Montsanto COULD SUE THEM!

Plus, a lot of them said something along the lines of: "We don't have to be fooling around with that goddamned stuff, it's not right, it's screwing around with God's plan." If that doesn't cound like a moral objection, I don't know what does.... :shrug:

There's a serious and potentially devastating potential (beginning to make itself felt already, actually) that GMO crops will reduce our ability to feed ourselves at all.

GMO companies PROMISED that (a) there would be no harm to the environment and (b) no harm to other crops (same species or different species) and that's just not been the case. It's already been mentioned that GMO crops cross-pollinate with non-GMO crops nearby (and Monsanto had the temerity to sue a victimized Canadian farmer because of it!!) This means that we may not be able to keep GMOs from polluting any of our crops -- and frankly, if they can polluty ANY, they shouldn't IMO be used).

Further, it's been well-established that GMO crops (forget which one) have harmed the Monarch butterfly by decimating its populations.

Even scarier, in terms of what we may be doing to our future ability to feed ourselves, thanks to GMO corn and cross-pollinization, we are in danger of losing our original, millennia-old stocks of maize in the very region where maize first developed.

Finally, effects on humans hasn't been fully determined. There are many suspicions of ill health effects on humans. Here's just one recent article:
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=31845

Scientists investigating a spate of illnesses among people living close to GM maize fields in the Philippines believe that the crop may have triggered fevers, respiratory illnesses and skin reactions.

If preliminary results are confirmed, it would be one of the first recorded cases of serious health problems associated with GM crops, and could damage the reputation of the biotech agriculture industry, which is rapidly expanding in developing countries.

The scientists' findings were immediately challenged by Monsanto, the world's leading GM company, and by the Philippine government.

The concern surrounds an unnamed village in northern Mindanao, where 39 people living near a field of Bt maize -- which contains a pesticide in the gene -- started suffering last autumn when the crop was producing pollen.

Doctors thought they had an infectious disease, but when four families left the village and recovered, and then showed the same symptoms on return, an environmental cause was suspected.

-- more --

So, do we really want to fool with Mother Nature, or "God's plan"? Given the facts on the ground, that sounds like a pragmatic argument to me, tho one with definite moral considerations given the greed factor of Monsanto and other GM companies vis a vis the damage being done to the planet and her people.

The problem is getting it to the ones who need it most. GM crops with the royalty requirements and the no save seed agreements would put a lot of small farmers in third world countries out of business and send them and their families to join the unemployed in the cities.

The claimed increases in production have not materialized in other crops. American farmers have reason to question.

if they were giving the wheat away. Monsanto and other GM food corps expect the people to pay more for their products. They also patent the seeds, so if you tried to use seeds from your crop to plant for another harvest, they can sue you. You have to buy new seeds from them. GM foods are a protection racket.

their biology education in kansas.

if farmers stopped growing genetically-modified crops, they'd basically stop growing anything at all.

but as long as some monsanto-bashing can be had, suppose it's all worth it.

from Science (the magazine):

. . .the contemporary definition of genetically modified, or GM, applies only to plants modified by molecular techniques . . . But it is becoming increasingly clear that the distinction is not just artificial and unhelpful, but profoundly counterproductive on a global scale.

. . .meaningful discourse requires making a distinction between "traditional selective breeding" and "biotechnology based on recombinant DNA." I disagree. It is precisely this distinction that has created the widely accepted, albeit mythical, view that "traditional" plant breeding is somehow gradual, and, yes, natural, whereas contemporary techniques are rapid and unnatural.

According to the Mutant Variety Database, established by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (http:www-infocris.iaea.org/MVD/. ), more than 2000 crop varieties grown today were created using chemical or radiation mutagenesis. Is using neutron radiation to create the popular Rio Red grapefruit variety gradual and natural? Is using the somaclonal variation arising as a result of passage through tissue culture to create mutant herbicide-tolerant Clearfield Corn less rapid and unnatural than introducing bacterial or mutant genes cloned by molecular techniques to create Round-up Ready corn and soybeans?

Pinstrup-Andersen and Schioler ask, "Why, in the debate on natural versus unnatural, should we draw the line right here, right now, at the point where genetic engineering has entered the scene?" <(2), p. 80-81>. And it is indeed a puzzle that people blithely accept churning up genomes with radiation, mutagenic chemicals, and a variety of other techniques, including intergeneric crosses, while looking askance at the newer, very much less disruptive molecular methods. But maybe they don't know what traditional breeders do.

Moreover, the ability to move genes between species is not a recent, or even a human invention. Agrobacterium and its plant-transforming plasmids are natural: Quite without human intervention, these bacteria developed a set of plant genes useful to the bacterium, as well as the ability to transfer them to plant cells without killing the plant. Why is using this natural genetic engineering system to introduce genes coding for bacterial Bt proteins to protect plants from insect attack less natural than spraying fields with concentrated preparations of the Bt bacteria grown in huge fermenters and sold in stores? If you have followed the monarch butterfly flap, you will know that the consensus of a very large U.S.-Canadian project to assess the impact of GM corn on the monarch came to the conclusion that only about 3 in 10,000 larvae will be in danger of getting sick or dying from eating corn pollen expressing Bt genes (3). This seems as benign and sensible an approach to crop protection as replacing a drug with a vaccine is in human health care.

It is time to eliminate the altogether artificial boundary between what humans did before molecular techniques were developed and what they do now to improve their crop plants--a point I sought to make in my Perspective. A mutation is a mutation, whether spontaneous, induced by tissue culture, or induced by radiation mutagenesis. The kinds of genetic changes that underlie the origin of corn from teosinte are not fundamentally different from those that gave us dwarf Green Revolution rice, seedless oranges, or Rio Red grapefruit. And if they spread more slowly than they might today, it was probably only because people hadn't yet invented trucks, trains, and planes.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/303/5665/1765b

If you have followed the monarch butterfly flap, you will know that the consensus of a very large U.S.-Canadian project to assess the impact of GM corn on the monarch came to the conclusion that only about 3 in 10,000 larvae will be in danger of getting sick or dying from eating corn pollen expressing Bt genes (3).

Perhaps a more important question is: why would we allow any damage to other species? Why would WE want to consume Bt genes? Or feed it to our animals whom we will in turn consume? What will be the ultimate effect on humans? I don't want or intend to be one of their guinea pigs, but it's very difficult since we're already consuming loads of GM products purchased in our grocery stores every single day.

A few years ago there was a huge flap because a GMO-strain of corn (Starlink? Stark? something similar) NOT "approved" for human use had found its way into human-consumption corn, and on into tacos and other products on grocery shells. Well, great. They found it, they did recalls (and I'm sure many instances of its occurrence weren't found and some of them had already been consumed). But THINK. If it wasn't for human consumption, that meant it was for animal consumption, and the animals consuming them are going to be animals WE consume. IMO if it's not fit for human consumption, it's not fit for the animals we'll be consuming. Like I said: I don't want to be one of their beta-testing consumers.

umm, for the same reason we'd want to consume anything - namely, nutrition?

yup, genes, which are merely inert sequences of DNA, can be digested and the constituent parts can be re-used by our bodies. really, there's nothing sinister going on here.

There are grain surpluses EVERYWHERE. World hunger has nothing whatsoever to do with crop yields.

These (GM) foods are pretty much a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. And the downsides won't be known for decades.

Sometimes, it is just not nice to fool with mother nature.

"WASHINGTON — This year's world grain harvest will increase to a record level but will still fall nearly 60 million tons short of what 6.4 billion people and more than 1 billion livestock will consume, an environmental group predicted Tuesday.

The group and a University of Missouri agricultural economist who agreed the estimate was "in the ballpark" cited usual problems with weather, crop diseases, and insects; new worries from falling water tables, especially in the United States and China; and rising temperatures worldwide. The 2004 harvest is estimated at 1.89 billion tons, the most ever, but consumption is projected at 1.95 billion tons, said Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, an environmental research group."

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-05-05/s_23471.asp

Some surplus, huh?

.... you cannot plan for the weather. Growers only grow what they think they can sell, they'd be out of business otherwise.

We have an overproduction of MOST agricultural commodities in MOST years. There will always be exceptions due to drought, disease, insects or poor planning.

We need frankenfoods like we need more chemicals, that is to say, we don't.

Monsanto has STOLEN other grain crops right out from under farmers all over the world. Farmers in canada who raised thier own seeds, created custom hybrids we litterally wiped out due to Monsanto's gentically aggressive plants. The pollen drifts from Monsanto fields unto uncontaminiated feilds. The GM grain then mixes in with orgininal strains rendering the strain Monsantos because it now contains the patented gene.

Monasant then goes and tests the field and sends the farmer a bill forceing them to licence the seed from Monsanto. Not only the seed but chemicals desgiend to work specifically with the GM plant. They make them resistent to noxious herbicides like Roundup...

Once the corp is contaminated the farmer is forced into expensive license payments to Monsanto for as long as they grow the crop. Monsanto wiped out 200 years of Canola seed development in Canada in a few short years. Now only thier variety exists across North America.

My brother is in Ag business and he basically said Farmers are totally screwed and they know it. They have no ability to refuse GM seeds. From threats, intimidation to turining them away at the Grain Elevators....Make no mistake about it....Monsanto is a ruthless company.

GM/GE crops threaten to make the world's land-owning, hands-on farmers into Wall Street's serfs.

INFERTILE!!

This HORRIBLE company is creating a strain of seeds that -- when cross-pollinated with natural seeds -- renders the natural seeds infertile. And Monsanto's seeds DO cross-pollinate with everything that genetically resembles the food in question.

What does that mean????? It means that Monsanto owns the ONLY seeds to produce FOOD!!!!! It means that NATURE is out of the loop!!! Monsanto's new GM seeds cross-pollinate with natural crops, and make the natural (even organic) crops, NOT PRODUCE ANT MORE SEEDS!! So, where do we get our food from in the future?? ONLY Monsanto. And our government HAS NOT disallowed this...in fact, they are doing the corporate welfare thing with Monsanto.

Think of the repercussions!! If we want "FOOD", ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY Monsanto will be able to produce seeds that "makes" food.

Talk about "privatizing" nature!!!!! What happens when Monsanto charges $30/barrel for wheat? Ok. What happens when Monsanto charges $330,000/barrel for wheat? There will be NO OTHER SEEDS LEFT that will be able to produce wheat! The cross-pollination renders the natural wheat sterile....no new seeds!

Duh!!!

:kick:

truly amazing!!

interestingly, these threads also generally attract those who claim the genetic engineers are hopelessly incompetent.


which is it, i'm now so very very perplexed . . .

Monsanto are so "clever" that they can speed up evolution by a factor
of thousands (at least) but so "stupid" that when their somewhat limited
testing shows up problems, they over-rule the science and stick with
the business plan.

When such abilities are combined with the ruthless streak of greed that
drives most (if not all) multinationals, the result is dangerous.

as described in Post #7, monsanto's technology is not evolution speeded up by a factor of thousands. instead, "traditional" breeding schemes employ a "speeded up" evolutionary approach using chemicals and radiation to increase the rate of mutagenesis. for some reason the 2000 or so crops developed by this technique, despite being completely uncharacterized at a genetic level, do not disturb the anti-gmo crowd.

instead, the more precise methods used by monsanto (and other companies, too btw) are the ones under attack. that's rather puzzling, but given the state of science education perhaps entirely understandable.

in any event, the "terminator" seeds under attack in the post i replied to were originally developed (and since discontinued) in response to anti-gmo'ers who raised fears that the gmo crops would spread through the biome like wild-fire. consequently, plants were developed that could not reproduce, and therefore could not spread - it is just plain silly to suggest that these plants could render all crops infertile - such plants would be strongly selected against (by definition) and therefore could not compete in a survival-of-the-fittest scenario either in the natural environment or in a managed environment (like a farmer's field). that's the point i was alluding to when i was pondering how monsanto miraculously outwitted billions of years of selection AGAINST sterile individuals.

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/terminator.htm

<snip>

"Terminator may be understood as the final step in the transition from a land-based farmer-controlled system to a capital-based business-dominated system. With the Terminator, total control of the seed will have passed from the farm to the mega-corporation. From the development of hybridization in the 1920s to the passage of the seed patenting law in 1970 to Monsanto’s restrictive licensing agreements of the 1990s (which required farmers to give up their right to save, replant, or transfer any seed from their Roundup Ready crops) to the Terminator Technology of the milennium, we have been traveling along the same continuum. Each step made it harder to save seed and took power and control out of the hands of the growers and into the corporations. Even if we can stop the commercialization of the Terminator we still must contend with the economic consequences of transgenics—huge corporations run amok with unrestrained greed, unsafe genetically engineered varieties spreading across the countryside like a wildfire out of control. In just two years genetically engineered field corn has increased from almost none of the crop to over a third. And sweet corn is next!"

This is the scariest stuff going on in the world today, IMHO.

:kick: