The Children Are Our Future

Can we feed the world today without pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified crops?

Knight 99:

No

To expand on that answer, you take away any one of those three components, and the answer is still no.

You take all three of those components away, and you essentially have organic farming.

Organic farming would be better described as "low-yield farming"

I recall Norman Borlaug saying that you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people on an organic diet.

Everything is easier for those who have never known hunger.

Let these kids go hungry.

I don't mean some thirty hour starve-a-thon with monitors giving them grapefruit juice and some indie bands screeching from a stage. I mean drop them off in North Korea and leave them there. If they escape, they'll be damn glad to eat anything- rice, potatoes, meat, genetically modified grains, tree bark- you name it.

John, good answer. The yields of the organic farmers in my community bear out what you say.

Those students and alumni who turned their backs on Mahoney are those Gaia worshipers who think that there are 6 billion too many people on earth.

Osumashi, exactly, or they will pick out the mouse turds with their fingers from the scrapings in the granary corners.

I permitted an associate, from the GTA where else,
to plant a plot with his "heritage seed".

Besides a futile attempt to avoid showing up to hoe weed etc....he discovered his miracle crops were pathetic.....

He's not a bad guy, a bit indoctriated but he does recognize empirical evidence....he was amazed at how clean the GMO corn/soybean field's are....

Now he has gone t'other way...he is convinced that ALL soy products are toxic regardless GMO or not.....

Media indoctrination is effective...perhaps he is just obstreperous....

Take a close look at that picture of those fat asses turning their backs on the man they have glutted off of.

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I remember seeing malnourished 6-7 year old Vietnamese children going through piles of army trash and finding pieces of any food and holding it up like they had just won a gold medal..

These fat turds should have to spend a few months "out in the fields."

It would change their attitudes.

What must be asked is where the students were brainwashed to believe in the evils of modern technology. The answer lies in the brainwashed professors that push their own ideology without ever presenting the other side of the story. The solution would be to eliminate tenure completely. If these students represent the future, their education is incomplete unless all the facts are presented and far too many professors shove their own views and opinions down the students throats.

What I've never figured out from my study of the anti-technology moonbats is what is the magic temporal interval for genetic manipulation of a plant species where it's OK to plant it and when it become "Frankenfood".

We've been manipulating the genetic makeup of crops since we first went from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural lifestyle. Similarly, we've performed similar genetic manipulation on domesticated animal species. So, if Monsanto waited 50-100 years before it brought out its genetically modified crops would that be OK? Clearly the ability to directly manipulate plant genes instead of relying on the propagation of spontaneous mutations seems to stick in the moonbats craw.

The only issue I have with genetically modified seeds is companies claiming they can patent them. This, to me, is an abuse of the patent process as plants produce seeds to make more plants in the future. The only genetically modified foods I'm against are those which produce sterile offspring as these threaten starvation in a SHTF scenario and is the primary reason that I use "heritage seed" in my garden. Unlike sasquatch's experience, my "heritage seed" tomatoes do quite well and it's a hell of a lot cheaper growing them instead of paying $3-5/lb for the same varieties from a moonbat "organic" gardener. I'm all for open-source genetically modified plants.

Maybe the chicoms have some good ideas when it comes to dealing with moonbats and I'd like to see what the anti-Monsanto protesters think of genetically modified insect resistant seeds after they've been forced to spend the summer months picking off insects by hand from plants in a farmers field while their whip-wielding overseers ensure that the pest reduction strategy is carried out at the appropriate pace.

I am NOT an anti-tech moonbat ( at least I don't think so) Monsanto and big agriculture could be a huge PROBLEM. The GMS that are insect resistant are thought to be part of the bee death issue. Now you might not think that is important but no bees is a somewhat sticky problem for humanity.

For the farmer, twice as much of nothing is still nothing. If it were really about feeding the hungry there wouldn't be so many parasites between them and us.

A barrel of oil and a bushel of wheat were the same price in the early '70s.

Double production of something nobody wants to pay for, makes sense...

"Organic farming would be better described as "low-yield farming""

AKA . . . "grown in pig-poo"

Line up all these self-righteous, never-worked-a-day-in-their-lives-but-are-ready-to-tell-everyone-else-they're-doing-it-wrong overly spoiled children, takeaway all their electronics, dress them in 'homespun' cloth, hand them a wooden plow, point them at an empty field, give them a bag of 'unmodified in any way' seed and tell them to get cracking or starve...and they'd certainly starve...without any way to 'tweet' what they're doing they'd never bother scratching the first furrow...that and not one of them would actually pull the plow, they have 'degrees' and that's beneath them.

Double production of something nobody wants to pay for, makes sense...

I could add, and pay somebody royalties to do it. Makes even more sense...

Anti-human terrorists strike in Britain.

"Norman Borlaug was forced to spend his dying years campaigning to protect agricultural innovations like GM from being derailed by activists who opposed all genetic engineering for ideological reasons, or were simply against modern biotechnology on principle. As Borlaug warned in 2004, success for the anti-GM lobby could be catastrophic: “If the naysayers do manage to stop agricultural biotechnology, they might actually precipitate the famines and the crisis of global biodiversity they have been predicting for nearly 40 years.”

"Still, constant attacks by a tiny, ideologically motivated minority on work which could benefit the whole of humanity raise serious questions. Can a small, thuggish "action group" take a unilateral decision to suppress the advance of knowledge which might benefit everyone?"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/geneticmodification/9284762/People-will-starve-to-death-because-of-anti-GM-zealotry.html

Considering the foreign grown garbage we see in supermarkets outside the small 3 month growing season here, it's hard to imagine Canada as capable of feeding ourselves let alone the world.

There's no reason we could not enjoy safe home grown produce year long with leading edge green house tech - but lefty carbon taxing has killed that productivity.

In the future it won't be just worrying about how much Monsanto GMO corn or wheat (which has soaked up 5 times the amount of pestacide normal crops do), we will have to worry about - lefty being in charge of our food supply will be the worry. That prospect looms as a greater threat than any GMO 3rd world food we may be exposed to. Remember Syalin said food is a weapon - the sustainability commies belive that 100%.

The leftards give the impression that if some pharmaceutical company discovered a cure for cancer they would protest on behalf of all the oncologists who lost their jobs. Idiots...

Nonsense, GM hasn't done anything beyond make it possible to keep farming on a subsistence level.

Absent GM, food might actually be worth something.

When city friends go on and on about GM foods, I always point out that because the genetic material is in the meal and that has been removed, it is impossible to tell the difference between GM oil and non-GM oil. No effect. The topic invariably comes up again and the talking points remain exactly the same. Evil Monsanto blah blah blah

ever since the first farmer decided to only keep seeds from the best plants to sow the next season and ever since strains were crossbred starting back in pre-history, we've had GM food...carrots are supposed to be tiny and purple, potatoes are really the size of ping pong balls and all the colours of the rainbow...they were 'genetically modified' to look like what we have today...but you can't tell a fully indoctrinated 'college graduate' that...they'd rather pay double the price for the worst looking, most blemished, covered in black spots, half-rotten 'organic' produce that is in all likelihood, just the worst looking stuff that came in on all the pallets in the warehouse just making one last stop on the way to the garbage bin in hopes it'll sell..at a premium. There's a name for 'organic food'...it's 'inferior'.

There are significant groups of young adults wanting to support a cause. That's a good thing. Montreal is an example. University students are being organized and led to confront a corrupt, weak governement.

Unfortunately the smart leaders are not concerned about the economic consequences of their actions. They'll never really be held responsible.

L >

"University students are being organized and led to confront a corrupt, weak government."

Not really, organized true, but the real students are trying to attend class and learn something. The life dropouts hoping for degrees in uselessness are looking for a free ride in life; if they don’t get it they will create anarchy.

A weak government? Are they looking for a strong government like China's to fight with?

Bemused @ 11:31, exactly and well said. Genetic modification has been happening since Adam and Eve. The left has managed to push an agenda of hate toward Monsanto to the point that this anti-GM hatred has developed a life of its own.

It is amazing what propaganda and brainwashing will accomplish.

ever since the first farmer decided to only keep seeds from the best plants to sow the next season and ever since strains were crossbred starting back in pre-history, we've had GM food..

Misdirection. Kinda doubt nature would insert a gene from bacteria into a seed.

There is a difference between creating a Hybrid naturally though a selective breeding process than from Genetically Modified and Genetically Engineered foods.

Breeding Hybrids has been around for thousands of years, laboratory altered genetic modification not so much.

Insecticide Bt-Corn is modified to produce a poison to kill insects, if you like eating insect poison this isn’t a problem.

I am very sure that the science behind insecticide and sterile seeds and what not is very sound. It does not look anything like the old tobacco scientists and global warming science. Scientists would never f**k with our food for mere money or ideology.

The Grey Lady >

No kidding.

What gets me is the mental dysfunction with not labeling products as GMO so that consumers can have a choice.

I get why the producers and governments fight the "need to know", I just don't get why so many sheeple aren’t concerned at all about what they are being fed. I believe you have a right to stick whatever you want up your veins or in your bodies system, but I also believe everyone else should be informed and have the right to choose as well.

They lie to us, why the useless masses can’t get this through their heads is a wonder.

Lots of people have died from eating organic foods.

Genetically enhanced food? None. Not even a stomach ache.

ron in kelowna >

That’s a little like saying lots of people die from cigarettes, but no one has ever died from Marijuana, whatever it is a moot argument. People can choose to smoke or not smoke, and tobacco companies are required to label their products. Food on the other hand is a necessity for life.

Regardless, my point was about labeling and giving people a choice to choose what they buy and eat. I could give a rat’s @ss if people want to do heroin or jump off a building if they want too. I don’t see why people are forced to buy and eat what they are told to without alternatives. This would include city drinking water laced with a poison to prevent cavities in people unwilling to brush their teeth.

If people want fluoride poisons in their drinking water they should go buy it and add it themselves. Governments should label GMO foods to allow people who prefer not to eat them to select something else. I could care less what people do to themselves, most are morons, but we should have an informed choice about it.

Genetically modified food --- Bad

Genetically modified beauty queen --- Good

I am confused.

Some of you will be happy to know that there is a whole lot of cleaning going on down on the farm keeping planters/drills, trucks, bins and combines free of GMO grains, when switching between GMO and non-GMO during planting, harvesting and transporting crops.
For the most part premiums are paid on non-GMO crops and any GMO "contamination" in them you lose the premium...and for the most part GMO crops go for livestock feed or ethanol production and aren't in your Doritos.

ron in kelowna, thanks for remembering that, as, wasn't it about two years ago that a number of people died in California and elsewhere from food poisoning and an investigation traced the contamination back to organically grown produce and directly to these farms?

Fluoride was originally put into the drinking water in the cities in the early 1900s to kill water contamination which was contributing to the high number of child deaths. This was the same reason milk was pasteurized. The death rates for young children declined drastically.

BTW, if there is a geneticist in the crowd they can correct me or elaborate, but a kernel of normal wheat has four known carcinogens in it.

Even oxygen is a corrosive element and we can not live without it.

That aught to open things up a bit. :-)

well, I for one, welcome our engineered pomes...this alone should a fortune in thrown out food...sure, a sprinkle of lemon juice helps a lot on a cut apple, but that doesn't happen in the stores so the apples with brown spots end up going into the 'organic' bin and then the garbage bin if the hippies don't buy them at inflated prices.

Apples that won't go brown coming soon?
By QMI Agency

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2012/05/23/19790511.htm

Apples that won’t go brown could be could be planted in Canada as early as 2014.

Canadian biotech company Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc. has applied to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for permission to grow and market its ‘arctic granny’ and ‘arctic golden’ apples.

The genetically engineered fruit, initially developed in Australia, was created with its gene responsible for enzymatic browning turned off, or “silenced.”

There are other varieties of apples, such as empires, that keep their white flesh even when exposed for several hours, but the arctics are completely non-browning, and will remain white for several days, even weeks.

Okanagan Specialty Fruits hopes to complete the approval process by this summer in Canada and the United States so it can begin planting its trees next year.

The company said test fruit could be expected the year after.

“Our focus right now is working with the industry to ... allay their concerns,” said Okanagan’s founder and grower, Neal Carter.

He said the benefits of an all-white, all-the-time apple are sure to outweigh the concerns of the public about genetically modified fruit.

Growers, for instance, will be able to sell more apples because they won’t be throwing out bruised and brown fruit. That means packers will get more apples at higher grades. And fresh-cut processors won’t have to chemically treat the fruit, and juice processors will get clearer juice.

The arctic apple “has all the GM baggage,” said Carter, but “at the end of the day, it’s just a very nice apple that doesn’t go brown.”

All you organic consumers out there - how do you know for sure that organic produce has been produced in an organic way? I highly doubt it has. Did you ever check it out? How would you ever know it is legitly organic? By relying on some kind of certification process?

http://www.isitorganic.ca/

Speaking of "organic" apples in the Okanagan - I am eating one as I type, heh.

http://www.castanet.net/news/Needlepoint-Class-Chuck-Poulsen/59748/The-organic-scam

ron in kelowna >

“How would you ever know it is legitly organic?”

You don’t, that is the problem, the same goes for farmed fish verses wild. That shouldn’t exclude labeling of GMO products and allowing people to choose what they eat, like raw milk etcetera. The government has no business in telling us what we can or cannot grow and eat; they do have an obligation to let us know what they are trying to sell or feed us themselves like, food, water, medications, vaccines, whatever.

It’s our Nation and our Health; they work for us not the corporate monopolies driving small farmers and businesses out of business like they have been doing wholesale.

They feed us crap for profits and try to hide that fact by not giving us a choice in the matter. No one is suggesting that you or anyone else should be unable to poison yourself to your heart’s content – It’s simply not right that those who choose not to are forced to eat what’s handed to them without a proper choice, like not labeling GMO products, or adding fluoride to public water.

If GMO’s were labelled you could seek them out while others choose to avoid them. If public water was fluoride free you could personally go purchase bags of fluoride and add it to your own water. That is the fair and logical way to do it.

That is the fair and logical way to do it.

Of course it is, but the leftists aren't happy unless they can enforce uniformity.

My hat's off to those who successfully grow heritage strains, particularly tomato strains. I think in ideal climates, the heritage strains, and all others, for that matter, produce to beat the band.

Where I live, climate is not ideal, and I find Burpee tomato hybrids beat the tail off of every heritage tomato I've found. ( Btw, locally, a virus - TYLC virus - is a bane to tomato growers, and only hybrids bred to tolerate the virus produce at anything close to acceptable rates. ). TYLC virus has been found in most tomato growing regions of the world.

Is there any laboratory analysis that can distinguish RoundUp ready soybean - or Bt producing corn from the fruit of non-GMO varities?

I recall that milk from bST treated cows was the Franken food hysteria of a few years ago, and then it was found that milk from bST treated cows was indistinguishable from non-bST cows in the laboratory.

[ No one epitomizes the huge difference between rural organic-farming and urban organic-activism better than George Soros.

Chapter 2 of my book, Is It Organic? outlines the many organizations funded by Soros which claim to stand up for small, family organic farmers but which all stand idly by while over 80% of the certified organic food sold in the United States and Canada is imported from places like China, Mexico and Brazil.

The worst scam is when farmers are subsidized for converting to organic production, but every last cent they receive from your tax dollars passes through their hands and goes right into the coffers of urban organic activists whose only goal is to destroy the existing system, not foster the gradual growth of a healthy, domestic alternative system.] Mischa Popoff

http://www.isitorganic.ca/still_no_legal_action_from_cornucopia/cornucopia_threatens_legal_action

Have you ever come across any proof of a problem with GMOs? First hand experience? Stomach ache? Or is it all just a perceived problem? Suzuki says it is so it must be so?

All plants are GMOs - aka evolution. Some of the worst toxins known are the result of genetic modification, evolution of viruses, fungii, parasites, ect. Fusarium, ergot, blackleg. Which is better - continue to control them with chemicals (which is also safe) or genetically enhance our food crops to help the plants fend off the naturally occurring poisons without chemicals? Toxic, unhealthy weeds also.

Golden Rice - google it, the ultimate in GMO fear mongering.

Spot on comments Ron in Kelowna!

small c conservative asked:
Is there any laboratory analysis that can distinguish RoundUp ready soybean - or Bt producing corn from the fruit of non-GMO varities?

When it comes to soybeans delivered at an elevator all they do is shine a blue light (ultra-violet?)on them and the Roundup beans show up with the light...I'm not sure about corn but I think it does the same...

ron in Kelowna >

I hear what your say’n, although there is expert opinion on either side of the safety issue of GMO’s.

Regardless I’m still baffled as to why anyone would disagree with labeling GMO products identifying them as such, what is the problem with labeling?

As stated earlier, I’m no leftist eco-greeny but I have an issue with not having a choice in knowing what is in the products I’m sold for consumption. Labelling products GMO is a simple thing to do yet the governments and producers fight it tooth and nail.

Of course we do label tobacco products these days, after years of experts including doctors telling us how safe smoking was via advertisements. A side issue, but we are continually told to shut up and eat GMO foods because it’s safe and the right to choose will not be offered. That’s BS.

ron in kelowna >

“How would you ever know it is legitly organic?”

Exactly, I know of a field that had waste from an overflowing sewage lagoon pumped on it during the winter a few years ago, because the main lines were frozen. No doubt the organic oats from that field tasted well and nobody even noticed the byproducts that get flushed down some people's toilets.

Or, the stuff that my brother-in-law saw being put on the organic grapes in Chile. Hope the monkeys were drinking straight water. He is a fruit producer and wholesale shipper in Ontario and was on a fact finding tour. Needless to say he was a little stunned by this.

He also had similar observations in China, but I forget specifics.

All is not what it always says on the label.

That being said, I personally have no problem with labeling. However it might not be wise in this climate of outright lies coming from those radically opposed to GMO foods.

Thanks, Ken.

Please see here:

"To North Korean defectors, it is clear that the civilian starvation is a direct result of the decision to prioritize the military under the military-first policy and the subsequent obligation on the part of cooperative farms to provide rice for soldiers, coupled to controls covering trading activities by farm employees."

http://freekorea.us/2012/05/23/in-south-hwanghae-echoes-of-the-holodomor/

Tell me, when will this "brave" resisters do something about this?

Knight 99
If, even under the strictest lab conditions, you can't discern the difference between cooking oil made from GM Canola and cooking oil made from non-GM Canola; you must see why farmers and the players in this industry are against mandatory labeling of food containing GM material. With mandatory labeling any food prepared with cooking oil would be required to be labeled GM. It would be a complete nightmare. Where would you start and where would you stop? In Europe the only route open to anti-GM sentiment was a total ban on GM food. Europe is now rethinking that whole unscientific exercise as a costly mistake.

"Labelling products GMO is a simple thing to do yet the governments and producers fight it tooth and nail."
The reason we fight it is because it is impossible to discern the difference between cooking oil made from GM canola and cooking oil made from non-GM canola. Do you see the moral implications under mandatory labeling? Out of necessity, any product made with cooking oil would have to be labeled "contains GM". Where would labeling start and where would it end? If consumers have concerns about GM food the only solution is a complete ban as Europe has done. They are now rethinking that unscientific approach.

Sorry about the extra posts.

I use pressed olive oil. No doubt a lot of other consumers do as well. Never a good idea to try to force your product on the buyer under the guise of a natural product. Makes it look like you have something to hide.

Glengarrian - I believe blue fluorescence in corn indicates aflatoxin contamination, and UV testing is a standard method for an initial assessment of a corn sample for aflatoxin.

Is this blue fluorescence test used by the elevator operator you mention ( to detect GM soybeans )scientifically based, or was it dreamed up by an elevator operator?