Vermont gmo label law starts today
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Author Topic: Vermont gmo label law starts today  (Read 3898 times)
ingemann
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« Reply #100 on: July 11, 2016, 05:54:09 PM »

Ingemann, what do you make of the independent findings (I believe the few studies in question were independent) that some GMO technologies allow for the use of less harsh pesticides?  And what specific concerns do you have about GMOs and biodiversity that don't apply to conventional technologies?  Your response that "pesticides don't work that way" earlier kind of confuses me.  A lot of your criticisms don't seem particularly unique to GMOs.

You're fully correct that the criticism aren't unique to GMO, it's a general problem we see with modern agriculture. But GMO makes the problems I mention worse. While most western farmers buy seeds, they have a broad choice of seed companies, which means that there are more genetic diversity in the the crop between farm to farm, limiting the risk of an epidemic hitting the crop. GMO crops are geared toward specific pesticides, which mean the crop are owned by a single company and have even less genetic diversity than standard crop.

But when I mentioned western farmers, it also show one of the problems with bringing GMO to the undeveloped world, their farmers usual don't buy the seeds, but keep some from last year's harvest. This mean that their crop are more diverse and more robust against epidemics. But they are often sold GMO as some kind of miracle crop, and they usual lack the equitment and money, which western farmers have, which enable them to deal with monoculture crops.

Do I think that we could introduce beneficial GMOs; yes I do, but I don't believe that will happen unless states or NGO develop them instead of large agrocorps.

It's one of my point pesticide resistance makes the most sense from a economic POV (from corporation). Farmers with good soil are richer and can pay more, they can afford pesticides and pay for expensive GMO crop. Farmers whose soil often suffer from drought and salination on the other hand can't afford expensive GMO crop. Which is why pesticide resistance is the main choice for modification of the crops.
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Alcon
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« Reply #101 on: July 11, 2016, 08:03:43 PM »
« Edited: July 11, 2016, 08:09:09 PM by Alcon »

You're fully correct that the criticism aren't unique to GMO, it's a general problem we see with modern agriculture. But GMO makes the problems I mention worse. While most western farmers buy seeds, they have a broad choice of seed companies, which means that there are more genetic diversity in the the crop between farm to farm, limiting the risk of an epidemic hitting the crop. GMO crops are geared toward specific pesticides, which mean the crop are owned by a single company and have even less genetic diversity than standard crop.

But when I mentioned western farmers, it also show one of the problems with bringing GMO to the undeveloped world, their farmers usual don't buy the seeds, but keep some from last year's harvest. This mean that their crop are more diverse and more robust against epidemics. But they are often sold GMO as some kind of miracle crop, and they usual lack the equitment and money, which western farmers have, which enable them to deal with monoculture crops.

Do I think that we could introduce beneficial GMOs; yes I do, but I don't believe that will happen unless states or NGO develop them instead of large agrocorps.

OK....I've attempted to research this, and I'm running up against frustratingly sketchy web sites -- ones that, even when engaging in the pretense of being scientific, do not seem trustworthy to me (a lot of them use the word "natural" like its reader should assume that it's an intrinsic good).  Unfortunately, that's making it really difficult to validate your concern.

If I understand correctly, you're arguing that a less diverse marketplace for GMO seeds means less genetic diversity.  You seem to be echoing the claims that a few companies own upwards of 80% of the market share for GMO seeds, higher than with conventional agriculture.  However, from what I can tell, this is only true if you attribute any seed that contains Monsanto-licensed traits, even if the seed is engineered primarily by another company.  Does merely including the licensed trait of a company introduce monoculture problems?  I can't find any cites to support this idea, or even attempts to cite this claim.  Have you found a citation that does not come from Internet Crazytown?

It also seems kind of ridiculous to argue this justifies GMO labeling when monoculture has become a massive problem well before GMO technology was introduced.  You're arguing we should label GMOs to give consumers (who have no idea what monoculture is) a shortcut to prevent a problem that we've been effectively ignoring for generations?  It's a label that's standing in as a proxy label for a problem the label-readers won't even be aware of!  It's like labeling fruit "NOTICE: ORIGINATES FROM MEXICAN FARMS" because Mexican farms are 25% more likely to be use environmentally harsh crop rotation schedules.  Absolutely no one is going to get the take-away, and the hit to Mexican farms would do almost nothing to address the underlying problem besides hurting farms somewhat more likely to exhibit it.  And consumers would mostly get the take-away, "man, there must be something dangerous about food from Mexican farms."

It's one of my point pesticide resistance makes the most sense from a economic POV (from corporation). Farmers with good soil are richer and can pay more, they can afford pesticides and pay for expensive GMO crop. Farmers whose soil often suffer from drought and salination on the other hand can't afford expensive GMO crop. Which is why pesticide resistance is the main choice for modification of the crops.

That doesn't really answer my question, though.  I asked you what you make of the mixed findings that pesticide-resistant crops allow for the use of less harsh pesticides.  Your response that "pesticides don't work that way" makes me unclear on whether you're aware of this concept, which is weird because you otherwise seem to have read a lot (unless your reading has mostly been in Internet Crazytown).
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Mehmentum
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« Reply #102 on: July 12, 2016, 09:50:47 PM »

It is so disheartening to see anti-science fear-mongering on the left as well as the right.  This measure will only serve to increase paranoia about GMO food.
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Mehmentum
Icefire9
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« Reply #103 on: July 13, 2016, 10:21:02 AM »

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