Posted on 05/30/2013 8:00:45 PM PDT by Ron C.
Japan, the largest market for U.S. wheat exports, suspended imports from the United States and canceled a major purchase of white wheat on Thursday after the recent discovery of unapproved genetically modified wheat in an 80-acre field in Oregon.
How the altered crop made its way to the Oregon field remains a mystery. The strain was developed by Monsanto to make wheat resistant to the company’s own industry-leading weed killer. Monsanto tested the type of altered seed in more than a dozen states, including Oregon, between 1994 and 2005, but it was never approved for commercial use.
Yet the Agriculture Department reported that recent tests identified the strain after an Oregon farmer trying to clear a field sprayed Monsanto’s herbicide, Roundup, and found that the wheat could not be killed.
The report rattled U.S. wheat markets. In addition to Japan’s action, the European Union, which imports more than 1 million tons of U.S. wheat a year, said that it was following developments “to ensure E.U. zero-tolerance policy is implemented.” It asked Monsanto to help detection efforts in Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That is not exactly correct. Going from memory. Monsanto owns the copyright, patent to the DNA of the seeds it develops. If by chance that DNA gets into a farmers field (not at all unlikely) then Monsanto sues the farmer for copyright/patent infringement. The above can easily happen if a non GMO crop is in close proximity to a GMO crop. So the farmer thru not fault of his own is forced to pay Monsanto even tho he planted his own seeds saved from a previous non GMO crop.
Probably a lot more than you "most" about grammar.
The main reason why the Republican establishment HATES the Tea Party as much as the democrats is because bth the Republican Establishment and the Democrat Establishment are in the back pockets of these crony capitalistic giant international corporations.
The Tea Party is a threat to their own corporate power structure. They are all in bed together.
There are also non gmo seed protection laws out there. I guess so that the developer of a variety gets a return on their investment.
For the varieties that are hybrids, there is another reason not to plant saved seed from that production. The new generation will mostly revert back to the original parents’ characteristics and the resulting yield usually ends up in the dumpster.
For some varieties that are not hybrids, there are areas that allow us to replant that variety only for our own use.
Phfftt..... page reloading error.... testing
That's because the adjuvants are the likely culprit in Seralini's study, not glyphosate itself. If you want to ban all such chemicals, ban detergents.
And what do you know but, Seralini poured those concentrations directly on cells, which has NOTHING to do with true real-world dosages.
Roundup products contain an active ingredient (glyphosate) which has extremely low mammalian toxicity as well as a surfactant (detergent) to help penetrate the waxy plant cuticle. It thus comes as no surprise that other components are more toxic to animals than glyphosate- so are table salt, aspirin, and caffeine. All soaps and detergents dissolve fats- that is what makes them work. Naked cells in the bottom of a petri dish are protected only by the cell membrane- made of fats- and guess what- if you put detergent on them, they don't do so well. Monsanto has replicated Seralini's work with a bit more care and variety of materials. While Seralini measures a variety of outcomes (like hormone production) in cell lines chosen more for political value than scientific merit, the bottom line is that detergents disrupt cellular energy production by destroying membrane integrity.
The reality check here is that we all use soaps and detergents all the time- hair shampoo, liquid soaps, laundry detergents, diswashing soaps, etc. Exposure estimates indicate that LESS THAN 1% OF SURFACTANT EXPOSURE COMES FROM PESTICIDE RESIDUES- all the rest of it you are pouring on your dishes, in your washing machine, and over the top of your babies.
Not a problem?? Not a surprise- last I looked you were probably NOT a collection of naked cells living at the bottom of a petri dish and waiting for Dr. Seralini to pour on the Roundup. All those soaps, detergents, and sanitizers are, among other uses, INTENDED to kill those nasty, unprotected lower organisms that thrive on household surfaces!!
Green groups have been funding research to prove that for thirty years. There have been hundreds of studies on glyphosate and it remains among the most benign herbicides available. Don't think those groups don't have the money to fund such work. You can get hysterical about detergent all you want, but you'll have to come up with a list of alternatives I don't think you have, unless you're looking to induce global disease and starvation.
Interesting, comparing food to tobacco. My grandfather quit smoking cold turkey in the 1930s because of the adverse health effects which were well known at the time.
Here is a tip—you and all of your relatives are consuming “gmos” whether you know it or not. Obesity is the #1 health issue, not consuming non-heirloom food.
Notice how obesity has skyrocketed since the introduction of GMO foods?
And we are NOT consuming them. I assure you. I have a 1.5 acre garden and grow most of our food. We eat NO processed food or food with an ‘ingredients’ label. We do NOT eat out, ever. I prepare EVERYTHING we eat from scratch. Using mostly stuff we’ve grown. We cook with olive oil and coconut oil. No soy, canola, corn or ‘sugar’ is allowed in the house. The kids meat is only organic and usually locally produced by someone I know personally. Hubby and I use the ‘natural’ meat that wasn’t fed antibiotics until insensibility.
In short, we eat just exactly how my great grandmother ate and fed my grandmother when she was growing up. Nobody fed their kids fast food. There WAS no fast food. Storebought cookies were for rich people. If you got cookies, mother made them from a recipe with ingredients. Mom had never heard of ‘potassium sorbate’ or monosodium glutamate or FD&C red 40. Somehow the kids in that generation managed to grow up mostly healthy and fight the biggest enemy that faced mankind up to that point. They WERE the greatest generation.
And for the record, when my grandmother visited OUR house and saw the prepackaged cookies in the cabinet she chided my mother in no uncertain terms that the kids did NOT need all the ‘other’ crap in the ‘convenience’ foods.
YOU compared food to tobacco. I compared the ‘scientific consensus’ surrounding the safety of something insufficiently tested prior to widespread consumption. Anyone spouting off about the health effects of cigarettes in the 30’s was written off as a wackjob. Just like you’re writing off those of us who avoid GMO’s. Well into the 1950’s MD’s were recommending smoking for weight loss. That’s how my own grandmother got hooked. She had a baby and wanted to lose an extra 10lbs. My silly grandmother. Believing a trained medical professional actually knew what he was talking about!
If you feel ‘safe’ eating food saturated with a chemical that wasn’t found in the human food chain prior to its introduction and only tested for 90days be my guest!
I repeat. If you think they’re so safe, long term, even though YOU are the long term study then YOU eat them. And feed them to you kids and grandkids. Mangia mangia!
That is evil. And I agree; it’s unbelievable.
I’m more interested in whether glyphosphate or the ‘inactive’ ingredients interact with the human microbiome. Because, as it turns out, that’s pretty much the whole ball of wax wrt human health. Lack of a human metabolic pathway using glyhphosphate/etc might be irrelevant wrt its overall health effects.
I’m not aware of any studies on the effects of glyphosphate or the ‘inactive ingredients’ on the microbiome.
Better not spray Roundup anywhere remotely close to potatoes.
Yeah, I’m sure it’s coming.
LOL
One of the other posters informed me that pollination of this sort is accomplished by the wind, not bees.
Monsanto may have a bigger target than they thought.
I buy and sell the stock...I know what they make as I read their financials...They have had a rough time over the past few years, are doing better now, but it’s up and down for them.
As to size, Monsanto is a conglomerate so sure, they have a lot of assets. But so do 100s of others and in terms of value they are dwarfed by Apple.
They have to fight like hell with competition in all of their business segments. You act like they are something special! They are not! They have simply been around for a long time and I have watched them struggle at times to keep their heads above water just like any company.
Right now they are trading at 101 bucks per share...They went as low as 45 dollars only two years ago. They have yet to recover fully to their 145 dollar highs when the markets crashed in 2008.
Like I said, they are nothing special.
Good luck to you Texas Fossil. Thank you for the comments.
Well I know a bit now of what the difference is. I suspect they are likely hybrids, just as you mentioned. But I am going to look further on my next visit. Thank you for responding.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0055387
I’d be happy with one of those types of studies. Not too much to ask considering this stuff is in pretty much all food found at the grocery store these days.
And, as it turns out, the BPA our government still tells us is safe. Might not be.
Not that anybody on this thread cares, but wheat is self pollinating; it requires neither bees nor wind.
Which, like corn, doesn’t mean that bees aren’t there.
Corn doesn’t require anything but wind to pollinate. But I double dog dare you to visit my corn patch in mid morning during tasseling. Bonus points if you have a bee sting allergy. It looks like a hitchcock movie. Only with bees.
Tomatoes and peppers don’t need bees either. My tomatoes and peppers both are visited regularly by bees.
YMMV.
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