monsanto seed licensing in Iraq is sharecropping.

[sithknight]

I just wanted to say that.

[havocmom]

1. good point

The real trouble with genetically altered foods: The damned patent! It ensures farmers will always be in debt. Big corporations DO NOT like self sufficiency.

Woe be onto anyone who has a field near a road where passes patented grain. Onto their fields will be sown the volunteer grain of the beast. The harvest will bring the plague of lawyers, feeding like locust upon the resources of the common man of the land until he dwelleth in eternal bondage.

[Erika]

2. Bush's Corporatism

Redistribution of the global wealth from the citizens to corporations, all handled, sealed, and delivered by the fascist Bush administration.

[sithknight]

3. Terminator gene

Many Monsanto crops are genetically enginered to produce food, but no seed. The idea being that they sell the farmer the seed for a given season, but the farmer is incapable of using his crop to produce seed for the next season. Thus they are dependant on Monsanto for food the next year.

Essentially, Monsanto has taken the "disposable product" marketing scheme and applied it to the life cycle of a plant crop. Sharecropping, addiction, economic slavery; it's fucking evil on a staggering scale.

[havocmom]

4. Ah, in the case of grains, like say wheat, the food is the seed

and there are already farmers who have lost the farm because grain has a tendency to blow off trucks and onto the ground. It sprouts and we call that 'volunteers' around here.

Patented grains do get into fields where it wasn't planted. Some farmers, working on crops that can be certified organic, REALLY don't appreciated patented grains getting into their fields.

There is also a problem with cross pollination. A field of patented grain close to other fields = trouble for farmers. Some cross pollination can and does occur. Then the companies holding the patents on the altered grain can come in, show their patented DNA in the grain and sue the farmers for patent violation. Has happened in Canada and US. Am sure it will (if it hasn't already) happened in other countries.

Part of the patented grain program it to build a better plant so they can use more weed killer/bug juice in fields. That may or may not be ok, depending on how fond you are of chemicals on your cereal. While I am pragmatic enough to know that crop yields improve when pests and competing plant species (weeds) are eliminated, I am not convinced all manner of chemical spraying is good for the environment nor for the kids who eat the cereal.

This tendency of companies holding patents on seeds/grains to sue farmers would indicate that their motives are not 100% good. Sure, they want to build a better mouse trap and make a profit, but they also stand to make a much bigger profit selling to huge corporate farms. When they sue the little guys, too often, that land gets involved in the settlement. So what happens in an area where there is cross contamination with modified, patented crops and ALL the farmers get sued?

If you find it annoying that mega-corporations are in control of the gas pumps, think how much fun it will be when they are in control of your stomach! Yeah, it IS part of the 'ownership society'! They intend to own the means of sustenance/survival and we get to pay their price. How do you think that will work out?

[AP]

5. It's funny how GM could be used to produce more, cheaper food

but it's being used to produce more EXPENSIVE food by bringing an end to reproduction and by requiring farmers to purchase tied products (like an insecticide which works only with the GM plant).

[htuttle]

6. That's the Glory of Capitalism

The meanest, most deceitful, most selfish person wins.



Our economic system is "selecting for assholes", so to speak.

[pdxmike]

7. linkety-link please eom

[marcologico]

8. The ultimate irony: Iraq becomes the next Mexico, churning out cheap GM

soybeans and $3 WalMart shoes, LMAO.

Ain't gonna happen though.