In article , "Sue & Bob Hobden"
wrote:

"Tim wrote in message
: Bob wrote:

I also think GM food has great potential. For example, currently I suffer
from the effects of many natural pesticides our food plants employ - the
powerful acids in spinach - the phytoestrogens in legumes - and so on.

Personally I can't wait for scientisits to genetically engineer some
of the anti-nutrients out of the vegetables I eat - and use mechanical
barriers - instead of toxic poisons - to prevent pests.

You suffer from natural pesticides AND you want GM foods. I think you aught
to study what genes they are transposing as a lot of them are those very
"natural" pesticides you dislike.
GM Cotton has a gene from a Bacteria that attacks and eats caterpillars, so
will you be able to wear Indian cotton in future, you can't wash it out,
it's in the DNA.

Did you hear about the Starlink corn fiasco, pollen has crossed over the
inadequate barriers into "Organic" corn in fields that have been organic for
10 to 15 years thus polluting the environment. Starlink corn is officially
unfit for human consumption!!!
That is also something that has been levelled at Monsanto and others,
deliberate polluting of non-GM crops so eventually we can no longer make a
choice, all crops are GM polluted anyway. Are these trials disasters
accidents? These people are experts and must know exactly what they are
doing.( Don't they?)

I agree it has some potential for good, but it also has a great potential
for environmental harm, indeed, disaster, and for the domination of our seed
supply by a few.
The fact that our legislators seem to pass laws to help this domination
leads me to be suspicious of their motives. One firm being allowed to Patent
the food chain is crazy.

Did you hear about Monsanto taking a farmer to court because his crops had
been contaminated by their trials and their lorries carrying the their seed
away. They accused him of stealing their product/research and they won!!!
How arse about face is that.

One thing to bare in mind over the idea of "sterile" seed, the REAL reason
it is "sterile" is so farmers who buy the seed cannot save back a
percentage of the resulting crop for future plantings. It "locks farmers
in" as Monsanto serfs, & stops the ages-old practice of saving seed for
new crops insuring there will never again be any such thing as independent
farmers. The "kindness" of transgenic seed donations to impoversished
countries has been turned down by several poor countries, as they know the
real intent is to interupt the independent capacity to generate crops &
seeds for future crops simultaneously. Insofar as polluting organics is
"intentional" on Monsanto's part, I don't know, but it IS their intent to
stop as much organic farming as they can. To do this, they sue organic
farmers left & right, putting them out of business, always on the thinnest
pretexts, & of course there's the "tax write off" gambit of giving sterile
seed to third-world countries with the underlying purpose of stopping
their ability to generate seed independent of Monsanto.

As long as the crop cannot easily be carried over to a new generation
without having to buy more crop seed from the source, the transgenicists
don't seriously care all that much how much it pollinates into the wild or
into neighboring crops. And a number of studies have shown a great many
"sterile" crops -- definitely are only sterile enough to enslave farmers
to Monsanto, but fertile enough to pass on such "special" traits as
herbicide-resistance to weeds, & most assuredly to contaminate organic
produce & weaken pure seed crops for future plantings ("coincidentally"
increasing future reliance on Monsanto for crop seed).

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/