In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Billy wrote:

It is sufficient to cross pollinate existing cultivars with GMO pollen,
and it is destroyed. Once Monsanto's gene is in the cultivar, it belongs
to Monsanto.

This is a point where current law needs to catch up but it's not an
easily resolved issue.

On the one hand seed stock from Monsanto can be sold with the caveat
that the plants be harvested before they bloom. And reasonable efforts
can be made to keep cross polination from happening.

On the other hand if a farmer took no action to encourage pollination
bees will be bees and it happens.

Apple patents can be enforced because apple trees don't breed true. The
only way to get a specific cultivar is to graft a branch from an
existing tree. The more widely pollen spreads the less enforcible a
patent is. The problem is this makes the investment by Monsanto less
profitable so they have less incentive to make the next development in
crop changes.

"Poor Mexico - so far from God and so close to the United States!"
- Porfirio Diaz

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...24/2499950.htm

Mexican corn contamination confirmed
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
A team led by Elena Alvarez-Buylla of the National Autonomous University
in Mexico City looked at nearly 2000 samples from 100 fields in the
region from 2001 and 2004, and found that around 1% of the samples had
genes that had jumped from GM varieties.

"We confirmed that there was contamination in 2001 and also found
contamination in 2004, which means that it either persisted in the local
maize that we sampled or that it was reintroduced, which is less
likely," says Alvarez-Buylla.

She says the difference between previous studies and her research lay in
the samples chosen for gene sequencing and in the molecular technique
for decrypting the DNA.

The investigators looked for two specific genes that had escaped from
biotech corn, and found them in some fields, but not in others.

Shielding failure

Alvarez-Buylla says the evidence sheds stark light on the failure of
efforts to shield Mexico from unauthorised GM corn.
The country imposed a moratorium on the planting of transgenic maize in
1998 in order to protect genetic diversity. It is the home of about 60
traditional domesticated strains, also called landraces, as well as
several wild strains.

Transgenic seeds are entering the country, most probably from the United
States, and getting mixed with local seeds in trade among small farmers,
says Alvarez-Buylla.

http://current.com/news/89838219_tra...found-in-wild-
mexican-corn.htm
FEBRUARY 23, 2009
Transgenic contamination found in wild Mexican corn

Some people might ask why I continue to talk about this. Well, that is
because biodiversity to me is the linchpin to our survival as a species.
Without it and with GMO monocrops deciding our food source it is highly
likely in my view that we will face a worldwide famine in the future
because of this transgenic contamination that is killing biodiversity.
----

Far from home, GMO plants are popping up unexpectedly, and they will
destroy biodiversity, if allowed to disseminate. Biodiversity is the
breeding stock for our agriculture which needs to be tweaked
occasionally as pests find new ways to attack vast, perennial fields of
monocultures.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vN0--mHug