I have lurked in this group long enough to feel half way comfortable
with posting a question. Most of you seem inteligent and reasonable
enough to carry on a discussion without going off the deep end and
resorting to personnel attacks.

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.
But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

Jerry writes

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.
But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

1) A paranoid population. (really)

2) A useful trade blocking mechanism.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

On 30 May 2003 11:47:04 -0700, (Jerry) wrote:

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.

Then you must be American :-) In fact the European Union has approved
several genetically modified crops, and is having no particular safety
concerns in regards to that. You have been misinformed.

But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

The overshadowing specific concern of the European Union in regard to
GMOs, or 'fear', to use that word, is the potential for disruption of
the internal market by their presence on it. Hence the struggle is for
a common EU legal framework to regulate labelling, traceability and
product liability of GMOs.

"Oz" wrote in message
...
Jerry writes

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.
But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

1) A paranoid population. (really)

2) A useful trade blocking mechanism.

3) they are introduced by American Companies

Jim Webster

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

"Jerry" wrote in message
om...
I have lurked in this group long enough to feel half way comfortable
with posting a question. Most of you seem inteligent and reasonable
enough to carry on a discussion without going off the deep end and
resorting to personnel attacks.

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.
But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

You never will hear specifics because there aren't any. I have asked the
exact same question for several years to numerous anti-GE lists and never
received a legitimate answser. It is just a strawman game to keep out US
grain out of Europe and keep EU farmers employed planting and spraying.

Dave

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

"Oz" wrote in message
...
Jerry writes

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.
But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

1) A paranoid population. (really)

2) A useful trade blocking mechanism.

3) they are introduced by American Companies

Actually several of the leading companies are European based, but the major
US player, Monsanto, is who most people associate with regarding agriculture
GE technology.

Dave

Jim Webster

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be
accepted.

"David Kendra" wrote in message
.net...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

"Oz" wrote in message
...
Jerry writes

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.
But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically
modified
crops?

1) A paranoid population. (really)

2) A useful trade blocking mechanism.

3) they are introduced by American Companies

Actually several of the leading companies are European based, but the
major
US player, Monsanto, is who most people associate with regarding
agriculture
GE technology.

Dave

exactly.

If GM had been pioneered by ELF or some other French company, they would be
compulsory in the EU by now.

Jim Webster

"David Kendra" wrote in message
.net...

"Jerry" wrote in message
om...
I have lurked in this group long enough to feel half way comfortable
with posting a question. Most of you seem inteligent and reasonable
enough to carry on a discussion without going off the deep end and
resorting to personnel attacks.

I hear and read that the European Union has safety concerns about
growing genetically modified crops and the food produced from them.
But I never hear details. So here is the question. What are the
SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

You never will hear specifics because there aren't any. I have asked the
exact same question for several years to numerous anti-GE lists and never
received a legitimate answser. It is just a strawman game to keep out US
grain out of Europe and keep EU farmers employed planting and spraying.

To be fair all the players have trade protectionism in one form or another.
It can take the form of tariffs, export subsides, quotas, overly restrictive
rules, delays in processing paper work.

The EU has us in front of the WTO for several thing which they will probably
win. I don't recall what they are but we are probably guilty as charged.

Every country needs to protect certain strategic industries. The ability to
feed themselves is second only to water in terms of national security. One
only needs to look at Africa to see the results of not keeping up those two
things. The devolution of Rhodesia into today's Zimbabwe is as good example
as can be made for a country with bountiful resources being led to ruin buy
inept leadership. Over that same time frame China has come from the brink of
famine to serious agricultural and industrial exporter. The draconian
methods they used would not be tolerable in the western world unless we had
been thought what China had been though for the last half of the last
century. Today China has the same problems with a shortage of farmers as the
US started to have 130 years ago. The kid are renting out the ground and
going to the city to work in factory is not much different that those of 100
years ago in many ways.

Both the US and the EU need to find a better way to support their farmers
than subdized prices that distort the world market and insure over
production. The US has had two program that took land out of production but
both concentrated on ecologically fragile land and the payments were so low
that it only took out low producing land. Set asides were politically very
unpopular and since a very large part of the US is moisture limited the
farmer just summer fallows the field and uses it make rotations so that it
takes set asides in excess of 25% in my area to have a great deal of effect
on production. For years when we had allotments of crops they counted skip
row cotton as only the acres you planted. The yield of cotton is the same
almost every time if you plant solid 40 inch rows 2 and skip 1, 2 and skip 2
or 4 and skip 4.

Every time the government came up with a way to limit production except
tonnage quotas the farmers found a way to raise about as much crop with in
the limits in a lot of cases.

The UK idea of paying them a stipend has some merit but it causes a
different kind of problem ending up with a non productive farmer if you ever
need them.

The trade barriers get a lot more obvious when prices are low and the
economy is tough.

The EU and UK are in a postion that under normal times it will always be
cheaper to buy, corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, rape, barley, sugar and most
staple items than it will to produce it locally. They can't realize the
economies of scale the western hemisphere can. I know one farmer that
rebuilt his gates so he doesn't have to fold up his 40 foot wide plows to
move between fields. The area I did most of my farming I could move a 8 row
3 point planter with the markers on (about 30 feet wide) anywhere with out
problems I could move anything 20 foot wide anywhere in the county that
didn't touch the ground. You had to watch out for bridges with anything that
had wheels wider than 15 feet. Only a very few bridges had railings.

No till is not likely to be a big an advantage to the high rainfall and cool
temperatures of the UK an the EU as it is in the hotter dryer parts of the
world. Torsten has problems with slugs from condition similar to what no
till would provide. I never saw a slug until I was married and visiting
friends that had a very lush herb garden that the watered 3 times a week.
They can benefit form the Round Up resistance genes to clean up serious weed
problems and the whole world benefits from BT and RR genetics by the less
toxins in the environment.

With enough capital the farmer and I can stay competitive in the world
cotton market with drip irrigation and notill cotton without subsidies. But
it will take 10 years or more to get all the irrigated cotton converted to
drip just from the arability of capital and resources to install it. And
that won't work with corn, wheat or beans.

If India and Africa every adopt the best practice of cotton farming and
their governments provide a decent market for them I will be back in the
whole on cotton without a subsidy of some kind. I expect that the third
world will adopt GM cotton and that will give them a boost up but I don't
expect that their movements will ever quit tinker with agriculture enough
that they can fully realize the benefits of modern agriculture in more than
a hand full of countries other than China and South Africa.

Gordon

Gordon Couger writes

No till is not likely to be a big an advantage to the high rainfall and cool
temperatures of the UK an the EU as it is in the hotter dryer parts of the
world.

In 1976 (and for several years afterwards) I no-tilled my entire farm.
We used paraquat in those days but we were able to burn the straw.

Grassweeds became a major problem, and they still are.

Blackgrass (mysuroides something-or-other) is now resistant to dimfops
over much of the UK, with wild oat following on behind.

Personally I would expect a roundup-resistant blackgrass to be found
within a few years of a RR wheat being introduced.

So in the UK (particularly) weeds are still the major problem.
Remember weeds can and do germinate at any time during the year due to
our rainfall pattern.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

What are the SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

Here are some of the issues:

http://www.gmfoodnews.com/gmwrong.html

Hope this helps.

regards
Marcus

Personally I would expect a roundup-resistant blackgrass to be found
within a few years of a RR wheat being introduced.

So would you still support the introduction of RR wheat?

regards
Marcus

If GM had been pioneered by ELF or some other French company, they would be
compulsory in the EU by now.

FYI, the company carrying out most of the GM crop trials in the UK is
Bayer CropScience (Germany) which bought Aventis CropScience (France).

regards
Marcus

wrote in message
...

If GM had been pioneered by ELF or some other French company, they would
be
compulsory in the EU by now.

FYI, the company carrying out most of the GM crop trials in the UK is
Bayer CropScience (Germany) which bought Aventis CropScience (France).

and suddenly British Ministers are saying that the EU will not let us block
GM anyway

Jim Webster


regards
Marcus

writes

Personally I would expect a roundup-resistant blackgrass to be found
within a few years of a RR wheat being introduced.

So would you still support the introduction of RR wheat?

Indeed. One is forever hopeful.

However I would use resistance avoidance techniques and hope to reduce
blackgrass levels low enough so that the current highly excessive use of
pesticides could be avoided in the future.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

wrote in message . ..
What are the SPECIFIC fears of the European Union in regard to genetically modified
crops?

Here are some of the issues:

http://www.gmfoodnews.com/gmwrong.html

Hope this helps.

regards
Marcus

I appreciate your posting the link, Marcus. But the articles I looked
at just seem to contain more generalities on fears and potentials.
Many articles mention: undesirable species possibly developing
restistance; desirable non-target species being killed; cross
pollination; farmers not being allowed to save seed.

Since I leared to read my dad's farm magazines 37 years ago, I've been
reading about the same types of problems with conventional seeds and
chemicals. We killed the earthworms with Dursban. Our hybrid field
corn pollen messed up the neighbor's sweet corn patch. Cockleburrs
got to the point that they just thrived in atrazine treated fields.