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Animals avoid GM food
Jim Webster wrote:
"Brian Sandle" wrote in message ... Jim Webster wrote: is a very small niche market A lot of farmers converted around 1999 to organic milk, and were by 2001 able to call their milk organic and get a higher price. Suddenly there was a lot more on the market. But they were asking more for it than imported organic milk in the shops. The disributors sold excess as non-organic, presumably to try to keep organic label prices up. No, they sold it as conventional because no one was willing to pay organic price for it, not enough people actually want the damned stuff There is a bit of a problem with milk because a lot of health-conscious people think milk is designed for young cows, not adult humans. Besides what is `organic price'? After conversion what proportion of costs is subsidy, compared to non-organic? What rake off is going to distributors? Do you not think that bringing organic into the picture has saved jobs for a few dairy farmers, as well as given more wealth to some distributors? I see jobs rather than profit as the key in the future. So really the industry was getting a margin for organic, but not so much overall because a good proportion of farmers were doing it. Rubbish, the proportion of UK output that is organic is very small indeed And what proportion of organic milk is imported and sold cheaper and why? You are starting to feel the EU competition in milk. I think you are going to find the price for non-organic dropping, too, and organic getting some of a premium but being easier to sell. It will be the protecting factor for the farmers who have gone to it as subsidies go off. Total rubbish. People are actively costing out quitting organic production and going back to conventional dairy production because the costs of organic are so much higher. How much of that is the distributors' fees? The only thing that stops them is that they will have to pay back the organic conversion grant if they give up within a certain period. Organic is not easier to sell Perhaps a bit harder for milk. Give us the relative subsidy data. New Zealand had a guaranteed butter fat and farming in general market in the UK until UK joined EU. Then we went through a lot of strife, a lot of farms were sold as subsidies were removed. For a long time we did not see organic produce in New Zealand shops, it was all going to Japan. Now some is available. Organic carrots here sell for over double in shops. Organic milk is 25 to 35% more. I think there will be a race to enter the market as non-org prices will drop. And immediately the organic price will drop and it will become uneconomic. It is a niche market and very sensitive to overproduction. In the EU we saw it first in Denmark, then we saw it in the UK, I suppose checking that food is non-GM has increased cost. Then here there are very silly things happening. As I complained to the supermarket their price on the display stand has been quite a bit higher than what comes up on the docket when I buy it. So then how do people know they can afford it when they see the high price? Then it sits on the shelf, costing space, too. Shops need to treat organic better. Why do the conventional veges go on the cool moist display while the organic wilt in the hot shop? When above I spoke of the butter fat (BF) composition, I was not speaking of the proportion of fat in the milk, your usual measurement, but what constitutes the fat. That latter is not usually measured. Some taste tests may be done. The butter churners may notice a difference per batch. As I said, this changes on a daily or weekly basis on cattle that eat grass alone But not anything like the huge difference when going to grain feed. Snip Maybe because the effect is within variation between breeds or or other variations of cows. But set up 15 or 16 pairs of animals and see what happens. Or even better watch what happens to a herd of a thousand or more dairy cows as different loads of maize gluten arrive every week. If there is any difference between them and the proportion of GM/NonGM you will know within a couple of days. What about from year to a couple fo years later as the amount of unkown GM increases? Now Torsten has shown us something which does not disprove it, rather shows a trend indicating a bigger experiment than 8 pairs *is* justified. Why waste time on an experiment when you have thousand cow herds out there in the real world feeding the damn stuff? Then show us your figures from year to year. One guy recounts a few tall tales You always say it is only one, each time we give a different example. Our examples have added to several. And none of them more than cosy anecdotes, none of them condescend to provide any hard evidence. Doubtless Gordon could dig out a score of beef fatteners who will provide pleasant anecdotes about how well beef fattens off GM maize. Somehow I doubt you will find these at all acceptable GM maize is more estrogenic so I suspect it would have steroidal effect. And note the author of the one Torsten gave gets Monsanto funding. So what So he might be worried about funding for his dept drying up if he finds problems. well run beef unit What percentage do you change at? Donkins result was a 3% drop. That means say you change feed at 5% you only have 2% more to go. The result wasn't valid note. It showed a trend but was only done with 16 cows. It was valid as far as it went. Also a beef unit finishing several thousand head would pick up trends faster Need to take weather into account from year to year, too. improve palatability? No Not before it was imported? No, What guarantee? don't be silly, to improve palatability would increase cost and would leave the product different. They would have to charge for it and declare it. Anyway, how would they improve palatability at no cost, pray tell, the feed industry has been looking for this magic solution for generations So much of the GM stuff is loss leader that the companies would probably pay that to keep up market cofidence in their seeds, so they can still sell their associated chemicals which bring in the profit. |
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