[Grav!ty]

Frankenfood Ban Is 'Neither Populism nor Panic-Mongering'

April 16, 2009


A German ban on genetically modified corn has found broad support in the German public, and protests against a patent on a strain of pig made headlines on Wednesday. German commentators wonder if this is just European technophobia or whether genes are a natural resource which no patent should restrain.

It's been a tough week in Germany for proponents of genetically engineered farm products. First Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced a ban on cultivating a strain of genetically modified (GM) corn. Then on Wednesday, demonstrations were held in the Bavarian capital of Munich and the Hessian capital of Wiesbaden against a patent on a breed of pig.

Around 400 people demonstrated on Munich's central Marienplatz square before moving on to the nearby headquarters of the European Patent Office, driving a small herd of swine. Their placards featured slogans like "no patents on life" and "stop the patent on the poor pig." Bavaria's Environment Minister Markus Söder, who has positioned himself as a prominent critic of genetic engineering in recent years, addressed the crowd. "We don't believe in the future of GM foods," he said to great applause.

The pig patent, EP 1651777, is an attempt by the US-based company Newsham Choice Genetics to register a faster-growing meat pig within the European Union. The line of corn, Monsanto's MON810, has been protected by a patent for years, and produces a toxin that kills the potentially devastating corn borer moth. The corn seed has faced bans in a few European countries -- against the European Commission's will -- and the German decision to ban it just before farmers are due to plant their crops is an anti-Brussels gesture that should go down well in Aigner's home state of Bavaria.


More at: Der Spiegel

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South Africa recently had a huge crop failure due to using Moneysanta's GM seeds: No corn on the cob.

[yeshuas]

Man that would really upset me if I went through all the ground prep, the planting, watering, spraying etc, then start harvesting the corn expecting 150 - 175 BU an acre and then get say ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh none, ouch.

[Grav!ty]

Yeah it's a major issue Daniel, both in the US (where around 43,000 farmers have been put out of business in the past 5 years), and abroad. In India there have been more than 200,000 farmer suicides due to indebtedness because they'd signed the Monsanto agreements that they would only buy and plant Monsanto seed. Monsanto have now come up with crops that cannot propagate so the seed cannot be stored...one seed purchase, one crop.

The herbicides that Moneysanta GM plants require (Roundup) just won't allow anything else to grow...so once you start with GM seeds you're stuffed for up to 10 years and longer before the poison breaks down and leaches from the soil. In the meantime rainwater and irrigation washes the stuff into the water system, and birds and other animals are poisoned by the millions. Unknowing people exposed to high concentrations of the the chemicals just by walking through the fields without wearing proper protective clothing, end up with horrific skin lesions and defacement.

Many FDA officials are former Moneysanta employees on both the "research" and legal teams of the FDA and most are appointed back and rewarded to senior positions at Moneysanta after their "duties" and "missions" at the FDA have been fulfilled.

[yeshuas]

Those people must not have any conscience, like the Wall Street and miscellaneous Mortgage officers, they take their millions and the heck with everyone else, and the fallout of their actions. Makes me sick, to even think about it.