World Food Day and Non GMO Food Month

[Jonathan]

I'd like to hear the opinions reguarding GMO vegetables and the foods made with them. Are they good, bad or indifferent? Many parts of the rest of the world bans their use but we won't even label when they are used. Today there are rallies nationwide calling for truth labeling of GMO food, is there something too it?

[rec head]

I know is that the food grown in my garden is GOOOOOOOOOD. Strictly from a taste perspective I think there are a lot of things wrong with how food is produced.

[joosttx]

I'd like to hear the opinions reguarding GMO vegetables and the foods made with them. Are they good, bad or indifferent? Many parts of the rest of the world bans their use but we won't even label when they are used. Today there are rallies nationwide calling for truth labeling of GMO food, is there something too it?

My question is how did blasting seeds with radioactive rays to get their genes to mutate into something more desirable not as bad as inserting a gene into a plant to get something more desirable. This is the difference between conventional v gmo breeding programs. Or what is a company like Cibus is doing???

To me the issue is not GMO but diversity.

[sonny]

its all about making traditional food crops fit better into monocrop production while driving the competition out.

real ugly stuff if you look close.

[joosttx]

its all about making traditional food crops fit better into monocrop production while driving the competition out.

real ugly stuff if you look close.

Famine looks really ugly from any distance.

Disagree with your premise. It really about 1) a need which is a growing human population with a demand for better foods and an equal to decrease amount of farmable land to produce it; and 2) solving the need while bring share hold value.

.

[sonny]

Famine looks really ugly from any distance.

Disagree with your premise. It really about 1) a need which is a growing human population with a demand for better foods and an equal to decrease amount of farmable land to produce it; and 2) solving the need while bring share hold value.

Are there not enough calories to feed everyone? Maybe not corn-fed steak dinners, but..
Better foods? Like non-indigenous ones?
Loss of arable land? Like desertification thru salting and topsoil loss?

I daresay that reducing the global trade of food would go a long way in feeding local populations. Our cheap corn, wheat, soy, etc. undermines local cultivation of foods, because now that world bank and imf have visited the many corners of the globe and successfully brought traditional cultures into the fold of 'modernization' and international currency, they can't even afford to buy what they themselves produce(d). When time became money and all that..

Cheap inputs have ruined the balance between population growth and available calories. Thank oil and the haber process for that.
It won't last..

[XR2]

The biggest problem in GM seed crops is the spreading of the mutated gene through cross pollination which destoys heirloom crops on neighboring properties. These seeds aren't made to feed humans it's for livestock as the meat centric diet spreads with affluence. Not to mention ethanol production here in the USA. I'm not a vegetarian nor do I wish to be. However these crops threaten crops grown for human consumption with cross pollination which is irreversible. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. They are patented and lawsuits have been filed against those unknowingly growing protected crop seed via cross pollination. It's about money not feeding the masses.

[joosttx]

Are there not enough calories to feed everyone? Maybe not corn-fed steak dinners, but..
Better foods? Like non-indigenous ones?
Loss of arable land? Like desertification thru salting and topsoil loss?

I daresay that reducing the global trade of food would go a long way in feeding local populations. Our cheap corn, wheat, soy, etc. undermines local cultivation of foods, because now that world bank and imf have visited the many corners of the globe and successfully brought traditional cultures into the fold of 'modernization' and international currency, they can't even afford to buy what they themselves produce(d). When time became money and all that..

Cheap inputs have ruined the balance between population growth and available calories. Thank oil and the haber process for that.
It won't last..

And GMO's offers a solution..... Less nitrogen, less pesticides, better distibution, control of the seed, stabiliztion of commodity prices, reduction of distribution. All this helps In the problems you cite about modern agiculture. And most importantly has a better chance to execute than what i think you propose.

GMO, has done very little to homogenize the Global agriculture scene. I would argue like you cheap inputs are more the cause. I feel GMO offers solutions that the academic and elighten folk choose to ignore and protest. I think Monsanto is happy about this because it allows them to control the technology. And without academic and enlighten to guide the administration of this powerful technology then is will become what they fear.

Regarding out crossing that is a huge issue. Just recently, rice growers were awarded huge sums for said issue. But that can be remedy by producing flowerless varieties or sterile plants. Plus increase production per unit of land could allow for other land to become wild.