anyone that can claim that america doesnt have a massive problem in the general health of its population which is directly linked to what big corporations are forcing them to eat must have there head(s) firmly buried in the sand.
claiming that gm crops wont suffer the post harvest storage losses, (usually insect or rodent attack) takes some beleiving aswell.
im firmly of the belief that anything published in the newspapers on gm is atleast 95% rubbish, quite frankly my times too valuable to me to try and separate the hard facts from the half truths and downright lies.
HRH speaks out
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Geoff
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Is Monty Don going to make The Soil Association pragmatic and win JB's support?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... od.gardens - includes :
One proposal Don suggests to help the Soil Association reach a wider audience is to reconsider the use of the term "organic". "It's an albatross. Organic is loaded with a sense of rightness, with a set of rules. I would much rather someone bought food that was local and sustainable but not organic than bought organic food that had to be shipped across the world. We've got to move away from making people feel lesser because they're not [eating] organic. There is no doubt about it, 'sustainable' is a better expression for the same sorts of ideas than 'organic'."
Don sits upright, apparently in the mood to slay further sacred cows. So what about GM food, previously an over-my-dead-body issue for the Soil Association? "It's there to be debated," he says. "You can't just say it's bad because it's bad. Plant breeding has been going on for millennia and it's a gradual process. At the moment I feel not nearly enough research is being done on the effects of GM and I have no faith at all in the goodwill of the producers and their motives. [But] my overall feeling is that I would not discount anything."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... od.gardens - includes :
One proposal Don suggests to help the Soil Association reach a wider audience is to reconsider the use of the term "organic". "It's an albatross. Organic is loaded with a sense of rightness, with a set of rules. I would much rather someone bought food that was local and sustainable but not organic than bought organic food that had to be shipped across the world. We've got to move away from making people feel lesser because they're not [eating] organic. There is no doubt about it, 'sustainable' is a better expression for the same sorts of ideas than 'organic'."
Don sits upright, apparently in the mood to slay further sacred cows. So what about GM food, previously an over-my-dead-body issue for the Soil Association? "It's there to be debated," he says. "You can't just say it's bad because it's bad. Plant breeding has been going on for millennia and it's a gradual process. At the moment I feel not nearly enough research is being done on the effects of GM and I have no faith at all in the goodwill of the producers and their motives. [But] my overall feeling is that I would not discount anything."
Hi Geoff,
A very interesting article and there is one thing I do agree with what MD said. He referred to himself as a TV W******r and for once he a absolutely correct!
The trouble with what he said is that they want to change the name from Organic to Sustainable. The biggest snag with this is the fact that whatever they manage to come up with name wise it will never be sustainable because we simply do not have sufficient suitable land available to even consider trying to feed the nation without imports.
One way to extend the seasons is the use of poly tunnels and I must remind you that Monty Don was the leader of the anti brigade in Herefordshire against the use of poly tunnels. "The whole county seems to be full of poly tunnels" quote by MD when the official figures show that actually only 0.027% (that is .027 of 1%.) is actually covered and then only on a temporary basis. I feel that what MD has said in the past is going to catch up with him in his new position.
The sales in organic produce have fallen dramatically and they say that it is 18% since February this year. When you consider that organic produce is only about 4% of the total sales of vegetables their market is nowhere near what they would have you believe.
Whatever the SA rename organic they can never be Pragmatic because they are far too dogmatic. It is dogma that has put British growers off the idea of growing organic.
The organic egg producers locally have all reverted to conventional methods of production because their eggs were not selling. The local egg wholesaler no longer deals in Organic Eggs. Organic meat is the next thing to go because I heard that the organic butcher locally had only 3 customers on a Friday when he is generally run off his feet.
I feel that if the SA were not so dogmatic and they at least tried to join the real world they would be far better off.
JB.
A very interesting article and there is one thing I do agree with what MD said. He referred to himself as a TV W******r and for once he a absolutely correct!
The trouble with what he said is that they want to change the name from Organic to Sustainable. The biggest snag with this is the fact that whatever they manage to come up with name wise it will never be sustainable because we simply do not have sufficient suitable land available to even consider trying to feed the nation without imports.
One way to extend the seasons is the use of poly tunnels and I must remind you that Monty Don was the leader of the anti brigade in Herefordshire against the use of poly tunnels. "The whole county seems to be full of poly tunnels" quote by MD when the official figures show that actually only 0.027% (that is .027 of 1%.) is actually covered and then only on a temporary basis. I feel that what MD has said in the past is going to catch up with him in his new position.
The sales in organic produce have fallen dramatically and they say that it is 18% since February this year. When you consider that organic produce is only about 4% of the total sales of vegetables their market is nowhere near what they would have you believe.
Whatever the SA rename organic they can never be Pragmatic because they are far too dogmatic. It is dogma that has put British growers off the idea of growing organic.
The organic egg producers locally have all reverted to conventional methods of production because their eggs were not selling. The local egg wholesaler no longer deals in Organic Eggs. Organic meat is the next thing to go because I heard that the organic butcher locally had only 3 customers on a Friday when he is generally run off his feet.
I feel that if the SA were not so dogmatic and they at least tried to join the real world they would be far better off.
JB.
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Cider Boys
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Just to say that this debate should be at the top of the list.
Barney
Barney
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alan refail
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Some thoughtful support in the Guardian
Prince Charles' warnings that genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture will lead to ecological disaster appear only to be adding a dose of passion to the cooler analysis of world's leading agronomists, climate scientists and grassroots groups in developing countries, who have been saying much the same about farming and ecology for some time.
When asked whether "industrial scale food conglomerates are the way ahead", he said: "What, all run by gigantic corporations? Is that really the answer? I think not. That would be the absolute destruction of everything."
Anaylsis: Charles echoes Third World Network and Via Campesina, the world's two most authoritative farm analysis groups, and is aiming at global agribusinesses which dominate the food chain, and controls seed supplies, chemicals, and food processing as well as transport and retail sales. He also echoes Food Matters, a report from the No 10 Strategy Unit, which recognises that the agribusiness model of food production based on global competition has failed to deliver.
"Corporations [are] conducting a gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong. Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?"
Analysis: Charles links climate change and world hunger with the growth of agribusiness and its reliance on oil, large amounts of scarce water, and chemicals. The UN, the UK government and the EU recognise that industrial agriculture, including biofuel, soy and palm oil industries, have been responsible for large-scale deforestation, as well as hunger and a growth in carbon emissions, soil erosion and social problems.
The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation said in 2006: "The [global] livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth's increasingly scarce water resources."
"A nightmare vision ... in which millions of small farmers are driven off their land and into unsustainable unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness."
Analysis: According to UN Habitat, cities are growing by 180,000 people a day and the world's urban infrastructure is unable to cope. Roughly one billion people in Latin America, Asia, and Africa live in slums. The UK government's Commission for Africa said in 2005: "These slums are filled with the unemployed and disaffected. Africa's cities are becoming a powder keg of ... instability and discontent." According to a major UN report in 2003, the greatest underlying reason for the growth in slums has been globalisation.
"We are missing the point. We should be discussing food security, not food production. that is what matters and that is what people will not understand."
Analysis: Charles echoes the G8 world leaders who stated in Japan in July: "We are deeply concerned that the steep rise in global food prices coupled with availability problems in a number of developing countries is threatening global food security." The UN declared in May: "Securing world food security may be one of the biggest challenges we face in this century."
"And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."
Analysis: The UN International Assessment of Agriculture (IAASTD), carried out by 400 leading agronomists and scientists with the help of the World Bank found no conclusive evidence that GM crops increase crop yields or that they were the single answer to global hunger. The report, endorsed by 60 countries including the UK this year, stated that science and technology must be combined with traditional knowledge, working with communities on localised farming solutions.
"Small farmers ... would be the victims of gigantic corporations taking over the mass production of food."
Analysis: The FAO, the World Bank and nearly all international development groups argue strongly that peasant farmers must be helped to produce more food. The World Bank, the UK's National Farmers' Union and the EU all recognise that the growth of agribusiness is linked to a worldwide decrease in the number of small farms.
"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place ..."
Analysis: The Punjab in India was the centre of the Green Revolution which introduced hybrid seeds, intensive irrigation and chemical fertlisers and pesticides in the 1960s and 70s. According to Reith lecturer and Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva: "Today every farmer is in debt and despair. Vast stretches of land have become water-logged desert."
"Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture."
Analysis: The government of western Australia says on its website: "Salinity is one of the greatest environmental threats facing Western Australia's agricultural land, water, biodiversity and infrastructure. It is caused by too much water containing dissolved salts in the wrong places in the landscape."
"I think it's heading for real disaster."
Analysis: Prince Charles is referring to global ecological problems. Here he echoes many climate change scientists, UN figures and politicians. His language – "unmentionable awfulness", etc – may be quaint, but is he the crank some would have us believe him to be? Absolutely not.
Full article and useful links here
Prince Charles' warnings that genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture will lead to ecological disaster appear only to be adding a dose of passion to the cooler analysis of world's leading agronomists, climate scientists and grassroots groups in developing countries, who have been saying much the same about farming and ecology for some time.
When asked whether "industrial scale food conglomerates are the way ahead", he said: "What, all run by gigantic corporations? Is that really the answer? I think not. That would be the absolute destruction of everything."
Anaylsis: Charles echoes Third World Network and Via Campesina, the world's two most authoritative farm analysis groups, and is aiming at global agribusinesses which dominate the food chain, and controls seed supplies, chemicals, and food processing as well as transport and retail sales. He also echoes Food Matters, a report from the No 10 Strategy Unit, which recognises that the agribusiness model of food production based on global competition has failed to deliver.
"Corporations [are] conducting a gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong. Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?"
Analysis: Charles links climate change and world hunger with the growth of agribusiness and its reliance on oil, large amounts of scarce water, and chemicals. The UN, the UK government and the EU recognise that industrial agriculture, including biofuel, soy and palm oil industries, have been responsible for large-scale deforestation, as well as hunger and a growth in carbon emissions, soil erosion and social problems.
The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation said in 2006: "The [global] livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth's increasingly scarce water resources."
"A nightmare vision ... in which millions of small farmers are driven off their land and into unsustainable unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness."
Analysis: According to UN Habitat, cities are growing by 180,000 people a day and the world's urban infrastructure is unable to cope. Roughly one billion people in Latin America, Asia, and Africa live in slums. The UK government's Commission for Africa said in 2005: "These slums are filled with the unemployed and disaffected. Africa's cities are becoming a powder keg of ... instability and discontent." According to a major UN report in 2003, the greatest underlying reason for the growth in slums has been globalisation.
"We are missing the point. We should be discussing food security, not food production. that is what matters and that is what people will not understand."
Analysis: Charles echoes the G8 world leaders who stated in Japan in July: "We are deeply concerned that the steep rise in global food prices coupled with availability problems in a number of developing countries is threatening global food security." The UN declared in May: "Securing world food security may be one of the biggest challenges we face in this century."
"And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."
Analysis: The UN International Assessment of Agriculture (IAASTD), carried out by 400 leading agronomists and scientists with the help of the World Bank found no conclusive evidence that GM crops increase crop yields or that they were the single answer to global hunger. The report, endorsed by 60 countries including the UK this year, stated that science and technology must be combined with traditional knowledge, working with communities on localised farming solutions.
"Small farmers ... would be the victims of gigantic corporations taking over the mass production of food."
Analysis: The FAO, the World Bank and nearly all international development groups argue strongly that peasant farmers must be helped to produce more food. The World Bank, the UK's National Farmers' Union and the EU all recognise that the growth of agribusiness is linked to a worldwide decrease in the number of small farms.
"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place ..."
Analysis: The Punjab in India was the centre of the Green Revolution which introduced hybrid seeds, intensive irrigation and chemical fertlisers and pesticides in the 1960s and 70s. According to Reith lecturer and Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva: "Today every farmer is in debt and despair. Vast stretches of land have become water-logged desert."
"Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture."
Analysis: The government of western Australia says on its website: "Salinity is one of the greatest environmental threats facing Western Australia's agricultural land, water, biodiversity and infrastructure. It is caused by too much water containing dissolved salts in the wrong places in the landscape."
"I think it's heading for real disaster."
Analysis: Prince Charles is referring to global ecological problems. Here he echoes many climate change scientists, UN figures and politicians. His language – "unmentionable awfulness", etc – may be quaint, but is he the crank some would have us believe him to be? Absolutely not.
Full article and useful links here
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Cider Boys
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An excellent contribution to this most worthwhile debate.
Barney
Barney
Hi Alan,
I have just listened to the Farming Today programme and have learned of a closely guarded GM anti blight Potato crop that has been grown in the UK to see if it is fit for purpose with regards to UK climatic conditions. I am very pleased to say that the experimental crop has been evaluated by NIAB and that it has been a huge success.
GM is in it's infancy and as it progresses I feel sure there is an awful lot of good that will come from it in the future. This is only if this is allowed to grow and not be trashed by ignorant people who have been fed a pack of lies by many people who have a vested interest to see that it doesn't get approval.
The argument that GM has not lived up to what it says is simply a load of anti-GM nonsense. In the UK and Europe it has not been given the opportunity to be proven one way or the other!
I do not think that Prince Charles is the right person to have made the speech that he has. He is one of those with a vested interest to see that GM doesn't get a fair chance.
I am no lover of conglomerates but scientific research takes the money generated by these conglomerates to actually occur. Because of all the unnecessary anti-GM propaganda the smaller people have been driven to the wall and this leaves only the conglomerates. So really all the anti-GM people
have managed to do is to play into the hands of the conglomerates. They have only themselves to blame.
Nobody has the right to stand in the way of scientific advancement. Again, if trials had been allowed to be carried out then we would be in a position to have, by now, formed some sort of evaluation but we in the UK are falling behind as usual.
The question I ask is, if there was a GM Potato available to gardeners would you use it or would you continually put up with losing crops to blight?
JB.
I have just listened to the Farming Today programme and have learned of a closely guarded GM anti blight Potato crop that has been grown in the UK to see if it is fit for purpose with regards to UK climatic conditions. I am very pleased to say that the experimental crop has been evaluated by NIAB and that it has been a huge success.
GM is in it's infancy and as it progresses I feel sure there is an awful lot of good that will come from it in the future. This is only if this is allowed to grow and not be trashed by ignorant people who have been fed a pack of lies by many people who have a vested interest to see that it doesn't get approval.
The argument that GM has not lived up to what it says is simply a load of anti-GM nonsense. In the UK and Europe it has not been given the opportunity to be proven one way or the other!
I do not think that Prince Charles is the right person to have made the speech that he has. He is one of those with a vested interest to see that GM doesn't get a fair chance.
I am no lover of conglomerates but scientific research takes the money generated by these conglomerates to actually occur. Because of all the unnecessary anti-GM propaganda the smaller people have been driven to the wall and this leaves only the conglomerates. So really all the anti-GM people
have managed to do is to play into the hands of the conglomerates. They have only themselves to blame.
Nobody has the right to stand in the way of scientific advancement. Again, if trials had been allowed to be carried out then we would be in a position to have, by now, formed some sort of evaluation but we in the UK are falling behind as usual.
The question I ask is, if there was a GM Potato available to gardeners would you use it or would you continually put up with losing crops to blight?
JB.
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Cider Boys
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JB
Count me in for as many sacks as possible.
Barney
Count me in for as many sacks as possible.
Barney
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PLUMPUDDING
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I wouldn't touch GM with a barge pole while there are blight resistant potatoes available, but I'm not a farmer.
People who grow their own can usually get a very good crop by only growing early and early main crop potatoes, and also the Sarpo varieties have blight resistance.
There is usually a natural answer to most hoticultural and agricultural problems without opting for Chemical nasties or Genetic tampering, but most poeple are tempted by an easy-fix solution. Many are more labour intensive and this incurs extra cost, but there is no shortage of man-power, it might be a chance to get some of the idle sods out of the dole office if they had to do some work instead of getting hand-outs. Sorry I'm digressing onto another bee in my bonnet, and farmers might not want that calibre of worker.
I would certainly want any GM produce labeled with a large warning so I had the choice of eating or avoiding it, but like everything else producers try to slip them into the food without us noticing or knowing what we're eating.
It is probably only me, but I have a lurking feeling that I'm probably being poisoned by something on the odd occasions that I buy processed foods.
People who grow their own can usually get a very good crop by only growing early and early main crop potatoes, and also the Sarpo varieties have blight resistance.
There is usually a natural answer to most hoticultural and agricultural problems without opting for Chemical nasties or Genetic tampering, but most poeple are tempted by an easy-fix solution. Many are more labour intensive and this incurs extra cost, but there is no shortage of man-power, it might be a chance to get some of the idle sods out of the dole office if they had to do some work instead of getting hand-outs. Sorry I'm digressing onto another bee in my bonnet, and farmers might not want that calibre of worker.
I would certainly want any GM produce labeled with a large warning so I had the choice of eating or avoiding it, but like everything else producers try to slip them into the food without us noticing or knowing what we're eating.
It is probably only me, but I have a lurking feeling that I'm probably being poisoned by something on the odd occasions that I buy processed foods.
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Cider Boys
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Well we are all living longer more comfortable lives thanks to modern technology. We embrace new technologies and trust private companies to develop medical solutions for our needs so why this antipathy to GM foods?
It does not make sense to me. Of course you can grow non GM potatoes if you wish but to be against developing a GM potato that does not suffer from blight is (in my view) plain daft.
I wonder what the Irish would have preferred during the blight devastation that caused them so much suffering.
However, you are quite correct that the shirkers on the dole should be put to work.
Kind regards
Barney
It does not make sense to me. Of course you can grow non GM potatoes if you wish but to be against developing a GM potato that does not suffer from blight is (in my view) plain daft.
I wonder what the Irish would have preferred during the blight devastation that caused them so much suffering.
However, you are quite correct that the shirkers on the dole should be put to work.
Kind regards
Barney
Hi Plumpudding,
This you are not going to like.
The Minister responsible for GM said on Farming Today, this morning, that anti GM protesters have 12 months to give concrete scientific evidence as to why GM produce should not be widely grown in the UK. The Royal Society have been asked to do a further full evaluation of GM.
The last evaluation done by the RS was to find that for any reason GM was not fit for consumption.
Back then they said that there was nothing that would prevent them from giving GM the all clear and this is a few years on and I would be more than surprised if they come to any other conclusion.
The Minister also said the criteria hasn't changed but the question has.
Plumpudding, I would be more than interested as to know why you are so vehemently opposed to GM?
If you do not want to tells us on forum so be it but even if you PM'd me I would respect your privacy.
Sincerely,
JB.
This you are not going to like.
The Minister responsible for GM said on Farming Today, this morning, that anti GM protesters have 12 months to give concrete scientific evidence as to why GM produce should not be widely grown in the UK. The Royal Society have been asked to do a further full evaluation of GM.
The last evaluation done by the RS was to find that for any reason GM was not fit for consumption.
Back then they said that there was nothing that would prevent them from giving GM the all clear and this is a few years on and I would be more than surprised if they come to any other conclusion.
The Minister also said the criteria hasn't changed but the question has.
Plumpudding, I would be more than interested as to know why you are so vehemently opposed to GM?
If you do not want to tells us on forum so be it but even if you PM'd me I would respect your privacy.
Sincerely,
JB.
am i alone in thinking we are all being brainwashed by the repeated assertion thet we are living longer healthier lives, i see a lot of elderly people who have or have had cancer of various bits, arthritis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure etc,
a lot of the kids appear to have adhd or autism or asthma to varying degrees
the tv is awash with programmes about middle aged people improving their life expectancy if they change to a healthy diet.
the government has even started this 5 a day campagne, would they do that if the population was in perfect health on its diet of burgers and coke?
the missus was looking at "healthy" foods this morning and came to the conclusion that anything labled free of x had some other cheap filler added which was arguably just as bad.
a lot of the kids appear to have adhd or autism or asthma to varying degrees
the tv is awash with programmes about middle aged people improving their life expectancy if they change to a healthy diet.
the government has even started this 5 a day campagne, would they do that if the population was in perfect health on its diet of burgers and coke?
the missus was looking at "healthy" foods this morning and came to the conclusion that anything labled free of x had some other cheap filler added which was arguably just as bad.