# Time to call out the anti-GMO conspiracy theory



## Eduardo Gomes

Mark Lynas spent years destroying genetically modified crops in the name of the environment. Now he's told the world – and his fellow activists – that he was wrong. A historical discourse.


http://www.marklynas.org/2013/04/time-to-call-out-the-anti-gmo-conspiracy-theory/


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## 1102009

Perhaps he was paid for this and is tired.

Here a speaking of what happened to a farmer who believed genetic modified corn was good for his cattle and who lost his existence, his milk cows dying on him and the manure contaminating all his farmland.
He is one of the reasons the genetic science companies left europe`s experimental field research because his experience showed the reality.
He even went to prison a time for his actions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehJe-4hjR2c


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## Eduardo Gomes

Sorry Sybille I do not understand the beautiful German language.

From another link:

"GM crops that incorporate Bt, a natural pesticide approved for organic farming, have reversed the treadmill. They allow for less pesticide use, less toxicity to friendly insects, the return of pest predators, and the need for even less pesticide. As one expert put it, they run the treadmill in reverse.

Pro-organic, anti-GMO activists refuse to acknowledge this clear win for GM technology. They would rather use toxic “natural” pesticides and harm the environment, including the bees, than use the best methods currently available. Quite the opposite of the bumper sticker, if you love the bees, you will not buy organic."

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/whats-killing-the-bees/


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## 1102009

Thanks, Eduardo, nice learning, IPM, yes, why not since something will be used always. 

What´s Bt exactly? O googled but did not found a good description.

The farmer in the video was a great fan of genetic manipulated corn and fed this to his cows which stomachs were distroyed and they all died. This was because the toxins in the corn plants were not diminished by time as the company claimed they would. 

But nothing to do with bees.


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## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> What´s Bt exactly? O googled but did not found a good description.


In the context I understood that they are bacillus thuringiensis.

"During sporulation, many Bt strains produce crystal proteins (proteinaceous inclusions), called δ-endotoxins, that have insecticidal action. This has led to their use as insecticides, and more recently to genetically modified crops using Bt genes, such as Bt corn.[4]" source: wiki


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## SuiGeneris

@SiWolKe, Bt is a toxin made by the bacterium _Bacillus thuringiensis_. These toxins are somewhat species specific (article), and for example, the Bt toxin used in most Bt GMO's is relatively harmless to bee's while quite toxic to common pest species. It is totally harmless to humans - our digestive tract breaks it down, and even if it enters our bodies, we lack the type of neuronal transmitter it targets. Organic farmers use Bt as well; but they spray their crops with the bacteria, which has a far worse environmental impact in terms of the impacts on non-target species - GMO'd plants have to be consumed for an insect to be poisoned; spraying kills anything susceptible in the area.

In terms of Gottfried Glöckner, you've bought into a "story" largely regarded as fiction. He received several payments from syngenta - not (as he claims) as compensatino for dead animals, but rather because he was a contract farmer who was paid to test the grain in field trials. He claimed that several of his animals dies after eating a specific strain of GMO corn and that he had lab testing done to show the problem was Bt and poor nutrient content in the GMO grain. However, independent testing by the Robert Koch Institute failed to show this, and the one animal he provided for testing died from contaminated (with botulism) silage with no evidence of Bt toxicity. Contrary to his claims, he was never jailed for his advocacy - he was jailed for beating his wife. In other words, if you look at sources other than Gottfried Glöckner himself, his story falls apart really quickly.

Reality is that most animal feed is made of GMO grain - if GMO grain were truly toxic, there would be more than 12 dead cows on 1 German farm. There would be hundreds of millions or more dead cattle - plus similar numbers of dead pigs, sheep, chickens, etc, etc, etc. 

At the end of the day there has never been scientific evidence published showing GMOs to be any more harmful than a conventional crop. A few studies have cropped up making claims about cancer and whatnot, but most of them were later retracted for being fraudulent or poorly designed. In contrast, systemic reviews of - literally - hundreds of billions of consumed GMO meals find no evidence of toxicity.


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## beemandan

SiWolKe said:


> Perhaps he was paid for this and is tired.


It would get ugly if we all suggested that anyone who offered a view that disagreed with our own were dishonest.


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## johno

Hey beemandan, obviously you must work for Monsanto LOL the same old story if you can not stand up to the debate you destroy the speaker. Comes from rules for radicals from Saul Alinski.
Johno


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## beemandan

johno said:


> Hey beemandan, obviously you must work for Monsanto LOL the same old story if you can not stand up to the debate you destroy the speaker.


A sad commentary on the state of our 'civilization'.


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## 1102009

Thanks guys.
I appreciate the corrections because only with discussions the truth may come out.

My neighbor has an organic farm, breeding cattle, milk cows and planting the food for them. 
Now you informed me well so I´m able to discuss this with him. Thanks again!


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## JRG13

I've worked for Monsanto and now Syngenta, I guess that makes me a horrible person? You can believe what you want, but that doesn't make it true, such as the earth is flat. I rely on the real science of the matter, such as the biochemistry behind the subjects at hand. Also, correlation and causation are not the same as most people think, for example, relayed to me by my brother in a lecture on the matter. If you graph the use of glyphosate vs the increased rate in cancer over the years, it correlates quite nicely, so you could then logically conclude that glyphosate is the cause. But, if you then graph the increase of organic food consumption vs the rate of cancer increase it actually correlates even better than the increase in the use of glyphosate, so therefore it's actually the organic foods causing the increase in cancer we are seeing based on the argument of correlation alone. Numbers don't lie.... but of course this may or may not have anything to do with the actual science behind the issue, once you start understanding that, then your conclusions become more plausible to me.


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## Eduardo Gomes

JRG 13 here in Portugal there is a great gap around the mechanisms of construction of scientific knowledge. One of the greatest fallacies is precisely the confusion between the correlation between two phenomena and the notion of cause and effect.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds

Take naturally grown corn, raise your own animals, and taste the difference. I don't need some "big-name" telling me what is, or what is not, common sense.

Come on over the eating is fine.


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## SuiGeneris

I've been raising my own meat since I was a child. GMO feed has nothing to do with how good it tastes - corn is the problem. Predominantly corn feed = bland meat; that's been appreciated by all the farmers I've known for decades. You want good tasting meat, graze your animals and/or feed them mixed feed. Large commercial operations - conventional or organic - feed corn because it is cheap and animals grow fast on it. The price you pay is in the quality coming out of the abattoir.


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## Steve in PA

JRG13 said:


> If you graph the use of glyphosate vs the increased rate in cancer over the years, it correlates quite nicely, so you could then logically conclude that glyphosate is the cause. But, if you then graph the increase of organic food consumption vs the rate of cancer increase it actually correlates even better than the increase in the use of glyphosate, so therefore it's actually the organic foods causing the increase in cancer we are seeing based on the argument of correlation alone. Numbers don't lie.... but of course this may or may not have anything to do with the actual science behind the issue, once you start understanding that, then your conclusions become more plausible to me.


I've had two different seed sales give me that exact same pitch. That's a very strange coincidence.

My issue is with residues in humans. The same two salesmen told me that glyphosphate breaks down in soil in mere hours. How then does it show up in human urine when the same study didn't find it in the tapwater? I will keep reading but don't want to get into this debate...again. 

Everyone has their own opinion. What I do wish is that we had the choice to buy or not buy knowing the GMO content of our food.


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## johno

I think what these guys are sampling are the glyphosate's metabolites which are the chemicals it has broken down into, The other problem we find is that chemical technology has increased to such an extent that smaller and smaller amounts can be found in samples. Twenty years ago we talked about parts per million mostly now the talk is about parts per billion and parts per trillion soon I would imagine. The other point is medical technology has also advanced and more and more conditions are now being diagnosed that were overlooked before, when I was young people died of old age but not anymore they are all diagnosed as dying of some cause or the other so statistics have changed over the years. Moderation is Key so moderate your beekeeping and live longer LOL.
Johno


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## SuiGeneris

Steve in PA said:


> I've had two different seed sales give me that exact same pitch. That's a very strange coincidence.


its also inaccurate - age-adjusted cancer rates are down - not up - over the past 20 years. So it would be more "accurate" to say GMOs = less cancer (accurate in that you'd be matching data to a trend; still inaccurate as correlation != causation). Absolute cancer rates are higher, but that's because the average age of our population is increasing, and cancer is an age-associated disease.



Steve in PA said:


> My issue is with residues in humans.


Why? The toxicity profile of glyphosate and its degradation products is well known, and it is a very safe chemical - indeed, it is the least toxic of herbicides available to farmers. And yes, that includes the "natural" herbicides used by many organic farmers...some of which are among the most toxic (and slowest to degrade) of pesticides still legal to use. Frankly, if you're worried about pesticide risk, GMO is a sign of safety.



Steve in PA said:


> The same two salesmen told me that glyphosphate breaks down in soil in mere hours.


Its half-life in soil is about 6 days, which means half is gone (on average) 6 days after treatment, 75% is gone after 12 days, etc.



Steve in PA said:


> How then does it show up in human urine when the same study didn't find it in the tapwater?


Which study? Meta-analysis of several studies shows that urine levels tend to be below what is expected given legal limits for occupational exposure and allowed trace amount on food.



Steve in PA said:


> Everyone has their own opinion.


But some of those opinions are fact-based...others are not


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## 1102009

Talked to the organic working farmer yesterday and he said there is a big difference if Bt are sprayed on a plant in a directly affected situation to kill bugs or if it introduced genetically in plants.


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## SuiGeneris

Yes, there are big differences. Bt (the bacterium, or purified protein) sprayed onto plants is much worse - you kill susceptible non-pest species as well as pest species. GMO'd Bt plants express only the toxin, usually inside of the cells on the outermost layer of the plant or root (cuticle), and insects must eat the plant to be killed the toxin. I.E. GMO's specifically deliver the protein to pest species; sprayed forms are indiscriminate and kill any susceptible species. Sprayed Bt also has a higher theoretical risk of driving the evolution of Bt-resistant pest species.

B


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## 1102009

> Yes, there are big differences. Bt (the bacterium, or purified protein) sprayed onto plants is much worse - you kill susceptible non-pest species as well as pest species.


MMH weren´t there Bt specifics for different insects?


> GMO'd Bt plants express only the toxin, usually inside of the cells on the outermost layer of the plant or root (cuticle), and insects must eat the plant to be killed the toxin.


And does not the toxin then go away after a time if it´s just a layer?


> I.E. GMO's specifically deliver the protein to pest species; sprayed forms are indiscriminate and kill any susceptible species.


And how many are susceptible? Thought is aren´t there different proteins used?


> Sprayed Bt also has a higher theoretical risk of driving the evolution of Bt-resistant pest species.


Is it not the other way around? GMO will not go away, being inside the plants forever. Spraying is once or once again if there is a pest.

I´m wondering why the state still propagates seed banks and conventional farmed lands if all is positive with GMO. A last resource to have diversity once again?


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## SuiGeneris

Bt are "specific" in that they don't kill all insects, but they're still pretty broad-spectrum. Its not like one type of Bt kills only cabbage worms; the cabbage worm "specific" Bt also kills the larval stage of most types of beetles. I don't know how much biology you know, but Bt specificity is at the "family" taxonomic rank; e.g. a particular Bt will be lethal to all species/genera within a family, and often has reduced toxicity to similar families. This is one reason why an ant-specific Bt has not been released; such a Bt kills ants, but would also harm a number of pollinator species including bees and wasps (all of whom belong to close families to ants).

In GMO plants the toxin doesn't go away because it is continually produced by the cells - as far as the plant is concerned, its just another gene under a promoter (the thing that turns genes on and off) that is 'on' in cuticle tissues. You could think of it as equivalent to a gene that gives your skin colour - its always 'on' in your skin, and 'off' everywhere else. But in this case, instead of colour, its making an insect toxin in the plants "skin".

In terms of resistance, you have how resistance forms backwards. Transient exposures, such as those you get with spraying, are what cause resistance to evolve. The reason being that a portion of the insects are exposed to a non-lethal dose (e.g. due to being in a more poorly sprayed area, or because they move into the field a few days after spraying); this lets any insects with a small amount of resistance a chance to out-compete those without any resistance. The next time you spray you re-select for insects with some resistance, with more resistant insects out-competing less resistant ones. Repeat enough times and completely resistant species can emerge. GMO is always there, at toxic levels, making it much harder for resistance to evolve. Resistance can still evolve with GMO, which is why the more modern Bt strains express 2 or 3 different Bt toxins. This approach seems to be sufficient to prevent the evolution of resistance (its also why similar tri- or quadravalent-component treatments are used to treat things like HIV). 

As to why non-GMO seeds are still propagated, there are a number of reasons:

Most food crops are not GMO'd (only ~10 crops have GMO variants available) so there is a need to produce those seeds for producers.
Crop breeding is still a major industry, and those strains represent their feed stock
GMO is never done alone; it is always combined with conventional breeding approaches (which are pretty unnatural, btw) to produce plants with the desired characters. Think of it this way - with GMO you can add or remove a single select trait with high specificity. What you cannot do (yet, at least) is insert general desired characteristics.
Those seeds represent a lot of genetic diversity which can be used in the future for breeding or GMO
Some people just like old varieties.


B


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## 1102009

I´m not convinced, but no matter because I´m against natural and GMO toxins.

http://earthopensource.org/gmomyths...l-crops-harm-insects-harmless-animals-people/


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## SuiGeneris

I'm not going to breakdown all the falsehoods in that article, but lets just say that they are very selectively feeding you information that supports their political agenda, rather than giving an as unbiased view as possible. There are literally tens of thousands of academic researchers out there whose job is to investigate safety/etc of GMO's; they are independent of industry and of special interest groups. And their work consistently shows that GMOs are as safe as any other crop, and generally are better for the environment across a broad range of categories.

Just as one example of how misleading your article is, take the line "The Bt toxin expressed by GM Bt plants is different from natural Bt, both in terms of its structure and its mode of action". That is true...for one single line of now withdrawn Bt corn. All other approved Bt plants express the full, native Bt protein. So while the fact in their claim is true, the remainder of what they state - and their implication that it is true for all Bt strains - is not.

Its a common bait-and-switch approach used by the anti-GMO lobby (and most other anti-science groups, from creationists, to anti-vaxers, to flat-earthers) to make their case, but to be blunt about it, its simply lying while using a few bona-fide facts to give their claims the veneer of authenticity. I would suggest you look to sources not from lobby groups (either for- or against-GMOs) and look instead to the independent researchers whose only interest is to accurately understand the impact of GMO's.


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## 1102009

There are no independent researchers in my eyes. On both sides perhaps. 
It should be that the people can decide what to choose with declaration of products, no matter if they are educated or not. Democracy freedom. But the declarations lack. Why? Lobby input?


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## SuiGeneris

Well that is hugely insulting to myself and all the other scientists tolling out there to make your life better. The most valuable thing I have - profession-wise - is my independence. It's the whole underlying basis of academic freedom, and the foundation upon which science has progressed for the past 500 or so years. But I guess no one can convince a conspiracy-mongerer.


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## 1102009

No it´s not insulting. It´s your personal feeling because you are convinced of your knowledge.

The problem is the arrogance of believing that you are the Redeemer of mankind because you are convinced of your knowledge.
But there are people who are suspicious of it.
These too have a voice and a right to their opinion.


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## SuiGeneris

It is insulting, whether you intended it that way or not. You presume to know what motivates I (and my fellow scientists), and because the facts we reveal don't align with your personal beliefs, you assume that they are a product of bias. You should try stepping into a lab one day, I think you'll be shocked at the Herculean steps we go through to remove our conscious and unconscious biases from our analyses. Right now you are ascribing motivations based purely on your ignorance of how science works, and the best defence you can come up with for that is insinuation and insults.

And yes, I am convinced of my knowledge; the nice thing about science is we can assign mathematical certainty to our conclusions and even quantify the likelihood that we are wrong. That doesn't make me the redeemer of mankind - and for that matter at no place did I ever express the opinion that GMO was the only way to go - but it does mean that I can be certain the information I share is as accurate as possible.

And while I agree that people have a right to their opinions, they do not have a right to their own facts. Facts stand independent of us and our opinions. But if you have to ignore facts to keep your opinions, than you opinions are - in a word - wrong. And similarity, while you have a right to your opinions, you do not have the right to not have those opinions challenged, nor to have them treated as equal to informed opinions.


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## 1102009

No problem. I´m not feeling insulted. Sorry that you feel insulted.


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## rwurster

:lpf:


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## jonsl

Siwolke - There is a reason why he may be insulted and you are not. You questioned his integrity, he just questioned your facts.


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## jonsl

Anti GMO is like a religion. It is based on faith not facts.


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## 1102009

I do not question anyone's integrity.
And there are many branches of research that I support, for example in the medical field, and in both directions.

There are facts on both sides these days, and I think it must be possible to discuss them in a civilized way without anyone feeling offended.

25-30 years of genetic engineering research are much too short to judge the long-term consequences. That's a fact too.
It has not been proven that there are no sequelae, e.g. in the human genome, if you take the modified food for many years.
It is not even possible to say something about it yet.

Only when this technique is used for many years on all foods (there are still only certain plants, if you observe the cultivation in the whole world) will you see what happens, to what extent dependencies arise (income dependencies, chemistry dependencies) and to what extent humans are used.
Laboratory tests results are not what happens on the fields and the field research is not what will happen in different locations. Just like with beekeeping.

But I think all people should be allowed to determine these changes, the farmers and scientists and the consumers.


> Anti GMO is like a religion. It is based on faith not facts.


Just like GMO is.
To be skeptical and to listen to and even provoke the arguments of both sides is important for learning processes.


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## SuiGeneris

SiWolKe said:


> I do not question anyone's integrity.


Except that you did; your own words: _There are no independent researchers in my eyes._



SiWolKe said:


> 25-30 years of genetic engineering research are much too short to judge the long-term consequences. That's a fact too.


No, it is not a fact. There are very well developed toxological, etc, frameworks which can accurately determine long-term health risks (similar for environmental) over periods of one-to-two decades. I *literally* teach this stuff for a living. You're repeating propaganda from anti-science groups; there is no basis in reality for your claim.

If you actually care about the reality of how we quantify long-terms risks I'd suggest the following books:
Toxicological Risk Assessment of Chemicals: A Practical Guide
Fundamentals of Toxicology: Essential Concepts and Applications
Probabilistic Approach for Deriving Acceptable Human Intake Limits and Human Health Risks from Toxicological Studies: General Framework.



SiWolKe said:


> It has not been proven that there are no sequelae, e.g. in the human genome, if you take the modified food for many years.


Actually, it has, at multiple levels.

Firstly, there is no known physical, chemical or biological process by which genomic changes can be induced by GMOd foods. In fact, for that to occur a lot of established biology (e.g. how digestion & nutrient absorption works) would have to be completely wrong.

Secondly, it is physically impossible for GMO'd genes/proteins to have a different biological effect when consumed that a non-GMO'd variant; the GMOd portions of an organisms are still DNAs and the encoded protein (not counting knockout GMOs, which lack genes rather than having new ones), and our bodies process them the same as any other consumed DNA or protein. The average food item you eat has between 20,000 and 60,000 genes/proteins. GMOs have - at most - and extra 10 (most have 1). Unless you think GMO DNA is magical, it cannot have any effect different from that of the already foreign (to you) DNA and genes in your food.

Lots of info here: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/23395/genetically-engineered-crops-experiences-and-prospects

Again, you are merely parroting propaganda from anti-GMO groups that has no basis in reality.



SiWolKe said:


> Only when this technique is used for many years on all foods (there are still only certain plants, if you observe the cultivation in the whole world) will you see what happens, to what extent dependencies arise (income dependencies, chemistry dependencies) and to what extent humans are used.


Again, no. The entire fundamental underlying principal of science (and the statistics we rely on) is to make accurate inferences about what occurs in the large scale through observations/experiments on samples/subgroups.



SiWolKe said:


> Laboratory tests results are not what happens on the fields and the field research is not what will happen in different locations.


Good thing that GMO's go through multi-site field trial before approval, then! Glad you agree (even if you don't realise it) that the framework used to approve GMOs and assess their safety is robust, and takes into account environment-specific events.



SiWolKe said:


> But I think all people should be allowed to determine these changes, the farmers and scientists and the consumers.


You do understand that farmers around the world are clamouring for GMO's - right? Its why they've been so successful. No one forces farmers to buy them; farmers buy them because they provide value to the farmer. And by-and-large, consumers don't seem to care.

If we're going to label foods for reasons of risk, it makes far more sense to label foods grown using compost or manure as fertiliser; unlike GMO's, there is an actual, proven risk. Organic produce (and conventional produce fertilised with manure or compost) is about 20x more likely to carry pathogenic bacteria than crops grown conventionally. In contrast, analysis of over a trillion (yes, trillion, with a 't') consumed GMO meals finds no measurable risk.

But yeah, lets label the GMOs :scratch:


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## gww

SuiG.....


> But yeah, lets label the GMOs


Why not label them? It doesn't matter why somebody decides for themselves not to or to eat it. You mention testing of trillions. Well pork is tested by trillions and when you go buy it it is labeled pork. I eat it but yet know many who for religious reasons that don't eat it. I don't want them to take pork off the shelf but don't mind that it is labeled pork and don't care if somebody doesn't eat it. I think it is not too much to ask to know what you are eating and for the person eating it getting to make the decision for what ever reason on wether to eat it or not.
Cheers
gww

Ps so it is ok to force products to label sodium content and added ingrediants but to hide gmo?


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## johno

Thats right I believe we should label the food, those mit de cow poop and those mitout de cow poop,
Johno


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## SuiGeneris

gww said:


> Why not label them? It doesn't matter why somebody decides for themselves not to or to eat it. You mention testing of trillions. Well pork is tested by trillions and when you go buy it it is labeled pork.


And GMO'd corn is labelled 'corn'...

...and GMO'd soy labelled 'soy'.

What you are proposing is that foods be identified down to the breed/strain. So to take your pork example, instead of saying 'pork', you are proposing the packaging would have to say "Cheshire pork", or "Landrace pork". Producers/packagers have the option to do that already - "angus beef" being a common one that makes me laugh every time I see it.

Aside from being ridiculous (and how would you label hamburger that may contain meat from a dozen breeds of cow, or a cereal that may be made of ten or twelve different strains of wheat), it provides no benefit to the consumer, and provides significant cost to the producer. After all, they now need to create separate transportation, storage and processing lines to keep the strain/breeds identifiable.



gww said:


> I think it is not too much to ask to know what you are eating and for the person eating it getting to make the decision for what ever reason on wether to eat it or not.


And that information is not missing. If there is corn in it, its labelled as such.



gww said:


> Ps so it is ok to force products to label sodium content and added ingrediants but to hide gmo?


That would be a false equivalency on your part; GMO isn't an ingredient added to food, its a breeding method.

We don't label breeding methods on food, and requiring only one be labelled makes no sense. After all, mutagenic breeding (most plant crops), line breeding (most animal breeds), forced/interspecies hybridisation (most vegetables), and induced polyploidy (all cereals), all create far larger and uncontrolled changes to the genomes than does GMO. All produce much less predictable outcomes than GMO. And all are completely unnatural and do not (in many cases, cannot) occur in nature.

So if we're labelling breeding methods, why only GMOs, and not the ones which incur far larger changes to the organisms biology and which are equally - if not more so - "unnatural"?


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## gww

SuiG....
Good enough answer for me at my knowlage level. I am not invested hard enough in the subject to care enough to learn more to decide if I totaly agree or not and so find no fault with your answer at my current knowlage level. I also will not work to learn more (unless on accident) on purpose cause there are enough things now that I am doing and don't know that I won't get to before I die.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Thanks for the detailed information, SG.
I need some time to study now.

I am generally in favor of labeling foods, but as permitted proportions are genetically engineered there, I do not see much purpose in them either.

But since I find it basically fair to be able to choose, at the moment I buy organic food from labels that control themselves.
So I will continue to watch the discussion and see how it develops.

Eduardo started this thread.
I assume that it is important to him that in the Portuguese orchards the bees are not poisoned directly by spraying, so the argument that the defense is built into the plant is certainly an advantage.

Are there any studies on the extent to which the guttation water of the plants or the resins they are segregating and which the bees may use has an impact on bee health?


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## Vance G

SiWolKe said:


> Perhaps he was paid for this and is tired.
> 
> Here a speaking of what happened to a farmer who believed genetic modified corn was good for his cattle and who lost his existence, his milk cows dying on him and the manure contaminating all his farmland.
> He is one of the reasons the genetic science companies left europe`s experimental field research because his experience showed the reality.
> He even went to prison a time for his actions.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehJe-4hjR2c


You tell Mr McCormack to get that reaper off your land! It will never catch on.


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## SuiGeneris

SiWolKe said:


> I am generally in favor of labeling foods, but as permitted proportions are genetically engineered there, I do not see much purpose in them either.


As someone who (well, my wife, to be accurate) produces/sells food at the small scale, I'm generally opposed to labelling laws. They are very expensive to implement, especially at the level of the small producer. 



SiWolKe said:


> But since I find it basically fair to be able to choose, at the moment I buy organic food from labels that control themselves.


And it is a voluntary labelling, which is what I prefer as the costs are incurred by choice, and farmers/producers will do so if is to their advantage. We looked at getting organic certification for the dairy goat operation we are in the process of building, but decided against it. The cost of certification, plus the additional cost of buying certified & traceable feed, far outweighs the additional price we could charge for cheese. It also illustrates just how arbitrary the organic label is - because our goats will be eating predominantly wild fodder, with only 10-20% of their winter diet coming from feed, its almost impossible to get certification (we need to get soil testing done throughout our property, whereas someone growing fodder needs only have each separate field tested)...even though they are eating a far more "natural" diet (bush, trees, sedges, etc) than any goat eating a 100% organic feed diet :scratch:



SiWolKe said:


> Are there any studies on the extent to which the guttation water of the plants or the resins they are segregating and which the bees may use has an impact on bee health?


Lots, as measuring the release of Bt into the environment is a mandatory part of the certification process for all Bt crops. The best type of study to look for are meta-analyses, which pool the data from multiple studies and analyze it in-bulk. These (along with the individual studies they assess) show now harm to bees & other pollinators: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18183296

You can even feed bees a pure diet of Bt-pollen without incurring a measurable detoxification response: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28688300


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## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> Eduardo started this thread.
> I assume that it is important to him that in the Portuguese orchards the bees are not poisoned directly by spraying, so the argument that the defense is built into the plant is certainly an advantage.


My fundamental fear is that organic fundamentalism will lay the baby down the pipe along with the water. 
The portuguese and european situation regarding GMOs is largely conditioned by the french and german positions. 

Since the introduction of GMOs in the food chain in the mid-1990s, there has been a marked annual increase in the cultivation of transgenic plants worldwide. In 2010, the total area under cultivation of transgenic plants reached 148 Mha, of which 50% correspond to soybean and 31% to maize, GM crops being the most widely used in the world, followed by cotton and oilseed rape. At EU level, maize is the most authoritative (often designated as events) genetically modified species (21) in food and feed (see www.gmo-compass.org/). Portugal is ranked 21st worldwide in the cultivation of GMOs, corresponding only to MON810 maize, which is currently the only event approved for cultivation in the EU. Since 2005, its cultivation in Portugal has been extended to the North, Center (Beira Litoral), Lisbon and Tagus Valley, Alentejo (most cultivated area) and, more recently, to the Algarve.

I thank SG for what he has taught me about this subject.

""Science isn't rejecting the claims themselves so much as the evidence used to support them. Scientific evidence, by our definition, must be strong enough to win a consensus. That is an exacting standard. The scientist, like a stage magician, can't cover his hands at a critical part of the demonstration. The audience would boo and throw tomatoes. 

Science doesn't care how a scientist comes up with an idea: it does care, however, about the evidence the scientist uses to support the idea. It must be convincing to those who don't believe in Ouija boards, not just to those who do. 

Well-written pseudoscience, with its exciting generalizations and lack of mathematics, can always find a bigger audience than can carefully crafted, but necessarily tedious, rebuttals.

Cromer, A. (1995). Uncommon sense: The heretical nature of science. Oxford University Press.


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## SuiGeneris

Eduardo Gomes said:


> My fundamental fear is that organic fundamentalism will lay the baby down the pipe along with the water.


Its already a huge issue. One example I've encountered personally is wilt-resistant bananas. In many regions of Africa, bananas are a major staple; equivalent to rice in Asia, or potatoes in Ireland. For many families, the 1 or 2 banana trees on their property is all that stands between them and starvation. And bananas in Africa are under attack, by a fungal wilt disease. In Uganda (where my uni maintains a research outpost that I've worked with a few times) they have had actual famines caused by the loss of bananas to this disease.

And there is a solution - a GMO'd banana made by an NPO, which they want to offer farmers for free. They have test plots full of trees, ready to be shared (to share all you do is give a farmer a cutting; within a year it'll be producing fruit). But despite the issues with famine, despite the spread of the disease, they cannot share their trees - simply because well funded European interest groups have lobbied the government to ban the trees. You can literally drive around the agricultural areas outside of Kampala and see plots of banana trees behind razor wire, separating them from people who desperately need them.

So a free solution to a disease threatening the major food source for tens of millions of people is being withheld, because to some wealthy Europeans, dead children is apparently a better option than a patent-free, freely provided, disease-resistant GMO.


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## Rader Sidetrack

SuiGeneris said:


> So a free solution to a disease threatening the major food source for tens of millions of people is being withheld, because to some wealthy Europeans, dead children is apparently a better option than a patent-free, freely provided, disease-resistant GMO.


More on the bananas in Uganda issue here: 
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-29/amid-drought-and-pests-can-gmos-save-ugandas-farmers


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## 1102009

So the lack of diversity with banana multiplication is now treated with GMO...I hope this works. I hope it for the small farmers.

And how do you want to solve the starvation of people who have no access to farmland and water, because this was bought by speculators?


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## SuiGeneris

SiWolKe said:


> So the lack of diversity with banana multiplication is now treated with GMO...I hope this works. I hope it for the small farmers.


Its not an issue of genetic diversity; you're thinking of the Cavendish (most common type shipped to Europe/N. America as a fruit) which is under attack by a different disease (tropical race). This is an issue for some African farmers, as some produce this as an export crop. But that's not the type of banana we're talking about here. Cavendish production in Africa is largely run by large companies, so the loss of those bananas is more of an economic/jobs issue than a survival issue.

The banan's Graham & I are referring to are generally quite different; some are small dessert bananas, but most are starchy plantains. Very starchy, usually cooked prior to consumption. Much more genetically diverse than the fruit/dessert strains grown for richer nations. And a lot of effort was put into breeding a resistant strain, with no success. The genes which provide protection come from sweet peppers.



SiWolKe said:


> And how do you want to solve the starvation of people who have no access to farmland and water, because this was bought by speculators?


Not an issue in Uganda, where most people are farmers, and not at all relevant to GMOs or other farming methods.


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## 1102009

Ah, thanks, SG.
I hope the famers will not have to wait until they are so desperate they will be taken over then and will keep their property.


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## 1102009

SuiGeneris said:


> So a free solution to a disease threatening the major food source for tens of millions of people is being withheld, because to some wealthy Europeans, dead children is apparently a better option than a patent-free, freely provided, disease-resistant GMO.


In this article they say that it is not withheld.
So why such populistic articulation?

https://www.heise.de/tr/blog/artikel/Uganda-erlaubt-Gentechnik-3880859.html


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## SuiGeneris

SiWolKe said:


> In this article they say that it is not withheld.
> So why such populistic articulation?
> 
> https://www.heise.de/tr/blog/artikel/Uganda-erlaubt-Gentechnik-3880859.html


The bill is still not law, the anti-GMO lobby continues to use scare tactics to prevent its passage: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/29/c_136860111.htm

And even when (or if) it becomes law, this still means that from 2008 (when the banana was first to be released) to 2018 it was withheld - that's 10 years of starvation (and thousands of dead) that could have been avoided.


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## 1102009

How can you guarantee it´s staying with NPO organizations and it will not happen like in India?

By the way, was Vandana studying at your university?

http://vandanashiva.com/?page_id=2



> In 1995, Indian Agriculture was reoriented from being focused on National Food Security, which rests on the livelihood and ecological security of our small farmers, to being focussed on corporate control and corporate profits, which are made possible by the corporate written rules of “free” trade, trade liberalization, and globalization. Enabled by these rules, agrichemical giants entered India and started to control the seed sector. Where once farmers grew, saved, and replanted seeds, they were now forced to buy seed-chemical packages that allowed companies to extract super-profits from farmers through royalty collection.





> In 2009 alone, 30 new brands of Bt Cotton were introduced in India in order to create an illusion of choice for farmers. In reality, the introduction of Bt cotton meant that farmers could no longer afford seeds and were forced to buy them on credit from companies, creating a cycle of debt that continues till today. *





> In spring 2015, during the harvest festival of Baisakhi, more than 100 farmers of West UP committed suicide. Their crops had failed due to unseasonal rains. This climate instability is part of climate change, and industrial agriculture is a major driver of climate change. Farmers’ suicides are a result of high cost-low return farming, the stresses due to the debt resulting from this exploitative system, their vulnerability to volatile markets, and a chaotic climate.


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## SuiGeneris

SiWolKe said:


> How can you guarantee it´s staying with NPO organizations and it will not happen like in India?


When it comes to subsistence farmers, no company is going to develop products for them - there is no market there for them to sell too. By definition, these farmers lack the means to buy into more advanced agricultural seeds and technologies. 

Subsistence farmers are a major target for NGO's who support human development. The goal is to give these farmers the resources to go from farming to simply stay alive, to being able to profit and advance economically.

In terms of your posts regarding India, the situation is much more complex than the simplified version your source describes. Most cotton seeds sold in the west (GMO or conventional) are hybrid seeds - meaning that they are the offspring of two separate cotton breeds. When you cross two breeds in this fashion, the plants that grow from the resulting seeds experience a phenomenon called "hybrid vigour". This essentially means that the "children" of the cross out-grow and out-rpoduce the parental strains. This is great for farmers as they get much higher yields (most vegetables and cereals you buy - organic or conventional - are from hybrid stocks), but they come with a limitation - they don't breed true, and if you cross the hybrids and collect the seeds, the next generation will under-perform.

Bt cotton was the first hybrid crop ever introduced into India, and Indian farmers either ignored, or didn't take seriously, or didn't understand, the instructions they received on using the new seeds. This led to a pretty large loss in cotton output for a few years, as many farmers replanted seeds from the first years crop. It caused a lot of issues for the farmers, but it also spurred the development of the first non-patented and non-hybrid Bt cotton. This is now the most commonly grown form of cotton in India, is is considered to be directly responsible for increasing farmer incomes and reducing environmental impact within India's cotton industry: http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/41/download/isaaa-brief-41-2009.pdf


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## 1102009

SuiGeneris said:


> When it comes to subsistence farmers, no company is going to develop products for them - there is no market there for them to sell too. By definition, these farmers lack the means to buy into more advanced agricultural seeds and technologies. [/url]


At the start they are sponsored.
After studying your link I post this:


> To what extent is the selection of projects and the programmatic orientation of ISAAA linked to the list of sponsors? Even if the ISAAA does not publish financial details, after all so much is published: A number of global agricultural and genetic engineering companies financially support the ISAAA, including Monsanto (including its Indian branch Mahyco) and Bayer CropScience. Associations of the agricultural industry can be found among the sponsors, such as CropLife Asia and CropLife international.3 In the past, the German seed company KWS Saat AG and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation in the list of supporters. Added to this are the ministries of agriculture and foreign affairs of the US government and its development organization USAID and others. In earlier years, the Rockefeller Foundation was a recurring promoter.
> 
> The chair of the ISAAA Board of Directors is now Paul S. Teng, a scientist from Singapore. Teng worked as vice president for the Asia Pacific region for Monsanto. His name is also on the list of the Steering Committee of the Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI), another lobbying organization that is committed to the regulation of agro-genetic engineering, especially in international negotiations, and is usually close to industry represents.
> 
> The ISAAA Board of Directors also includes high-ranking - sometimes former - representatives of GM and agricultural corporations, for example Robert Fraley of Monsanto or - currently - former Novartis and Syngenta research manager Wallace Beversdorf.


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## SuiGeneris

SiWolKe said:


> At the start they are sponsored.


I have never once heard of that happening. Citation required.



SiWolKe said:


> After studying your link I post this:


And? Is it really a surprise that an NPO whose mission statement and entire purpose for existence is to bring free, modern farming methods to substance and poor farmers would hire ***experts*** in those methods? If your goal is to bring modern seeds (GMO'd or otherwise) to the poor, why would you hire anyone other than someone who has past experiences creating and distributing those types of products?

How is that at all bad, insidious, or wrong? 

And more to the point, whom do you think they should be hiring instead? Anti-GMO activists? Soccer moms? Internet conspiracy mongers? 

Who is pure enough in your eyes to head and work for a farming NGO?

Long story short, you've once again fallen into your habit of denigrating and attacking people because their findings disagree with your beliefs. If the ISAAA's results are wrong, show us the data. If the best thing you can do is try to insinuate that a logical hiring practice is somehow insidious, you have no valid argument to make.


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## rwurster

SG why do you bother? lol

I just follow this thread to watch her attack then back off, attack then back off, attack... opcorn:


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## 1102009

SG,
don´t feel offended. I´m not questioning your personal good intentions. I visited your profile and saw you are interested in beekeeping so you are not an influencer in my eyes just as I´m not one. 



> Who is pure enough in your eyes to head and work for a farming NGO?


Perhaps those should work in a voluntary capacity.

I´m not against GMO per se, I just don´t want this to be in the hands of a few unscrupulous people.

rwurster,
I got your last post on my email account before you edited it. Are you contributing? SG seems to me a person who can look out for himself. As he is a teacher he must be used to skepticism.

Well, I´m very glad I got the links so I can discuss this with both sides in europe. Thanks again, SG.


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## SuiGeneris

SiWolKe said:


> SG,
> don´t feel offended.


I don't feel offended. I'm simply pointing out that any time you are faced with facts that are inconvenient to your beliefs, you explain away those facts by claiming the sources are biased or untrustworthy.

According to you:

Mark Lynas "was paid for this" ("this" being accepting the evidence and going from an anti-GMO advocate to a pro-GMO advocate) --> post #2
Any scientist who publishes data you don't like cannot possible be independent or unbiased --> post #24
And now, an NGO which provided modern agricultural tools to subsistence farmers must be lying in their reports because they've hired competent people with relevant experience to their mission.

At no point have you ever provided any evidence any of your claims are true. You simply dismiss those who have the data showing your beliefs to be unfounded as biased or otherwise untrustworthy.



SiWolKe said:


> Perhaps those should work in a voluntary capacity.


So people who disagree with you are not allowed to make a living? And I fail to see how it is at all relevant - many of your anti-GMO advocates are paid for their "work", and most anti-GMO NGO's have paid staff and executives. So I assume you'll stop quoting those sources as well, given that being paid for your expertise is somehow disingenuous in your book...



SiWolKe said:


> I´m not against GMO per se, I just don´t want this to be in the hands of a few unscrupulous people.


So then you should be ecstatic that the ISAAA exists and hires the best people in their field, instead of complaining that they exist and hire the best people in their field. ISAAA gives away, for free, all of their GMOs and conventionally grown crops. They give away, for free, training in modern farming methods. They buy, or convince companies to sign over, patent rights to seeds, stocks and GMOs, and then give them away for free. They advice governments on safe and effective GMO policies, for free. They perform environmental and social impact studies, and give the results away for free.

The very thing you say you want is the entire reason for their existence.

And yet, somehow, in your mind they are evil, or to be mistrusted because they've hired people with relevant experience.

Here's a challenge for you. Name one of your anti-GMO groups that's done half as much for subsistence farmers, and ensuring seed/stock availability free of intellectual property restraints, than the ISAAA.


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## 1102009

IMHO are the problems of hunger and non-supply caused by civil wars, drought or flooding, natural disasters, climate change and dictatorship.

So it does not matter how and if agriculture is funded, it does not even matter if there is a genetically engineered agriculture or not. There are no solutions as long as there is a global market.
Genetic engineering can also lead to an oversupply, a drop in prices, so that nobody is helped.

In my opinion, there will only be an improvement if the global market economy is abandoned and there are more tariffs and own currencies. Then the countries can act freely.

The map you have set reminds me of a World Conquest card. It scares me.
The infrastructure is the same as in a war. We Germans are very influenced by our past.

I've set the link from India, that's enough.
I do not feel like justifying myself for something that matches my democratic freedom, and I am very grateful to have (still) this choice.


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## McBain

https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/180228 GMO's exist primarily so that Neonicotinoids can be used. Hopefully the lights come on for all the science-deniers/'independent researchers' out there before all bee populations are destroyed worldwide. 32% population decline: https://beeinformed.org/2017/05/25/2016-2017-loss-results-thank-you-to-all-survey-participants/


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## beemandan

McBain said:


> GMO's exist primarily so that Neonicotinoids can be used.


Proof positive that common sense has disappeared.


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## Eduardo Gomes

A very impressive reading: "What if much that you think you know about agriculture, farming and food isn't actually true? What if there are "myths" that have been intentionally and mostly unintentionally spread about these issues? What if the truth about these issues matters for the future of humanity?" source: http://appliedmythology.blogspot.pt/2018/


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## jim lyon

beemandan said:


> Proof positive that common sense has disappeared.


Yes, that statement caught my attention too. Two different issues, two different technologies and I am left wondering how many people really understand that. I remember pointing that out to someone once and the response I got was "ya, well I'm just against all that stuff". Hmmmm. Ok.


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## beemandan

jim lyon said:


> I remember pointing that out to someone once and the response I got was "ya, well I'm just against all that stuff".


Andy Rooney had it figured out a long time ago.


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## johno

Thank goodness those nasty neonics will soon be gone and we can go back to spraying good ole sevin again. I am sure our bees are going to appreciate that. We must remember that science is not important it is the consensus of radicals that counts.
Johno


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## rwurster

johno said:


> Thank goodness those nasty neonics will soon be gone and we can go back to spraying good ole sevin again. I am sure our bees are going to appreciate that. We must remember that science is not important it is the consensus of radicals that counts.
> Johno


And DDT, that was extremely effective also :no:

The consensus of radicals - Front row seat in this thread opcorn:


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## jim lyon

Personally, my favorite oldie is parathion. Did a really good job on most every insect or animal it came in contact with including birds, and many 4 and even 2 legged animals.


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## SuiGeneris

McBain said:


> https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/180228 GMO's exist primarily so that Neonicotinoids can be used. Hopefully the lights come on for all the science-deniers/'independent researchers' out there before all bee populations are destroyed worldwide. 32% population decline: https://beeinformed.org/2017/05/25/2016-2017-loss-results-thank-you-to-all-survey-participants/


Neonics activate acetylcholine receptors in the insect nervous system, leading to paralysis. Lacking a central nervous system...or any nervous system for that matter...or the ability to move to any significant extent...plants don't need to be GMOd to be resistant to neonics.

Maybe you should stop reading conspiracy sites and actually look up the science...you'll look less foolish that way.


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## TWall

Boy, am I sure glad I didn't notice this thread until today!

Lets bring back the furadan!

Tom


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