#### Monsanto

[Dalmatian90]

One of the most inhumane things I've ever seen was an organic dairy. Cows that would normally be treated with antibiotics, and be healthy again in a few days are left in "sick pens" to suffer it out, some of them make it, some of them don't. Sometimes they are sold to other farmers where they can be properly medicated and nursed back to health.

Some of the same whacko's that are out preaching about animal rights, are the ones buying "organic milk". You probably fail to see the humor, or the irony there as well.

I've never agreed with the absolute ban on therapeutic antibiotics for animals in organic certified systems.

I guess I do find humor in self-imposed ignorance -- whether it's citiots, or folks who dismiss "organic" with a wave of their hand.

I will take the farm that's caring for its herd of cows spending most of their day out on pasture for being more humane everyday then the one using loafing barns and docking the tails of every single cow so they can speed up their thrice a day milkings. I've been on both in my area, and ones in between.

Doesn't matter if they call themselves organic or not -- since there are plenty of organic factory farms in the U.S. I know which system is better for the cows overall, and which is more likely to get their cows sick in the first place.

 

[luckydozenfarm]

I've never agreed with the absolute ban on therapeutic antibiotics for animals in organic certified systems.

I guess I do find humor in self-imposed ignorance -- whether it's citiots, or folks who dismiss "organic" with a wave of their hand.

I will take the farm that's caring for its herd of cows spending most of their day out on pasture for being more humane everyday then the one using loafing barns and docking the tails of every single cow so they can speed up their thrice a day milkings. I've been on both in my area, and ones in between.

Doesn't matter if they call themselves organic or not -- since there are plenty of organic factory farms in the U.S. I know which system is better for the cows overall, and which is more likely to get their cows sick in the first place.

I agree Dal..but the fact of the matter remains that most people will not pay the extra price for good quality products. Hell, there are so many more people of food stamps now that we can't even get the farm bill passed through Congress without tacking on more food stamps. Man, I grow food for a living, and I am FED UP with people who complain about everything.

What they want is the Grade AA eggs, Prime+ beef, organic this, organic that, no chemicals, no insect damage, fresh as the day it was picked, and pay nothing for it with food stamps...and then if that's not enough they want to complain that farmers are making all the money and screwing the people over!! Are you serious? Its like my momma used to say to us kids...IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT'S FOR DINNER, GO MAKE YOUR OWN.

Seriously, go make your own food people and see how hard it is.

 

[luckydozenfarm]

yeah ok..

 

[Marco]

I seen a deal on PBS once where an African American worked for the Glidden paint company and was able to synthasize a hormone to help his barren wife from a soybean.

 

[Marco]

When I was 12 I got my appendix taken out, 100 years ago I would have bean dead. What you got? We need to accept advancements before we complain.

 

[Philbo]

I guess my family and I are among the so few Americans that are completely willing to pay more for quality, pesticide-free, environmentally friendly grown food. Hell, I work full-time in a health food store that is very restrictive about what ingredients are allowed in the food they sell, and I am leary of a lot of the stuff we sell even though it's labelled "organic, free-range, grass-fed, non-GMO, etc." Those aren't necessarily the most important things.

My family is actually doing everything we can reasonably do on our own land to produce our own quality food (veggie garden, dairy goats, pigs for pork.) It is way more work than most Americans seem to want to deal with, though. I think the more people start doing whatever they reasonably can to produce something for themselves, and then seeking out local farmer's markets first, the better off we'll be. Of course, there will likely always be things that everyone needs to purchase from the supermarket, but all things food related have gotten waay too convenient and cheap to the point where it's endangering the whole infrastructure. Quality food should cost accordingly, and people should have no problem justifying it's price tag if they are truly concerned with their health. My family lives on a relatively very low annual salary, yet we spend more money on quality food than almost anyone we know because we value it as a building block of our health.

Also, thinking that (even more) increased food production/surplus from the USA is going to solve the world/African hunger problem is over-simplifying very complex political and natural resource situations. These situations very often result in a wide range of conflicts that displace people from their traditional grazing and farming lands. The problems persist and people are semi/permanently forced from their land because of a number of terrible reasons. They end up cramped together in internally displaced or refugee camps with no real resources or physical space to farm and graze animals as they had; thus they become dependent on external food aid. If the governments and resources of African countries were managed better then it would be a step in the right direction for the African hunger problem. I'm still oversimplifying this to be sure, but don't think that more food surplus from us is going to solve their problems which are deeply rooted in both European colonialism and corruption.

 

[blades]

99% corruption just like our own Gov. from the top down.

 

[farmer steve]

I had a customer come into the market on sat. wanting to know if my sweet corn was GMO.I told her no but asked her why. She said she didn't want corn that had harmful chemicals in it. She then told me how she was freaked out by worms in sweet corn. I did tell her that my sweet corn was sprayed to prevent worms and she said that was ok as long as it wasn't corn that was "injected" with Glyphosate.??. She read on the internet that every corn seed was injected with roundup.??. She is a very good customer who seems to be educated but has read some things that she doesn't understand.She bought 2 1/2 dozen of corn and thanked me for helping her understand more about GMO crops. She didn't know soybeans and cow corn were GMO,but that didn't seem to matter. She does eat meat and drink milk. I did agree with her that that we are still in the early stages of these products and there is still a lot to be learned. I also told her if she reads it on the internet to check out the source as some "non profit groups" are making big $$ on peoples ignorrance.

 

[luckydozenfarm]

I hear you Steve...Here is the problem as I see it...Everyone has to eat, but I would say 90% of people have no idea how to raise and grow their own food. Heck, I've been farming for 34 years and I learn something new every day.

The other day I was grocery shopping with my wife and I was looking at the butter section and I was amazed at how many non-butter spreads there are. I actually had to look hard to find real butter. Most of them were marketed to the health nuts of the world, the same people who have a huge problem with GMO's.

So it's ok to eat refined vegetable by-products (usually corn oil..and most likely GMO corn oil...LMAO!!) in replacement of real butter, but not ok to eat GMO corn where less than 1 TEN-BILLIONTH (1/10,000,000,000) of its genetic code was slightly modified? That makes no sense to me.

I don't mind stupid people in the world, but the ones who go around making statements about something they know nothing about that irritates me.

 

[Mike Cantolina]

Eat it up if you want, but I'll pass.

Longest-Running GMO Safety Study Finds Tumors in Rats - Natural Health - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

 

[hanniedog]

Sounds like a real scientific study to me..... not.

 

[farmer steve]

Eat it up if you want, but I'll pass.

Longest-Running GMO Safety Study Finds Tumors in Rats - Natural Health - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

studies done with aspartame the artificial sweetner on rats also produced the same type of tumors and cancers,but nobody goes after the big soft drink makers.

 

[NCTREE]

You can have your roundup ready seeds it's not for me. If farmers would just learn responsible practices then they wouldn't need roundup. Love the land and it will love you back, it's amazing what a little bit of hard work will get you. Everyone now days just wants the easy way out with less work. This isn't the way are forefathers did it so why should we. Industrialized farming has ruined this country and made it almost impossible for the small time real farmers to survive. Good news though I see a turning trend in favor of the small local farmers as people become more aware of what they are really eating. This is my girl:smile2: at the local farmers market, she's an organic farmer at a CSA farm with over 300 members. Isn't she beautiful!

View attachment 310224

http://action.responsibletechnology.org/o/6236/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1150514

 

[Dalmatian90]

studies done with aspartame the artificial sweetner on rats also produced the same type of tumors and cancers,but nobody goes after the big soft drink makers.

Oh please -- I can remember vociferous complaints about saccharine safety when I was young -- late 70s, early 80s.

While taste is certainly part of it, I'm sure health concerns over artificial sweeteners remain one of the reasons diet soda sales aren't increasing enough to offset the decline in regular soda sales. Though while soda is declining at 4% per year, I'm not quite sure how much is just shifting to "non carbonated" sodas...had an "ice tea" last week that including phosphoric acid as an ingredient, guess the Coca Cola bottler had to get rid of it somehow

 

[farmer steve]

Oh please -- I can remember vociferous complaints about saccharine safety when I was young -- late 70s, early 80s.

While taste is certainly part of it, I'm sure health concerns over artificial sweeteners remain one of the reasons diet soda sales aren't increasing enough to offset the decline in regular soda sales. Though while soda is declining at 4% per year, I'm not quite sure how much is just shifting to "non carbonated" sodas...had an "ice tea" last week that including phosphoric acid as an ingredient, guess the Coca Cola bottler had to get rid of it somehow

just the facts maa'm.:msp_smile:

 

[mooboy76]

Sounds like a real scientific study to me..... not.

It took some digging, but here is the actual study. It is a real scientific study, but it also has some flaws.

Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

As an aside, it really bugs me when blogs or media outlets do not provide a direct link to studies they paraphrase. Especially when they incorrectly paraphrase them (not the case here).

Eat it up if you want, but I'll pass.

Longest-Running GMO Safety Study Finds Tumors in Rats - Natural Health - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

At first glance, the study looks good. Long (for rat) study duration, multiple treatment options, and lots of sampling timepoints with a variety of data collected at each timepoint.

Unfortunately, the researchers slipped up a bit in their design. I have read their rebuttals to the critiques, and I do understand that they were under cost constraints and also seemed very keen to compare their study to a previous 'landmark' study.

There may be additional factors that others can tease out, but the three things I don't like about the study are:

1) The control group was a bit small. With nine treatment groups of 10 rats per sex each, I'd want more than 10 of each as controls. I think I'd want more than 10/sex for the treatments too, especially considering the next point. Ten individuals sounds like a lot, but animals are not always as uniform as we'd like. Then again, there is huge pressure to reduce the number of individuals used in a study on the Animal Welfare side of it. Maybe they couldn't get approval for more rats and as it is, they probably spent $4000-$8,000 on rats alone. It might be overkill, but I would also like to see a control group that does not undergo isoflurane anesthesia, after the initial baseline blood/urine draw, and is only weighed and palpated for tumors until the study endpoint. Isoflurane shoudn't have any effect, but it is always nice to head off critiques at the pass.

2) The choice of rat breed was a bit iffy. The breed of rat used is known to suffer from various tumors and other cancerous conditions, with incidence increasing with age. This breed, coupled with the small cohort size, can result in misleading data. This critique came up in a few communications and the rebuttal was that carcinogenesis studies at the National Toxicology Program are standardizing to this breed of rat and that a 'sensitive' breed is preferred. While the Sprague Dawley is being evaluated by the NTP for a 'Default' breed, it is not being touted as THE breed to use for all studies. So, while it may be appropriate for their comparison study (90 days), that breed is not great for a 2 year study.

3) Food was choice and not portioned. Without controlling how much the rats ate, there is a problem differentiating between the effects associated with over-eating and your treatment. Some rats will stuff themselves silly if they favor the taste of the food. If they continually do this, then they can become overweight and/or suffer from other metabolic problems. Along similar lines, it is difficult to tell if a few rats are consuming most of the provided food/water, which may skew your data. Maybe this is nit picking. I guess they are only looking for any effect, and can let other studies figure out how to quantify any dose dependent responses.

I would be very interested if they could repeat the study with bigger cohorts, controlled food access, and less problematic rat breed.

It is definitely a good start to an area that should be explored at greater depth.

 

[luckydozenfarm]

It took some digging, but here is the actual study. It is a real scientific study, but it also has some flaws.

Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

As an aside, it really bugs me when blogs or media outlets do not provide a direct link to studies they paraphrase. Especially when they incorrectly paraphrase them (not the case here).



At first glance, the study looks good. Long (for rat) study duration, multiple treatment options, and lots of sampling timepoints with a variety of data collected at each timepoint.

Unfortunately, the researchers slipped up a bit in their design. I have read their rebuttals to the critiques, and I do understand that they were under cost constraints and also seemed very keen to compare their study to a previous 'landmark' study.

There may be additional factors that others can tease out, but the three things I don't like about the study are:

1) The control group was a bit small. With nine treatment groups of 10 rats per sex each, I'd want more than 10 of each as controls. I think I'd want more than 10/sex for the treatments too, especially considering the next point. Ten individuals sounds like a lot, but animals are not always as uniform as we'd like. Then again, there is huge pressure to reduce the number of individuals used in a study on the Animal Welfare side of it. Maybe they couldn't get approval for more rats and as it is, they probably spent $4000-$8,000 on rats alone. It might be overkill, but I would also like to see a control group that does not undergo isoflurane anesthesia, after the initial baseline blood/urine draw, and is only weighed and palpated for tumors until the study endpoint. Isoflurane shoudn't have any effect, but it is always nice to head off critiques at the pass.

2) The choice of rat breed was a bit iffy. The breed of rat used is known to suffer from various tumors and other cancerous conditions, with incidence increasing with age. This breed, coupled with the small cohort size, can result in misleading data. This critique came up in a few communications and the rebuttal was that carcinogenesis studies at the National Toxicology Program are standardizing to this breed of rat and that a 'sensitive' breed is preferred. While the Sprague Dawley is being evaluated by the NTP for a 'Default' breed, it is not being touted as THE breed to use for all studies. So, while it may be appropriate for their comparison study (90 days), that breed is not great for a 2 year study.

3) Food was choice and not portioned. Without controlling how much the rats ate, there is a problem differentiating between the effects associated with over-eating and your treatment. Some rats will stuff themselves silly if they favor the taste of the food. If they continually do this, then they can become overweight and/or suffer from other metabolic problems. Along similar lines, it is difficult to tell if a few rats are consuming most of the provided food/water, which may skew your data. Maybe this is nit picking. I guess they are only looking for any effect, and can let other studies figure out how to quantify any dose dependent responses.

I would be very interested if they could repeat the study with bigger cohorts, controlled food access, and less problematic rat breed.

It is definitely a good start to an area that should be explored at greater depth.

What people forget is that there is already a study going on with REAL PEOPLE...Millions of real people eating TONS of it everyday with no REAL discernible, attributive effects of consuming GMO's. In fact GMO's are everywhere in food and also used in cosmetics, plastics, fuel and other things. I have no love affair with GMO's other than they increase the profitability of farming grains, reduce input costs and the use of environmentally unsafe chemicals, and they have the ability of increasing food production with out increasing the amount of acres farmed. And as a farmer that is a big deal. It means that growing corn at $4.00/bu is going to bring a profit, rather than breaking even like with conventional corn.

In what used to take years of breeding trials to modify a gene to express a desirable trait, a geneticist can do it in weeks within a lab. This is nothing new. This isn't witchcraft or sorcery. We knew we could do it back in the 1930's but only until recently with high powered computers could we map the entire billions of genetic code to know which protein chains did what.

People will also say "well the long term effects have not been studied thoroughly"...ok..GMO corn came out in 1996..17 years ago...millions of people have been consuming it everyday for the last 17 years. Not lab rats, not monkeys...actual people..millions of them. You, me and that other guy across the room eat it everyday and prob don't even know it. Watch the documentary King Corn, its a real eye-opener.

 

[Dalmatian90]

In what used to take years of breeding trials to modify a gene to express a desirable trait, a geneticist can do it in weeks within a lab. This is nothing new.

Really?

There used to be programs to breed corn plants with bacterium in order to transfer the genes that produce the Bt toxin to corn?

 

[luckydozenfarm]

Really?

There used to be programs to breed corn plants with bacterium in order to transfer the genes that produce the Bt toxin to corn?

Sure...Cry1Ab, Aa, and Ac are the endotoxins common to the soil bacterium B. thurigensis, by nature. It's not uncommon to find plants that are naturally resistant to insect larvae by producing their own methods. And that was the point I was making exactly, it would take decades to hybridize this trait the old fashioned way...planting corn, scouting the fields for undamaged ears, planting those seeds again, repeat, repeat. If this was even possible to do...who knows.

I'm just saying...until there is conclusive, hard, repeatable scientific evidence PROVING that GMO's are harmful in ANY way, I don't see any reason not to use them. I wouldn't even mind labeling them if that's what people want.

The only thing that I fault GMO's on is their public relations effort. I mean we have more people wanting to legalize marijuana, a schedule 1 drug, than ever before all do to the immense PR support. Sometimes, I just don't understand people, that's why I live out in the boondocks.

 

[Marco]

Last saturday the hose barb broke off the bottom of the sprayer at 30 gallons to one quart of Glyphosphate 41, I'll let you know if I die. Postive battery cap left on the tractor and a stick in the fencerow looked good.