Monsanto offering the means to tackle global overpopulation?

[Skybird]

One of my most favourite companies making headlines again.

German:
http://www.welt.de/gesundheit/articl...l-frueher.html

English
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...m_hp_ref=green

Well, hints for disease and higher mortality when basing food consumption on genetically modified food, have slowly mounted over the past years.

Adding to these findings Monsanto's often illustrated criminal policies of bullying, intimidating and sueing-to-death farmers, and intentiuonally infesting clean fields of farmers with their seeds and then demanding them to pay licence fees, make a nice reminder for me why I like these gangsters so very much.

Over 97% of all seeds that has been used by human farmers until 60 years ago, have been removed and send into the abyss of extinction, in order to replace them with designer-seeds that do not live a second season, so that farmers must buy them new every year. The bio-diversity and thus redundance of natural crop seeds that gets farmed by humans has been reduced by a factor of almost 30.

Intentionally.

That is a high risk strategy, to put it mildly.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Skybird

That is a high risk strategy, to put it mildly.

But a high profit strategy, to put it economically.

What could be more profitable but to make a product where the customer has to repurchase it every year?

[joea]

I'm glad Europe has tried to keep this stuff out-not sure how effective it is though.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by joea

I'm glad Europe has tried to keep this stuff out-not sure how effective it is though.

As you said, they tried, and failed. Due to heavy American pressure and company lobbying in Brussel, the EU now demands member states to allow genetically altered seeds and food in general. The declaration duties are an alibi only, are impotent, and ignore already established realities. The French did this - and other - researches in a reply to the EU to meet legal conditions demanded by Brussel to allow a state jumping from this policy, else France would be required to meet it in full.

Fact is you cannot avoid to buy vegetable, meat and food in any supermarket that at one point or several points of the production process was not contaminated or build with genetically altered material.

Platapus,

you are correct, of course. Of course it is about maximizing short-termed profits. But the high risk lies in that the short term maximization of profits of the few can mean a terrible high price for mankind in the future: the loss of cultivated crop that can survive in nature, mono-cultures suffering from devastating epidemics and destroying the soil, and other important species being damaged from eating such plants.

We follow this path of genetically altered sees so easy-minded but do not know about the longterm consequences. And these could turn out to be doing more damage than the altered seeds did good. And our super-intense soil farming and the according exploitation of the soils do their part in destroying the environment and sweet-water reservoirs and ground water levels. You cannot run mass-production in chicken farms without using tons and tons of antibiotics. You cannot run intense farming without ruining the soil and ground water levels. You cannot have concentrated cattle markets with immense damage done to the environment. And so on. Extreme means too extreme. Too much is always too much.

7 billion people, growing, is 6 billion too much. We explicitly breed the fundament of future human suffering of previously unseen proportions. We push the globe over the edge, and destroy our own survival basis.

It's discouraging. We have the hands of gods - but the brains of rabbits.

[soopaman2]

I have a longwinded tinfoil hat sounding (at times) diatribe on the relationship between Monsanto and its relationship with our government...

I will spare you, but Monsanto is the last god damn place I would look for something charitable.

You are better off asking OPEC to lower prices because Americans are hurting financially. (and get the same amount of laughs, but at least you won't be disappointed by what you get or how much it costs)