A few months ago, there was GMO wheat getting into non-GMO crops, and now it looks like alfalfa.
Agriculture officials in Washington state are testing samples of alfalfa after a farmer reported his hay was rejected for export because it tested positive for a genetically modified trait that was not supposed to be in his crop.
If it is confirmed that the alfalfa in question was genetically modified, it could have broad ramifications, said Hector Castro, spokesman at the Washington State Department of Agriculture.
The piece about it in the Weekly (that gets the Hat Tip) makes a link between that and the GMO labeling initiative. That’s fine as far as it goes. This sort of thing might make people want to get non-GMO food, and of course labeling would be the best way to go about that.
But I’m more worried that it has happened twice recently. If the initiative passes or fails, surely the industry could better spend their $9 Million that they spent this week on a political campaign on not fucking this sort of thing up. Because frankly, those ads and mailers and whatever else can’t change the fact that this has happened. Twice in recent months.
Should we wait for children looking like thalidomide babies before we worry about this?
@ 1 RR
I think we should concern ourselves with the likelihood of mutations in grain crops with the cross-pollination that is obviously happening. ADM and Cargill have sworn up and down that it could never happen, but it obviously is.
Incidentally to that, Those companies have the absolute right to inspect your crop any time they see fit, and they have the right to sue for “damages” or demand you hand over your crop to them for free, if their patented genetic markers are found in it even if it is the result of accidental cross-pollination. Farmers in every country have had this happen.
The second problem is the fact that these plants are not kept infertile. Their pollen can go across species. Imagine a mutation of something like bamboo that grows 50 times faster than kudzu accidentally being released into the wild. GMO bamboo similar to this already exists.
Try finding seed corn or potato seeds or wheat that isn’t sold by ADM. It has become nearly impossible. ADM seed is pretty much all that is available, and if they find their plants in your crop, they can take the whole crop. Farmers are no longer allowed to keep seed from a previous year crop, and use it for the next year as has been the way for 15,000 years. You do business with ADM or Cargill, or you just don’t farm.
They’re trying to get a perfect monopoly of the entire world’s grain production, and they’re succeeding very well.
@2 http://www.pubpat.org/ is fighting that kind of thing.
Glenn Beck been advertising against GMO and promoting GMO free foods for years. Libtards chose not to listen.
These companies can’t choose not to “fuck this sort of thing up.” The only way to avoid GMO strains from getting into nature is not to have them. And the horse is out of that barn.
There are plenty of ways to keep it from getting worse, though. Banning such foods, and reversing liability so that it’s the companies who have to pay damages for contaminating a farmer’s crop (rather than vice versa), would be a good start. But that would require a completely different political system from the one we have, wouldn’t it?
@4 Maybe we ignored Beck on this particular issue because lots of far more credible people have been saying the same things for a very long time, and we’d rather rely on their scientific expertise than on some profiteering conspiracy-monger.
Well Pete if you chose to listen vs. spewing SCHMUCKO like commentary, you learn it WAS scientific evidence Glenn Beck used.
Butt being a real horsesass, you never knew this.
Sux to be you!
One of the more hilarious things puddybigot has written in a while!
# 5: In the latter 1800’s it was the railroads who controlled the political process through graft (now it’s more delicately called “campaign financing”). As the railroads ran roughshod over farmers, the farmers fought back through the organization of the Grange movement, which helped create the initiative process in several western states. The reasoning was that only a popular vote could overturn a legislature corrupted by banks and railroads.
Of course, today’s big business has turned this on it’s head. It’s donations to the initiative process have sponsored their own initiatives, as well as defeated popular initiatives designed to reign in their abuses. Tim Eyman, of course, is their prophet (profit?).
But if we get a large enough coalition of farmers and urban consumers who are interested in organic food, perhaps we can make some progress through the initiative process. This clearly isn’t a red/blue issue, it crosses typical political labels.
Truth is always funny to a leftist like SCHMUCKO because it can’t be twisted!
SCHMUCKO still hasn’t processed the fact leftists claim minorities can’t be bigots. Puddy already posted the links long ago!
Heh.. A ways back, BillO called Beck a “fearmonger”..
It was too funny.. Psycho liar BillO krapping on psychotic liar and fearmonger Beck.
And there’s never been a more frightened fool than the Beck follower @ 6.
That youtube tape is funny.. Beck blathered about “sterilants” in drinking water..
Only thing worse than Beck are the idiots who still carry water for him to this day.
Like the tool @ 6.
I never said that. You are manifest proof that minorities are fully capable of bloodthirsty bigotry.
We don’t listen to you either GOATBOY.
I’d ask “what’s your point?” but you never have one.
PSYCHO BECK and GOATBOY are prime examples demonstrating the “Chicken Little” principle:
If you continuously spew CRAP all of the time you won’t be taken seriously.
Preppers tend to love non-gmo and self sustenance crops but their reasoning behind it is pretty crazy. Beck can make money off them. (What’s the old joke about, “Well at least the trains run on time…)
But just for you piddles….
Glen Beck got his push into syndication in 2005. Got his first radio show in 2000 in Florida. Showed up on the TV in 2006.
Meanwhile, a bunch of dirty hippies in Canada 2001 formed the first Non-GMO co-op. Then another bunch of dirty (BERKELEY) hippies founded the Non-GMO project in 2003.
The Liberals have been at this a lot longer than Glenn “buy your seeds for when the revolution comes, WOLVERINES!” Beck.
@9 You wouldn’t know what “truth” is if it grabbed you by the nuts and goosed you.
If these companies refuse to label their GMO products, I will refuse to buy ANY of their products. I will simply assume that EVERYTHING they sell has engineered mutants in it.
Ponder this:
The real concern of Big Food on labeling is all about corn.
Corn in various forms – high fructose corn syrup, solids, etc. – is in pretty much everything that comes processed in a package of some sort.
More than 90% of corn grown in the US is GMO corn.
Labeling would reveal this basic fact and I’m all for it as it will upend corporate food — be ready for a tsunami of lies on your TV.