This kind of stuff really drives me nuts and no one wonders in this country what is happening to our farmers and what that is going to mean in the future for our own control of our food supply.

All this globalization is immensley naive there are just too many bad people in power and in the UN to ever make it right.

However we have to be more careful the impacts of efficiency downline including the feeding beeves GMO corn and accidentally increasing the amount of naturally occurring ecoli because cows don’t digest corn very well, they are much better at digesting grass but we continue the process with corn because it is cheaper to produce as a result of the process.

The other impact is what is happening to the American farmer because of the horrible business practices of companies that are basically forcing a monopoly with their patent enforcement and they are being artificially protected by the government.

One side note…the coalescing of the meat packing industry has had some definite affects on the overall quality of our beef supply in this country – this is a good example of where an efficiency hasn’t necessarly lead to a better or safer product.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies

Millions of people have eaten them (including YOU) with no adverse health effects.

Huh? NO. Misguided isn’t murderous! Sheesh.

The issues of patents, seed recycling, farmer control are important but I see them as a separate debate.

Question 1. Do we encourage the development of drought resistance and other genetically advantageous crop characteristics? OF COURSE WE DO. We’ve been doing this for thousands of years at a slow pace. Gene splicing lets us accelerate the process. Sure there are a handful of risks but the advantages are potentially huge and risks fairly low. Note that GMOs have been around for decades and the silly concerns that we’d have global epidemics of weird GMO problems have NOT materialized. This debate began back in my botany days at UW Madison. Even if you think we should “ban GMOs” it’s not going to happen, so the only relevant issue is how we move forward with them.

2. Corporate controls and marketing. Agree with some concerns here and I am NOT a fan of the way companies often use marketing and patents to manipulate and control farming and food practices, and agree this is an area where governments (or better yet, farmer or consumer groups) should play a powerful role protecting the public interests. Gates is doing that by adjusting the patent process so it does not get in the way of distribution of drought resistant corn.

Isn’t it nearly impossible to save and clean your own seed now? What happens to a farmer that tries to do that?

Monsanto takes them to court bankrupts them. Right?