Flax Council and RR Flax development

[charliep]

[URL="http://www.basf.com/group/pressrelease/P-09-119"]clearfield[/URL]

[parsley]

Warrants and options, a guess, cott?

So how's about you farmers answering a few questions, as I'm a bit of a dull gurl.

1. Who's gonna get to sell the new seed to you?
2. Who got shares in Cibus?
3. Would anyone, (keeping in mind this is just a pie in the sky idea from out of the blue) get promised either/both election and/or non-election-time goods and services? (hotel rooms, spare flights, cash, equipment, office space etc)
4.Is there such a thing as a dowry payment for the marriage of Flax to a groomed Cibus, tucked in a pouch for the fathers as each danced with the bride? This is comic book stuff, right? Right? Please say right.

5.Should Tom4CWB be made to burn or eat his non-glysphate resistant flax that may contaminate a field of the "environmentally" safe flax...or be liable? Will you be sued for growing the new flax even if it grew as a weed in your field?

6. If the new flax causes my puppy to die from multiple parkinson fibrosis due to the secret "performance enhancement" traits you are not allowed to know about, do farmers pay for the unintended consequence cleanup? Again?

7.Where is a copy/description of the Cibus-Flax Grower's deal? In checking's safe?

8. Only one flax-testing company was hired, Only One biotech company was hired and one corporation (Viterra) was on the hustings for the Flax industry. Is that the way you want the Flax Council of Canada to represnet your interests? One on one behind closed doors?

9. How will seed companies price the new hot varieity?

10. Will you be forced to use the glysophate resistant seed or else your flax export papers be denied?

Think carefully about the ten pokes.

Farmers are very close to being ordered what to grow, what seed to use, when to test, and where to sell, without knowing anything at all about the dollars you could get if you deleted each and every one of the people supposedly looking after your interests. But that is just an opinion from a farmer. Pars.

[parsley]

PS

"$4 million of the $5.5 million paying for the Flax Council’s half of the project comes from the Canadian Government’s Developing Innovative Agri-Products program (DIAP).

It is unusual for federally-funded development programs to flow so readily to projects executed outside the country"

I would personally like to see Gerry Ritz kicked in the balls for this.

Yes, read it again.

In the balls. Pars

[charliep]

[charliep]

Not supporting things one way or the other about this announcement or whether Canada needs another herbicide tolerant crop. Just curious about what should be done. $4 million barely gets you in the door on a project like this let alone getting a new variety out. A biotech breeding event from activities I have been looking at costs $60 to $100 million with an additional $20 to $40 million in regulatory costs to get approved.

Should government invest in plant breeding at all? What is the model and how should it be run?

[parsley]

Over five million dollars of Canadian taxpayers/flax growers' money is being invested in an American company in the USA. Should we conclude Canada has stupid scientists?

Was there a tender? Invitations?

What are the terms?
Has a company been set up in Canada?
Name?
Does anyone Canadoan/Flax person sit on Cibus' Board?

Is anyone on the Flax Coiuncil on Cibus' payroll or is a representative, or did we just send the cash by pony?

Are farmers responsible for unintended circumstances?

Is Rounup ready flax what the traditional customers want or simply what flax investors' and biotech investors' want and manipulated into position?

Was an acceptance study done? Where is it?

If the EU market is lost, who pays?

Were there any conflict of interests with regards to decision makers?

I could ask a hundreds questions about process.

The process is not defensible, charliep.

The downloading on farmers is not defensible, charliep

Those are my observations, rightly or wrongly.

Your quibbling over biotechnological terms leaves me unconvinced. NO matter how you like to paint it, and you do seem to me to like to paint herbicide pushers in a fine twightlight hue, the new and improved flax will indeed have a roundup resistance gene, magically inserted according to the lobbyists for legislative-word gymnastics.

Tom4WB's flax is sure not the source of the gene that is to be massaged into the new and improved herbicide tolerance seed. He's got one seed in his bin with a herbicide inserted into it, a gene the new boys on the block want to decimate, and replace it with one they can instead make money from.

The system being buldozed into place will eventually result in a single seed variety, open pollination resulting in Western Canadian contamination, a neverending herbicide dependency/supplier, a single testing company, and all government grants flowing down the same throat.

You embrace the system. I don't.

I raised a scientist, so I am open to science, interrogation, and debate, but I see issues from a farmers' eye, as well.

There are too many players/policy makers who avoid conceding anything is amiss with plant breeding legislation confering rights while avoiding responsibilities, and tragically for farmers, by refusing to recognize the legal and economic and agronomic responsibilites farmers will be saddled with more, than they can bear, frankly, annoys me.

I live in the farm community and rightly or wrongly, it is what I see ahead. I am retirement age, so my voice of warning is not about me.

Farmers will be workers, not owners. Pars

BTW, I hate to argue with biotech experts, just as you might hate to argue I cannot properly read, so read it for yourself:

"Alyson Emanuel, BASF Director, Global Strategic Marketing Herbicides, said, "We are very pleased with the success of the next generation of CLEARFIELD products. BASF worked with Cibus to develop seeds using Cibus' RTDS technology to target a specific trait not previously achieved with other technologies and the results have been outstanding. As a result of the development of this new proprietary herbicide tolerant trait using the RTDS process, seed companies will be able to put this unique trait into hybrids more efficiently, leading to increased on-farm yields"


Farmers spray. The plant doesn't die. I wonder why.
"develop crops with tolernace to a"a spectrum of crop protection products that MAI markets" as well as "performance enhancement" traits. Further details remains confidential"

Yes, well happy eating.

[parsley]

http://www.flaxcouncil.ca/files/web/NEWS%20RELEASE%20-%20Flax%20Council%20of%20Canada%20Announces%20Indu stry%20Stewardship%20Program%20for%20Farm%20Saved% 20Planting%20Seed%2003.12.10%20F.pdf


You will note the companies are saying they are going to have a hard time finding a market for your Triffid flax. Linoleum. (Never did before as long as it wasn't marked food flax)

But an easy time finding a market for your Roundup Ready Flax (you buy from RR from them). Linoleum.

Duh!

It's actually funny, isn't it? Pars

[hlg]

Back to basic marketing,ASK the customer what they want, don`t tell them what they have to buy. This new partnersnip will really show them we mean business, they will have no choice but to buy!!

[hlg]

When something goes wrong we can sue the Americans!! Ya right..

[charliep]

Just one question. Is Europe using the technology described above
in their breeding programs?

[charliep]

If the trait were fusarium head blight resistance via mutagenesis versus a herbicide
tolerance one, would this be less of a sin? Or is the expansion of fusarium head blight
into new areas and the increasing virilance of resulting mycotoxins not an issue? What
if the traits are more efficient use of nutrients? Improved ability to use water/maintain
yields during dry periods or some other agronomic trait?

Will note that Australia is making progress in these areas - out of necessity I might add.
They have well funded research and development problems.

[charliep]

Must be a freudian slip. Should be programs - not problems. They
are working toward meeting the challenges of agronomic issues.