Triffid Bites a Hunk out of Pocketbooks

[charliep]

On your comment on lentils, there are genetically modified lentils on the market today. Clearfield lentils were developed using mutagenesis - the evil genetic engineering. Europe plant breeders are using mutagensis in developing new varieties and as more is know about genes, even more in the future.

Just curious if biotech is being used more in the future, what is the organic industry doing to manage its risk? I assume the very least will be to monitor and perhaps even regulate seed supplies.

[parsley]

Well, shall I presume, then, you long for the good old progressive days when we would continue to eat beef fed with ground up cows, because to question the process, and consequences/results, is such a waste of time, and besides, "somebody will pay for it if we hide under an anonymous corporate number, anyhow", and "my gosh, only a % of Canadians die, sogood riddance"

Process is so pure. pars

[parsley]

"if biotech is being used more in the future, what is the organic industry doing to manage its risk"

Isn't it interesting how manipulators move the risk from 'biotech's risk', which it is because it can cause unintended consequences, so that it all of a sudden becomes "organic's risk" :< o

Don't you just love sheer audacity?

Pars

[charliep]

so the organic industry is doing nothing. does the dog wag the tail or tail wag the dog?

[parsley]

Since you ask about:
"plant breeding and who pays, sets priorities, monitors, manages risk, benefits, faces legal liability"

ould we agree that the present process has not worked and will not work in the favor of farmers?
Farmers pay for research, they are poised for paying for "weed" pollution, and environmental damaage.(ie some re-designed plant crosses in the wild, goes amuk and blocks waterways) But has the so-called profit reached the farmgate profits?

In the future if there are additional unintended consequences,as it now sits, as in Triffid which is an economic market loss, who will pay, according to the precedent set?

if all buckheat crosses in the fields and becomes modified,, who pays for the loss of organic sales' premiums?

Some biotech companies manage risk, but for WHOM?

Biotech companies tramp fields looking for illegal seed, buit how about illegal weeds in an innocent bystander's field?

No one is looking out for the everyday ordinary conventional farmer it would seem. Pars

[parsley]

Who should pay in court? The dairy industry farmers or the company who adds melamine?

[parsley]

Let's start with government from

https://www.agriville.com/cgi-bin/forums/viewThread.cgi?1292694371

also to address wd's question

The Federal Government had a rep sitting at the flax Council's table:

I don't know if thios is the same one or not, as I didn't bother to look it up in my files. But let's say he is:


Observer
Federal Government

If he didn't know that overseas flax shipments tested GM Triffid positive at port, he is stupid.

if he didn't follow it up overseas to find that shelves were stocked with Triffid contaminated flax, and therefore it had been going on for a long time, he is stupid.

If he didn't act as an independent Testing regulator, he is crooked, either because he looked the other way or because he is protecting a government who is not acting as an arbiter d'independent.

If there were no published public consequences for corporate cheating or seed grower cheating, or testing cheating, whichever it may have been, take your pick, every last member of the Flax Council should have insisted that the process for discovery and punishment be made public, and available to farmers.

Or resign.

Was Justin Sugawara( or his counterpart if he was not the rep at the time) actually fired?

Who can tell me?

Farmers need to have accountability or we 'll have land expropriation in every province, grain expropriation.

NO ONE stands up for farmers. And I get pissy. Pars ,

[parsley]

Who should pay in court, you ask.

Prairie wild rice farmers or the biotech company who supplies them fortified rice seed, which happens to end up stacked with both progesterone and estrogen, but whose flour supplies baby food processors?

Farmers will pay for research, get the bill for contaminated food, lose markets and sales, and forevermore, their WILD RICE LIVING WILL BE MUCKED UP because it has crossed in the wild.

"Who cares", the rest smile so sweetly. "We'll move on to next fortifying with B Vitamins. Now we have it right, dearie" pars

[parsley]

"so the organic industry is doing nothing."

Actually charliep, when you are an organic grower and you cannot reconcile
(Previous Year Inventory) plus
(Grain Harvested) plus
(Grain Sold) plus
(Screeings) Plus
(Seed Used)

and all of them Equal:

(Inventory on Hand),

Actually, charliep, a grower then becomes de-certified as an organic grower. So thatprocess addresses cheating.

And we don't genetically modify crops at all, so we do not have a pollution problem that originates with us.

Our flax must now be tested for Triffid, which should never have to be part of Organic's cost because organic never allowed or condoned it in the first place. We could only catch somebody's Triffid flu. Nice cost offloading trick, huh?

For the sake of fair-play, I should get to say....

"so the pedigreed seed industry is doing nothing"

The prevention of GM cross-pollination hasn't worked for either canola or flax breeder seed in the reports I've read. Pars

[charliep]

So you are saying golden rice (not released into the market yet) has contaminated wild rice?

As at least one of you heard at a presentation I made at the ABC annual general meeting, genetic engineering is just one tool in the plant breeding tool box. There are many others and the list is growing. Perhaps a more important issue is to create an environment where R. and D. will be done in western Canada based on a well thought out regulation.

To that end, I should highlight a mistake/let out word in a previous post.

Clearfield lentils were developed using mutagenesis - NOT the evil genetic engineering.

I correct myself because I don't want to leave anyone with the idea that mutagensis/Clearfield poses a risk. Mutagensis again is just a tool to be used when appropriate.