EU Triffid (zero tolerance) vs. Negative Triffid Test Result vs. Consequences for All Crops

[wd9]

you are right Tom4, it's DNA scrambling. Crap shoot discovery. Infinitely better and safer and healthier then precise DNA snip and insert.

Parsely, way out to lunch with your comment. Nothing produced today are truly organic. Organics are a set of rules for those who want to market a product with certain characteristics. Follow the rules and voila its an organic product. Burning diesel and polluting the sky, not on the list, perfectly fine. Take from the soil not putting nutrients back, no problem. Get nutrients from manure that originated with fertilizers in another area and take those, no problem. Little check marks in a box for a few rules doesn't make a product actually organic Parsely. Its marketing.

Science will continue making new products and solving real issues in ag. Making some new ones probably too. Organic farmers will go on depleting their soil. Zero is unworkable for a marketing system like organics and real farming that feeds the world to coexist.

Science and modification of everything is not the answer and stop writing my opinion for me. You will never stop biotechnology from progressing.

Realistic tolerances for a real world are what is needed. Then you can keep telling yourself you grow a safe and healthy product good for the environment without the rest of us having to listen to it.

[oneoff]

Definition of Amplicon :

The product of PCR or LCR; a piece of DNA that has been synthesized using amplification techniques.

Definition of PCR :
A powerful method for amplifying specific DNA segments which exploits certain features of DNA replication. For instance replication requires a primer and specificity is determined by the sequence and size of the primer. The method amplifies specific DNA segments by cycles of template denaturation; primer addition; primer annealing and replication using thermostable DNA polymerase. The degree of amplification achieved is set at a theoretical maximum of 2^N, where N is the number of cycles, eg 20 cycles gives a theoretical 1048576 fold amplification. In addition to primers and DNA polymerase, PCR reactions must contain template DNA (the DNA to be amplified) and the DNA "building blocks", deoxynucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs, which include dATP, dTTP, dGTP, and dCTP).

So you see getting the right "snippet" (thats my coined word") is important; or else you've got over a million copies of bull shit that you are basing your test on. No wonder anyone ever attempts to explain how GM manipulation works.

[parsley]

Organic farming methods, even done with oxen in China cannot ever pose a risk as serious as the possibility of irreversible harmful genetic change to food.

A field can be revived. (Netherlands built new ground from the ocean.) Surely, a genetic modification that could cause a lifetime of damage cannot be a risk comparable to an agronomical practice, even by you.

It's been clear I acknowledge biotechnology is here to stay. My problem with the biotech industry has always been unintended consequences.

My issue is not with biotech crops that indeed are targeted for industrial uses, I've said it often, but with harmful modification to food.

There seems little concern from biotech advocates, such as yourself, to take cold hard look at food safety as the #1 priority, and it should be.

Paint for your floor is fine, but food for your family must come first; a concept many biotechies do not address.

If profit isn't biotech's main goal, then accountability, transparency and segregation should be headlining every webpage and be the highlight at conferences.

I note on Agriville, that many biotech supporters entirely avoid addressing the food safety issue. But it's there.

Triffid flax is a textbook example of how biotech ruined an established market, huddled themselves in obscuity so accountability could be avoided, and hunkered down in order to download the cost of covered up mistakes.

That kind of process is looked upon, in the world, as the classic shameless #1 f*ckup of Canadian agriculture, to put it exremely politely.

And you don't even know it.

It is also a snapshot of what biotech will do in the future because you have learned nothing from the past.

Tolerances so far, has put organic canola out of business and is putting organic brown flax into death throes.

You presume it is your divine right to decimate the livlihoods of others, and then continue to whine about increasing tolerances for your own markets.

Have you any notion of what co-existence requires? What meaningful indication has biotech shown that they have shored up segregation methods of crops at elevators, termimnals and ports?

Not only does organics require co-exist-protocol from biotech, but other countries demand it, which is why I posted the minutes above.

You may not like some countries' farming practices, or their way of doing business, but stuff it in your tax-begging craw, and concentrate on the fact there are others in the world besides biotech's vision of neutering everything except patented cloned food.

Parsley

[wd9]

Pages of posts won't change the fact that these systems and potentially others like pesticide free production need and will have to coexist.

Oneoff, hope i can throw this in. PCR is detection not manipulation of genes. That involves other methods like the gene gun for example, replacing a portion of the DNA just like a virus does in your body to give you the common cold. Quite organic in fact.

My girlfriend just did a course on using PCR in clubroot research and detecting markers for that. Complicated for sure but these disease markers and other event markers like triffid are easily done and are very accurate and highly detectable.

[wd9]

Parsely, this isn't a food safety issue. Its a marketing issue. Triffid is safe for feed food and the environment.

[parsley]

Sloppy Triffid protocol produced harmful consequences. "a marketing issue" is your excuse.

Contaminated pedigreed Bethune,Sorrel and Sanctuary seed stocks sprinkled with Triffid isn't exactly JUST a marketing problem is it? Liken the spread to Aids.

A flawed process encompasses more than marketing.

Biotech players have not appreciably mended the sleezy process in which segregation of Triffid was ignored. Testing was either incompetent or dishonest. Disregard for compliance. Communications furtive. Integrity suspect. Reputation tarnished. Conduct unbecoming. Logic flawed.

And disregard for harm caused is firmly instiutionalized.

Without Biotech's irresponsible players and leaders making a committment to address a deeply flawed process, another diaster is waiting to happen all over again... is guaranteed to happen. It could be a natioanl food safety disaster issue.

Surely the arena of improvement doesn't have to be a legal one, does it?

You have ability wd. So, get off your lazy ass and pull up your socks and improve the Biotech process, Parsley

[wd9]

Parsely, where is the proof for your statements? Triffid is safe. The canola in Canada produced is safe. Don't lie to make your industry more profitable. Nobody wins that way.

[parsley]

Is fear percieved or does it have substance? In this morning's Food Navigator, which is a publication for business, listed the following four links, highlighting the safety issues Parsley Inc. must check today that might impact on the products I sell in my factory, if orginating from these four problems:

http://www-t.decisionnewsmedia.com/r/?id=h1c4cf4fa,6d8d89f,6d8e985&p1=DCtI7hVoersDVVwwd wgVfA%3D%3D

http://www-t.decisionnewsmedia.com/r/?id=h1c4cf4fa,6d8d89f,6d8ea1a&p1=DCtI7hVoervyZ2AiN 30wrA%3D%3D

http://www-t.decisionnewsmedia.com/r/?id=h1c4cf4fa,6d8d89f,6d8e983&p1=DCtI7hVoersmm5yRn fjpgA%3D%3D

http://www-t.decisionnewsmedia.com/r/?id=h1c4cf4fa,6d8d89f,6d8ea18&p1=DCtI7hVoertBlNxvu ucmUQ%3D%3D

These are not merely marketing issues, or else a name change would suffice.

Good mangaers know that the real issue, the issue of priority, is the safetey issue. Pars

[parsley]

If you looked up the link to plastic bags, did you ask why a change is being made? What brought about a change? Is it a marketing issue, or a safety issue? Was the science 'right ' in the first place. or was science it flawed? or worse, was science fudged/ignored/ ?

Global change in bagging? A marketing problem, is it, wd?

"BRC reveals key changes to Global Standard for Packaging
Post a commentBy Guy Montague-Jones, 11-Jan-2011

Related topics: Legislation

Additional safeguards to reduce the risk of chemicals migrating from inks in packaging to food products are included in a new edition of the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Global Standard for Packaging.


Changes to Global for Packaging include new measures to combat food packaging migration threat
Ahead of the publication in February of Issue 4 of the Global Standard Packaging and Packaging Materials, BRC revealed a list of some of the key changes in the new edition.

These include the introduction of new safeguards to protect against the migration of chemicals from packaging into food products.

This comes as scientists raise the alarm over the potential problem of mineral oils in inks finding their way into packaged food.

In particular, the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) in Germany has expressed concern that mineral oils in recycled cardboard, thought to accumulate from newspaper ink, could migrate in “relevant quantities” into carton packed foods.

List of main changes

A full list of the changes to the Global Standard highlighted by BRC is given below:

Preparation and planning section, providing guidance and support for sites new to the certification process
Additional safeguards to reduce the risk of chemical migration, such as by inks, from packaging into food products
Introduction of “fundamental” clauses, relating to systems that are crucial to the establishment and operation of an effective packaging manufacturing operation
Introduction of a grading scheme based on number and severity of non-conformities
Audit frequencies and processes for corrective action that reflect the company’s audit performance
Simplification to two product categories, high risk and low risk, based on the hygiene requirement of the final use of the packaging materials – for example a food wrapping is high risk, the packaging round a kettle or toaster is low risk
The BRC Global Standards, which were first introduced in 1998, are designed to give retailers and manufacturers confidence that suppliers are following all their quality and safety standards and are meeting all legal requirements.

Global Standards

Talking about the packaging standard, BRC technical director David Brackston said: “They open up new markets for packaging suppliers who can promote themselves to customers who are looking for independent endorsement of suppliers’ operations.”

After the new issue of the standard is published in February, audits on it will begin six months later to give companies time to become familiar with the requirements.

BRC published three other standards that cover food safety, consumer products and storage and distribution. Currently more than 15,000 factories in over 90 countries are audited to the Global Standards. "

[charliep]

Not sure on the relationship between the dioxin issue in Europe and triffid flaxseed/biotech.

The articles highlights the issues around food safety and ability to track/monitor. It may be over time that the level of testing and traceability needs increase in general.