Letter to stop the sale of GM alfalfa seed in Canada

[grefer]

Grefer, oooh, that punch landed right on my kidney!

I dont have livestock or make hay so I could say "not my problem". This is important to those who do and the repercussions spill over onto the grain production side. It is a green light for any industry players to impose their seed technology ownership onto primary producers who will then have an increased cost of production, lose market share on the world market. This will lower market prices and the farmer will be left with the cleanup of the new "weeds" in which will be the cost of spraying a different herbicide. This is a lose, lose for farmers.
It takes 6 minutes to send that letter to the proper government bodies.

Sorry Hobby. It was a tongue in cheek remark. No kidney punch intended.

[parsley]

Thanks, grefer.

[grassfarmer]

I sent it a while ago and thus far have only got a reply from Elizabeth May.

[oneoff]

Well there are some pretty serious uncontrollable weeds in organic crops.


And whilst clipping off the top couple feet in an organic crop may only very temporarily reduce the noticable evidence from a very real problem; there untold numbers of coarse pepper seeds in those millions of seeds cups containing several hundred seeds each.

The only control mechanism for conventional farmers I can think of is GM tolerant alfalfa....until that weed seed bank is brough down to hand pickable numbers
It would have been way better for the original introducers (sometimes organic) farmers to not buy cheap screenings highly contaminated with weeds that are extremely difficult to control.

And I'm pissed off enough to respond to anyone who takes this out of context and attempts to tear any strips off my ass.

[chuckChuck]

Yes and there are some pretty serious uncontrollable weeds in non-organic fields due to herbicide resistance which is a growing problem all across North America including right on local farms on the prairies. Just ask weed scientists. It is well documented.

Non-organic farmers have been told to stop over using herbicides and start adopting integrated pest management methods like good crop rotation, forages, narrower row spacing, increased seeding rates.

I think farmers should be pretty pissed off over the over use of herbicides and introduction of more glyphosate resistant crops like alfalfa that will eventually make some herbicides useless. Which has already happened in the US where they have already gone back to hand weeding some of the worst herbicide resistant weeds.

[oneoff]

I don't suppose that some will ever admit that glyphosate tolerant kochia or wild oats or mustard or any other weed is likely to ever be any harder to control by any organic farmer than the original version of the weed.

If anyone has any evidence otherwise then I challenge them to provide that evidence.

Otherwise go back to pandering to your cuustomers and admit that all you are interested in is your product which has its own issues; and not all caused by your neighbors with whom you will continue to blame for all woes.

Even woes that are used to promote products which are not without contamination, residues etc.

There is no hope for some.

[oneoff]

There are many who would have no herbicide use; if they had their way.

That is the fact; and it is only that they currently won't openly say it.... but will indeed soon be leading that crusade after they get a "slightly" larger following of supporters.

[oneoff]

There are many who would have no herbicide use; if they had their way.

That is the fact; and it is only that they currently won't openly say it.... but will indeed soon be leading that crusade after they get a "slightly" larger following of supporters.

[oneoff]

There are many who would have no herbicide use; if they had their way.

That is the fact; and it is only that they currently won't openly say it.... but will indeed soon be leading that crusade after they get a "slightly" larger following of supporters.

[oneoff]

Just because organic weed seeds and screenings can be sold for more than conventional non-organic human food doesn't necessarily mean for one second that farmers should wholesale switch over to growing all the weeds possible.

For example wild mustard must surely affect anyone's net yield; and there are noxious and prohitive noxious weeds that are not meant to be ignored and allowed to spread freely just because a few people have an outlet to spread them further by selling them for top dollar to unfortunately ill informed unsuspecting and sorry to say ignorant peers.