Let's be honest.

[ianben]

Nature is cruel. Survival of the fittest. If you eat foxglove, your heart will beat so fast you will die. Nature made it that way

You believe this but you took the N1H1 because?

[charliep]

I always appreciate foodnavigator and its information. Found the following on potatoes.

An interesting article on potatoes highlighting the grey areas of non traditional plant breeding.

[URL="http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Science-Nutrition/Partnership-promises-high-quality-non-GM-potatoes"]potatoes[/URL]

also note following article from a few weeks back on women and flaxoil. Am going to make the comment (knowing coming from a man) the benefits of flax oil out weigh the risks of triffid.

<a href=" http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Flaxseed-oil-cuts-osteoporosis-risk-in-diabetic-older-women-study">flax oil benefits</a>

[sjc]

Interesting topic. Personally I have used RR canola a few years after it was introduced and have been quite happy with the results. I am confused why the neighbours feel the need to spray twice, as I have only had to spray twice once on a particluarly dirty field which shoudl have never been seeded to canola in the first place. My land is clean enough I could more then likely not use the RR system and still have low dockage but it is the easiest system and were all the money is being spent in research. My local Co-op does not even offer a conventional canola variety anymore...

That being said the comments about the University of Guelph and them finding some micro organisms with GMO in their DNA troubles me. Does anyone have a link to this article? I would like to read up on this for curiousity sake and something to do on these cold winter days. I searched but have come up empty. Thanks.

[bduke]

Kodiak.... you stated in your second post on this
thread that you had a "feeling passion and
philosophy is going to make this an intense
discussion".

IMHO... passion and philosophy are indicators of
engagement, and catching up on the last two days
posts is very enjoyable.

Indeed.... much more enjoyable than loading barley
B-trains in -33C Monday morning!

BTW.... Our contract stated this barley would be
moved no later than Nov. 21, 2009.

Technicalities were of little value on this deal.

However.... technicalities did keep O J Simpson out
of jail for murder.... but his ex's relatives did win a
civil suit... which apparently broke him... based
upon practical evidence and principles!... LOL

Cottonpicken's lawyer comments are me haunting
again!

scj.... I commented about the micro organisms and
the RR gene.

I picked up the link on Parsley's Notebook....

www.agronomy-journal.org

It is a Research Article in Agronomy for
Sustainabilite Development.

The scientists at the University of Guelph are:

Miranda M. Hart... Jeff R. Powell.. Robert H. Gulden..
David J Levy-Booth.. Kari E. Dunfield.. K Peter
Pauls.. Clarence J. Swanton.. John N Klironomos and
Jack T Trevors.

You can click on the link to" Round Up Ready Corn"
in the GMO Corn: Horizontal Gene Transfer etc.
post.

Stay warm everyone.... Bill

[charliep]

Here is the link to the article.

[URL="http://www.agronomy-journal.org/content/view/248/42/lang,en/"]gene transfer[/URL]

[Choice2U]

The question still has not been answered about how would we be feeding the majority of the 6B people today without the advancements of the past 20 years through pesticides and GM science. Even though there still is high starvation rates, a billion more people are eating today than 25 years ago. Parsley, your concerns are about potential FUTURE deaths from these technologies. My concerns are about the 1B people that would have starved over the past 25 years had we not had these production gains. You don't have to feed the world but society as a whole has a responsibility to try.

[charliep]

Would be cautious in trying to relate biotech and feeding the world to date. The crops that have used biotech has mainly been industrial crops used in the developed world as livestock feed (corn/soybean meal) and recently biofuels. Increasing middle class/increasing meat consumption has impacted in some parts of the developing world are benefiting somewhat as they improve income/diets.

Vegetable oil is perhaps a different story given this is one of the first places the developing world is spending money to increase calorie intake. That brings in palm oil however. A general comment is the growth is world vegetable oil consumption has been what could best be described as astounding.

Third world biotech has been more through things like golden rice, Bt cotton, etc.

[parsley]

If you believe that genetic modification of grain will feed the starving masses, you are only fooling yourself.

'Starving Third World I' from this past decade will be refilmed, in real time, in 2029, as 'Starving Third World III'

Surely you will acknowledge that starvation is not a food production problem; rather it is a food distribution problem; hence, a political problem.

The African continent planting alone, could feed the world for many moons.

Don''t try and sell us the starving people crap. It taints your future argument as suspect. Pars

[parsley]

"Epoxidized" vegetable oils charlie p, form the base of a lot of industrial products; hence the demand increase by %. An industrialized nation basic ingredient.

<p></p>
<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Epoxidized vegetable oils &btnG=Google Search&meta=&aq=null&oq="](Not all veggie oil is swallowed)[/URL]</strong></p>

[charliep]

Agree 100 %. Bio plastics, biofuels (including additives and fuel for environmentally sensitive areas), newspaper ink, etc, etc.

Will also disagree that issue is not a food production problem in third world.

I highlight the expression - Give a person a fish and they are full for day. Teach a person how to fish and they are full for lifetime.

The needs of third world agriculture are capital, resources and knowledge first. Then comes the application of technology. That brings the discussion back to the thread topic and how much/little biotech should be used in growing food. Biotech (however is defined) to date has been used in industrial crops or feed converted to meat.