Ministers back 'terminator' GM crops

[Clara T]

Ministers back 'terminator' GM crops

Website reveals plan to scrap prohibition on seeds that threaten Third World farmers with hunger
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 05 March 2006

Ministers are trying to scrap an international agreement banning the world's most controversial genetic modification of crops, grimly nicknamed "terminator technology", a move which threatens to increase hunger in the Third World. Their plans, unveiled in a new official document buried in a government website, will cause outrage among environmentalists and hunger campaigners. Michael Meacher, who took a lead as environment minister in negotiating the ban six years ago, has written Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, to object.

The Government is to push for terminator crops to be considered for approval on a "case-by-case basis" at two meetings this month; its position closely mirrors the stance of the United States and other GM-promoting countries.

Terminator technology, so abominated even Monsanto will not develop it, would stop hundreds of millions of poor farmers from saving seeds from their crops for resowing for the following harvest, forcing them to buy new ones from biotech companies every year. More than 1.4 billion poor Third World farmers and their families pursue the age-old practice.

The technique is officially known as genetic use restriction technology (Gurt), making crops produce sterile seeds. It could be applied to any crop, including maize and rice, widely grown in developing countries.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article349331.ece

[mcctatas]

1. Disgusting and dangerous...

but just another example of profits before people. :grr:

[bunyip]

28. What profits?

Businesspeople in any industry are paranoid about a supplier establishing a monopoly and screwing them. As an example, Ford will not purchase more than 20% of any part from the one supplier. Monsanto invested big in this technology, as part of a hair-brained scheme to monopolize the world's supply of grain. They bought up all their big competitors and tried to sell their modified, terminator-locked seeds to Western agribusiness giants. No one fell for this obvious scam. Monsanto's remaining small competitors grew into large competitors. Greenpeace and other fringe groups started yammering. Monsanto failed. Their competitors laughed at them. Their share price sagged. $7,000,000,000 later, they got out of the game and focused on other things they can make.

Illiterate, suspicious, deeply conservative Third World farmers are even less likely to abandon control of their seed stock than wealthy Westerners. The new players are trying to give it away, and still no one wants Terminator seeds.

They are free to sell them, and we are free not to buy. The UK is backpedalling on their populist blanket ban in favor of testing and regulation. Let them.

GM crops have been in use for 10,000 years. The modification process is totally unregulated in most countries, and relies on cosmic rays and other mutagens randomly attacking plant DNA, which is then artificially selected by farmers. This is where traditional varieties come from. Biologists found they can speed the process up by irradiating seeds to cause more mutations, and then DNA technology allowed controlled changes with predicable results to be made. This has led to simple, plant-based manufacture of vaccines and to more nutritious crops. These crops are state-regulated and extensively tested, unlike the genetically-modified but unregulated traditional varieties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering


"Terminator Technology" is to Greenpeace et al what the "War on Terror" is to Bush. It attracts attention, keeps the masses scared, and facilitates spending their money to promote a regressive Return To Year Zero agenda they would otherwise run from.

[silverweb]

2. WTF?

They have vested interest, of course.

The whole fucking world's gone insane. The Wombat's right -- we're doomed.

[FloridaPat]

3. Ministers like in "ministers of gov't". British thing.

[Mind_your_head]

5. Yes, I thought the same thing about 'ministers'.....

...ministers in the government, ministers in the church????

Makes a HUGE difference, but this was written to confuse, muddy the waters.....and to this end, it's very well done. Beyond that, it's just TRASH!

[WinkyDink]

7. Are you daft? "Trash"? Do you mean you've not heard of this before?

Do you mean you couldn't figure out this was our ALLY, the U.K., with the word "ministers"?

[Mind_your_head]

4. Geez, this so obviously confusing in it's wording......

....what's with that?

Let's deconstruct (pick this sentence apart):

Ministers are trying to scrap an international agreement banning the world's most controversial genetic modification of crops, grimly nicknamed "terminator technology", a move which threatens to increase hunger in the Third World.

:crazy: ^....... confusing, isn,t it? On purpose, no doubt!

edit: typo

[Don Claybrook]

16. It's not confusing to me

Which part are you having trouble with?

[Mind_your_head]

20. I understood what it was saying, but

I don't like the double-negative in there "scrapping the plan banning" which means that "it would be allowed". I just think that original wording is confusing to a casual reader of this article (or a very tired, frustrated, and angry reader, such as I was last nite).

GM crops are just dangerous, evil, and cruel. :mad: :mad:

[Richard D]

6. It's really a small issue . . .

. . . that of money and profit. This technology is really about a weapon of war. Since the seeds need to be replaced to get next years crop, and there is no way around this . . . "Sorry you won't cooperate with the goals of the (fill in the easy to fill in blank) government, we're sorry to not be able to give you any seeds until you change your mind." Voila, war by starvation. No bullets necessary even.

I'm not discounting the poor farmers who will be damaged by this technology if it gets out there; that is truly horrible and evil. There is just much more to this picture.

[Clara T]

8. Accurate and much more

at each stage you are required to buy into facilitators so let's say your country isn't complying with trade agreements the Monsanto-USDA overlords will freeze your crop development.

Basically you are held hostage. Controlling food supply for profit AND domination. An old game.

[Selatius]

9. Capitalism is simply NOT POSSIBLE without CONTROL over RESOURCES.

All this represents is an exertion of control over a resource that can be extremely profitable. To be a capitalist simply means to be in a state of ownership or control over the means of production. In this case, we're talking about crops.

When one controls a resource, then one has power over others, and in our society, people must compensate the owners for the privilege, not the right, of having access to those resources they own regardless of the fact that everybody needs those resources. This is simply the "American Way." If you cannot pay, then you lose your privilege of access. It's the world in which we live.

You gotta love capitalism. It's what built Wall Street and the millions of people it employs in order to maintain the current capitalist power structure. :sarcasm:

[bunyip]

29. No

"Terminator Technology" has lost billions for every company that has invested in it. Read the article - they can't give it away to even to starving Afgan farmers.

There are no profits and no power to be gained here. The West can't even destroy Marijuana seeds grown by a tiny minority, good luck with self-seeding wheat.


Capitalism is the re-investment of surplus production in the means of production. State-capitalist (North Korea, Cuba) and regulated-market-capitalist (Sweden, UK) economies are based on this.

Extractive/agrarian slave states such as those of equatorial Africa and parts of Central America are not capitalist. What you describe is referred to by economists as "rent-seeking" and by historians as Feudal. This economic system is anti-capitalism and anti-competition, and NeoCons love it.

[Emillereid]

10. Is it true that even Monsanto won't develop terminator seeds??

What companies have developed them?

[yellowcanine]

22. I believe Monsanto bought the company that owns the technology but

so far has not released any germplasm with the "terminator gene". That doesn't mean they aren't testing it though.

[Occulus]

11. Crops genetically modified to protect patents should be BANNED.

FURTHERMORE- ANY company attempting to violate the ban should be dissolved, their assets seized, all corporate officers fired, and new management forced into place.

THESE. PATENTS. ARE. EVIL.

They are evil, on paper. They are the immaterial (yet very powerful) expressions of evil hearts bent upon evil goals.

"Pay us or starve"?

FUCK. YOU.

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

:rant:

[Briar]

12. Yes, that's New Labour all over

up to date with every "modern advance" from torture to new generation nukes, and from acceptance of greed and tax avoidance to further impoverishing the poor so that global corporations can continue enricjing themselves.

[meegbear]

13. So abominated even Monsanto will not develop it ...

No, Monsanto was developing them, but worldwide public outcry stopped development of them.

[formercia]

14. When people realize there is little or no financial advantage

to using GM seeds, they will revert back to open pollinated varieties or standard hybrids. I have to admit that modern breeding programs and technology allow farmers and gardeners to produce more food on ever decreasing areas of land and for some countries, this is a big issue.
I'm an avid gardener and always looking to replace hybrids with open pollinated varieties so that I can save seed and be independent. In a couple of cases, I was able to continue growing varieties that were dropped by the seed companies because they weren't as profitable as selling hybrids. Some of the varieties that have been dropped were so popular that small, independent growers have begun to maintain production and they are back in commerce.

The biggest problem is cross contamination of open pollinated stocks by pollen drift from plots of GM varieties and is a good argument to ban GM crops if only for that reason.

[mom cat]

15. That is exactly the danger. It is diabolical in its cruelty and scope.

[Kailassa]

17. Could this terminator gene spread through cross pollination?

If I'm growing normal maize and the wind blows pollen from GM terminator maize my way, could it pollinate mine with a terminator gene so that mine produces no seeds or only infertile seeds?

[meganmonkey]

18. Yes yes yes!

It is dangerous stuff.

[yellowcanine]

23. Yes but that is not the real problem. The plants, say corn, that were

pollinated with the terminator gene pollen might well produce infertile seed, though they still would produce seed. However, most of the seed produced in that field (if it were an open pollinated variety) would still be fertile. It would likely only be plants at the edges of the field that would be producing infertile seed. The bigger problem is if a company were to promote a popular variety that contains the terminator gene and the farmers were to quit producing their open pollinated varieties. Then when they no longer had their open pollinated varieties the company could jack up the price of the seed and the farmers would have little choice except to pay the price.

On edit: I should note that this is not a just a problem of "terminator gene" technology. Essentially the same process occurs when hybrid seed technology is adopted on a wide scale. Farmers have to go back to the seed company every year to buy the hybrid seed. We lost a lot of corn varieties in this country when hybrid seed was widely adopted in the 1940s.

[Lisa]

25. good point about hybrid seed -- I just got involved with an Afghan project

The local people in a village where (conventional, non-GM) hybrid crops were introduced, have been complaining that not only do those varieties not grow well (complex microclimate and different soil conditions), but they would have to keep going back and getting new seed each year. Even if the seed were given free of charge, in perpetuity (a big if), they feel it undermines their local independence. They are very proud, and would rather have a local source of seed, than having to ask outsiders for a handout each growing season.

[yellowcanine]

27. OP varieties often yield less than hybrids but have better yield stability

that is, they will yield better under adverse conditions such as drought or low fertility...so the farmer gets SOMETHING whereas he may get nothing under the same conditions with a hybrid variety.

[Lisa]

30. especially when those varieties have been bred for resistance ...

... over generations, to cope with the exact conditions in a particular area. A lot of the hybrids just don't have the genetic diversity to be "plastic" enough to adapt to unfamiliar environments. As you say -- the crop may be a bit meagre and undersized if there's a late frost or a drought, but it would sure be better than complete failure.

[Clara T]

26. Terminator Technology Targets Farmers

New Genetic Technology Aims to Prevent Farmers from Saving Seed

ISSUE: On March 3, 1998 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and an American cotton seed company, Delta & Pine Land Co., received a US patent on a technique that genetically alters seed so that it will not germinate if re-planted a second time. The technology aims to prevent farmers from saving seed from their harvest to re-plant the following season. Because it is a potentially "lethal" technology, RAFI has dubbed it the "Terminator Technology."

IMPACT: If commercially viable, the Terminator technology will have profound implications for agriculture. It is a global threat to farmers, biodiversity and food security. The seed-sterilizing technology threatens to eliminate the age-old right of farmers to save seed from their harvest and it jeopardizes the food security of 1.4 billion people - resource poor farmers in the South - who depend on farm-saved seed. The developers of the technology say that it will be targeted for use primarily in the South as a means of preventing farmers from saving proprietary seeds marketed by American seed corporations. Delta and Pine Land Co. and USDA have applied for patents on the Terminator technology in at least 78 countries. If the Terminator technology is widely utilized, it will give the multinational seed and agrochemical industry an unprecedented and extremely dangerous capacity to control the world's food supply.

PARTICIPANTS: Although the USDA and Delta and Pine Land (D&PL) jointly hold the patent on the Terminator technology, Delta & Pine Land has exclusive licensing rights. D&PL is the largest cotton seed company in the world. With 1997 annual sales of $183 million, D & PL holds 73% of the US cotton seed market and is a major soybean breeder. Monsanto (US-based agrochemical and seed giant) is a minor shareholder in D&PL; the two companies jointly own a cotton seed venture in China (D&M Intl. LLC).

<snip>

INTRODUCTION
On March 3, 1998 Delta & Pine Land Co. (Mississippi, USA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that they received a US patent on a new genetic technology designed to prevent unauthorized seed saving by farmers. The patent is benignly titled, "Control of plant gene expression" (US patent no. 5,723,765). The patented technology enables a seed company to genetically alter seed so that it will not germinate if re-planted a second time. The patent is broad, applying to plants and seeds of all species, including both transgenic (genetically engineered) and conventionally-bred seeds. The developers of the new technology say that their technique to prohibit seed-saving is still in the product development stage, and is now being tested on cotton and tobacco. They hope to have a product on the market sometime after the year 2000.

http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=188

[realFedUp]

19. do I smell mango seeds? nt

[Kailassa]

21. mango seeds?

I love chewing on the mango pips after I've prepared mangoes, but I don't understand the relevance here. Care to enlighten me?

[realFedUp]

24. we're giving India nuke technology et al for mangoes

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC03Df04.html

Nukes and mangoes on Bush's mind in India
By Indrajit Basu

KOLKATA - Although US President George W Bush's India visit that officially started on Thursday is hardly expected to grab headlines in terms of business and economic deals between the two countries - rather, the nuclear separation agreement that the two nations have just announced will dominate coverage - both are looking forward to several new initiatives to boost bilateral commercial ties expected to be announced in the next few days.

snip

While the US has agreed to clear imports of mangoes, for instance, from India, the Indian side is finalizing plans to address US farmers' market access concerns on pulses (beans and peas) and almonds. The Indian step that could benefit the US the most is a relaxation of India's specifications for wheat imports. Imports of fruits and vegetables are also expected to be cleared during Bush's visit.

For several years, Indian mangoes have been facing non-trade barriers such as sanitary and phyto-sanitary (plant health) measures from the US side. "We are looking forward Indian mangoes," Bush said in his public address to the country on Thursday.

continued

[Zhade]

31. That's SOOOOOO fucked up.

They're trying to ban NATURE, people. NATURE!

This world is insane! Or, at least, its overlords are.

[MisterP]

32. heck, Bechtel apparently took possession of all the rain in Bolivia

and stopped the people from collecting it. Hail neoliberalism! If you don't die now you might be hired to polish James Baker III throuh XXI's yachts!