Comments moyesii has made

Traditional breeding vs. genetic engineering

Angelsnecropolis, You're confusing traditional breeding and genetic engineering, which are completely different in both their means and ends. This has already been discussed to death on grist before. The USDA itself differentiates these two processes.

And why do you assume that anti-GMO people are all luddites? Just because some of us don't care to go into a dissertation here on the subject doesn't mean that we haven't done our research. According to this report, there is a very high failure rate in the cloning process, and even among those few that reach full-term, clones and their offspring often suffer from hidden genetic defects that don't manifest until adulthood or postmortem. Therefore, I don't see how anyone can claim that traditional breeding and genetic engineering are the same or even similar processes or that the end products are not radically different. And taking into account the high prevalence of disease and genetic defects among clones and their offspring, it seems quite rational that people should be concerned about the safety of consuming these foods.On Consumers demand market rejection of food from cloned animals posted 1 year, 2 months ago 9 Responses

laws and scripture

Strong correlation is usually sufficient evidence in science, so I stand by the examples I've cited.

You seem to have great faith in the infallibility of the WTO's codified agreements and rules. But just as it's difficult to prove causation (the act of one thing happening from another) from correlation (the occurrence of two things simultaneously), there is often little connection between the existence of rules established in the books and actual adherence to the law, especially among non-democratic bodies and given the known level of corruption anywhere that large amounts of money are at stake.

But I admire the religious zeal and salesman's determination with which you defend the WTO and tout your expert knowledge. It reminds me of certain people who like to toss around passages from the bible. Unfortunately, we know that both rules and scripture are often arbitrarily interpreted, which is why it's dangerous to have a non-democratic international governing body to be overriding domestically-set regulations. The WTO model is too ungainly to adequately address the deep social and economic inequalities among the poor and rich nations, and has been more likely to exacerbate them, which is why the Doha talks collapsed anyway.On Outline for a move to a sustainable agriculture system posted 1 year, 3 months ago 108 Responses

cotton and tea

The ruling against U.S. cotton subsidies has increased cotton production in developing countries for export. That may generate some income in those countries, but how does that contribute to sustainable agriculture? It certainly increases monoculture farming, and might increase markets for GMO cotton, which certainly falls in line with my theory that WTO is used as a vehicle for biotech interests.

There might be different pesticide limits for certain crops due to differences in production methods. Furthermore, studies have shown varying levels of pesticide residues on different food items. Tea is generally found to contain high levels of pesticide and requires large amounts of pesticides for production, while tomatoes not so much. This might be a valid case of comparing apples and oranges.

Jason's thesis is that the WTO contributes to sustainable ag. That's the point of his article. But the prevailing viewpoint, as Jason points out, is that WTO has not been overall beneficial to developing countries and undermines environmental protection laws. Therefore, it's incumbent on Jason to make a case for the opposite, which he hasn't done yet.On Outline for a move to a sustainable agriculture system posted 1 year, 3 months ago 108 Responses

Re: WTO and sustainable ag

Jason, I did happen to read your last comment before you deleted it this morning.

You still haven't substantiated your thesis that the WTO contributes to sustainable agriculture, despite your claims that you've done so. You've thrown around some tenuous theories and zero empirical evidence, and it all stands on the unlikely condition that agricultural subsidies are phased out. Everything you've stated is a hypothetical. The real world situation is that there have been massive protests, discontent, and rural upheaval around the world under the WTO system.

Ron, in regards to the tea case: Germany has some of the strongest regulations on pesticides in the world -- it has banned many pesticides that are commonly used in America and other countries -- so I don't think it's inconsistent for them to be stringent on pesticides found on imports. Perhaps the case was a matter of the type or class of pesticide found on the tea rather than the quantity.On Outline for a move to a sustainable agriculture system posted 1 year, 3 months ago 108 Responses

Re: WTO and GMOs

I don't believe in blaming the consumer, as is popular these days. I believe in understanding the context of consumer behavior -- namely the trade policies that shape the market forces that encourage certain behaviors.

On GMOs, Jason writes, "[I]f they don't work fine, then no one will buy them- why oppose something that may hold promise?" But I think that Jason must be feigning naivety on this issue.

First of all, history shows that agribusiness practices are a trap for both consumers and producers, and there is no easy turning back once they've got a foothold. American consumers have already been duped into buying GMO products, which are now ubiquitous although the average consumer wouldn't know that. Despite surveys that indicate that the majority of Americans would not knowingly buy GMO foods, the biotech industry has been allowed to sneak these products into our food supply, and has resisted efforts to require labels on GMO products. Therefore, it has become difficult for consumers NOT to buy GMO products, since the majority of Americans are unaware of these issues. For many, it's too unfathomable how industrial agriculture has become so insidious. (For another example, see Monsanto's efforts to restrict rBGH labels on dairy products.)

Furthermore, it's not so easy for the farmers themselves to break free of their contractual chains once they've started down the path of GMOs. Just look at the vertically integrated poultry industry in the US for an example of what's going to happen with GMOs. Farmers were promised more efficient poultry production, and they signed into contracts that required huge investments in growing houses and other equipment. Upon signing, they immediately went into debt, and were at the mercy of these corporate contractors. When many of these industrial poultry farms turned out not to be profitable, many farmers went bankrupt and lost their livelihoods.

Similarly, the WTO restricts testing and regulation of GMO technology, since it deems those as barriers to free trade, and therefore it has been the perfect vehicle through which biotech corporations are trying to force GMOs onto developing countries. Since GMOs are patented, the farmers are required to go into debt in order to invest in these seeds (and the chemicals on which they are dependent), which do not live up to the promise of increased yields. Furthermore, because of the terminator technology built into these GMO seeds, every year the farmers are forced to purchase a new supply, and because of the seed patents, they are not allowed to save seeds from the previous yield anyway. But seed saving and sharing is one of the fundamental practices of sustainable agriculture...

The farmers have gone into debt, and many have been forced off their lands. And just as there has been an epidemic of suicides among America's family farmers, thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide, because of the debts that they could not repay to Monsanto. GMO agriculture, just like factory farming, concentrates industry into the hands of a few players by forcing small, sustainable farmers out of business, which also leads to loss of biodiversity since many heirloom varieties are taken out of cultivation as a result.

And once you unleash GMOs into the environment, other crops become contaminated. There is evidence that GMO pollution is leading to the creation of superweeds, which is strikingly parallel to factory farming's contribution to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

So, to bring this discussion back on topic: Does the WTO -- in practice -- contribute to sustainable agriculture? There is no evidence to support that it has or that it will.On Outline for a move to a sustainable agriculture system posted 1 year, 3 months ago 108 Responses

Wrongheaded

The author tries to frame his arguments as the "rational" viewpoint and dismisses other opinions as unreasonable. That's industry tactic. The arguments against GMOs are science-based; there is no evidence that GMOs have actually increased food production. I also encourage you to read this recent article on grist regarding the problems with GMOs.

The primary purpose of the WTO is to increase access of multinationals and rich countries to developing countries' markets. For example, seed patent laws are forced upon countries by WTO rules, which destroy local seed supplies and create monopolies over seed and food systems. Seed banks are indeed important, but there is little actual benefit to biodiversity when only the patented (GMO) seed varieties are being cultivated and the farmers lose access to their traditional varieties, which become lost somewhere in a vault for storage. Countries such as India have a right to protect their sustainable and traditional agricultural practices and seedstock from corporations such as Monsanto, which ultimately wants to sell more of its Roundup herbicide, on which its Roundup Ready GMO seeds are dependent. How any technology, which increases dependence on agrichemicals and destroys biodiversity, can be called sustainable is beyond me.

These trade policies do not encourage free trade, but forced trade; and they are also responsible for imposing Western diets in developing nations, thus increasing world consumption of animal products and processed foods (not sustainable), and therefore increasing rates of lifestyle diseases, which will increase dependence on pharmaceuticals (certainly not sustainable).

The WTO rules force countries like South Korea to open up their markets to American beef, which is more likely to carry the infectious agents that cause BSE (mad cow disease). American beef sells in Korea for half the price of locally raised Korean beef, and this can be considered neither sustainable nor fair trade. And in order to make global agriculture more sustainable and eliminate these price distortions, you'd have to do a lot more than simply eliminate agricultural subsidies. You'd also have to address worker exploitation and poor environmental regulation for starters.

For an example of how all these factors come into play, please read a recent
NY Times op-ed on U.S. consumption of bananas. Here's an excerpt:

"That bananas have long been the cheapest fruit at the grocery store is astonishing. They're grown thousands of miles away, they must be transported in cooled containers and even then they survive no more than two weeks after they're cut off the tree... Once bananas had become widely popular, the companies kept costs low by exercising iron-fisted control over the Latin American countries where the fruit was grown. Workers could not be allowed such basic rights as health care, decent wages or the right to congregate."

American consumers are also the victims of current global trade policies, which allow cheap (and sometimes unsafe) imported foods to enter our markets. Until the FDA does a better job of regulating and inspecting these imported products for contamination -- which is unlikely, given recent trends -- these products will continue to outcompete our local markets, thereby harming consumers, sustainable farmers, and the environment.On Outline for a move to a sustainable agriculture system posted 1 year, 4 months ago 108 Responses