<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Worldwide resistance to GMOs dwindle as food bills rise]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by ids http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:39:32 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/1 fyi

Published on Sunday, April 20, 2008 by The Independent/UK  
Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth

By Geoffrey Lean

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

]]> fyi

Published on Sunday, April 20, 2008 by The Independent/UK  
Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth

By Geoffrey Lean

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

]]> Comment #2 by greenfire8 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:54:39 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/2 ethanol...the usual suspect

lets be fair....oil prices are to blame far more than ethanol for recent price increases...you want to pick on someone, how about the top 10% of ag subsidy recipients who received the majority of the billions of these pork dollars in the last decade....how about NAFTA, CAFTA, etc?....how about the fact the aid we supply to countries in food crisis has to be bought from our pork barrel?

]]> ethanol...the usual suspect

lets be fair....oil prices are to blame far more than ethanol for recent price increases...you want to pick on someone, how about the top 10% of ag subsidy recipients who received the majority of the billions of these pork dollars in the last decade....how about NAFTA, CAFTA, etc?....how about the fact the aid we supply to countries in food crisis has to be bought from our pork barrel?

]]> Comment #3 by sdsavage http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/ Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:11:35 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/3 The ethics of GMO refusal

If it is immoral to divert food to biofuels as many are saying, is it not also immoral to block a perfectly safe technology that could make Europe a less voracious competitor for food and feed?  And how is it that companies that are helping to get the world fed are somehow wrong for doing that?  Are you feeding anyone?

Steven Savage, Ph.D.


]]> The ethics of GMO refusal

If it is immoral to divert food to biofuels as many are saying, is it not also immoral to block a perfectly safe technology that could make Europe a less voracious competitor for food and feed?  And how is it that companies that are helping to get the world fed are somehow wrong for doing that?  Are you feeding anyone?

Steven Savage, Ph.D.


]]> Comment #4 by askantik http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/ Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:08:30 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/4 Cody

Why is it any more immoral to divert food to ethanol production than it is to divert food to animals which are so energy intensive?  I can spout statistics or whatever, but I can assure you that we'd have a much easier time with food prices and helping those in need of food if we didn't eat so much meat.  

Ok, I can't resist a couple statistics (with sources):

Over 60% of all grains grown in the United States are fed to animals.  How many people could that amount grain feed?  (Prof. V. Smil, 'Rationalizing Animal Food Production,' in Feeding the World: A Challenge for the 21st Century, MIT Press, London, 2000.)  

The European Parliament stated: "Europe can feed its people but not its animals."  (European Parliament, Europe's Deficit in Compound Feedingstuffs and Agenda 2000, Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development Series, Working Document, AGRI-110, 1999. Cited in J. Turner, Factory Farming and the Environment, CIWF, 1999)

Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimates that reducing U.S. meat production by just 10 percent would free enough grain to feed 60 million people.  (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0109-10.htm)

]]> Cody

Why is it any more immoral to divert food to ethanol production than it is to divert food to animals which are so energy intensive?  I can spout statistics or whatever, but I can assure you that we'd have a much easier time with food prices and helping those in need of food if we didn't eat so much meat.  

Ok, I can't resist a couple statistics (with sources):

Over 60% of all grains grown in the United States are fed to animals.  How many people could that amount grain feed?  (Prof. V. Smil, 'Rationalizing Animal Food Production,' in Feeding the World: A Challenge for the 21st Century, MIT Press, London, 2000.)  

The European Parliament stated: "Europe can feed its people but not its animals."  (European Parliament, Europe's Deficit in Compound Feedingstuffs and Agenda 2000, Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development Series, Working Document, AGRI-110, 1999. Cited in J. Turner, Factory Farming and the Environment, CIWF, 1999)

Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimates that reducing U.S. meat production by just 10 percent would free enough grain to feed 60 million people.  (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0109-10.htm)

]]> Comment #5 by Tom Philpott http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/ Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:51:38 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/5 Greenfire8,

I agree with you to an extent. Biofuel is probably responsible for between just a quarter and a third of the rise on food prices.
What's to blame for foisting GMOs on consumers who don't want them is that the industry managed to conquer the globe's bread basket--the US and Brazil/Argentina.
As GMOs gobble market share in corn and soy in the bread basket nations, it gets more and more expensive to separate out non-GMO goods. When prices rise -- for whatever reason -- buyers have less and less leverage to choose non-GMOs. You might pay a 30 percent premium for non-GMO corn when the GMO stuff is going for $150 a metric ton. But when GMO corn is going for $350 -- as it is now -- then buyers starrt to throw their hands up.

Victual Reality



]]> Greenfire8,

I agree with you to an extent. Biofuel is probably responsible for between just a quarter and a third of the rise on food prices.
What's to blame for foisting GMOs on consumers who don't want them is that the industry managed to conquer the globe's bread basket--the US and Brazil/Argentina.
As GMOs gobble market share in corn and soy in the bread basket nations, it gets more and more expensive to separate out non-GMO goods. When prices rise -- for whatever reason -- buyers have less and less leverage to choose non-GMOs. You might pay a 30 percent premium for non-GMO corn when the GMO stuff is going for $150 a metric ton. But when GMO corn is going for $350 -- as it is now -- then buyers starrt to throw their hands up.

Victual Reality



]]> Comment #6 by jb943 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/ Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:00:24 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/6 Feeding the world

GMO companies are not helping to feed the world. The world was doing a better job of feeding itself before GMOs, before the introduction of chemical agriculture. Most of the world's farms exist on less than 5 acres, not suitable for any large-scale monocultures, GMOs or otherwise.

Environmental Associate Kingston, NY

]]> Feeding the world

GMO companies are not helping to feed the world. The world was doing a better job of feeding itself before GMOs, before the introduction of chemical agriculture. Most of the world's farms exist on less than 5 acres, not suitable for any large-scale monocultures, GMOs or otherwise.

Environmental Associate Kingston, NY

]]> Comment #7 by Ron Steenblik http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/ Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:11:58 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/please-sir-i-want-some-gmos/7 I wish people would stop referring to ...

... "the free market" in agricultural products. There is an international market, and there are domestic markets, and there is a varying degree of price transmission between them. But the world is far from having a free market in food or any other agriculture-derived products.

So why repeat the phrase, "the allegedly free market", Tom? Alleged by whom? Certainly not by any economists I know! If the market were already free (which does NOT mean without environmental, health and safety standards and safeguards), the Doha multilateral trade negotiations would have finished a long time ago!

These are only my personal opinions.

]]> I wish people would stop referring to ...

... "the free market" in agricultural products. There is an international market, and there are domestic markets, and there is a varying degree of price transmission between them. But the world is far from having a free market in food or any other agriculture-derived products.

So why repeat the phrase, "the allegedly free market", Tom? Alleged by whom? Certainly not by any economists I know! If the market were already free (which does NOT mean without environmental, health and safety standards and safeguards), the Doha multilateral trade negotiations would have finished a long time ago!

These are only my personal opinions.

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