Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yet another example of GE contamination... and the seemingly complete disregard of some members of industry to the question of GE contamination...

http://truefood.org.au/newsandevents/?news=66

Yea, it's only going to get worse, I'm afraid- the U.S. "powers that be" are also fast tracking GE sugar beets. We already had GE alfalfa growing in this area. That has since been stopped but it is probably still out there, contaminating more fields. GE corn in the U.S. is almost 100% now- yellow dent #2- and has contaminated the orginal pure source of corn seed down in Mexico. GE is going to be like the atomic bomb- something that we wished we had never invented.

4.GE-contaminated flax seed raises concerns for Canadian organic sector
The controversial illegal contamination of flax comes on the heals of recent activity to fast-track new GE crops into North America, including GE sugar beets, the July approval of Monsanto and Dow’s “SmartStax” GE corn, and current proposals to allow GE alfalfa and GE wheat to be grown in Canada.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1 ... in-turmoil

Roundup Ready alfalfa gains quick acceptance
Mar 10, 2007
An estimated 20 percent of California's 1.1 million acres of alfalfa is Roundup Ready varieties just 18 months after the first herbicide-resistant alfalfas were introduced.
Within four years, Bill Cox, Monsanto seed systems manager, expects it to be 90 percent.
For Tulare County, Calif., dairyman/farmer Tom Barcellos, the quicker he gets to 100 percent Roundup-resistant alfalfa the better.
No transgenic crop has experienced quicker acceptance than Roundup Ready alfalfa.
And the reason is simple; it is producing more high quality alfalfa with less production cost per acre and the promise of longer stand life.
Cox of Visalia, Calif., has been a seed salesman for 33 years and he has never seen farmers adopt anything quicker.
http://westernfarmpress.com/mag/farming ... alfalfa_4/

Roundup Ready alfalfa held up in U.S. district court
Just over two years ago, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer put a stop to the further planting of genetically engineered Roundup Ready alfalfa.
Breyer placed the injunction on the Genetically Modified Organism alfalfa because he said the U.S. Department of Agriculture hadn’t developed adequate protocols to keep Roundup Ready pollen from mixing with flowering alfalfa that has not been genetically engineered. Breyer sent the USDA back to work on an improved Environmental Impact Statement.
Breyer’s action was the first time a federal court overturned USDA approval of a biotech seed and halted planting of it, according to The Center for Food Safety, a consumer advocacy group.
http://www.thelandonline.com/l_hay/loca ... 15635.html

Here is another concern that has just come to my attention and it was written in 2002! Now we have to worry about GE pharmacutical plants that could potentially cross contaminate our food supply and what would happen if two GE plants of the same species crosses?


The Next Generation of Genetically Engineered Foods
by author Elisabeth Abergel

At the same time governments worldwide are talking about establishing guidelines for biotech-free foods, industry giants have done it again: the next generation of genetically engineered (GE) crops, known as biopharmaceutical crops, is about to be commercialized.
The new crops, already planted in more than 300 field trials at secret locations across the United States and Canada, are genetically designed to produce both therapeutic and non-therapeutic drugs, as well as industrial chemicals. Among other things, these plants can already produce an abortion-inducing chemical, growth hormones, a blood clotter, and trypsin, an allergenic enzyme. If the biopharmaceutical industry has its way, these crops will be planted at production scale and, potentially, alongside regular food crops.
According to a report by the Genetic Engineering Food Action Coalition, a network of US-based consumer and environmental groups, the release of these biopharm plants may cause food crops to be contaminated. Scientists working for the National Academy of Science in the US agree that GE biopharm crops may pose a risk by mating with crops designed for human consumption, which could lead to the ingestion of novel combinations of chemicals and have unanticipated impacts on human health. There is also the potential that insects and animals will ingest these new substances.
Corn is one of the main crops used to produce biopharmaceuticals and chemicals. Genetically engineered corn plants could make up to 10 per cent of all corn production in the US by the year 2010, according to ProdiGene, a company involved in biopharmaceutical production.
Because corn is a pollinator, it is considered a prime candidate for pollen cross-contamination with non-GE corn. Director of Friends of the Earth, Larry Bohlen, is quoted as saying: "Just one mistake by a biotech company and we’ll be eating other people’s prescription drugs in our corn flakes." This quotation aptly describes the problem.
http://www.alive.com/1128a3a2.php?subje ... _cramb=635

Whats frightening is they are detonating in our back yard

Yea, laugh now; starve or mutate later.

I'm just about sick and tired of being sick and tired of this kind of stuff. I know I can't do anything myself against the US government, Doubtful I can get anything raised on the State level. But I wonder if anything can be done at least in our parish??? I'm gonna fire off a couple e-mails to my State Senators and Representatives to get a feel of their Positions. I know one of them is useless and just a windbag old school polly. But the other is young energetic and sends his kids to school with mine. He's helped me before (at least his legislative assistant, a hard worker believe it or not) Then my youngest in youth leg. might get some awareness out. My oldest daughters group's bill to ban cockfighing was brought to the floor, passed and was signed into law by the Governor. Big industry has been running this state for a long time using some of the cheapest labor in the country and polluting it without any recourse so I really am not holding my breath for any progress but the pollies know if you start changing the kids perspectives they will be the next generation of voters. I'm gonna do a little research to how much GE/GM crops are grown in this state. Probably wasting my time but emails don't cost anything.

Amen BRB.... and if we were all to raise an almighty clamour... and demand our representatives actually do something... or vote them out.... we might slowly change things...

But until we actually start to vote for people based on performance... not old hackneyed political "parties".... then we're probably doomed to more of the same...

I'd like to see legislation passed that banned political representation based on "party" lines... such that anybody standing did so as an "independant".... sadly the US system (not picking on you guys, because we're rapidly becoming the same) is so based upon industry lobbyists that you have a secondary impediment to democracy....

But kudos BRB.... until we all stand and do something.... we'll get more of the same...

No wonder Louisiana rice is hard to sell outside Louisiana.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/ ... 112601.cfm
Some more depressing reading:
http://naturalfoodsmerchandiser.com/tab ... cerns.aspx
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Legisl ... ts?nocount

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Legisl ... regulation

And just to bring the whole fiasco a little closer to home...

http://www.truefood.org.au/newsandevents/?news=70

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/conten ... 696714.htm

And here's a link to Greenpeace's report on the Food Authority attitude to GE/GM...

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/a ... 211008.pdf

The eating in the dark report is an enlightning read. It is scary that the gene splicing process inself leaves the spliced plant open to contamination and mutation afterwards which makes it even more variable and unpredictable, And that some of these ge plants to produce toxins which cause liver and kidney damage in rats.

It really ticks me that Bayer was never charged criminally for the contamination to the southern US rice fields for rice which was never approved to be planted There is a civil suit but wtf! They did it and admit it. They can't deny it anyway it's their dna! Someone needs to go to the big house! Wonder how much they would like working with Bubba at the Angola Prison Farm

GE is only to make Mr Monsanto a richer person(s), I'm not a Greenie or a Mung Bean but I don't beleive in modifying anything, look at the crap Vegies we get in shops now, make them look better, last longer and don't worry about the taste, modifying animals to make them more presentable etc is rubbish, soon they will modify man and give him 2 penises, so he has something to do with his other hand

One named jose' and the other hose "b"

There once was a bloke with 5 penises . . . his underpants fitted him like a Glove!