Mexico's Judge Stands up to Monsanto
53 2014-09-02 by make_mind_free2go
yay for Mexico! more countries are fighting the big GMO corps.
"...Despite their tireless lobbying efforts in Brussels, the “Big Six” (Monsanto, Du Pont Pioneer, Syngenta, Vilmorin, Winfield and KWS) continue to hit a brick wall of resistance in many of Europe’s biggest markets, including Germany and France.
...However, Monsanto’s bullying tactics failed to impress the Mexican judges. On August 15, the court convened to review Zaleta’s alleged bias ruled against the U.S. corporation’s legal suit. Also spurned by the Mexican courts was the world’s third largest GMO seed manufacturer, Syngenta, whose reapplication for a license to run test trials of its maize crops was rejected this week by the Federal Court.
...as award-winning professor of Cellular Neurobiology David R. Schubert warned in a 2013 letter to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto:
Introducing GM corn into Mexico would pose a huge environmental risk given that the plant is native to the country. The GM varieties would drastically diminish the crop diversity of both Mexico and the world at large.
GM corn would make the crop production process a lot more expensive. Buying the same crop seeds year after year – as already happens in the U.S. and across many agricultural sectors in the global south (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and India) – would increase the costs throughout the Mexican food chain, putting millions of smallholders out of business.
GMO corn will also increase Mexico’s social and political dependence on oligopolies. Once transnational corporations dominate the seed market of a particular crop (as has happened with Soy and is fast happening with Corn), they will continue introducing GM seeds for other crops and increasing their power over Mexico’s agricultural sector.
As Schubert warned, this has already happened in the United States, “where seed companies are one of the main sources of financial funding for the two main political parties and have put their own people in senior positions of power to dictate national and international agricultural policy”.
GM maize expressing Bt protein and herbicide resistance and the chemicals required for their cultivation pose a serious health hazard to those who consume it – especially on the scale at which it is consumed in Mexico.
Most importantly, once the GM seeds are planted, they’ll be no going back. The country’s native varieties, which are the result of thousands of years of careful selection and breeding, will be irreversibly contaminated – even if the GM seeds are introduced on a modest scale."
27 comments
5 demise87 2014-09-02
Wow, for once the mexican government stands up to something for a good cause. Usually they get bribed and it works pretty well, poor guy he might be in fear of his life now. They will probably wait till hes gone and resume the proposal.
4 RichardDeckard 2014-09-02
Car crash in 3...2...
7 average_shill 2014-09-02
He'll probably end up shooting himself in the back of the head. Twice.
2 TheProdigalKn1ght 2014-09-02
Hate how good people do it all the time.
-7 ct_warlock 2014-09-02
How would planting GMO seeds decrease diversity?
You have the regular stuff growing, and then a few fields of GMO. Diversity would be increased.
This sounds more like protectionism than anything else.
3 TheProdigalKn1ght 2014-09-02
My only guess would be the genetic modifications are dominant genes. So through accidental, albeit natural, reproducing of plants by pollination the plants that are not GMO'd would pick up the modifications.
-6 ct_warlock 2014-09-02
GMO plants are less different from their forebears than hybrids.
If I hybridise a plant about 250+ genes will change that I have no control over. Whereas if I use GMO tech to do it I can choose to change just one or two genes.
I really think people have got the wrong end of the stick on this one.
Also, does anyone really think that evolution won't just roll over any harmful genetic stuff? At the end of the day, the best suited genes for the continuation of that species will continue. Less fit genes will be weeded out (pun intended).
3 TheProdigalKn1ght 2014-09-02
Those two statements do nothing to disprove my point. It does not matter if there is 1 gene changing or a 1000. The fact is that by planting GMO's next to unaltered, natural plants you are going to alter them by just having GMO's present.
Some people want unaltered food and they have a right to ask that.
Maybe, but unfortunately with corporations running rampant the information we get is always skewed or just straight disinformation. Any information that could hurt their profits is subsequently squashed.
Maybe if it is harmful to the success of the plant then yes. It will weed it out through natural selection.
The question arises what if it is not good for living beings to CONSUME this genetically altered food. Frankly I just don't know but I also can't trust anything I read about subjects like this. If you can't trust what your Government and medical centers tell you because you know it is influenced by Corporations, your in a bad state.
-6 ct_warlock 2014-09-02
But there is no unaltered food. We've already changed everything.
2 lajaw 2014-09-02
What is the difference between genetic modification and conventional breeding?
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1 ct_warlock 2014-09-02
Interesting, but I don't see what you're getting at.
1 ct_warlock 2014-09-02
Sorry, I can see people are just in denial now.
There is no unaltered natural food that we eat any more.
-1 CrossedChemicals 2014-09-02
This is correct if done correctly And ethically. The problem comes from greedy pockets. For instance: if you created a hover board and sold me one; would you also give me the blueprints along with it so I can make my own to sell? Of course not because that would take money from your pocket. Well the same is with big crop. They don't want you being able to reproduce a seed they are making money off of. So they alter the seed to make it sterile so you have to buy more of the same seeds from the same company to have the same plant. This creates two issues. The first problem being that you get locked into buying the seeds because any predators of your plant have adapted making it very difficult to go back to a natural growing version of the plant. The second issue is the price sticker on the plants. Ultimately GMOs right now avoid the supply and demand curve because of the patent they've placed on the slightly altered version of corn or soy, and have successfully integrated their plants to place a monopoly on our food supply. The problem isn't that we are genetically altering plants, the problem arises from who is doing it, and their reasons behind it.
3 lajaw 2014-09-02
There is no crop commercially available that makes sterile seed. That was/is called the terminator gene. It's claimed that the technology is out there, but none has been released commercially. Growers must buy new seeds each year because of contracts and the crops are hybridized. Hybridized crop seed will generally produce an inferior product, so to retain hybrid vigor, you must purchase new seed each year.
EDIT: Growers must buy new seeds each year because of contracts. This is for GMO seeds. Not for general hybrids. Most GMO seed is sold with the specification that you cannot replant from saved seed.
3 MennoniteDan 2014-09-02
That's not quite true; unless the contract is for a specific end market use and the crop/seed/plant to be grown is specified by the end user. None of the seed company contracts make a farmer buy the seed in the subsequent years.
This part is a/the good reason to keep buying hybrid seed.
2 lajaw 2014-09-02
I was (and didn't say it) talking of the patented GMO seeds. I was inferring the ability to save seed, which, by contract (as you know) you cannot.
2 MennoniteDan 2014-09-02
That I do... But, unfortunately, most of the people reading this thread would not pick up the inference.
-1 CrossedChemicals 2014-09-02
That still sounds shady, real shady.
3 lajaw 2014-09-02
It's not shady. It's business. A grower can purchase Open Pollinated (OP) seed and can generally save seed from year to year. But when you buy a hybrid, the subsequent crop won't be true to name. That is why we generally replant don't save hybrid seed. Though you can get some interesting products from those hybrids. Hybridization is the reason that most fruit trees are grafted and not grown from seed. They won't usually produce fruit like the parent.
2 MennoniteDan 2014-09-02
Blame nature.
2 make_mind_free2go 2014-09-02
if GMO increased diversity - why is that so many countries oppose it?
it's been proven that GMO foods contain less nutrients than non GMO and is harmful to animals,
GMO & Mammal Health - Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpqTzwkl6ew
1 ct_warlock 2014-09-02
Mainly because of protectionism. They're protecting their local agricultural industries that can't compete (still a conspiracy), and in many cases they're trying to establish their own GMO crops, but don't want some "foreigners" cornering the market before they can get it off the ground (also a conspiracy). Plus politicians caving into public opinion to protect their own positions (another conspiracy).
If you expect them to give the real reasons why they don't want them, you must have mistaken politicians for honest people.
-1 CrossedChemicals 2014-09-02
Genetically modified dominant traits will suppress naturally grown genetic traits as that is what GMOs are designed to do. One of these dominant traits is to not produce seeds which would only occur in a mutated plant and would be deemed a recessive trait and would not get passed on to the next plant because the plant is sterile and otherwise not able to reproduce the traits that caused it to be sterile. If you have a GMO Apple tree that has a built in pesticide and the pest that bothers the tree adapts to the GMO, then the tree will eventually die. Where as in nature genetics of different organisms are in constant evolutionary battle that creates a balance and both organisms to survive. Gmos are defenceless and the sole purpose is for monetary gain. GMOs could be great for our species but not in the way It's being done today.