Comments on: The GMO Issue Reaches Boiling Point in India

By: Robert Laine

Robert Laine — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 21:54:16 +0000

Thanks Colin for this enlightening series. Chile has been the target of a very well-funded propaganda campaign of fake news about the wonders of GM seeds and related pesticides. After copper, fruits and vegetables are our second highest export.
As your article points out, with so many scientific studies finding evidence of toxicity without increases in yields why risk implementation at this time? Perhaps investors need maximum dividends now. ChileBIO tells us there is no risk. It’s made up of 4 corporations: Monsanto-Bayer, Dow, Syngenta and Dupont. Its logo is: “biotechnology for a sustainable agriculture”(sic).
In 2013 a proposed “Law for the Improvement of Varieties of Vegetables” (aka The Monsanto Law) was introduced to allow GM vegetables to be grown in Chile. Various civil society organisations began to mobilise and in August of that year several thousand marchers (my first march ever) protested. The first term of the neo-liberal billionaire Piñera was ending so he left it to Bachelet (centre-left) to deal with. She declared a moratorium during her four-year term, but now the re-elected Piñera is pushing TPP and the Monsanto law in tandem.
With some experimental GM plots being permitted, contamination of local seeds is a major concern, especially the indigenous ones around for centuries, and the stealing of intellectual property through non-indigenous patents on seeds. Rather than commercialise them, Mapuches exchange seeds locally through bartering, a concept foreign to most of the Chilean elite. The holder of the most patents, father of a Senator, is a close ally of ChileBIO.
On the brighter side, an activist alliance of about 100 organisations has formed, including the original anti-Monsanto GM group, to combat TPP and GM food legislation jointly. Hopefully they can counteract the millions spent by the GM lobby. Ultimately consumer ignorance needs to be reduced through product labeling and other forms of education, and organic alternatives increased rapidly.

By: ttshasta

ttshasta — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 16:10:46 +0000

Watching conventional TV in a hotel on my vacation two nights ago, a feel good liberal show documented the plight of Monarch butterflies’ decline, and growers of Milkweed, their sole breeding plant. The entire feel good blurb failed to mention that 90% of Monarchs are gone due to eradication of Milkweed across the Western U.S. due to the use of RoundUp which has removed all weeds from farmlands. What folly.

By: ragheadthefiendlyterrorist

ragheadthefiendlyterrorist — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 08:06:13 +0000

Don’t forget that Bill Nye (who despite being marketed as “The Science Guy” is an engineer, not a scientist) and Neil deGrasse Tyson (who is an astrophysicist, not a geneticist, and therefore not competent to speak on GMO crops) were both…. induced, let’s say……to support GMO crops in videos and public statements. Scientists can be sellouts just like anyone else if the price is right.

By: Antonym

Antonym — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 06:05:37 +0000

US biologist Nina Federoff is emeritus of Penn State university.

That made her a colleague of Micheal Mann of the man made global temperature hockey stick: https://www.geosc.psu.edu/academic-faculty/mann-michael

By: Antonym

Antonym — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 02:04:48 +0000

The GMO Issue Reaches Boiling Point in India
Nice example of fake news. I read /see the Indian news daily, I live here, and no GMO is not even in any headline. Plenty of other non related issues are.

By: Robbobbobin

Robbobbobin — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 22:14:54 +0000

“Nina Federoff is a long-time supporter of GMOs. The last time she offered advice to India (in her role as scientific advisor to Hilary Clinton) was when Bt brinjal (eggplant) was being pushed for commercialisation.”

At the risk of sounding as racist as Gilad Atzmon and as I understand it BICBW, Federoff is a descendant of Russians, Clinton is a descendant of Martians, both of them were born, raised, educated (so to speak) and are working and residng in the USA, all of which are several thousand or million miles away from India. I think it is time the aforementioned worthies enlist the assistance of the current German-Scots POTUS to sanction and otherwise fuck up the Indian banking system until all those little brown dhoti-wearing bastards on that distant subcontinent give up and join the consensus on who is right and who is good, which at this moment in time is not them. God bless America.

By: Fair dinkum

Fair dinkum — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 21:59:17 +0000

And what are the 1%, movie millionaires, pop divas and educated upper middle class eating?
Organic or biodynamic produce of course.

By: Derrick

Derrick — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 19:41:34 +0000

It’s like an echo from The Omen II, where one of Damiens protectors envisions a similar enslavement of farmers.

By: Full spectrum breakdown is the objective

Full spectrum breakdown is the objective — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 16:02:33 +0000

“Prominent US biologist Nina Federoff says GM will become more or less essential in an era of climate change”

Nina Federoff is an ‘approved’ scientist, speaking for the Establishment. When she talks about food safety and food security for third world countries, she echoes precisely the same sentiments you get when the exceptionalists from the Pentagon plot to bring democracy and freedom to Vietnam, Chile, Iraq, Syria, Libya etc ..

Like other blood thirsty criminals, she should be awarded a Nobel prize.