DOWN WITH BIOTECH AND THE PHALLOCENTRIC REGIME THAT CREATED IT! It's time we turned back the clock on "genetic modification" and genetic technology. After all, what has selective breeding of food crops, the development of vaccines, or gene therapy and the like ever done for me? By trying to change Mother Nature for human purposes we have only alienated ourselves from the gentle eco-centric partnership cultures that prevailed before the rise of technological societies.

The issue of "Genetically Modified seeds" is not about farmers losing profits to big multi-nationals, which is a different problem. This is a scientific issue that not only affects human health but also that of insects, birds and other species, who may consume these seeds or the food that results from them. Field trials were done in Indonesia of "GM rice" and compared with "rice". "GM rice" grows fast but provides less energy and is less nutritious than "rice". Rice like most fruits, vegetables, meats is sold on the basis of mass, hence genetically-modifying seeds produces "GM rice" which gains mass very quickly, but is less nutritious than "rice." All species eat food so they have energy to perform actions, and "GM rice" provides less energy than "rice." In the long-term eating "GM substances" may cause illnesses and diseases since humans have not evolved eating such artificial substances, over millions of years and there will most likely be repercussions. There is no reason now or ever to introduce genetically-modified, seeds, plants, or other species into the eco-system. Companies are doing all sorts of tricks like injecting meat with water to increase the mass, so they can maximize profits. This is an important concept for individuals trained in economics to understand air-quality, water-quality, and food-quality are biologically essential for survival. Elected-representatives, who do not understand science/nature are not qualified to be in government. Clearly Canada's environment minister does not understand science.

Hello Ludd, or should I say luddite? I knew it would not take long for you to come swinging out of the trees. But I am a bit surprised at how far you wish to take our modern society back to - usually your kind only want to return to the safety of the 1950's! If you think that you have not benefited from science and technology, I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is - get off the 'net, sell your car, and go back to the commune; better yet, find your own piece of paradise and make yourself self-sufficient using only stone age tools (it is kind of hard to know where to draw the line regarding which technologies you profess to disdane...) Get real, or get lost!

The quote below if from a letter sent by the National Farmers Union to Prime Miniister Paul Martin on Feb. 7 about the Canadian attempt to promote field tests and commercialization of the GURTS "suicide seed" technology. "Multinational seed companies and the U.S. government have pressed for a lifting of the ban on GURTS for years. However, it now appears that our own government is aiding and abetting these vested interests. According to leaked instructions to the Canadian delegation at SBSTTA 10 (a scientific advisory body to the CBD) in Bangkok, Thailand, Canada will insist on Wednesday, February 9, 2005, that governments accept the field testing and commercialization of GURTS varieties. Canadian negotiators have been instructed to undermine an official UN report recommending that governments seek prohibitions on GURTS technology. They have also been instructed to "block consensus" on other options if the ban is not lifted. The NFU believes farmers have an inalienable right to save, re-use, and exchange seed based on the traditional practices of thousands of generations of cultivators worldwide. The lifting of the moratorium on GURTS would effectively end farmers¹ rights to save seed and pose a serious threat to food sovereignty worldwide." Terry Boehm Vice President National Farmers Union

Hey Voice... The worst thing about computer technology is the way it fails to properly transmit sarcasm. Or maybe it's my shitty writing...

It is appalling that the Canadian govt would be trying to push terminator seeds on the world. This is nothing but a scam to have total control of global food production in the hands of the corporations. We must not let these swine rest easy when they get back to Canada.

I Think these people forcing this crap down our throught is discusting, their is no control of how these things cross pollinate into "heritage" plants all mosanto and all these big biotech companies want is to control the food supply.
Mosanto/Dupoint are muchants of death. the whole terminator seed thing is said to be created to withstand Round Up (a mosanto product). so tell me you people that suppord GMF(geneticly modified food) and plants say that this will help reduce the use of pesticides and chemicals, But I guess Round Up is ok to ingest because mosanto said its safe...riiiiiight!!! I like my techy gadgets but thats doesn't mean I want microsoft to make my food for me too..Imagine microcrap makeing food products..ha!ha! we would all get viruses and die or need updates to be able to accept crappy expensive food.. Look into the history of DuPont and you will see what scum they are and should be forced out of canada under armed escort. Dupont Mosanto same people..pure evil..

But this is outrageous! If the sterility gene is even remotely dominent, hell even if it's recessive, introducing it into the genosphere will begin a process that will disastrously decrease the germination rate of all seed stock world wide. If an ill wind blows just right, the neighbouring fields could be completely contaminated and effectively genetically modified by remote control. This would be a theft of unprecidented scope.

Only stocks protected by such means as are used for biological weaponry could hope to escape this creeping spread of sterility.

In fact, I can't think of any other way to characterize this scheme than biological warfare. Warfare against biology itself for profit. Madness. Criminal madness.

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27410

How did biodiversity get sidelined by a proposal for sterility? What happened to discussions of habitat loss, conservation, etc.? The Canadian government has a sorry record on these matters. Their role as a shill for industrial agriculture can be seen as a replacement for action to protect seed diversity.

Percy Schmeiser for Prime Minister!! What a guy! Talk about the Law of Unintended Consequences ... when Monsanto attacked him, thinking they'd quell opposition to Frankinseeds forever, Percy fought back. Biological warfare indeed. Well done, Percy!!

I have a comment to make about the suicide seeds well the comment that I would like to ask how or what would the suicide seeds do foe human people?

Regarding the diatribe submitted by "Voice of Reason"/"Voice" - So, you "refuse to be to be beaten into submission by the "frankenfurter" scare mongers"? Who is beating you, and how? Are you a farmer whose livelyhood is threatened by people who don't want to eat things designed by a chemical company? Do you know who Percy Schmeiser is and how even though beaten mercilessly by Monsanto did not submit? Do you suggest he should grovel at the collective boots of Monsanto, and their ilk? Would you suggest that we submit to a corporate agenda that aims to control the world's food supply? Would you suggest that I have no right to decide what I eat? There is no mandatory labelling of genetically modified food - don't you care to know what you are eating? Have you studied what you are advocating? David Suzuki is a well educated biologist/geneticist who has studied these things for his whole life, along with many others of what you refer to as fear-mongerers. Are you just adversarial for the sake of it? Do you think that it is ok to modify plants so that they kill any insect that lands on them? - incuding butterflys, bees, ladybugs, preying mantis' - you name any of thousands of beneficial insects. How do you tell a bee not to spread pollen from the genetically modified crops to "heritage" crops?, or worse - that the plant that it just alighted upon is going to kill it? Rachel Carson was a "fear-mongerer" in her time too but was proven to be right. Ditto the scientists who "fear-mongered" about global warming? Have you noticed since the introduction of the salmon farms that the wild salmon stocks have been decimated by sea lice? The "fear-mongerers" warned about that too. Your thought processes exhibit the clasical signs of inculcation. You belong to the majority - and that is truly frightening. Ignorance is the product of stupidity.

I'm just wondering, why did P. Schmeiser (sp?) lose the court case? Could it be that he did steal those seeds and then synically make himself a champion of the "NO GMO" cause in order to raise money and gain support for his case?

Percy Schmieser lost Monsantos' suit against him because the seeds he saved from his previous years crop (to plant his next years crop, as he had habitualy been doing for years) had been polinated/infected by Monsantos' RoundupReady seeds on his neighbours farm and therefore his saved seed had some of Monsantos' "intellectual property" inside them, just like you would have some HIV virus inside yourself if you were raped by an HIV positive person. Because the law protects intellectual property but apparently doesn't protect farmers from having their crops inadvertently contaminated Schmieser lost the suit.

Canadian seed laws are currently under review and the big seed companies are trying to create a monopoly on seed production in order to generate profit from a product that they can't contain (GM freely contaminates related crops nearby) and that nobody wants. Seed saving is a farming practice as old as farming and the seed companies are trying to steal the human seed heratige from all of us (not just farmers). DONT' WANT GM SEED COMPANIES CONTROLLING ALL OF CANADAS SEED SUPPLY? PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE SEED SECTOR REVIEW IS BEING ACCEPTED UNTIL MARCH 8, 2005. More at the National Farmers Union site www.nfu.org

make that www.nfu.ca

Self proclaimed voices of reason are about the last we need.

You sound like an Ag Can or Health Canada bureaucrat out to earn a paid vacation somewhere at the expense of the people they are supposed to work for.

This outright greed of the big agra, big chemical alliance in their effort to bust family farming is nothing short of immoral and in my eyes criminal.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see other nations start to treat us as a pariah, closing their borders to our foodstuffs.

These big chemical outfits literaly steal seeds that have been used by farmers for thousands of years simply by bioengineering them and then calling on the federal government to be its police dog to protect the loot.

Farmer who live near where this
poison is planted have their crops infested by this shit and then are put in the impossible position of having to justify how they got the mutant seed mixed into their crop seeds.

While it makes me sick that our bureaucrats are going to bat for these big-ag, big-chem outfits, there is nothing new about this sleezy practice.

Federal scientists who speak out against the actions are threatened, censored and in some cases force to quit if they can't be quiet about the underhanded things they come upon.

Percy, you may have lost in the appointed courts of the land, but you have certainly won big in the courts of public opinion and in the hearts of most Canadians, and apparently millions of other around the globe who are tired of this covert cooperation between big industry and unfettered bureaucrats.

Gee Voice of ..., I thought Ned Ludd's post was pretty obvious that he was on your side. "Vaccines" and "gentle eco-cultures" were kind of dead giveaways not to mention the use of Ned Ludd as a name to begin with. You might want to watch more of the Comedy network.

Actually, I too missed Ned Ludd's sarcasm, and thought he was on MY side! Why? Because, Frank, the Luddites, too, had good reasons for their actions--they weren't anti-technology so much as anti-starving-to-death. Also, vaccines, if you read the anti-vaccine literature, are not the unalloyed good that we've been led to believe they are. (And I'm not an anti-vaccine flake, either. When my children were small I read up on both sides and accepted some vaccines for them while rejecting others.)

Anne, I'm not a regressive anti-Luddite :) They had a point after all.

But unless you whipped over that comment fast, I stil thought it was obvious :)

Furthermore "Voice" suddenly gone quiet, a little snippet that is pertinent to your sad thread opener...

"A person who acts according to universal moral principles would exhibit what Kohlberg calls a postconventional morality, the highest level of moral reasoning. Few people choose to follow self-chosen universal ethical principles rather than the conventional principles accepted by their society. To do so puts one at risk of being ridiculed, ostracized, or worse. Most people would rather condemn the whistle-blower instead of examining their own behavior"

Milgram, S., “Behavior Study of Obedience,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67 (1963): 371-8.

Loved that quote, Scary. Have copied it into my quote book.

Frank, I looked back at the sarcastic posting and yes, I probably did skim past it a little fast (these comment lists are LONG and I want to read them all). However, I have heard fanatics express themselves in all seriousness almost as hyperbolically.

Voice writes:
"If you think that you have not benefited from science and technology......"
The world's population in excess of about 500 million has science and technology to thank. But whether it could be called "a benefit" is another matter. Why is "more" always better than "less"..............?