I dream that someday a prime minister will be born who will get rid of some of these secretive bureaucrats who toil away in the background on behalf of private greed and personal philosophic ideals.

Reminds me of the wonderful people in Health Canada who insisted that well educated scientists who are employed to safegaurd Canadians' health have no right to warn Canadians of the junk some drug manufacturers want to peddle with a government stamp of approval.

Politicians, being capable of more weasel moves than a pack of the furry kind, as often as not, merely look the other way while the bureaucrtic brutes beat the pulp out of those underlings who were born and have retained an ounce of ethics.

Reminds me of the new order in post-secondary education where the wants of students have also been shuffled aside to ensure the wants of the business sector are paramount when courses are designed.

So a young guy wants to complete an apprenticeship in carpentry, perhaps with thoughts of becoming a cabinet maker, but all the industry advisors want are more framing carpenters, at least until the latest housing surge cools.

Very good, Murray.

Now show this to Rafe, and ask him just how the government is involved in 'convincing members that a policy is good for the people'.

I write letters to the government complaining about a given policy, and get a form letter brush off in return. The policy remains the policy whether or not the government is Liberal or RAT.

Just who IS running this show?

R. Smiley

Terminator technology is the epitome of GREED and nothing more.

If you want a real idea of the mentality behind the ETHOS of the people pimping our servitude to the GREEDMONGERS,check out the movie KING RAT.It may be an oldie,but i can guarantee you will recognize the players quite easily.

is that it?

sell terminator seeds, so they have to buy them every year?

why would any government think that was good?

is big business blind to everthing but $?

harald, have read and seen king rat. good fit.

hope this has a similar ending for the perpetrators and their supporters.

Murray Dobbin: This one gets an A+. You really impressed me with this one. Nice job, Murray.

Dorothy:

Quinoa... I've thought about growing a lower altitude variety of it in Sask. Not sure how it would yield, or what kind of conditions it requires, because, well, only two other farmers in Sask have tried it! I'll try it on an acre or two for seed, but thats another story.

Agriculture Canada is nothing more than a promoter of big business in agriculture, promoting chemical company and grain handling interests and the push for large corporate farms. The interests of the farmer is last on the list, here in Canada, thanks to globalization.

In one sense, technology has increased the scale of farms making small farms more a way of the past in terms of the machinery needed to farm the land. Nothing is built for small scale farms anymore, other than two wheel tractors. In another sense, however, there is an ideological push to increase the physical size of farms to keep populations more urban centered, mainly for political reasons and naturally, for the big business push.

Perhaps what is most telling with Agriculture Canada's agenda is within their own doctrines. "The Guide to Crop Protection 2000" by Sask Agriculture and Food, is the same as most books put out by the provinces under Agriculture Canada's umbrella. Out of its 350 pages, there isn't one word on how to control weeds, plant diseases and insects any other way than to spray for them. It is, in essence, "The spray book", containing within its pages the names of the manufacturers who have bought our Canadian governments entire ideological direction within this country. This list is from 2000 (don't have a newer verson with me at the moment), so some of the names have changed or have been bought out, but most of the players are still active today, largely because of corp controlled governments like Canada who push for chem corps existing markets to expand or create new ones such as Terminator seeds:

Abbott Laboratories
AgrEvo
BASF
Bayer
Cheminova
Cyanimid
Degesch America Inc.
Dow Agrosciences
Dupont
Engage Agro
Gustafson
Hedley Technologies
IPCO
Monsanto
Norac Concepts
Novartis
Nufarm
Peacock Industries
Rhone Poulenc
Rohm & Haas
Untited Agri Products
Van Waters & Rogers
Zeneca Agro.

Until the health food industry created a demand for organic produce, farmers have been programmed down the big business paradigm to "spray" for everything, be it weeds, plant diseases, insects, you name it. Timeliness of seeding and crop selections and rotations aren't mentioned to control weeds, diseases and insects, and, just as spraying chemicals creates a market that previously did not exist to make money, so does fertilizer, fish farms, GM foods, terminator seeds and the rest of the like. Create new markets and expand old ones to make more money. If something fails, a new market is created again to "clean it up"... if it can be cleaned up. But thats the problem with GM foods or fish with pollens that drift in the air or escaped fish in the water... Some of these problems can't be fixed on account of being to morally bankrupt to begin with. Besides, who will pay for it? Monsanto? Dupont? Unlikely. It'll be the 30 million or so other forms of life that will pay for it instead, including us, for their greed.

Unfortunately,burner we keep propagating our species and from KING RAT comes GORDON GECKO.

Now there is where we definitely need TERMINATOR TECHNOLOGY,on our own seed...

Some questions:
Is there nothing to the argument that goes along with this scam - you know the one: These varieties produce better yields, contain more protein, are resistant to weeds, drought, disease etc?

Most of the ad campaigns are constantly making these kinds of points. Is there anything to that side of the argument or is it just a question of controlling the market and forcing producers to buy new seed every year?

Many of the companies, as I understand it, also want a contractual relationship with producers who become, once they start to use the product, really nothing more than a cog in the grain company's (chemical company, whatever) supply chain.

Don't such producers of GM grains also frequently lose their rights to trade on the open market, or is this something that only applies during the development stages of production when they are trying to get quantities up to general production levels? This obviously wouldn't be the case for sterile seed since the next generation is a null issue.

Hasn’t the grain industry/ Wheat Board in Canada already gone some way down this route by banning the marketing of certain varieties of Durum wheat, Palliser for example?

God I hate bureaucrats like this, They know that they will hear lots of stuff they don’t want to so they slip around the requirement for public input in any regulation change. The brake analogy is as stupid as you can get. This is why I hate the Liberals, they politicized the civil service to create twits like this.

I do not know a lot on the subject, it is my understanding Monsanto was making a seed that was resistant to Roundup. I seem to remember that the seed in this case would replicate, but if the farmer bought it they agreed to buy new seed every year or pay a user fee for GM seeds that they had collected. Not 100% sure but that is how I think it was to work.

Colin
I think you're right about the roundup ready grains. Already, I think, that category of GM canola has turned up widely in grain stocks and caused them to be rejected for organic certification...a problem for exporting to many European markets. There was a law suit against a Canadian farmer who Monsanto alleged had failed to comply with his contractual obligations to them as a grower. I think, but am not certain, Monsanto won but I'm not sure at what level nor if all appeals have been exhausted.

Monsanto...Roundup ,i think i am going to lose my lunch.

I should not read about the political machinations of GiantChemCorps ,while i eat.

Perhaps I am missing something here but the GM seed manufacturers have seeds that dominate natural seeds when GM seeds are introduced by wind/cross-pollination (see Monsanto v. Schmeiser) which I think results in a far greater threat than terminator seeds.

In am against GMOs entirely, given past human demonstrations of technological responsibility, however if they are to be introduced into the wild, terminator seeds seem only logical.

Then individuals and countries should recognize the economic threats and opt out or ban their import, respectively. I understand the opportunity for abuse here is very high but hopefully so will their consumers and in some cases the benefits of the seed may outweigh the risks.

How many products are we all buying off the shelves today that are laced with GMOs, thereby, unwittingly and unwillingly supporting an industry that we are generally opposed to? What has happened to the push for national labelling for any food containing GMOs and let consumers correct this aberration?

Please enlighten me as to what I have missed here...

One thing about terminator technology is the seeds are born dead, but there's no such guarantee about the pollen.

In wind pollinated species the dead seed trait will probably be spread into general populations. In effect, a tendency to be born dead will become a larger part of the nature of life. Among food species at first, though these things can sometimes cross that boundary.

There's an interesting debate in the area of ethical theology about the definition of good and evil. An argument that has been made is that these concepts are both tied to the nature of life. Good always enhances life, increases it's quality, evil always works against it. It lies and seeks pain, misery and death.

The whole purpose of this technique is to increase starvation and misery among the poor by rendering all food the property of a corporation. They can then say, pay us whatever we ask, or die.

Sounds like evil to me.

Alcibiades:
I found this site to be interesting. Its from 1999, but not at all dated.

http://www.ost.gov.uk/policy/issues/gm_food.htm

It should be noted that there is a ton of sites for and against on GM seeds and life. With GM life, one or more genes are either removed, or introduced from other forms of life. The obvious red flags come in with how well done world wide regulation is on GM foods, and how quickly they are introduced into the market after testing.

Perhaps the greatest red flag of all is if unwanted results become runaway from what was supposed to be controlled environments and reek havoc on other life through pollinization and spreading of seeds by nature and machinery. Even so, "rooted" life doesn't easily run away. But animals, birds and fish do. Other GM life has this potential. So the greatest risks are not simply in consuming what could be unhealthy food, but in introducing negative genetically altered life in uncontrolled environments that has the ability to breed.

GM foods have the potential to be quite positive over time (even though the argument that far superior mother nature's own timelines and scales having produced everything we know to date has much greater potential, with a bit of natural cross breeding help), but GM positive potential is dwarfed by the pressured need for profits to offset market R & D expenses over much smaller timelines than is safely needed.

Greed is GM foods greatest enemy, because we have learned time and time again, that research has been falsified or whitewashed to promote sales regardless of the environmental consequences. HMO's, food manufacturers, chemical corporations, they are all guilty of counting beans over environmental destruction in the past and present, suggesting that their ways of doing business aren't about to change any time soon. We are in the era of "privatize and deregulate", not exactly mantra chants that look out for the health and safety of life and its support environments.

In the case of terminator seeds, there is no arguement that can be made for terminator seeds, except for one. Research. To create sterile plants that cannot cross with one another or with wild species in the field in testing is needed to contain possible negative side effects of GM seeds in other area's such as disease, weed and pest control. Other than this one argument for, (using GM terminator seeds with experimental seeds GM for other purposes) terminator seeds aren't always genetically engineered commercially for better yields, or diseases, or sprays or environmental conditions. Often, (the majority of the time) they are simply genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds of strains that we've already genetically cross bred and manipulated to increase production. The only commercial benefit terminator seeds have is with a few multinational chemical companies to profit with seed sales at the expense of everyone who is forced to buy them. Once the seed monopoly is established with terminator seeds, farmers can then be guinea pigged to conduct the "experiments for these same multinational chemical companies.

Are terminator seeds necessary? Only with research. Efficient? Create bumper crops? More resistant to diseases or drought? The answer is a big fat NO to them all (unless terminator seeds have also been GM to do so which is often not the case, and of which the benefits remain to be proven in my opinion, outside of labs and corporate brochures).

All terminator seeds are, are seeds with one or more genes removed to prevent crop seeds from growing, naturally to force farmers to buy their seed every year, to create a "new market" and a monopolized one for the seed industry... at the farmers expense. And later, the consumers expense if farmers can keep from going broke. But Monsanto will do well. And Pioneer Hi-Bred (DuPont) and Syngenta will do well... at everyone elses expense.

The ETC should add a zero.

That's why we aren't presently being invaded and are considered by some (particularly americans) to be just another U.S. state.

It is unfortunate that so often one begins to kind of 'hope' that such things (eg the Iraq nation- building debacle and the US economic self-destroying juggernaught) as the nightmare scenario of GM foods will go really really off the rails (without hopefully killing and maiming too many people) to wake up enough ordinary people and the idiots in the press to actually bring things back to a more person less thing-oriented universe.
How sad one has to think a small disaster is the only way too avoid a larger one. But how typical.

From EARWG: The East Asia Rice Working Group
It's not just terminator technology, it's allowing corporations to patent food. Like Bailey said above: Evil, pure and simple.

Government is not providing support, which resulted to farmers’ dependence on extension agents. More often, the suppliers, traders, and service providers are the one and the same person or company. Even government agencies and personnel act as agents for transnational corporations. This inevitably caught women and men farmers in a vicious cycle of dependence, indebtedness and abject poverty.

Damn technocrats

An argument with which I much agree. How ironic it is that we search so intently for any indication of life outside of the bounds of Earth... for a single sign of the presence of water, a mere hallowed drop of it... reason enough for unbridled celebration.

Yet here, down on earth, so to speak, we seem relentlessly intent on destroying all things that revere and affirm that very same presence of life.

Well,at least we are not yet into the SOYLENT GREEN AGE...

For millenia, societies have done all they could to PROMOTE seed fertility, even going as far as committing human sacrifice to "appease" the gods.

Now, in the worship of the mighty dollar, corporately controlled scientists have turned that tradition on its head and created seeds that essentially commit suicide by poisoning themselves. Not that non-terminator genetically "enhanced" (as the industry calls it) crops don't have their own array of wider health, safety and environmental hazards.

But Terminator Seed Technology is a classic case of myopic blindered thinking that misses the bigger picture and larger consequences - both real and possible.

A great many of the consequences that both scientists and lay people concerned about this technology warned about have come to pass: genetic pollution and drift, rising antibiotic resistance, allergic and other health reactions, even GREATER reliance on chemical pesitides and herbicides, and other unintended consequences that have come to pass. We will surely see more consequences the wider this technology spreads and the more the public (unwittingly mostly) is exposed to genetically modified foods on a ever-growing level (unless they become more aware and start to widely reject them).

I keep repeating that a big part of the problem the major conflict in having the SAME corporations controlling foods and seeds, deadly poisons, and pharmaceutical products that treat people when they get sick from eating unhealty foods tainted by toxins.

These corporations just keep making "a killing" no matter what!!

Organic, locally controlled agriculture and fostering of natural biodiversity and ecosystems, and holistic approaches to farming and medicine are the only truly sustaining ways. And these "innovative" ways have a wider value that transcends any calculable price.

Excellent article Murray Dobbin...TY!

Lynn wrote:
"Yet here, down on earth, so to speak, we seem relentlessly intent on destroying all things that revere and affirm that very same presence of life".

TYVM and I completely agree Lynn.

My understanding is with ANY GMO's, we have altered and changed this lifeform forever. It's been changed it right down to a celluar level. The hormone balance of this plant or animal then is different. Then, when we eat it, do we consider the homonal repercussions on our bodies? What is it doing to us?? Who is doing the research on this effect??

Look at the cattle industry. When Ralgro and Synovex (bovine growth hormones) were established as the "norm" aprox. 30ish years ago, graphing the following generation showed a direct corelation to early puberty in both males and females. Guess who paid for the research on these drugs...us??

There seems to be no doubt that GMO's alter the fundemental makeup of our bodies, and the bodies of anything else that depend on them for food...the question is, once it has been "put out there", can it be cleaned up. Can we return once again to the natural?? My understanding is it is differcult to impossible... thoughts anyone...?

Attempting to controling nature or just plain "playing God" with her, usurally borders on distructive to dangerous. Anyways, it is seldom good for the Earth and all her inhabitants. What kind of world are we leaving the future generations to come...

Humans do not know enough to know what they do not know...

P.

RTB

are any of the people who run these companies like monsanto or dupont human? Humane? do any of them believe in life? have they ever put spade to soil, felt the burn in their lower back from pulling weeds, scraped the dirt out from under their fingernails?
Whenever we pursue to make life 'easier' and more convenient, don't we almost always in actual fact create even more problems than before............ack! Greedy people make me mad!!
I'm going back to my cave.

as I suggested..."We do not know enough to know what we do not know". How could man have such an ego as to think we have the understanding of how to improve on a process that has evolved on it's own for millions of years. In nature the is no excesses and no deficit...it is perfect.

When we destroy a segment of nature by cutting down a forest to make a road, or killing wild animals for sport, what effect is it to the Earth and therefore to us and our expansive communities?? What if by altering seeds, plants and animals genetic makeup through cloning or gene splicing,or removing a species from or adding a species to an ecosystem, creates injury to the Earth that is impossible to heal...?? Thoughts??

Peace.

RTB

sorry..."there" in the first paragraph instead of "the"... morning again, yawn...RTB

The way I understand it, the Monsanto developed Roundup resistant Canola seed is; "NOT" a suicide seed. That is why Monsanto got their knickers in a knot and sued this farmer for reusing "THEIR" seed stock.
His defence was that "THEIR" pollen contaminated his independantly developed strain of Canola. He lost.

Percy Schmeiser was his name:
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

He did not end up paying them :-)

Dear Step easy; There was an article on the box a couple of days ago about a psychological screening checklist designed to winkle out psychopaths in the population. Psychopaths are humans but lack those qualities we call "humane". They are 1% of the population, 20% of the prison population, good at hiding their true nature and ruthlessly manipulating others for strange ends.

Three of the points made in that article seem to bear on your questions above.

-Although we tend to think of them as criminals, psychopaths born to privelege are more likely to go into those channels of power available to their class; business, law and politics, where no screening is done.

-Once in positions of power, they will continue to be psychopaths and seek psychopathic goals.

-The structure of the modern world, from corporations to legislatures provide a perfect ground for the advancement of psychopathic values. Ruthlessness succeeds, property seems more valuable than human life itself, values that deny basic humanity ascend in odd ways that suggest psychopathic thought patterns must be driving the processes behind them.

I suggest that since corporations have been granted 'personhood' under law, our society has shown signs of being dominated from on high by thought processes that strongly resemble psychopathic thinking. And that mechanisms exist for such people to have risen high in the realms such domination comes from.

Where no screening is done.

I thought Shmeiser hung up his plow because of legal costs in all of this BULL$HIT ?

Some good questions on this thread. dianeb181 has a simple, but appropriate response, which i think is worth taking a closer look at: buy food that is local, seasonal, organic. Know where your food comes from.

We should pur our money where our mouths are ;-) and support our local farmers who are trying to make a go of sustainable agriculture. Most of us probably aren't ready for the commitment of the hundred mile diet (yet), but the journey of a hundred miles can certainly begin with a few well-placed steps.

Many people in my neck of the woods are staying away from mass-marketed canola oils and products containing them. Again, not always easy or convenient, but when convenience leads to "terminator technology" we should be grateful to live in a place where alternative food sources are available.

Great article and update, Murray. I had the chance to hear Percy Schmeiser speak at a local market, and applaud his tenacity as a public speaker who has become an annoying thorn in the side of corporations like Monsanto. Kudos to Brazil's president, too. Maybe in at least one regard, being the Brazil of the North wouldn't be so bad.

I agree kootowl, all we can really do, i think, is to make a concerted effort to buy locally and organically whenever possible.

Bailey, if what you say is true, i guess all i can say at the moment is, thank God it's only 1% of the pop. But 1 in a 100 people is still too many for my liking. All semantics and mental health issues aside however, at least the general common sense in Brazil resulted in keeping the moratorium in place.

this may be a little off topic, but i thought i heard on the CBC the other day that because of global warming and (mainly) from oil extraction processes, there are several rivers in the prairies which are at risk of drying up within ten to twenty years. I wonder if the chemical seed companies next mission will be to come up with a seed that grows without H2O......

Step easy
A lot of potable water gets pumped down the wells to help force the oil out from what I have read, this has the cattle ranchers/farmers up in arms.

Step easy and Colin, the main concern about drought, at least in the reports Step easy was talking about in Alberta comes from global warming.

It's been known for years that runnoff to the big prairie rivers is falling off as glaciers and snowpacks in the Rockies decline.

But I do agree Colin, the use of water to extract the last drops of oil from near depleted wells is also adding to the crisis and the argi industry is rightfully alarmed.

It might also be noted that Alberta's oil industry, primarily US owned, is largely responsbile for both problems given the impact of end use burning of oil products on the environment.

Of course, US corporations (even if they have Canadian branch plants that mouth a good pro-environment line) enjoy the benefits of having an American government administration
that still thinks global warming is just a minor and temporary weather fluxuation.

Seems that payback time is starting to kick in. While I can sympathize with Alberta ranchers who don't have water for their cattle, I sympathize even more for our Inuits in Canada's north who are already suffering big time from the global warming the oil industry has helped introduce.

At least the ranchers benefited from Alberta's oil royalties.

There was actually something about the use of water as a solvent or flushing agent to extract oil from various fields on the news today. The AB provincial minister was quoted as saying there's no problem but the reporter played a clip from the ministry where a spokesman didn't agree and said there are serious water concerns in the province. Wonder about her job security!
Go figure, eh! Must be Alberta.
Maybe Oilbertan could weigh in with the real facts!

Finally read the whole article. I had run into the site: banterminator.org a while ago. Stuffed that one back in the "Things that make you go Hummmm?" file quickly.

T'anks God for countries like Brasil whose leader has a bit of integrety (at least in this regard).

Thank you for shedding some light on the topic. I'll move this to my overflowing "Things I should do something about (or at least follow on the internet)" file.

doggone
Brasil is to be thanked for some other things too - their committment to manufacturing low cost drugs for AIDS patients in their country among other things.

Thay have some very big problems with poverty and corruption too, of course.

THanks to you too.

They had a show on last night with Percy Schmeiser on and the issues highlighted here.

Had a king sized buzz on so i missed the sublteties ,but, it did point out that Monsanto is loosing more business than it's getting...and the business it is getting ,is from goverments.

Farmers worldwide loath Monsanto,but third world countries are being courted for Genetically altered products sales and credit is being extended...BIGTIME