World Food Prize Awarded To Monsanto Scientist That Created Genetically Modified Crops
21 replies, posted
[QUOTE]For the first time in its 27-year history, a prestigious award for enhancing the global food supply has gone to a creator of genetically modified crops, a top scientist at Monsanto.
The choice is likely to add more heat to an intense debate about the role biotechnology can play in combating world hunger.
Robert T. Fraley, Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, will share the $250,000[URL="http://www.worldfoodprize.org/"]World Food Prize [/URL]with two other scientists who helped devise how to insert foreign genes into plants: Marc Van Montagu of Belgium and Mary-Dell Chilton of the United States.
The announcement was made in Washington on Wednesday, accompanied by a speech from Secretary of State John Kerry.
The prize was started in 1987 by Norman E. Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for bringing about the Green Revolution, which vastly increased grain output, and who thought there should be a Nobel Prize for agriculture. The award is given to those who improve the “quality, quantity or availability” of food in the world.
The prize has some public relations value for Monsanto, potentially buttressing the case for bioengineered food, which has met with some resistance around the world.
[/QUOTE]
[URL]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/monsanto-executive-is-among-world-food-prize-winners.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1&[/URL]
His company is a douche but GMO food is good.
I don't understand why people are so against Bio-engineered food. As long as it is held to the same standards of nutrition as regular food, and it is labeled as GMO, there shouldn't be a problem.
I understand that some varieties of salmon that are bio-engineered are meaner and stronger than natural counterparts, but just relegate animals with complexes like that to hatcheries and we should be good to go.
Is there some other argument against them other than "It's unnatural!" that I should be aware of?
[QUOTE=valkery;41099215]I don't understand why people are so against Bio-engineered food. As long as it is held to the same standards of nutrition as regular food, and it is labeled as GMO, there shouldn't be a problem.
I understand that some varieties of salmon that are bio-engineered are meaner and stronger than natural counterparts, but just relegate animals with complexes like that to hatcheries and we should be good to go.
Is there some other argument against them other than "It's unnatural!" that I should be aware of?[/QUOTE]
The companies who make the GMO's have exclusive rights the the crops and basically own the farmers who plant them.
Monetesamo owns 99% of the corn in the US
[QUOTE=valkery;41099215]I don't understand why people are so against Bio-engineered food. As long as it is held to the same standards of nutrition as regular food, and it is labeled as GMO, there shouldn't be a problem.
I understand that some varieties of salmon that are bio-engineered are meaner and stronger than natural counterparts, but just relegate animals with complexes like that to hatcheries and we should be good to go.
Is there some other argument against them other than "It's unnatural!" that I should be aware of?[/QUOTE]
IIRC there was something about the genetic changes affecting us by way of free radicals or something like that, but I'm fairly sure it was proven to be baseless or at the very least unclear. Then again, everything causes cancer these days
[B]monsanto[/B]: we make corn!, also GM wheat that apparently shouldn't exist!
[editline]19th June 2013[/editline]
most of the evidence against GMOs are based on coralation not scientific investigation,
ooh GMOs have existed since the 1970s, food alergies have been going up since the 1970s, ergo, GMOs cause food alergies!
for that matter lead could be protecting us from autism since lead exposure levels have dropped while autism levels have risen, but we know that can't be true
[editline]19th June 2013[/editline]
if we're to survive global warming and the shifting of water and weather patterns we are going to need GMOs to survive
Monsanto makes great crops, and food no doubt. But they're business practice is really really really shitty. By shitty business practice i mean sueing farmers because there crop seed was blown into theres by wind
[QUOTE=valkery;41099215]
Is there some other argument against them other than "It's unnatural!" that I should be aware of?[/QUOTE]
It creates tumors and requires chemicals to grow. [url]http://rt.com/news/monsanto-rats-tumor-france-531/[/url] I would also suggest looking at other articles about this, this is only one... AND there's "Terminator" genes in them, which kill the seed in one year, exactly.
[QUOTE=Incoming.;41107393]It creates tumors and requires chemicals to grow. [url]http://rt.com/news/monsanto-rats-tumor-france-531/[/url] I would also suggest looking at other articles about this, this is only one... AND there's "Terminator" genes in them, which kill the seed in one year, exactly.[/QUOTE]
That research was pretty biased and badly designed though. They essentially took lab rats and forcefed them exclusively on GMO food dedicated to feeding cattle who were going to then be slaughtered and treated. This makes as much sense as the people who fed a bunch of mice exclusive on taurine to prove it was dangerous : you're taking a very small animal and give him an unbalanced meal that is not supposed to be given to smaller animals like this to begin with. Of course it's worrying to see animals grow tumors, but considering this food is supposed to be part of the meal for cattle (and cows do tend to be bigger and tougher than mice, just leaving this here), there is little to no risk that the mean gets somehow contaminated and becomes cancerogene to human beings who then eat the meat that comes from animals who ate GMOs.
And the whole terminator genes is barely even related to GMOs and more to Monsanto. It's a terrible strategy to apply an abusive monopoly over the industry and it exists for a shitton of products in the world, not just food. Most electronics today are designed to only last a year or two before being completely obsolete and/or broken, to make sure people keep buying new versions. Even light bulbs have a programmed longevity. Saying this sort of practice is exclusive to GMOs is idiotic and biased. Same goes for chemicals required for growing a product : it's not even related to GMOs, this is a practice that can happen with any product from any company. Even then it sounds like you've heavily misread it because what happened is that monsanto created this insanely strong herbicide that just eradicates everything, and also sold a specific modified crop that resisted this herbicide. It created issues when this herbicide started fucking up other crops because of the way they were spread. The herbicide in question is NOT needed to grow the crops in question, the crops are just designed to resist this chemical.
The concept of GMOs is interesting and I'd even say a necessary path if the population of man is going to keep growing at this rate. We're already 7 billion people on the planet and being able to farm vegetables that are much more resilient and less dependent on certain climates is going to help a lot.
People need to make a clear difference between GMOs and Monsanto. Monsanto could have a monopoly on cakes or cars, the result would be the same.
[editline]20th June 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Sir Spicy Buns;41099403]Monsanto makes great crops, and food no doubt. But they're business practice is really really really shitty. By shitty business practice i mean sueing farmers because there crop seed was blown into theres by wind[/QUOTE]
Or using very shitty planting techniques like airborne drops of seeds and let the wind drive these highly volatile seeds to other plots of land, to sue these people off the butt. Monsanto is a huge dickfest of pure assholes, that's for sure, but they could be selling cellphones to car the result would be the same.
Yeah well the pesticide they treat it for is dangerous in the parts per trillion,
[url]http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/breaking-glyphosate-roundup-carcinogenic-parts-trillion-range[/url]
whats buttressing
[QUOTE=christarp;41107704]whats buttressing[/QUOTE]
Basically "Reinforcing the case for bioengineered food" Buttressing can mean justifying / reinforce.
[editline]20th June 2013[/editline]
Not to be confused with butt dressing.
Go watch Food Inc., and you'll see how evil Monsanto really is.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;41098715]His company is a douche but GMO food is good.[/QUOTE]
Like Chick-fil-a and their food.
[QUOTE=Apache249;41109114]Like Chick-fil-a and their food.[/QUOTE]
The company as a whole are douches because one man expressed his belief?
Our local cfa hired three gay dudes, so don't give me that crap.
[editline]20th June 2013[/editline]
Monsanto fucks people over. Cfa does not
Why are people rating this winner? These GMOs are being designed to be infertile, which is a really bad thing. They don't give off seeds which means no fertilization process. This could affect whole ecosystems if this is allowed to continue.
[QUOTE=Fangz;41112973]Why are people rating this winner? These GMOs are being designed to be infertile, which is a really bad thing. They don't give off seeds which means no fertilization process. This could affect whole ecosystems if this is allowed to continue.[/QUOTE]
I'm no Sobotnik, but wasn't this proven to be untrue?
Terminator seeds were in the planning stage in the past, but they never have been developed beyond that, or introduced for commercial use.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;41107543] monsanto created this insanely strong herbicide that just eradicates everything, and also sold a specific modified crop that resisted this herbicide. It created issues when this herbicide started fucking up other crops because of the way they were spread. The herbicide in question is NOT needed to grow the crops in question, the crops are just designed to resist this chemical.
[/QUOTE]
just for clarity, roundup is an enzyme inhibitor that works on a specific system of plants and breaks down or stops some system, i forget, but what roundup-ready plants or monsanto's GMOs do is they are uncompatable with the enzyme inhibitor in round-up.thats one of the reasons why roundup is such a widespread used herbacide, as it easily breaks down instead of accumulates over time and plants can be tailored to be un-responsive to it easily. The problem is weeds are very good at adapting and have started developing their own immunities
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;41107543]That research was pretty biased and badly designed though. They essentially took lab rats and forcefed them exclusively on GMO food dedicated to feeding cattle who were going to then be slaughtered and treated. [/QUOTE]
A reason rats are used is because the end result between humans and mice are similar. When you take a look at an average Americans diet, most of it, if not all, has GMO ingredients. While we don't consume cattle feed that is 100% GMO non-stop, the tumors are still concerning. GM's are not magic, and the same pesticide GM corn crops produce to burst the stomachs of insects still does this on a very tiny scale in humans.
The problem is implanting the genes is very rough around the edges, still, and not predicable. There has been a huge reaction over prop 37. [URL]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/prop-37-opponents_n_2023719.html[/URL] There is no reasonable explanation for so many food companies to fund against such a bill, and while this is only a thought, there is concern that this is over the risk of a detabase being created thanks to the new labeling that links health risks to GMOs. Prop 37 failed, thanks to all the funding.
Theres a couple of documentaries, like The World According To Monsanto [And the book of the same name] and the famous Food Inc. that provide some information about GMO and the companies that make them. [How a good idea of increasing grain production was hijacked]
Another large risk is one of it's side effects, it gets rid of diversity and sometimes the new gene could mix with other spices of plants, making them extremely deformed from the natural counterpart, as seen in The World According To Monsanto. Also, Bt crops release Bt into the soil, which later could end up on Bees, which contributes to disease among them. Sources: [url]http://www.gmo-journal.com/2011/06/17/loss-of-biodiversity-and-genetically-modified-crops/[/url] [url]http://gmo-journal.com/2013/05/24/mother-nature-outsmarts-monsanto-corn/[/url]
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.