Noticing patent absurdities

March 2011

The huge resources and expertise being diverted into the science of DNA have been pushed relentlessly forward by a commercial carrot dangled by a patent-shaped hand.

Up until now, what's been keeping the biotech seed and gene-testing companies in business has been the acquiescence of patenting offices which exist to promote and protect commercial interests.

Common sense might disallow the idea that a component of life which is self-replicating infinitely evolving, dispersive, and is, in some cases, a result of completely natural evolution can be patented.

Industry and patent offices seem to have easily convinced themselves that common sense can be by-passed when there's profit in the offing.

Poverty, hunger and education

March 2011

Ethiopian mothers with babies. Image Wiki Commons

Consider these statistics.

In March 2011, Michael Moore told his fellow Americans:

“Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined ... Four hundred obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined.”

He explained how these 400 Americans got what they have: “they bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them”, “they control the media” to shape American minds, “they have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take” in the form of a threat of mass economic annihilation.

Dropping zero tolerance to GM

March 2011

The European Commission (EC) had a bad case of indecision about its GM regulations in February.

What the Commission was wrestling with was a proposal to drop its blanket zero tolerance policy on the presence of low levels (up to 0.1%) of unapproved GM material in imported animal feed.

To soften the blow, the suggested new level of tolerance will be limited to GM feed material already authorised for commercialisation in a third country and for which an authorisation procedure is pending in the EU, or, for which a previous EU authorisation has expired.

Feeding the world: non-GM success stories

March 2011

There are over 100 reasons to think GM crops are nothing more than a charade struggling to be real.

Claims on the wonders of GM have been aired regularly for years.
British radio listeners will have heard that:

“Using GM technology, there are now varieties of major crops, rice, wheat and maize being produced that are drought resistant, flood resistant, saline resistant and disease resistant, which could transform Africa's ability to feed its people ... Some products have emerged, for example, from South Africa. They are now planting drought resistant crops that have increased the yield by 30% ... so you can actually save millions of people from starvation by these techniques ...”

The first 'science' of Roundup Ready soya

March 2011

- The basis for regulatory and commercial acceptance of RR soya

In the beginning, there was Roundup Ready soya, a crop with a unique ability to survive a drenching with Roundup herbicide while every other living, green thing around it curled up and died. Its creator saw that it was good, and that there was a lot of profit to be made from it

Its creator also saw that, while regulators would easily be persuaded of Roundup Ready wonders, the public would not.

Therefore, the creator of Roundup Ready soya took steps to oil the wheels of acceptance.

A review of the science of Roundup Ready soya safety in 2008

March 2011

More than 10 years after RR soya was put into our food chain, the question was being asked where's the scientific evidence that it's safe?

'Roundup Ready' crops have been one of the biggest success stories in the short history of GM agriculture. Any crop all, it seems, can be given the gene to make it resistant to Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller, with the added attraction that the seed can be lucratively linked to the marketing of the herbicide.

A thought on keeping food pure

March 2011

Every once in a while, you read one thing and it shines a light on something else altogether.

While researching material for SPINNING SOYA INTO GOLD (February 2011), the instructions given by Monsanto to farmers on how to grow its Vistive Soybeans came to light.