i think you need to do a bit more research! or you are playing devil advocate.
a recent film at the festival was real good... the future of food.

it's well worth a looksy for anyone with a brain and an open mind.

[ http://www.thefutureoffood.com/ ]

Hey DarkNick, they did a study recently in Australia where they held a large BBQ and asked patrons to try 2 seemingly identicle foods, from strawberrys, to meat, to wine.. however one was organic and one was not. Without being told which was which, patrons were asked which they preferred - organic was preferred by over 90%. How bizarre.

//What you should be worried about is the unpradictable nature of such genetic engineering and the chance of harmful substances being produced. I personaly think the odds are pretty low

actually, that Future of Food movie was basically based on this danger. these farmers in the USA had to rip up their crops just because a truck went by their farms, and accidentally some seed dropped out / blew off the truck and sprouted near and on their properties.

a minor bummer thing was that the farmers had developed, selected, cross-pollinated their seeds/crops over something like 50 years, from seeds their parents had selected and grown. when Monsanto found out some of their own seed had got mixed up with the farmer's seed, everything had to go. just because Monstanto had patented their seed.

but the major bummer was that the patent was being extended to pollination - if a bee visited a Monsanto corn plant, and then a farmer's crop, genetic material was being transferred. minor bummer for infringing upon the patent, but major bummer in that Monstanto weren't being held to account for their own genetic material.

is that the future - that we will no longer know what has been genetically modified, and what hasn't. we simply won't have any choice in the future. there will be no turn-around. i'd like a way out, just in case something goes wrong. the possibility is there, low you say, DarkNick. but there is no way to stop bees travelling where they want, and stop Monstanto from not containing their product, or even being responsible with their product. it's in their interest to cause independent farmers to infringe upon their patents. it's good for Monstanto's business.

feasibly, at some point, every crop on the planet will be a Monstanto crop. we will require Monsanto pesticide products to just grow these crops. they will produce no seed of themselves - farmers will have to buy seed from Monstanto every season. good for Monsanto's business - good for me and you? yeah, right.

//Monsanto Monsanto Monsanto

In my Marketing lecture t'other day we had the Managing Director of Phoenix Organics (soft drink company) come in and talk to us. He was fairly convincing (in a refreshingly non-hysterical way) about the benefits of producing organically - or at least 'responsibly'.

It led to me and a friend discussing afterwards about how often Coke and McD's are viewed as corporate evils. I'll tell you what, if Coke is Darth then Monsanto is the Emperor. Actually if Monsanto is the Emperor then Coke et al are Han Solo and Luke. I can't believe how fucking evil Monsanto is. I hate them and if anyone can tell me of anything good they do I'd be really appreciative, because otherwise I might have to take them down and go to prison.

//I hate them and if anyone can tell me of anything good they do I'd be really appreciative

I'm not aware of anything. Although I used to work with a guy who loved Roundup. He liked that it was safe to spray near waterways etc.
He reckoned it was so safe that you could drink the concentrate. Doubtless you'll be re-assured that he was responsible for the herbicide application of a decent tract of Aotearoa. He wasn't so much a few bottles short of a six-pack, but perhaps a discounted lost beer in a trolley full of oddments. Not sure if that was before or after drinking Roundup (TM).

Or "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary"

Except for me it'd be "Martini! Martini! My god, what the fuck does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?"

//if the seed doesnt reproduce then of course it's bad... it's a normal natural thing for seeds to sprout. if ever seed in the world died then life would last very long. GE is a tool to control what people grow, sell and eat. all choice is lost. //

Aye - hence we need to do more research...

//GE is slightly different, by the time people decided to get up in arms we will all be too weak from malnourishment. //

Malnourished because?

////I tend to believe in one theory which basically says that the only way people will conserve resources is to use all the resources up, perhaps it is a lack of faith in human nature or perhaps it is a reality of human nature?//
ah - a man after George Bush's own heart. //

Nasty dude =D, I was not the one talking about military action, you were. It was just a point of view. How many people will actually care if Monsanto is trying to own 'food' untill it actually affects them directly?

//welcome to the battlefield! //

told you, GE is fun.

//Aye - hence we need to do more research...

but it's not in Monsanto's interest - they've actually sought out to proliferate seeds that germinate only once. i think GE is a tool too - but in the hands of a corporation, they ain't interested in it being a tool for anything other than making them and their shareholders rich. so right now, it suits them, and it's getting to the stage where they have little competition (in the USA at least).

//I tend to believe in one theory which basically says that the only way people will conserve resources is to use all the resources up, perhaps it is a lack of faith in human nature or perhaps it is a reality of human nature?//

for squillions of years, human beings have learnt the hard way not to squander - but like those famers i mentioned above, find the best seeds, select 'em, treasure them away, pass them through generations. or else we die - we don't survive droughts, blights, floods by acting like locusts. i think people are fundamentally good and think about the long term, usually, but we're not dealing with people here. we're dealing with a big arsed company that only thinks of money, and is not altruistic - hence the seeds that germinate only once, that should only be treated with their brand of pesticide/herbicide - that's what they are using GE for.

//How many people will actually care if Monsanto is trying to own 'food' untill it actually affects them directly?

do you know if you are eating Monsanto food now? they're the biggest conglomeration of food producers in the USA - over the last few decades they've bought out so many seed/pestiticide/agri-research companies. inevitably speaking, we've all eaten Monsanto food directly. we're already being affected. it's in their interest that we not know that.

i don't know if it's affected me directly, but from what i've read and heard and seen happening in agriculture, it may have affected me directly, and eventually it may be that we have no choice anymore. because seed will blow off trucks, bees have their reasons for flying and pollinating what they want, and the whole world may be Monsanto patented.

In light of this I would be for GE being only available for highly restricted research. I rekon GE could be realy fantastic, but it does look like it is being misused in a big way.