roundup ready patent

No-one is a slave to Monsanto.
Inform yourself before putting
your foot in your mouth. There
are other chemicals, other weed
control systems out there. But
for now, and on a great many
varieties of weeds, Monsanto
simply has the most useful one.
.
Not just speaking of Monsanto now,
but if the collective ag research corps
around the world stop production,
Average worldwide yields of nearly
all food crops would decrease. The cost
of the remaining food would increase,
and starvation would be a lot more
common.

None of the licence agreements from the big 4 seed grain companies allow you to save GMO seed, nor allow you to pay a fee and save seed. I'm unaware of any such licence on common grains? You need to buy new GMO seed every year.

On conventional seeds, the PVP allows one to save seed for your own seed with no fee, but not sell seed to others, nor use the seed to develop your own new varieties.

Iowa University system has developed some food-grade soybeans, and have a licence with them - I'm not sure how their system works, if one is allowed to save your own seed but pay the per acre fee?

Anther issue coming to a head is Roundup Ready sugar beets.

There is a group of folks that got a court to look into the use of RUP sugar beets - that an EPA sheet shoulda been filled out before any more can be grown. There is a hearing set for next June to look into this more. There is speculation that the group will ask for an injunction to prevent planting RUP sugar beet seed until that June hearing.

This would be a problem for the 2010 beet crop - there is barely enough non-gmo seed available (some say there is; some say there isn't); there are not enough regular sugar beet herbicides available; there isn't enough money in beets to try to hoe the many acres manually. At the very least there would be a great deal of uncertainty if this unfolds.

Any issues that arise from this case could greatly affect sugar costs in 2010. However you feel about Roundup crops - I would keep an eye on this issue, as it can easily affect our sugar supply & prices in the coming year.

--->Paul

So whatever happened to the suicide gene development? If their patent expires, they'll just introduce "one crop, then cell death" into every GMO seed they sell. Now that's scary. The GMO seed has a long and sordid history of spreading by itself already. Farmers that never purchased or planted Monsanto seed were sued and nearly ruined because the almighty Monsanto found GMO plants along the farmer's roadside property. Court rulings favored Monsanto overwhelmingly against the farmers. When corporate ag can't keep the monopoly on RR and BT seed, they'll just find a way to ruin the options offered by any competition, imo.

In general, I don't disagree with you. If I touch on some points, that doesn't mean I think you are wrong - I am just trying to make it more clear? Ok?

The Terminator gene is what M worked on for a while. They quit work on it, and if I can read between the lines right, it was a failure. It ended up something like 70% effective. Which means - doesn't work. It is not being used at all, and took too long to get worked into the seed - it messes up their seed production too, so it just wasn't managable.

I don't doubt they wish it worked, and it could create issues in our food supply - I'm not disagreeing with you. But - it doesn't appear to be an issue at this time.


We should be real clear - a couple of those most famous cases of seed cross contamination were outright fraud by the farmers involved. They intentionally planted their crop where it would be most exposed to neighbors crops; sprayed with roundup to kill off the normal crop and produce only roundup ofspring on their land.

While you & I probably share very similar views on patenting of life, and how one-sided the patents & licences are, and their negative effects..... These couple of cases the farmer was trying to get GMO seed for free. That goes against what organic producers believe in, and probably shouldn't be celebrated as something to support their cause?

These guys were trying to make GMO crops in their fields for free. I don't think that was really honorable, any more than the big seed companies trying to take over......

Not trying to disagree with your point, just trying to fill in the details a little? Many farmers have very negative things to say about some of the practices; it helps if you get the details understood a little better. Would be good if all we could agree more than disagree on the basic issues.

--->Paul

I don't doubt that there were cases of fraud. Really, anytime money is involved, there will be fraud. I agree that those practices are no less vile than Monsanto's actions.

My reservations concerning corporate ag stem largely from personal experience with Cargill. Anyone who believes Monsanto is going to smile, shake hands, and head back to the lab to do more great humanitarian work because their RR patents have expired is fooling themselves. They are going to fight to the death to maintain what they have now. I don't doubt the productivity of GMO seeds and/or chemical herbicides. I personally believe every farmer, producer, and chemical company has equal rights to a free market. Informed consumers in a free society can make a decent living either way.

You're right on the points you have made of course and I agree. But I don't believe for a second that Monsanto is going into the patent expiration without a plan. They just don't do business that way. And I just don't think we can trust them without question. I realize that's a personal opinion born of personal experience though and I'm not trying to argue it as a fact in any way.

While I agree with this, I doubt that many of todays farms have any fertile soil left to grow crops without gm seed and petro-chemical fertilizers and roundup, and no doubt millions would starve.

I keep increasing the size of my organic garden in an attempt to become sustainable -- we doubled our garden last year and going to double it again this year.

I can certainly agree with your 2nd paragraph. That's what this site is all about, and good going.

I'm puzzled by your 1st paragraph. Dirt is a meduim we all grow plants in. Plants take up N, P, & K, as well as many micro nutrients - as little as a pound of some of those per acre.

The roundup deal makes controling weeds easier - this makes for less weeds, and bigger farms, and cheaper food. Without it, we'd fall back to the old weed control chemicals that were used since the 1960's. Many of those were actually much harsher.

A lot of areas have gone to notill - this doesn't disturb the soil much, supposed to help earthworm populations and greatly reduces erosion - making their soils better. You need chemicals to control weeds in notill - so we gotta pick one or the other.

Nearly all farmers today soil test, and only add the nutrients their crops need. Using animal manure & cover crops is very popular again, where possible - yes by 'big' farms. Tillage radishes, rye & ryegrass, clovers - all are very popular topics on the 'big farm' groups on the internt.

Soil fertility has gone up in the past 25 years, as have yields. On big farms. Dad would average 88 bu of corn/ acre on this farm in a pretty good year. Last year I got right around 170 bu average yield, year ago was right around 165bu. Those aren't best spots - that is whole farm average.

So, your 1st paragraph puzzles me - it just doesn't follow reality. Without GMO crops, we would just have to return to the old herbicide & pesticide sprays that were used for 40 years. It might ding the national yield a little bit - not a whole lot, but a little. And it would raise the price of food & feed a little.

But I agree with your 2nd one - which is more the point of this forum anyhow, sounds like you have a good plan for yourself & your family. Nothing wrong with a good plan.

--->Paul

Besides RR corn and soybeans, what other gmo/rr seed has been developed?

I am not debating that Roundup is safer than many of the chemicals used in decades past. Does that mean it is really safe? I see some debate but not real links to anything to link to show faulty scientific data or fear mongering....I think of such things as plastic which has been touted for decades as totally safe. Then the BPH (?) issue came up with much debate assciated with it. The golden oldies, cigarettes, touted as safe yet decades later many agree they really aren't safe.

Peruse Google some time as to the impact Monsanto and Dow are having in countries such as Iraq. It is info such as that, that makes me really question all of it. Mankind, IMO, is extremely arrogant and seems to believe we have the knowledge to mess with genetics in the lab, maybe we do and maybe we don't. One of my serious doubts is with mixing things that would never occur naturally, i e an herbicide and seed. Not plant gentics but way beyond.

People make very good incomes on creating spin, often the truth gets buried somewhere. I have seen the spin in ag, seen the pendulum swing one way then back, i e putting cows out to pasture, seen no till come and go out of "style". Where a profit is to be made, not a living, a profit, then "misinformation" often enters into the plan. The hard part is often determing what is truth and what is lies aka misinformation.

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From Wikipedia----Current Roundup Ready crops include soy, maize (corn), canola, sugar beet and cotton, with wheat and alfalfa still under development.

Remember that Wikipedia comes from donated material/information so there may actually be more that have been developed but just not released or even the information on the crop released.

RR crops are soybeans, corn, canola, sugarbeets, cotton, and alfalfa.

Alfalfa was available for about a year, it is now not available due to a legal issue with EPA. Already planted rr alfalfa is allowed to be harvested tho so it is out there.

Sugar beets are facing the same issue, as I mentioned in a previous post. Available now, but facing a legal challenge.

Many other crops and lawn turf has been worked on, but has been resisted by growers, or rejected by EPA. The lawn turf for example was desined for golf courses; but if any went to seed it would cross with other grasses and create rr resistant grasses of all sorts in the wild. So no go. But a lot of research has been done, and would be about ready to go if someone chose to bring it to market & got approval. Wheat especially.

There are also GMO crops that include insect resistence in them. Most are based on 'bt' which is a naturally occuring insecticide. Corn & cotton have several versions of this available. Perhaps others.

A GMO hormone is available for milk cows. It is a synthetic copy of a naturally occuring hormone in cows. It is not in widespread use, but it has it's users.

About to be released, perhaps in 2010 already, is a GMO for 2,4,D resistence, and dicomba resistence. These are both boradleaf weed killers, and would be useful for controlling certain weeds in soybeans. Both of those are ready to go, waiting for govt approval & marketing to put them on the market.

Longer away, is drought tolerance in corn. As explained to me, this is not a single, simple thing. If you normally get 200 bu of corn per acre, and in a drought you get 25 bu of corn; this group of GMO changes might yield you 100-125 bu per acre. So, it helps grow some corn in a real dry year, but it won't help in a normal year, and it doesn't provide top yeilds no matter what.

Note that Monsanto is not the only one doing this; all 4 of the big seed companies left are working on these techonolgies. One of my problems with the GMOs until the last 2 years is that Monsanto had a monoploy on it.

Note too, that herbicide is _not_ put into the plant, as one poster mentioned earlier. The GMO allows for that plant to not be harmed by the weed spray, so you can spray the plant. Kills the weeds, not the gom plant.

The insecticide GMO's do place an insecticide in certain parts of the plant - the stalk or leaf or root. This is a naturally occuring insecticide with a real long name, look up 'bt' and you will learn more about it.

China has been doing some real far-out experiments with GMO on animals. Here in the USA that is a much slower advance - we are a little shy about what could happen there. I think the animal gmo stuff is going to get real freaky as time goes on.

The John Madden 6-legged turkey may become normal??????? Oh boy.

--->Paul