Oh goody. Idiots.

Money talks, bioethics walk. A quarter of recent soy production was already illegally gm, varieties smuggled from Paraguay and Argentina. Brazil sees itself as the new Breadbasket to the world as well.

A few people in urban America see Monsanto in one light, while many people in the rural farmland see Monsanto in a entirely different light. At least around here in eastern Colorado's wheat belt.

Millet, there are few people in rural farmland, esp. e.CO compared to urbanites. Get a grip. That's no kind of sensible argument. A better argument would involve something like this:

Most of the

Marshall, it is the rural ag folks that are the customers of Monsanto products. The people living in cities do not much have a need for many of the products that Monsanto offers, with the major exception of RoundUp. Many hundreds of thousands of urban RoundUp users as well as rural people use millions and millions of gallons every year. I like RoundUp because it does not leave the soil dead for years as does other herbicides . One can plant the following day after a Round up application. Lastly no need to show your rudeness.

Millet, I was not trying or meaning to be rude; if I offended, then accept my apology. I guess hyperbole and irony don't come across very well on this sort of forum.

I am well aware of the ag-chem aspect of Monsanto and have long used Roundup and other conventional/synthetic pesticides in IPM consulting and even in my landscaping business. I challenge you to match ag versus home-owner application of glyphosate a.i.

The issue is not Monsanto's traditional ag-chem business but its industry-leading role in promoting gm seed introductions across the world.

"it is the rural ag folks that are the customers of Monsanto products. The people living in cities do not much have a need for many of the products that Monsanto offers, with the major exception of RoundUp."

I respectfully disagree that commiesymp urbanites are not part of the chain of use of Monsanto products, except Roundup. The end users of the commodity crops grown with Monsanto herbicide and Monsanto gm seeds are indeed urban consumers. When the worldwide soybean crop becomes a gm Monsanto product, consumers have little or no choice if soybeans are part of their diet. You need to look at the bigger picture here.

Millet has already rejected the premise of your argument by extolling the quick re-entry time required before replanting ground/plant surfaces sprayed with Roundup. Of course, there is widespread evidence of persistence of glyphosate and esp. "inerts" and synergists.

Thanks. I didn't think of that.

Meanwhile in the UK ...

"Published on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 by the Independent/UK
The End for GM Crops: Final British Trial Confirms Threat to Wildlife
by Steve Connor, Michael McCarthy and Colin Brown

Yet another nail was hammered into the coffin of the GM food industry in Britain yesterday when the final trial of a four-year series of experiments found, once more, that genetically modified crops can be harmful to wildlife.

The study was the fourth in a series that has, in effect, sealed the fate of GM in the UK - at least in the foreseeable future. They showed the ultra-powerful weedkillers that the crops are engineered to tolerate would bring about further damage to a countryside already devastated by intensive farming. "

Here is a link that might be useful: cd

Millet, what were you thinking when you cheerfully posted your "victory to Monsanto" post? How does the production of GM soybeans relate to the topic of this forum, which is "sustaining"our environment? Do GMOs somehow sustain anything other than biotech company pocket books? What are you trying to tell us? If you do respond to this, puleeze don't trot out the standard industry hype about less use of 'cides or increased yields, unless you have some hard fast and believable stats, which I would be happy to see.

I too,would love to see the "hard fast and believable stats".

Althea...new buzz word for me, "commiesymp urbanites"...I dida google search to find out what it meant...whoa, I must have been in cyberspacefor a good hour or so learning alot about politics, and I dont even like politics!

Marshal LOL on your comment early, until I sobered up, then it really irked me. You have a gift of bestowing enlightenment, thank you for spending the time and energy here share your news and concerns. You are awesome!

Your welcome. Non-farmers ought to accept that there are agronomic benefits for farmers growing gm crops; otherwise, why are they using those varieties? In some cases, the farmers are induced to used such varieties as part of their insurance/contractual packages. In other cases, anytime a farmer can reduce the number of trips across the ground, he or she can reduce costs of production. Finally, yields are only partially attributable to seeds; while it is true that some of the earlier varieties of gm soya and cotton proved to be poorly adapted to some regions, later gm lines combined with a period of favorable climate brought yields to and over industry standards.

In India, poor performances of gm cotton is widely reported; same in Indonesia. Eventually successful local varieties will be engineered to perform more or less as well as their conventional counterparts.

The issue of sustainability revolves around access to and appropriateness of components of industrialized ag needed to support gm production. Small farmers worldwide will go the way of the Dodo Bird. I guess they don't figure into equations of sustainability as defined by transnational agri-business.

Small farmers worldwide will go the way of the Dodo Bird, says Marshall.
Many, many small grocers, cobblers, watchmakers, hardware stores, etc. have gone that way in my day in this country also....seems to be a trend, huh? Some operators just go the way of the minnow...get swallowed up.

What's left?......... high on the food chain sharks?

A ways down in this article ( seelink provided) the discussion of soy and its need is expressed.

The article references to bone meal and blood meal being replaced with soy as an animal feed. Imaagine that! Giving grains to a grain eating animal instead of force canibolism to cattle and the like.

Monsanto will have a vistory no matter what direction, however the soy to feed the animal should be in higher demand as regulations dispose of bone and blood meal in alternative manners.
I am not sure, as O'Johnny had posted where the new market or how bone and blood meal is being used currently as a waste product or such. No significant change in the market of gardeners demanding blood and bone meal? Or did B&BM find a new market?

During a recent google it seems that rose growers and some organic growers are still recommending the use of animal bone and/
or blood for fertilizers. So it seems the demand is still there.

Here is a link that might be useful: grains

In a more recent new letter it appears that the drought in Brazil is affecting the potential soy oil crop considerably. Not this years "breadbasket" .?

Here is a link that might be useful: soy

lilyroseviolet, this still isn't going to do. Cows are not grain-eating animals, they're grass-eating animals. In some circles, the meat from grain-fed animals is not considered as healthy as that of grass-fed (if you're into eating animals.) And the frenetic buzz about the expected increased soy production is still all about agribusiness, which is not sustainable, I believe as Marshall had pointed out earlier.

When you say that agribusiness (big agribusiness) is not sustainable, it all depends on your definition of sustainable. On the plains of eastern Colorado (my area) there is not much traditional "farming" left. Most all farms are large corporate farms (agribusiness). The adverage farm now is approximately 3,000 acres, with many in the 6,000 to 10,000 acre range. One of my "neighbors" (20 miles away) is farming 200,000 acres. If sustainable means being around for quite some time, than they are sustainable. Agribusiness will be here and will even get larger long after all of us on this forum are dead. I inherited this land from my farther who inherited it from his father, and my son will inherit it from me and so on and so on. Like it or not, believe me, with the margins currently in agriculture, most every farmer is eager employ every scientific advantage at his disposal, GM or not. In this part of the world Monsanto is considered a FRIEND of the farm. I and my neighbors use a lot of Monsanto products, because they save time and money, and many times are incorporated into contractual crops. Just the fuel cost today to put a large tractor into the field runs $400.00/day only for the desel, never mind ware and tear. I believe GM crops will continue to grow each and every year as they have for the last decade. Say what you want, modern farming with modern seed varieties (GM or not)and modern chemicals is here to stay. Millet

Thankyou for the correction...mikkle, darn and I knew that too. The corn thing I found out is really hard on my goats that are use to eating brush and grass, too. Cows stomachs arent really designed for grains.

Good news, today while driving across the state of Missouri, I frequently saw cattle out eatingfresh grass in large feilds. I use to live in Omaha and know of the crammed in space that cattle are kept in for the industry, saw it in Denver,too. The smell is horrid and those animals have no choice but to stand right in it...well like the article posted on power steer .

Millet, I am afraid you may be correct, until more awarenes and other solutions to growing food that works as to nuture with out toxicity added becomes more important than what it is today.

For now, I will attempt to grow my own and purchase from trusted sources whom I know will grow food in the manner which I adore...organicly and with the thought to produce food to supply as much nutrients and health as possible.

Millet, I recall reading and hearing similar assertions about US steel industry and many other manufacturing components of our economy. Well, contemplate what happened when govt subsidies and the realities of cheapen foreign sourcing of both raw and finished products. Pouring high tech and expensive inputs into producing crops with persistently low returns/unit cannot be considered particularly sustainable while at the same time the govt props up that particular economic sector.

The reality of fuel costing $400/day to run modern tractors is disturbing to me because even if we move from petroleum to bio-fuels. How much acreage will be required to feed the biofuel plants? At what point does the cost of fuel become prohibited; or put another way, becomes most limiting to profitable production?

I see in the future, more and more farms producing crops not for human consumption, but rather for industrial products. Fuel, "plastics", wrappings, medicine, clothing, oils, cartons, Biodegradable bottles, building materals and on and on. There is an old saying "Hang onto the Land" Millet

Farm World news had an interesting observation: "The first hint of spring brings big iron and irony to the winter rested Illinois prairie.
Turbo-charged, $125,000 tractors tug 40 foot toolbars injecting $400-per-ton anhydrous, so a month from now, $50,000 corn planters can slug $100-a-bag seed into the $4,000-an-acre ground. Then, come harvest, $200,000 combines will deliver - what - $2 corn? That's just the obvious costs and it's getting harder to hide the hidden costs.

An English animal scientist and ethicist says that US and European agriculture won't work for the 80% of the world outside of the West for several reasons - the least of which is that it's not working all that well in the US and Europe.........

You need to re-check your figures, on the price of a new tractor these days. A $125,000 tractor would work for a mid sized farm. Most tractors that are used around here are in the $250,000.00 range, and they pull 55-ft. tool bars, and harvest $3.60 to $3.80 wheat. To make it you have to be either big or small (and working in town). Millet (GBTS)

This is from the Wall Street Journal today. You need a subscription to see the full article, but here are the first few paragraphs.

In Indonesia, Tangle of Bribes
Creates Trouble for Monsanto
Lobbying Effort for Permits
Included $50,000 in Cash;
The SEC Brings Charges
Love Blossoms on Reality TV

By PETER FRITSCH and TIMOTHY MAPES
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 5, 2005; Page A1

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- In early January, U.S. government prosecutors nabbed a big company in an unusual corruption case. Agricultural and biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges of bribing Indonesian government officials. In seeking permission to sell genetically modified seed, Monsanto made $750,000 in payoffs to officials during a six-year period, according to a January complaint filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing cited gifts including golf memberships, luxury travel and money to buy land. The links to specific Monsanto executives in many of these cases remain unclear. But investigators focused on one payment that paints a vivid picture of Monsanto's efforts to sway policy: a $50,000 cash gift to Indonesia's Environment Minister.

-----Rest of Article-----------

Lots of money creates lots of problems. History has taught us that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rest of Article