Unnatural Selection? (GMO)
Genetically Modified Organism (G.M.O.). This is a plant or animal that has been genetically engineered. Many industries support the development and use of GMOs while many consumers and organizations question their safety and have called for adequate and independent testing of GMO products.
Concerns for Kauai?: Multinational corporations that dominate the genetic engineering industry have made a home for themselves here on the Kauai. DuPont/Pioneer, Monsanto, Sygnenta and others have selected the state of Hawaii (and Kauai in particular) as the place to conduct some of their most experimental open-air field trials of genetically engineered crops. Some are concerned about the effects these introduced, novel species will have on our public health, our local agricultural economy, and our fragile environment.
It is apparent that some Kauai residents feel that GMO testing has been forced upon them. This is the place where you get to decide if that is the case.
Please select “Comments”, below the voting polls, and express your views on this issue either before or after casting your votes.
Each month, your votes and a summary of this topics comments will be forwarded to each County and/or State official connected with decision making on this issue.
Filed under GMO |13 Responses to “Unnatural Selection? (GMO)”
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I am not really sure about the whole GMO thing in general. It does however seem dangerous for Kauai if these big companies are testing in our open fields. How do you even know if what you are buying at the store isn’t a GMO product? It seems like they should have to do all testing within an enclosed structure in my opinion. This is testing, no one really knows what will happen right?
Would like to know more about this topic.
Here you go. You must see this video about GMO’s. DON’T FORGET TO VOTE & COMMENT AFTER YOU WATCH. RESEARCH - DECIDE - BE HEARD!
Respectfully responding to “Manawai’s comment on September 10, 2007 1:46 am”. Please post all the positives on GMO’s you can find as well. As the site creator, I am open to all the views and education people have on this issue. The video that is posted above is what I found while researching the topic of GMO’s for a site commenter. I am undecided on the GMO issues personally and hope this will be a place I can learn about the good, the bad and the ugly.
I personally feel that severly altering the foundation of our food source can only bring trouble in the future. Watch the video by clicking the link above. Scary stuff, especially for Kauai’s fragile environment.
So, I guess this really isn’t the impartial website for real discussion if the site Admin is pushing an anti-GM video. Where’s the opposing viewpoint Mr. Admin? Since this site is obviously geared towards the eco-activits, this will be my last visit.
…Please see the administrators response above.
yes very scary..thx for educating us all.good infomation for all to see what gmo is all about
Did anyone notice the voting? Some people were ok with the GMO testing but wouldn’t eat any GMO products. Who should eat the stuff?
The truth is open field testing of gmo’s infects non gmo’s. A study done by Thailand’s Department of Agriculture more than a year ago banned gmo seeds, crops, and plants, 100% from their country. Even gmo business’s. Coming from the most efficient agriculture exporter in the world, this is important. In fact the papayas they grew in the study were buried more than 30 feet deep.
The truth is, how can GMO seed companies make money when common seeds are available free anywhere? They can’t. This is a waste of government subsidizing, and simple economics for political figures to cash in easily.
“Life Sciences and GMOs: Still an Uninsurable Risk?”
Written By,
Mark Cantley
This paper is pivotal in anyone’s decision concerning GMOs.
When the largest insurance companies won’t get involved with HIGH RISK ventures it must tell you something.
For further clarification, Google it, and just try and read it. You will find it is UNAVAILABLE. Censorship on this paper sure wasn’t brought about by some environmentalist.
America’s Masterplan Is to Force GM Food on the World
By John Vidal
The Guardian
February 13, 2006
The reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was to prise open lucrative markets elsewhere
Just a few years ago, World Trade Organisation officials used to act hurt when described by social activists as irresponsible, secretive bureaucrats who trampled over national sovereignty and placed free trade over the environment or human rights. But that was when the global-trade policeman ruled on disputes that had little bearing on Europeans.
The WTO court’s latest ruling will greatly increase the number of people who believe the organisation needs radical reform, if not burial. This week three judges emerged after years of secret deliberation to rule that Europe had imposed a de facto ban on GM food imports between 1999 and 2003, violating WTO rules. The court also ruled that Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg had no legal grounds to impose their own unilateral import bans. “Europe guilty!” shouted the US press. “This is glorious news for the Bush administration,” said one blogger.
Actually, the judges said much more, but in true WTO style no one has been allowed to know what. A few bureaucrats in the US, EU, Argentina and Canada have reportedly seen the full 1,045-page report, and an edited summary of some of its conclusions has been leaked. But no one, it seems, will take responsibility for the ruling, which may force the EU to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate some of the world’s most heavily subsidised farmers, and could change the laws of at least six countries that have imposed GM bans.
In fact the US has mostly won a lot of new enemies. Rather than going away, as the biotech companies and Washington fervently hoped, the opposition to GM foods seems to have been growing since 2004 when the case was brought to the WTO. Europe, its member states and its consumers all rejected the ruling last week, making the WTO look even more out of touch and incompetent to rule on issues about the environment, health and consumer choice.
The European commission, which has been trying to force GM crops into Europe over the heads of its member states, says the ruling is “irrelevant” because its laws have already been changed. Meanwhile, individual countries who dislike being told what to eat or grow by the EC as much as the WTO say they will resist any attempts to make them accept GM.
In the past few days Hungary has declared that it is in its economic interests to remain GM-free, and Greece and Austria have affirmed their total opposition to the crops. Italy has called the WTO ruling “unbalanced” and Poland’s prime minister has pledged to keep the country GM-free. Local government is even more opposed: more than 3,500 elected councils in 170 regions of Europe have declared themselves GM-free.
There is little the WTO, the EC or the US can do in face of this coalition of the unwilling. If the US again tries to impose its GM products on Europe - as it did in the 90s, sparking the whole debacle - the attempt will backfire. Europe’s biotech industry may now try to force the EC to use the WTO judgment to get the six countries with import bans to repeal anti-GM laws, but it will meet an even broader, more determined movement.
In fact, Washington and the US companies are not that bothered by Europe’s predictable reaction. Europe has all but dropped off the world’s GM map. The companies and the supermarkets know there is little or no demand for GM crops, and that Europe’s subsidised farmers are reluctant to alienate the public further by growing them.
It is now clear that the real reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was was to make it easier for its companies to prise open regulatory doors in China, India, south-east Asia, Latin America and Africa, where most US exports now go. This is where millions of tonnes of US food aid heads, and where US GM companies are desperate to have access, buying up seed companies and schmoozing presidents and prime ministers.
More than two-thirds of exported US corn now goes to Asia and Africa, where once it went to Europe. As the Monsanto man said this week about the WTO ruling: “Our feeling is that it’s important for countries other than the EU to have science-based regulatory frameworks.”
Like the tobacco industry, GM companies are now focusing almost exclusively on developing countries. But here the industry is meeting stiff opposition from powerful unions and farming groups. Brazil has caved in, but Bolivia may shortly become the first Latin American country to fully reject GM. Some Indian states are deeply opposed, and there have been major demonstrations in the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia and elsewhere. India’s largest farmers’ organisation this week said the result of the WTO verdict would be that the US would become more aggressive in dumping GM food on to developing countries.
The US maintains that through the WTO it has won a great victory for free trade, and passed a significant milestone in US attempts “to have GM crops accepted throughout the world”. Perhaps, but the battle is far from won, and in the meantime anyone opposing the crops is being reclassed as an enemy of America.
Within hours of the WTO decision, José Bové, the French farmer who has led European protests, arrived in New York to give an invited talk to Cornell students about GM food - and was immediately sent back to France by the US government.
also like to mention the EU ban on almost all gmo’s, and russia, and most of the world is against gmo. Putin is one of many important political figure who speaks openly against against gmos. Not to mention that Gmos are produced by the company of Monsanto.. which poisoned the groundwater with DDT, agent orange, and now legally sells round-up to the general public.
I agree with Ronnie T.
I dont think we should tamper with nature.
In someways, I feel as if scientists some times are trying to play “God.”
And just like the movies, when people do that, it never turns out right.
This has been a topic of discussion on some other websites. I would like to mention that GMO companies are currently campaigning, that their science leads to Stem Cell research breakthroughs… That their crops can suddenly produce minerals in the soil they are grown, and also can make Tapioca grow like corn. Yes.. because you know.. why grow corn when you can grow Tapioca like corn. Apparently GMO mono-crops can compete better than Permaculture AND Sustainable Agriculture.
Just would like everybody to know what ridiculous arguments these companies are feeding the public. The only real reason these companies come anywhere, is by Huge capital influx, funded by pork-belly coffers.