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View Full Version : Germany Bans GM Corn - Monsanto Suing Germany




dannno
08-31-2010, 06:19 PM
http://breakthematrix.com/latest/monsanto-uprooted-germany-bans-cultivation-of-gm-corn/


The biggest problem with GM corn is that it can potentially cross bread with non-GM crops and taint the seeds. It seems inherently anti-private property rights to place something man made that has potential danger everybody's food supply.

Monsanto is an evil extension of the Federal Reserve as far as I'm concerned, and I'm very much against GM crops.. but is this ban 'ok' ? Is my argument above good enough, is there a good enough argument for this? If you believe it is not a good argument, and there are none, have you heard of the "terminator gene"?


Monsanto Uprooted :: Germany Bans Cultivation of GM Corn


Germany has banned the cultivation of GM corn, claiming that MON 810 is dangerous for the environment. But that argument might not stand up in court and Berlin could face fines totalling millions of euros if American multinational Monsanto decides to challenge the prohibition on its seed.

The sowing season may be just around the corner, but this year German farmers will not be planting gentically modified crops: German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday she was banning the cultivation of GM corn in Germany.

Under the new regulations, the cultivation of MON 810, a GM corn produced by the American biotech giant Monsanto, will be prohibited in Germany, as will the sale of its seed. Aigner told reporters Tuesday she had legitimate reasons to believe that MON 810 posed “a danger to the environment,” a position which she said the Environment Ministry also supported. In taking the step, Aigner is taking advantage of a clause in EU law which allows individual countries to impose such bans.

“Contrary to assertions stating otherwise, my decision is not politically motivated,” Aigner said, referring to reports that she had come under pressure to impose a ban from within her party, the conservative Bavaria-based Christian Social Union. She stressed that the ban should be understood as an “individual case” and not as a statement of principle regarding future policy relating to genetic engineering.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) both welcomed the ban. Greenpeace’s genetic engineering expert, Stephanie Töwe, said the decision was long overdue, explaining that numerous scientific studies demonstrated that GM corn was a danger to the environment.

(more..)

forsmant
08-31-2010, 06:25 PM
I hope we ban it next.

YumYum
08-31-2010, 06:35 PM
Link TV has a documentary that the keep showing on Monsanto and how they have ruined farmers in Canada and the Midwest. Like you said, the farms that have Monsanto crops have those Monsanto GM seeds blow over into other farmers crops and taint the other farmer's seeds. Monsanto sues the shit out of all the farmers for "patent infringement" once the farmer's seeds are tainted and they have all the courts in their pockets, along with the media. They are truly evil and cannot be stopped. Its like something out of a science fiction novel.

paulitics
08-31-2010, 06:44 PM
Most evil company in the world.

parocks
08-31-2010, 11:18 PM
The problem I have with GM is that with the gene splicing, they can take genes from a bacteria which creates poisons and put em in potatoes.

And the french fries you get from McDonalds and the Lay's potato chips you eat are made from poison potatoes.

Sure, they tested the potatoes, really hard I'm sure, to make sure that the potatoes didn't harm humans.

Really though, did they? Those potatoes could not exist in nature. Potatoes can't somehow breed with a bacteria. Maybe these poison potatoes don't cause cancer right away. Does that mean they're safe? Is cancer the only bad result that could come from eating weird, unnatural mutant food?

What are prions? They cause diseases or ailments of some sort. They didn't exist 50 years ago. It's not like a different type of flu, it's a different type of thing entirely. Where did these things come from?

So, on one hand scientists are making new types of food in a Lab, and on the other hand, weird things like prions are popping up, and less common ailments like autism are becoming more common. It wouldn't be a bad idea to see if those 2 things were related.



http://breakthematrix.com/latest/monsanto-uprooted-germany-bans-cultivation-of-gm-corn/


The biggest problem with GM corn is that it can potentially cross bread with non-GM crops and taint the seeds. It seems inherently anti-private property rights to place something man made that has potential danger everybody's food supply.

Monsanto is an evil extension of the Federal Reserve as far as I'm concerned, and I'm very much against GM crops.. but is this ban 'ok' ? Is my argument above good enough, is there a good enough argument for this? If you believe it is not a good argument, and there are none, have you heard of the "terminator gene"?

Arklatex
08-31-2010, 11:32 PM
Monsanto is indeed an evil arm of the evil ones. They have been controlling this planet I think earlier than any of us can imagine. New World Order is here, we've had a one world government before any of us were probably born or the the founders ever came here, the question is when will it be unveiled. To them, what does it matter, keep the deception that it is always coming but not here yet. It's established my friends and it has been. You guys are correct, is Monsanto evil? Very. Spread the word.

Arklatex
08-31-2010, 11:57 PM
Think, are you more powerful if you own all the money? Or all the food? How about both! Then more!!! That's what we are dealing with here.

speciallyblend
08-31-2010, 11:58 PM
Monsanto is indeed an evil arm of the evil ones. They have been controlling this planet I think earlier than any of us can imagine. New World Order is here, we've had a one world government before any of us were probably born or the the founders ever came here, the question is when will it be unveiled. To them, what does it matter, keep the deception that it is always coming but not here yet. It's established my friends and it has been. You guys are correct, is Monsanto evil? Very. Spread the word.

www.greenerleadfestival.org oo we are going to;)

Endgame
09-01-2010, 12:52 AM
The problem I have with GM is that with the gene splicing, they can take genes from a bacteria which creates poisons and put em in potatoes.

And the french fries you get from McDonalds and the Lay's potato chips you eat are made from poison potatoes.

Sure, they tested the potatoes, really hard I'm sure, to make sure that the potatoes didn't harm humans.

Really though, did they? Those potatoes could not exist in nature. Potatoes can't somehow breed with a bacteria. Maybe these poison potatoes don't cause cancer right away. Does that mean they're safe? Is cancer the only bad result that could come from eating weird, unnatural mutant food?

What are prions? They cause diseases or ailments of some sort. They didn't exist 50 years ago. It's not like a different type of flu, it's a different type of thing entirely. Where did these things come from?

So, on one hand scientists are making new types of food in a Lab, and on the other hand, weird things like prions are popping up, and less common ailments like autism are becoming more common. It wouldn't be a bad idea to see if those 2 things were related.

We just discovered microorganisms a couple hundred years ago. They clearly didn't exist before then. Perhaps the steam engine created them? :rolleyes:

Prion diseases are pretty rare as far as diseases go. It wasn't even widely accepted that proteins are orderly amino acid chains until after World War II, much less that some proteins expressed in the brain might be inherently capable of a weird sort of replication with pathogenic consequences.

Though this technology hasn't exactly developed in a good way due to the business practices of some of the major corporations responsible for bringing it to market, the ability to directly control the genes of the plants we depend on for survival isn't a technology we should abandon. The owners of the companies that built the railroads and automobiles weren't all saints either.

speciallyblend
09-01-2010, 12:58 AM
We just discovered microorganisms a couple hundred years ago. They clearly didn't exist before then. Perhaps the steam engine created them? :rolleyes:

Prion diseases are pretty rare as far as diseases go. It wasn't even widely accepted that proteins are orderly amino acid chains until after World War II, much less that some proteins expressed in the brain might be inherently capable of a weird sort of replication with pathogenic consequences.

i heard gm corn is a leading cause of turning gay! (sarcasm) only if the corn was grown by gay folks though!

parocks
09-01-2010, 01:34 AM
We didn't see these diseases. There were plenty of years when we had advanced science that could've noted something odd about prion dieseases.

I don't know about microorganisms. My guess is that they were discovered at roughly the same time as a device to find them, like a microscope, were used.

Note, also, that I didn't say one does in fact cause the other. Just that the relationships should be studied.

I like the libertarian idea that we don't need laws regulating private conduct in this area, that lawsuits can solve these problems.

In this specific area, we have a problem. No research is done to determine if poison potatoes harm people. Who is going to do that research? It's not Monsanto. If you don't know that Monsanto is poisoning people, you can't sue Monsanto for poisoning people. No one is saying that these potatoes need to even be labeled "New! with poison!"

Whether we ban GMO crops or not, I certainly want to know if I'm eating a potato with bacterial dna in it which releases a toxin known to kill potato bugs. I would pay extra not to eat poison potatoes.

I want a big sticker saying "Contains GMO".
I want no stickers saying "the FDA has not determined that GMO crops pose any health risks."





We just discovered microorganisms a couple hundred years ago. They clearly didn't exist before then. Perhaps the steam engine created them? :rolleyes:

Prion diseases are pretty rare as far as diseases go. It wasn't even widely accepted that proteins are orderly amino acid chains until after World War II, much less that some proteins expressed in the brain might be inherently capable of a weird sort of replication with pathogenic consequences.

Though this technology hasn't exactly developed in a good way due to the business practices of some of the major corporations responsible for bringing it to market, the ability to directly control the genes of the plants we depend on for survival isn't a technology we should abandon. The owners of the companies that built the railroads and automobiles weren't all saints either.

parocks
09-01-2010, 01:48 AM
i heard gm corn is a leading cause of turning gay! (sarcasm) only if the corn was grown by gay folks though!

Actually, take a look at BPA, or Bisphenol A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

Prenatal exposure to BPA at levels of (10 μg/kg/day) affects behavioral sexual differentiation in male monkeys.

Neonatal BPA exposition of as low as 50 µg/kg permanently alters the hypothalamic estrogen-dependent mechanisms that govern sexual behavior in the adult female rat.



So, its the estrogens in plastic, not corn.

Americans started getting really fat when sugar was replaced with HFCS.
So, that's what corn does. So, back in the day, you drank sugar coke in glass bottles. Now, it's corn coke in plastic bottles. Makes gay and fat.

Here's Olestra. Remember Olestra? Anal leakage? Didn't work out too well as a "food", actually it was plastic that tasted like fat.
Apparently it's now being sold as an industrial lubricant and paint additive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra

Working Poor
09-01-2010, 03:24 AM
Actually, take a look at BPA, or Bisphenol A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

Prenatal exposure to BPA at levels of (10 μg/kg/day) affects behavioral sexual differentiation in male monkeys.

Neonatal BPA exposition of as low as 50 µg/kg permanently alters the hypothalamic estrogen-dependent mechanisms that govern sexual behavior in the adult female rat.



So, its the estrogens in plastic, not corn.

Americans started getting really fat when sugar was replaced with HFCS.
So, that's what corn does. So, back in the day, you drank sugar coke in glass bottles. Now, it's corn coke in plastic bottles. Makes gay and fat.

Here's Olestra. Remember Olestra? Anal leakage? Didn't work out too well as a "food", actually it was plastic that tasted like fat.
Apparently it's now being sold as an industrial lubricant and paint additive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra

:eek:If this does not distrub you against this stuff what will?

amy31416
09-01-2010, 04:55 AM
Here's Olestra. Remember Olestra? Anal leakage? Didn't work out too well as a "food", actually it was plastic that tasted like fat.
Apparently it's now being sold as an industrial lubricant and paint additive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra

I hate arguments like this, it's an alarmist association that does not necessarily mean that it's bad for you to ingest.

Guess what else is used in industry? SALT! OMG! OMG! Guess what else is used as an industrial lubricant and as a hydraulic fluid? MINERAL OIL! In my former job, we used SEAWEED as a base for agar-agar preparations that was used to grow ANTHRAX! OMG! Think of THAT the next time you order sushi! Vaseline is a byproduct of the oil industry! GADS!

Olestra may very well be bad for you, but it has nothing to do with it's alleged uses in industry and that should not be an automatic association with toxic.

That said, Monsanto is a dangerous company that should be put down, but they have the gov't on their side.

Endgame
09-01-2010, 10:10 PM
We didn't see these diseases. There were plenty of years when we had advanced science that could've noted something odd about prion dieseases.

I don't know about microorganisms. My guess is that they were discovered at roughly the same time as a device to find them, like a microscope, were used.

Note, also, that I didn't say one does in fact cause the other. Just that the relationships should be studied.

I like the libertarian idea that we don't need laws regulating private conduct in this area, that lawsuits can solve these problems.

In this specific area, we have a problem. No research is done to determine if poison potatoes harm people. Who is going to do that research? It's not Monsanto. If you don't know that Monsanto is poisoning people, you can't sue Monsanto for poisoning people. No one is saying that these potatoes need to even be labeled "New! with poison!"

Whether we ban GMO crops or not, I certainly want to know if I'm eating a potato with bacterial dna in it which releases a toxin known to kill potato bugs. I would pay extra not to eat poison potatoes.

I want a big sticker saying "Contains GMO".
I want no stickers saying "the FDA has not determined that GMO crops pose any health risks."

As I've said, we barely understood what proteins even were until the mid-1900's. Our biochemistry wasn't advanced enough to conceive of infectious proteins, much less isolate them and study how they work.

At least one prion disease, scrapie, was first observed in livestock in the early 1700's. Kuru, one that affects humans, was discovered in the 50's and demonstrated to be transmissible in the 70's, though it wasn't known until the 80's that proteins alone could be pathogens. This all occurred before the first GM crops came onto the market in the 90's.

If you want to see what research is being done on "poison potatoes", simply go here (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) (or to any other database of scientific papers, your state library system should have one) and search for "bacillus thuringiensis toxin". Also, don't confuse that particular genetic modification with every other, and keep in mind that what's toxic to crop pests isn't necessarily toxic to us.

parocks
09-03-2010, 07:32 PM
right, I was talking about bt when I said poison.


As I've said, we barely understood what proteins even were until the mid-1900's. Our biochemistry wasn't advanced enough to conceive of infectious proteins, much less isolate them and study how they work.

At least one prion disease, scrapie, was first observed in livestock in the early 1700's. Kuru, one that affects humans, was discovered in the 50's and demonstrated to be transmissible in the 70's, though it wasn't known until the 80's that proteins alone could be pathogens. This all occurred before the first GM crops came onto the market in the 90's.

If you want to see what research is being done on "poison potatoes", simply go here (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) (or to any other database of scientific papers, your state library system should have one) and search for "bacillus thuringiensis toxin". Also, don't confuse that particular genetic modification with every other, and keep in mind that what's toxic to crop pests isn't necessarily toxic to us.

WaltM
09-03-2010, 09:38 PM
I hope we ban it next.

to danno and forsmant,

is it right for the government of Deutschland to ban a product by force?

or only under ___________ circumstances?

Vessol
09-03-2010, 09:39 PM
I hate to say it, as much as I hate Monsanto and their practices. A government should not have the right to restrict trade of goods.

Mini-Me
09-03-2010, 09:45 PM
I hate to say it, as much as I hate Monsanto and their practices. A government should not have the right to restrict trade of goods.

That's true, but considering Monsanto is all about restricting the trade of goods by force (spreading patented seeds on small farms and suing, etc.), I'd consider pretty much any action taken against them - by anyone - an act of self-defense.

This law also restricts the choice of ordinary people of course, and I could never actually support it law on principle. After all, every new coercive law is yet another foot in the door...but at the same time, I see no immediate need for anyone to spend energy actively opposing this particular law at this point in time. The negative repercussions from it seem relatively tame compared to most laws, and Monsanto is far more dangerous and evil than this particular law or any precedent it may set. In fact, if Germany decided to use full-blown military force on Monsanto, I'd wait until it was all over with and Monsanto was in ruins before speaking out against arbitrary military force and dangerous precedents on principle. ;)

Rael
09-03-2010, 09:46 PM
But what if I want to plant GM on my property? I thought you were all such fans of property rights.

Dr.3D
09-03-2010, 09:56 PM
But what if I want to plant GM on my property? I thought you were all such fans of property rights.

That would be fine with me, just as long as you keep the pollen from your crop out of my field and my non GM crop.

specsaregood
09-03-2010, 10:13 PM
That would be fine with me, just as long as you keep the pollen from your crop out of my field and my non GM crop.

Exactly. IIRC, a few counties in the US have this stuff banned as well.

James Madison
09-03-2010, 10:54 PM
But what if I want to plant GM on my property? I thought you were all such fans of property rights.

This is true. Not that I'm a fan of Monsanto, but GM crops aren't necessarily a bad thing. I planted them for years, and they produce just as well as non-GM crops.

BenIsForRon
09-03-2010, 11:23 PM
Some regulations are good, some are bad. Banning Monsanto is a good regulation. End of discussion.

Mini-Me
09-04-2010, 01:02 AM
Some regulations are good, some are bad. Banning Monsanto is a good regulation. End of discussion.

Taken in isolation, I'll grant that this regulation will do much more good than harm. It's one of the only regulations I've ever seen that I can say this with confidence about. That said, you need to understand where the principled hardliners are coming from too, because I think you're overlooking the broader issue:
The very power of a government to create any arbitrary regulations at all is prohibitively dangerous and inevitably results in an overwhelming ratio of destructive ones to good (or even halfway decent) ones. It's one thing to make isolated value judgments on your own and decide a particular regulation happens to be a good thing from a utilitarian point of view. However, actually supporting the power of a government to regulate entails supporting the general unlimited power of politicians and their masters to make value judgments that you have no control over and which everyone must abide by. That is something I cannot support, and that is why I must take a principled stand against all regulation and in favor of property rights...but I'd obviously save fighting this one for last, and only after Monsanto's not around anymore and its board of directors have been thrown to the raptors. ;)

devil21
09-04-2010, 03:03 PM
I hate to say it, as much as I hate Monsanto and their practices. A government should not have the right to restrict trade of goods.

I'd have no problem with Monsanto, as evil as their products are, if they didn't participate so egregiously in regulatory capture and revolving door political appointments.

Great documentary on Monsanto:
http://twilightearth.com/environment-archive-2/the-world-according-to-monsanto-full-documentary/

Dianne
09-04-2010, 08:36 PM
There is legislation now to prohibit you and I from growing our own garden. Rather, we must purchase Monsanto cancer crops, genetically modified s*** to be certain we die an early death. You would probably be safer drinking water from the BP cancer causing disbursements, then the s*** Montanto aka the World Government is forcing us to eat.

steve005
09-04-2010, 09:16 PM
I'm moving to germany

ProBlue33
09-04-2010, 10:43 PM
I didn't know just how evil Monsanto was until a watched "Food Inc."
That company defines corporate greed run amok.
This is an example of capitalism gone bad, they make the strongest case for government intervention on a corporation on behalf of the average farmer joe, who could never afford to take them on.

amy31416
09-05-2010, 04:55 AM
I didn't know just how evil Monsanto was until a watched "Food Inc."
That company defines corporate greed run amok.
This is an example of capitalism gone bad, they make the strongest case for government intervention on a corporation on behalf of the average farmer joe, who could never afford to take them on.

Is it capitalism gone bad? They do have a lot of lobbyists and friends in DC. There's also the issue with the judicial arm, that keeps ruling in their favor in cases that it really sounds like they should have lost (I could be wrong, or just ignorant of the laws particular to the cases.)

That said, why is it bad for Germany to ban Monsanto? If they've determined that Monsanto may put their food supply at risk, or somehow harms their farming industry, it seems to me that that's a matter of national security and a legitimate function of even a limited state.

Didn't India have massive issues after Monsanto swept in? Farmer committing suicide, grain shortages, etc.? I say good for Germany and I don't see how Monsanto has a case.

speciallyblend
09-05-2010, 06:15 AM
Ftm

Mini-Me
09-05-2010, 08:28 AM
I didn't know just how evil Monsanto was until a watched "Food Inc."
That company defines corporate greed run amok.
This is an example of capitalism gone bad, they make the strongest case for government intervention on a corporation on behalf of the average farmer joe, who could never afford to take them on.

Heh. Look up Tom Vilsack, the current Secretary of Agriculture, and where he came from. Monsanto is a textbook case of a large corporation building its dominance on the force of government and using government to attack and outlaw its competition. In general, the more the government is authorized to intervene, the more Monsanto can use it to terrorize everyone else. This German regulation is a huge lucky exception; Monsanto just doesn't have the presence in their government that it has in ours. We can't really count on lucky breaks like that as a long-term strategy though (especially in the US, the country where Monsanto is strongest), and we'd be better off eliminating the government's power to regulate entirely rather than praying for their benevolence and wisdom in using it.

Gleaner
09-05-2010, 09:08 AM
First a few facts about my qualifications to post about monsanto:
1 I am a Kansas Wheat Farmer
2 I will not purchase any product from the monsanto company because they cheated my nephew on one of their "guaranteed products".

Having stated that I resist a governmental "ban" on monsanto but I would require all food and feed sold in America to have COOL (country of origin labeling) on it and also state if it contains GMO material.

Wheat is the last major crop grown in America that is not a GM crop however there is great pressure on us to go the way of corn and soybeans. Companies like monsanto say that crop production will almost double. Ofcourse the price paid to the farmer will fall dramatically. Look at the Corn farmer, $280 for one bag of seed, fields produce 200 bu per acre so you make more trips to the elevator. The only ones who benefit from GM crops are the seed company, fertilizer company, grain handlers (they collect on volume), and machinery manufactures as more bushels makes the combine wear out faster. But the Farmers bottom line does not increase with production.

The American Farmer would be better off without GM crops. I have always said I'd rather raise 30 bu per acre wheat at $5.00 than 50 bu per acre wheat at $3.00

I believe companies like monsanto are the enemy but what is the proper way to fight them? What American liberties do we want to compromise on to control them? I think proper labling of product content will do the job. We need to know what we are eating and what the animals we consume were fed.