Greenpeace has lost its moral compass

Well said, jess. People who are opposed to genetic modification of food crops don't seem to understand that we've been doing it since the dawn of agriculture. Nature does it too of course, for different reasons.

Nature does genetic modification, I mean. Evolution. I don't think it's usually to improve the foodiness of the organism though

Nor does Nature modify plant strains merely for the profit of monopolistic multi-national corporations.

One thing that "is on-time"is the demolition of generating stations, what is behind time is the building of new (of whatever sort) generating stations. By three years at least. What do we do when the lights go out? Where will Green Peace be then. Too much placating has and is ,being done, we ought to be getting electricity from atomic stations now.

Got it in one Anno.

I think this Golden Rice providing lacking vitamin A may be a red herring. Yams and carrots aren't expensive so vitamin A sourced from vegetables may not be the problem, it could be something deeper perhaps? An inherited inability to absorb vitamin A? (Does that make sense?)

If they could grow yams or carrots don't you think they would be?
None of you have answered my point about drug companies yet - Just because we have many criticisms of big pharma, should we block all their products from saving lives? It is an exact parallel I think.

The Seeds of Suicide. To the Seeds of Hope.

US Farmers Are Going Backwards on the GMO Treadmill.

Are all the babies suffering from malnutrition only living in the parts of the world where only rice can be grown JessM?

Now Bags
You know deep down that evolution is a myth and God created the world in 7 days as it says in the bible!

The profit motive is excusable, is it not, if the food is actually doing some good? At least if the benefits for the eaters of the GM food outweigh any non-benefits.

I don't want to defend extortion nor monopoly in business, but some of the science is actually being done with the benefit of the human race in mind as well as the companies involved in the research making a profit and giving lots of people jobs and therefore a non-evil means of living.

Seriously I think GM is a good thing if used for good. It could be the answer to the worlds food problems.

A non sequitur. My husband worked for ICI Nobel division in Ardrossan before we married. It's their explosive division.

I think we all agree that monopoly and patenting of seeds is probably wrong, but that isn't the only issue here. A problem is potentially being solved. That's good. Separately from that we can also work on cahnging the laws that allow companies like Monsanto to act immorally. This doesn't require us to be against genetically modified food crops in principle.

Anyone who eats modern food cannot justifiably be against crop GM because they wouldn't be here if farming developments over the last ten or twelve thousand years hadn't been doing, in principle but without modern science, exactly the same thing.

Nature and nurture in fact!

I think monopoly and patenting of seeds (and drugs for that matter) is only to be expected, when companies have invested large sums of money in research and development. The question is how long those patents should be applied, and whether there are any other unfair trade restrictions in place.
If you believe that technological advances are necessary for both the survival and the benefit of mankind, then someone has to fund the research and then sell the product.
Get over it - or would you rather have nothing but 19th century medicines available to treat you when you're ill, and desperate food shortages in this country as well as the Third World?

Jess I do realise that carrots will not grow too well in paddy fields. But farmers do grow other stuff other than rice. Loads of it, mostly native stuff like okra and white radish but also, most places where there's been European influence, carrots.

Paddy fields are also manmade. If they wish to grow crops other than rice, they do not need to flood the fields. Lots of rice is grown on hills without being flooded by water. If they have to flood the fields, watercress is higher in vit A than sweet potatoes.

Have you read Malcolm Gladwell on how to feed your family off a paddy field about the size of the average lounge jane . Very interesting.

No Jess - have you got a link?
I did see him on Channel 4 the other night, talking about how it costs very much less to give homeless people somewhere to live, than it does to let them just fend for themselves and deal with crises as they arise.
Fascinating man.

Can you tell me, Bags, how a fish gene gets naturally crossed with a tomato?
Galen, the ex-wife of one of my nephews worked at ICI on Teesside when they were developing Quorn. I do not eat it, but the River Tees is a lot cleaner now!

Bags, how can you say that we all agree that something is probably wrong? You can just as easily say that we can all agree that the same thing is probably right! Talk about hedging your bets.

I think it was in the book "Outliers". It is a long lead up to why the Chinese tend to be good at maths.

I like quorn.

Quorn - oh heavens; it makes me fart like a trooper. It's got a lot of eggwhite in I believe.

Oh, that it explains a lot - it was the Quorn!