"I started 11 threads on other organic topics." ...which leads me back to paraphrasing my original question...especially noticing a lack of "positive hits" on the issue raised in the 11 threads you're very loosely filing under "organic topics"... Do you -EVER- come here to talk about anything pertaining to ORGANIC GARDENING? ...and about all the other stuff you make threads about in the Organic Gardening forum...which has more to do with large-scale commercial farming or processed commercial food production rather than organic gardening... Aside from misusing information you search for on Google, not knowing the difference between pseudo-science and actual science, and having very little idea how biotech or even chemical agriculture works...you have immersed yourself in the issue and pre-determined what you want to believe...only listening to what you want to hear, no matter how sketchy the source...even if it's dead wrong conspiracy crap. Even when things are explained fully and concisely to you...if it's not what you want to hear...it turns into a battle of "winning" rather than a quest for truth...even when the only person trying to "win" is you. Your attempts to discredit things you have NO IDEA what you're talking about is getting a little old...especially when you cling to anything you can get a hold of regardless of quality of source as some kind of counter-response that you insist must be on an equal ground even if it's coming from bad sources. Too many times when actually you get a decent source, you DON'T UNDERSTAND IT and misuse in an inappropriate situation or you don't grasp what's really going on with the given information. This is a prime example thread... (in link) http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/organic/msg0200521113706.html?22 In this thread you have 0 idea what you're talking about...none...it is a subject you cannot follow at all. You are provided explanations yet you're only interested in winning a fight you have no idea how to battle rather than learning something. You don't want to learn...you want to complain, change the subject at many turns, and compete in some weird competition that you need to win at any cost. There's a forum for that...it's called Hot Topics and they love that kinda stuff there...but hey, whatever...post here....there's been worse here. Maybe one day you'll actually ask about or help someone with an organic GARDENING issue in between your cut/paste Google search conversations. This thread linked was one of my first run-ins with you, and this thread along with a slew of others really drove home how much this is a "competition to win" for you rather than a quest for knowledge. Just because you want to stay ignorant doesn't mean you should attempt to drag others down with you by flatly discrediting things you have NO IDEA OR TRAINING FOR WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT by backing your argument up with Google searched sources you insist must carry equal weight no matter how crazy/stupid/illegitimate the points they're making are...especially when it's pointed out how crazy/stupid/illegitimate they are. Also...just to round this out on a personal note...number of GMO threads in the Organic Gardening forum started by me, 0...number of chemical agriculture threads started by me in the Organic Gardening forum, 0. Here is a link that might be useful: Explaining P6 proteins and genetics to a brick wall This post was edited by nc-crn on Thu, Dec 26, 13 at 4:47

Sorry I was off line this weekend, but let me add some facts (not opinions, which I will add as opinion) on couple of issues, addressing each separately. Monsanto and other major companies buying up other seed companies: Actually, many of the companies listed on various websites as having been bought up by Monsanto have not been so bought. I've seen numerous blogs that claim Monsanto bought Burpee, Fedco, Territorial Seed and others. None of that is true. Monsanto bought one company Seminis. Many seed companies buy some of what they offer for sale from Seminis, some of which may be genetically engineered, although most of their varieties are not. This is not about whether GMOs are good or bad; I'm just talking about the first claim that Monsanto is taking over the seed industry. This applies even to farm seed. There are actually more seed selling companies today than ever before, especially with home garden type seeds, for many reasons including that the Internet allows people (companies) to reach a wide audience with little investment and the rise of interest in heirloom varieites. Seed saving: There are no laws against seed saving, only saving and reproducing patent protected varieties. This applies to proprietary seeds whether they are genetically engineered or not. If you don't like that proprietary varieties were developed at great expense and that a company would like to get a good return on their investment, don't buy them. No one is forcing people to buy proprietary varieties and everyone, including farmers, can choose to buy nonprotected varieties and save the seed as much as they want. Because I was curious about the Monsanto sues farmers issues, I did some primary source investigation. The following information was typical of the few actual court cases. The material I am paraphrasing here comes from the injunction issued by the U.S. District Court in Lafayette, Indiana It was proven that Maurice Parr, who operates a seed cleaning business in Indiana, knew about the patent law for Monsanto�s Roundup Ready� soybeans, and he knowingly disregarded this information. Mr. Parr confused farmers about the law regarding patents, which led to some of his customers breaking their contracts by saving seed as well, although they were not sued. The U.S. District Court in Lafayette, Indiana issued a permanent injunction against Mr. Parr prohibiting him from dealing in Roundup Ready soybeans. His business will be able to continue to clean conventional soybeans, wheat and other seed crops. Monsanto has agreed not to collect the damages awarded against Mr. Parr as long as Mr. Parr honors the terms of the court order. GMO genes spreading: There are many articles that talk about Bt cotton's engineered genes jumping to non genetically engineered "wild" cotton, especially in Mexico. In every case where Bt genes were found in doorway cotton (cotton plants planted or growing wild at some one's home usually as an ornamental), it was found that someone living there had recently worked in cotton fields in the U.S. and was shown to have brought back some of the cotton seed to plant at home; by DNA analysis the genes had not jumped; the plants were the original Bt cotton variety Again I went to the actual studies done on this case to see how the cotton plants were traced. Actually there was a study done in England some years ago that planted four GMO crops in plots with non GMO plants and wild relatives of the crops with in pollen drift distance. They followed the "engineered genes" for 10-12 years. Not only did the genes not jump, but the crops bred back to the original in three of the four crops. I'll be happy to supply a link tto he scientific study if anyone wants it. GMO allergens: No one has ever been able to reproducibly show an allergic reaction to a GMO crop. Lots of claims out there, but when people try to show it (rather just "well it happened"), nothing. So there is as much hard evidence that GMOs cause allergic reactions as there is for cold fusion and alien abductions. The one case where a peanut gene was added to soybeans, the variety was never allowed to be produced or sold because the requirements for licensing caught the "potential allergen." So the system worked there. Herbicide resistant weeds: According to the Weed Science Society of America, there have been reports of resistant in 362 biotypes in 198 species. The first report of insects resistant to insecticides was in 1908, of plant pathogens resistant to fungicides in 1940, and of weeds resistant to herbicides in 1968. All before GMOs. Is there concern that GMO crops could introduce more resistance? Absolutely. This is why, among others, USDA's Agricultural Research Service has been spending $24 million for biotechnology risk assessment and risk mitigation research. For example, ARS is monitoring for appearance of insect resistance to Bt at the request of EPA. Truth in communication here--I work for ARS. That is how I ended up on the Bt corn/monarch butterfly taskforce. Of course under the next budget this may be curtailed. Going to opinion now: I'm open to any hard evidence that anyone can present of problems caused by GMOs. My opinion is never set in stone. But I tend to base my opinions on verifiable facts. I don't trust Monsanto or any other company (and damn few people) to do the right thing out of the goodness of their heart. I trust penalties that would hurt the company's financial bottom line a lot more. I expect that companies want to make a profit off investment, so I don't have a problem with patent protection of new varieties. I'm not happy with current legislation on owning genes, which is about 20 years behind the times. But I would like to see the legislation updated, not eliminated. There are qualities that simply cannot be naturally bred for in plants. For example, there are simply no genes for resistance to plum pox virus in any of the stone fruit trees including plums, peaches, cherries and ornamentals such as flowering cherry and flowering almond. Right now, they've been able to stop every outbreak of plum pox, but one day it will get out of control. Either genes for resistance are added from another source through genetic engineering or we will have no stone fruit. Everyone has a right to their opinions and positions. I have not attacked cAROL for being anti GMO. She has every right to her position. But her response about me was that my "kind of attitude is uncalled for." All I have done is tried to make a distinction between facts and opinion. Feel free to stand up for your opinion and position. But don't use myths as facts. I can show you websites that say the earth is flat, but that will not change the fact that you cannot fall off the edge. But I will always welcome facts that I am not aware of. And I am not claiming that just because a scientist said something it is so. Of course a scientist can be wrong, like anyone else. I am looking at actual data from experiments as facts. People can continue to claim that Bt corn is killing monarch butterflies until the cows come home. That will not change the fact that the actual data says otherwise. I will never forget covering Jeremy Rifkin as a reporter when he answered a question at a press conference about what it would take to prove to him that GMOs were safe by saying there was no amount of evidence could prove GMOs were safe because he just didn't like the idea of them. Only two reporters out of 20+ reported that in their stories. My usual apologies for my long windedness.

This country is great. I am free to buy from whoever I want. I am the boss, and so are each of you. You can't get mad just because a lot of other people want to buy something from a corporation you don't like. It's freedom! If we didn't want to buy, the corporation would go away within weeks. This system is so close to perfect that the truly greedy cannot stand it. I freek'n love this country! And I love the people that run WalMart, Monsanto, Exxon, etc. They have made us all rich compared to the rest of the world and our ancestors, and they have made it possible to help so many other people because of this wealth that 100 years ago it would not even be imaginable. God bless America!

Hi all. I'm a newbie to this forum but not to this topic. Bottom line in regards to the original posting: if you sign the forms and then violate those terms then you are legally responsible. Putting aside what I think about the chem congloms (I detect a stench strongly akin to that of Ma Bell), signing your name to a legal agreement is still binding. Say you decide to quietly save back some RoundUp Ready seed, or decide that non-GMO refuges are just a waste of time/money and put a field completely into a GMO crop...you are knowingly going against your contract and busted is busted. If the speed limit is 35 and you get clocked at 70 don't feign surprise when you get the ticket. We have been saving back seed from our best-performing variety of soybeans for the last seven-10 years (non-GMO of course). This year when we contacted the operation that we use for our cleaning and storage they informed us that they had totally discontinued this service due to ongoing litigation with several customes. You guessed it...people were caught saving back GMOs. And the same people who don't understand the concept behind a refuge system with GMOs are quite often the ones who have more and more weeds still nice and green after yet another year of ALS-herbicides and can't figure it out. They accept the technology as foolproof without ever fully understanding it. I am sure there are a few here who will immediately want a background check. Here's what you get: We are small farmers-- the dying breed, if you will. We farm less than 400 acres of the big three (a rotation of soybeans, corn, and milo), all conservation tillage. The only reason my husband and I stay with this is because his dad died this past September and we absolutely refuse to sell the family farm to the 5000 Acre-Big Names. If I had my way (and wishes were horses so that beggars could ride) I would put it ALL BACK into native hardwoods and prairie and tell the rest of these greed-driven big operators to keep their damn hands off...uh, sorry--need my Prozac fix, forgive the tangent. Did try Bt corn against my wishes...I don't feel secure around anything GMO but the decisions are not all mine to make. Objectively speaking, I did notice that the non-Bt had a higher mold occurrence in the ears due to caterpillar frass breaking down (Makes me think of the contaminated Diamond dog food in the news lately), but other than that, we didn't see much difference in yield or stalk quality between the GMO vs non. Of course, no two growing seasons are alike in terms of weather, pest stresses, etc.... Never used RoundUp Read...beans, corn, any of it. In fact three years ago we got a 30-cent PREMIUM for non GMO beans. Only money we EVER saw from RoundUp Ready was two years ago when a neighbor who does bow and scrape to The Roundups had an adjoining field custom sprayed... seems that operator skipped school the day they taught basic GPS and so we received a complimentary spraying and a bunch of dead beans. It isn't possible with bigger acreages, but some of us still do it the old-fashioned way: long-sleeves, a bottle of water and a cane hook. I admit I am losing ground to the water hemp and the cockleburrs in some places, but after the initial spring planting/spraying (yes, we DO use some chemicals) the majority of post emergent weed populations such as shattercane, ragweed and velvetleaf are up to me. I have yet to read of a knife-resistant strain of anything. Politicians, maybe?