First off I'm not a big fan of Monsanto. I'm very much against GMOs. I've seen a World According To Monsanto, and a few other films.

Your cheap plants/seeds are NOT genetically modified. There's a few reasons why.
One, GM seeds cost a lot! Way more than regular hybrid seed.
Two, none are for sale for the home garden market. If they were, they would cost way more than a buck a 4 pack.
Three, when you are a farmer, you have to sign a crazy agreement about the seed and growing them. Monsanto doesn't want anyone getting their hands on them.
Four, plain commercial tags that say things like Eggplant or Cherry Tomato have been around long time, long before anyone every made a GMO. It would be nice to know the exact variety, but a lot of people planting things don't care as long as they have a cherry tomato, zucchini, etc. in their garden. Those plants are either grown from cheap OP seed or older hybrids that don't cost much.

As Caroliniannjer said Montsanto does not own those seed companies. Those companies buy some, not all, of their stock from Seminis. It does worry me though that Monsanto is buying seed companies.
Remy

@ "I think this TED Talk might be interesting to folks."

Yes Susan2010, that's an excellent video! I watched it a couple months ago. Big fan of TED Talks! As you can see science denial-ism is rampant in this country, and certainly all over this message board. People would rather believe in some harebrained conspiracy rather than the simple explantion of a fact.

Caroline

Humans have been genetically modifying plants for a long time. When you splice different species together (like a plum and apricot to make a pluot) you've made a GMO. What's interesting is they can take DNA from something that isn't even a plant and put it in a plant. Time will tell what happens. Humans learn a lot of lessons the hard way. My organic non-GMO veggies are growing good. "If it ain't broke don't fix it". Monsanto is going to break it and then make money fixing it. Pretty ingenious....

This thread disappeared last night, what happened? A curfew? LOL!

You should call where you bought the plants and ask who supplied them and if any of those suppliers are GM plants. They have to tell you. It would be a shame to rip up perfectly good plants and I believe they would be required to tell you. They don't tell you what canned goods you are eating, but they have to tell you what plant you have.

Buy heirloom varieties for now on if you are worried. They can't sell you a gm plant and advertise it as an heirloom variety. There are at least rules to back that up, one being "bait and switch".

Alot of paranoid delusionites on this thread.

It's better to be slightly delusionary than to ignore the facts in front of your eyes. Delusions are things that are not real, what is not real about the misuse of government labeling, gm seeds being a possible threat, and someone trying to be responsible to not throw that on their neighbors side of the lawn?

What if suddenly the neighbors roses never made seed, nor their daisies? It could be a problem and being informed, which is required, could prevent that.

It's choice of the person, it's not delusionary. People are too much into their propagandis lifestyle. They don't want to see the truth, they want gossip, dating secrets, ways to make money, and socializing. If you interrupt that thought, they become angry and attack anyone thinking at all.

People need to be aware of what their tax money is paying for. It's like beating yourself with your own stick. You paid for it, so now you get it? I think they would like to know what they are getting.

I will just say that I strongly believe in labeling things correctly, and disallowing that bothers me a lot. Especially when those same people (legislators) say they believe in the free market! It's not a free market when information is hidden.

I agree with mangledmind and others. I did some research a few yrs ago before knowing how to garden. That's one reason why I learned how to garden.

We all have a right to our own opinion but we do not have the right to call someone a name. Keep it to yourself. I usually keep my opinions to myself but the name calling is uncalled for, unhelpful and off topic. There are other ways to contribute to the first posters comments and questions.

I read this from a very truthful source:
"My people are destoyed for lack of knowledge"

That is my opinion, belief, motto, words to live by...whatever you want to call it.

I used to think things like what Monsanto or big pharma do could never happen. I used to not know about Monsanto. I used to believe lies b/c I am a trusting person. I used to think inside the box. I don't trust big corporations, they are looking out for themselves.

I got some outside of the box knowledge and now my thinking is different. I do not trust those veggie labels but I would choose an heirloom label over any other.

In answer to the first post: Learn from this. Don't panic. Grow what you already have. Make better choices next yr. No you are not a hypocrite or any other negative name. Don't become in bondage to your mistakes. Learn how to collect, save and share heirloom seeds. Continue growing and learning. Do the best you can. Your post tells me that you are a loving and caring person trying to live honestly.

The problem as I see it with huge conglomerates owning the majority of seed sources and/or supplying the 'global economy' is the loss of genetic diversity. Diversity is our ace in the hole to prevent famines nobody thinks will ever happen. Diversity not only in species, but in location where they are cultivated. Diversity is why many years ago universities started germ plasm banks, btw.

Farmers plant GMOs for economic reasons, and it has been a blessing in some respects because no-till farming has helped to conquer erosion caused by tilling. No till farming. I have heard of cases where companies have successfully stopped farmers from planting non-GMO crops on the same farm as GMO. If this is true, why? I can surmise.

Are any of you aware of the pumpkin failure last year and how it's almost impossible to buy canned pumpkin now until this year's crop comes in? It's because the bulk of the canned pumpkin market belongs to one company and they only grow it in one state. We all know since we have home gardens pumpkins will grow most anywhere. It's a case of economics driving our food chain. Microeconomics, if you must since the cost of having farms located in more than one state wouldn't have pushed canned pumpkin prices out of site.

New diseases are finding their way to our shores daily and one of these days what if one of them arrives particularly virulent to the limited species of grain or other vegetable we base a large part of our economy on? That's what happened in the potato famine in Ireland. An organism found it's way through shipping into their potato fields and literally starved a country nearly to death. That's why we shouldn't put our eggs into one basket like half the world planting one or two or eight varieties of corn or wheat. And deciding the country who produces vegetable X the cheapest should be the only or major producer of vegetable X in the world is also scary. And that is what global economics is based on.

As far as harm from GMOs I would assume most are as wholesome or more than non GMOs. There is a bigger picture and that's what scares me. And no, I'm not paranoid nor ignorant of agricultural economics. Talk is good.......labels should not be slapped on people to make them leery of expressing their opinions and that's a practise I see more daily.

There's good stuff in those last 2 posts!

And I'm really sorry if anyone thought I was calling them names or insulting them personally

I get attached to my veggie plants after I've cared for them a while,
so I was upset about folks yanking theirs out for little reason (IMO)

There are no GM vegetable plants out there for the public or non-research based organizations...in seed or from starts...unless you want to grow soy beans or field corn for animals to eat. No tomatoes, no cucumbers, no squash, no lettuce, etc etc...

No amount of paranoia or fear will make it otherwise.

They're working on it and nothing will stop anyone from working on it without a world-wide moratorium.

It's not an issue right now and until they figure out how to get their post-harvest genes into stuff without crapping the flavors out it won't be an issue for the home gardener.

nc-crn, actually there a DOZENS of GMO veggies/seeds out right now. The latest? GMO BT Eggplants, in the news a few days ago.

Simple Google News search turned up plenty of articles from "reputable" news sources covering GMO veggies in the market.

;)

This is from a 10 year old article, what's out there NOW, ten years later:

How prevalent are GM crops? What plants are involved?

According to the FDA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), there are over 40 plant varieties that have completed all of the federal requirements for commercialization (http://fda.gov). Some examples of these plants include tomatoes and cantalopes that have modified ripening characteristics, soybeans and sugarbeets that are resistant to herbicides, and corn and cotton plants with increased resistance to insect pests. Not all these products are available in supermarkets yet; however, the prevalence of GM foods in U.S. grocery stores is more widespread than is commonly thought. While there are very, very few genetically-modified whole fruits and vegetables available on produce stands, highly processed foods, such as vegetable oils or breakfast cereals, most likely contain some tiny percentage of genetically-modified ingredients because the raw ingredients have been pooled into one processing stream from many different sources. Also, the ubiquity of soybean derivatives as food additives in the modern American diet virtually ensures that all U.S. consumers have been exposed to GM food products.

The U.S. statistics that follow are derived from data presented on the USDA web site at http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/biotechnology/. The global statistics are derived from a brief published by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) at http://www.isaaa.org/publications/briefs/Brief_21.htm and from the Biotechnology Industry Organization at http://www.bio.org/food&ag/1999Acreage.

Thirteen countries grew genetically-engineered crops commercially in 2000, and of these, the U.S. produced the majority. In 2000, 68% of all GM crops were grown by U.S. farmers. In comparison, Argentina, Canada and China produced only 23%, 7% and 1%, respectively. Other countries that grew commercial GM crops in 2000 are Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Mexico, Romania, South Africa, Spain, and Uruguay.

Soybeans and corn are the top two most widely grown crops (82% of all GM crops harvested in 2000), with cotton, rapeseed (or canola) and potatoes trailing behind. 74% of these GM crops were modified for herbicide tolerance, 19% were modified for insect pest resistance, and 7% were modified for both herbicide tolerance and pest tolerance. Globally, acreage of GM crops has increased 25-fold in just 5 years, from approximately 4.3 million acres in 1996 to 109 million acres in 2000 - almost twice the area of the United Kingdom. Approximately 99 million acres were devoted to GM crops in the U.S. and Argentina alone.

In the U.S., approximately 54% of all soybeans cultivated in 2000 were genetically-modified, up from 42% in 1998 and only 7% in 1996. In 2000, genetically-modified cotton varieties accounted for 61% of the total cotton crop, up from 42% in 1998, and 15% in 1996. GM corn and also experienced a similar but less dramatic increase. Corn production increased to 25% of all corn grown in 2000, about the same as 1998 (26%), but up from 1.5% in 1996. As anticipated, pesticide and herbicide use on these GM varieties was slashed and, for the most part, yields were increased (for details, see the UDSA publication at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer786/).

mangledmind

Has Bt eggplant been approved by any country for sale? Is it scheduled for approval and sale in the US?

Cornell University explains THE FACTS about Bt eggplant:

-----------------------------

"The yield of the Bt eggplant is expected to be TWICE that of other varieties and will need 30 PERCENT LESS PESTICIDE."

"They created plants that have the Bt gene and contain 99 PERCENT of the LOCAL VARIETIES' genetic material."

Without the Bt gene, "farmers spray every few days, as much as 50 times per crop, driving up costs, contaminating produce and creating health issues for farmers."

"The public sector will sell seeds at COST-RECOVERY prices (i.e., at NO PROFIT) to SMALL FARMERS for OPEN-POLLINATED LOCAL VARIETIES, whose SEEDS CAN BE SAVED AND PLANTED YEAR AFTER YEAR, MAKING THE NEW TECHNOLOGY ACCESSIBLE TO POOR FARMERS."

Nice, a study bought and paid for by Monsanto. Lovely how confirmation bias plays a huge roll when money is involved.

If everyone expects someone else to point out both sides in each post accept when they post, it it bias. Why should anyone arm you against our side of the argument, but you stay on your side just defending something you don't probably believe in anyways.

Making people eat crow is what seems to be what some people are after. Eat your own words until the opposer become responsible and then makes it his/her argument.

It's a plant, it's not labeled experimental or GM, you can call the nursery to get the name of the farm that grew it and they will tell you what it is.

That information should be easily available to anyone. I wouldn't pull my pretty plants just yet, but next year if you are worried, ask first about where it came from, search it on the internet, call their home offices, etc., and you will not have to worry. It's only a few plants.

GrowinIdaho,
Very well written. You said what I wanted to but much nicer : )

MangledMind,
There are GMO crops out there, but there are NONE for the HOME gardener. As I said in my earlier post, they are VERY expensive and you have to sign a lot of stuff to grow them. Monsanto is not letting them get into the hands of home gardeners at this point. I know this because I sell seeds(I'm only writing this to make a point, not for advertising.) I have receive a wholesale grower catalog that has GMOs seed for sale. I was actually amazed at the price and the legal stuff you have to sign for growing the crops. Growers become bound legally from doing any thing but growing the seed. Selling or giving away any seed will get them in a heap of trouble. The plants that they grow are not going into veggie starter packs. They are being grown for commercially processed foods.
This of course could change in the future. But I can guarantee that Jean's cheap veggies starter pack are old OP varieties or older inexpensive hybrid varieties.

Melikeeatplants,
GMOs are completely different than what you were describing. Grafting two plants together works because they are similar species. They are closely connected enough genetically to support one and other. With GMOs, they are taking genes from completely different species as in taking genes from a fish and putting it into the genes of a plant, taking a bacteria and inserting it into the genes of a plant. This is what I find disturbing.
If you were taking specific genes of say a tomato that you found did something beneficial like say resist Early Blight and inserted it into new tomato varieties so that they would knowingly have that characteristic would be great. This would just be a speeding up the process that traditional plant breeders would be doing. I have no problem with that.
But that is not what they are doing. Inserting a gene into soybeans that keeps them from dying when the fields are sprayed with Roundup worries me. There has been talk of super weed developing because of over exposure to this practice. The weeds that live become incredibly difficult to kill. This is just like the bacteria that are now antibiotic resistant from overuse.
This is also a great money making scheme for Monsanto. They make the GMO soybean seed and they sell the round up. So it is a win win for them.

Monsanto is out to make money and is not some altruistic organization. What they do should be carefully watched. It is not good to get overly paranoid about things, but there is nothing wrong with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Remy

Nice post, Remy.

People are concerned bout GMO crops. The US perhaps less than any other nation on Earth, but consumers wants adequate labeling and there's no reason not to give it to us. Concerns about GMO gene transfer in intestinal flora, unintended genetic compositional changes, allergenic proteins in breastmilk, and antibiotic-resistant genes are legitimate scientific controversies.

As Remy alludes to, how much of the push for transgenic crops is to benefit society and how much is the patentable nature of unique GMO crops? I can't think of any reason I need them and I would absolutely reject (perhaps in another thread) the idea that GMO crops are essential to food security in developing nations.

mangledmind

Has Bt eggplant been approved by any country for sale? Is it scheduled for approval and sale in the US?

I didn't know about the eggplant

From a bit of Googling:
India has rejected it (see link below), but the Phillipines just accepted it

I don't know...
I might be willing to pay extra, sign their agreement & buy "terminator seed"
if it would get rid of the SVB problem in our zucchini ;-)

anney,

In October 2009, the Indian government gave its first approval to a genetically modified food, "Bt brinjal" -- an eggplant bioengineered by agro-giant Monsanto. As of Feb 2010 India placed a moratorium on the GM eggplant.

Philippines the First in Asia to Commercialize GM Eggplant‎.

It's coming folks, like it or not. It will show via imports, as do a lot of our food stuff.

mangledmind

As of June 29, the Philippine government had NOT accepted the Bt eggplant, though it was thought they would by 2011. That's still several months for "unforeseen hindrances" to occur. Barring any unforeseen hindrance, the Institute of Biotechnology-University of the Philippines in Los Baños (IPB-UPLB) will release to the market Bt eggplant seeds by next year after an approval of the National Biosafety Committee (NCBP), according to ABSP Product Development Manager Desiree M. Hautea.

It has not been approved for use at all in the US, so your Chicken Little panic is really premature.

Where can I buy these GM food crops then, love to give them a try in the garden...

You can't.

Some people seem to think a GM crop rolls out of some "evil factory" and onto shelves.

You can't even walk into a store and "just pick up" a bag of GM corn.

You will find it on your grocery shelves, not your garden center if you find it any time soon.

GM is far more "behind" than many people give it credit for.

Although this is a serious issue, I have to admit: this thread makes me laugh a little. ;)

mangledmind,

So I take it you prefer that consumers in India eat pesticide-laden eggplant (the dangers of which are well documented) as opposed to GM eggplant that has no proven risks? Nice logic there...

We shouldn't sit around and pretend we live near these big farms of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, etc. that are going to cross pollinate our home garden and ruin our seed saving. That's a reality for very few of us.

Even if GM crops are out there we'll always have our home gardens.

If you don't like eating GM crops...good luck. It's a huge part of our processed food system (from vegetable oil to corn products), but I don't feel like getting into that aspect of the argument.

We shouldn't think of GM vegetable crops being out there all over the place somehow carrying pollen dozens/hundreds/thousands of miles away to infect our seed supply.

This is mostly an issue for people who grow a monoculture of a type of crop in an area where their neighbors do a lot of the same.

This stuff shows up in your grocery store, not as seeds in starts at Home Depot or in Burpee seed packets.

This article proves what I thought might happen, the gm seeds might have caused a chain reaction making infertility problems. The article is 2008, not so old or out of date, but not recent.

The seeds will be dangerous to your body and then to the environment.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=1762

The article above explains everything that may happen and how badly they terminator seeds will physically effect a person. Pollinators of those Monsanto seeds can infect neighboring gardens, as in bees, ants, birds, etc.

No one has a direct answer because no one including Monsanto knows for sure what the damages may be. Why do that to your country? Or someone elses? You know it is required by government contracts that Iraq use Monsanto seeds. This was an agreement made without Iraqi peoples approval, basically they were used as guinea pigs and because of the government status, there could not be any denial of use. That's not fair to them.

And more problems are being that the refuge left behind of Monsanto seeds can be transferred by birds, fungi, bacteria, etc, it will continue to effect environment.

There's research, legitimate research, which is all that Monsanto has also, meaning they have no proof their seeds are not a threat to the environment or to people.

Terminator seeds aren't even in the market.

Monsanto bought the company that developed the technology, but even some of their internal people and many peers would frown on it being released.

I'm not a fan of GM crops. I'm not a fan of chemical control in my own gardens. I'm also not a fan of how much "RoundUp" we're using because it's so damn useful we're going to destroy it's effectiveness through evolution of the species it targets. We already have "RoundUp resistant" weeds out there. This is a perfectly good low-toxicity (not 100% safe, we all know) chemical that does it's job well. In order to grow more corn/soy/cotton we're forcing survival evolution in weeds. Fun.

That said, we got to keep it real about this whole thing and not buy into every piece of information that's out there.

A couple of misplaced untruths can alarm some and totally negate any other points one might be trying to make.

Scarletdaisies,
that's an interesting article on fertility problems in mice
(see the link below for the original article, in English)

According to that, the GM corn should not be used for breeding stock
They did not see an effect on the first generation... they had to breed multiple generations on the same mixture before they saw a drop in fertility

This is nice, careful research!

The other article is also very good
It discusses the Terminator mechanism and how it works
I've linked to the original below

The author is unlikely to be right on every point, but she does seem well-qualified to write the article

I hope that this article triggered a thoughtful discussion in the professional community
(I don't know, this is not my field)

Why would you want to stop the process of an evolving plant? Each year something new develops for some of these plants, so keeping everything as it is now, the level of monsanto seeds, it will never improve.

It may be resistant to things pesticides kill, but eventually there will be a natural resistance as well, if things are left so they can grow from their own seed.

I agree with other articles saying eventually there will be relaxed laws and monsanto type seeds will be available.

Yes there are plants available online of every type of vegetable just about, not every, but the basics. You can buy them, but as someone mentioned you have to file special paperwork.

By relaxed, you can count that it means the foods are already being eaten, not just grown, and the effects are not yet known, so how could they allow the foods to be distributed in canned goods? That is or should be illegal. It's not just the seed, the plant stopping other plants from seeding, but it's the food it produces that is not healthy. How could that have passed through FDA inspections? They didn't have enough time to inspect the damages to allow so many growers now to put it in their canned produce for common retail.

I still have a few questions:

Did Monsanto just throw away/destroy all those GMO tomato seeds they tried to push in the market?

Did Monsanto throw away/destroy all those failed/rejected seeds from India, Mexico, Africa etc?

If the BT eggplant fails acceptance, I wonder what Monsanto will do with all those seeds?

That's a LOT of money to just toss out/destroy.

"Yes there are plants available online of every type of vegetable just about, not every, but the basics. You can buy them, but as someone mentioned you have to file special paperwork."

That is just plain wrong.

Also, once again, terminator technology has a very low chance of hitting the market because both Monsanto's internal people and their peers think it's a pretty crappy idea. There's very little (none that I know of) research even being done with this technology.

If you want to be afraid of patents don't ever check to see what patents IBM owns.

As a plant breeder/researcher I think some of you might benefit from a crash course in plant genetics...or at least how these GM crops are researched/bred/controlled/distributed.

If you're going to be scared of something at least understand it.

Wow! this is an amazing thread, and for once I am not the Hot Head :).
I have NO problem with eating GM or feeding it to my children, but I think you should be able to easily select your food based on your beliefs, so GM food marked as such, and despite what I just wrote I would not buy it, I think the food is safe but the corporate monopoly would not be, I have only seen King Corn and Food Inc amongst the many programs named, King Corn was extremely well balanced as in yes they started out wondering why corn was so prevalent in the American Diet, and they, I felt, as an outsider to the US, were extremely respectful to (and I am embarrassed to admit I can't remember the mans name, he was the government person who started this whole ball rolling with corn, corn starch, high fructose corn syrup,) the elderly man who quite rightly remembered the depression and dust bowl and never wanted to see Americans starve again, keep the price cheap on food, but as some one said and I can't remember who it was, the case of unintended consequences came into play.
My first GM moment was 1995, a farmer friend who donated land to 1 of the colleges in the university of Oxford, I have bored on this before, her objection was that they wanted to test her crops for DNA and not being stupid she understood the implications of that.
next was the patenting of the Mexican yellow bean I heard on Radio 4, by an American, and then King Corn, where a descent to goodness small business owner faced court, for seed saving, from farmers who did not purchase their seeds from Monsanto, but the DNA was in the Crop! I have done a lot of reading on this subject, and like many I am not worried they are going to turn me into a deformed mutant if I eat them, I also don't subscribe to the conspiracy theories, the truth is out there and it is easy to see.
My friend was wise before the fact, I slowly realised this enslaves people, the ultimate easy listening route without taxing your brain is Food Inc, and the Chicken Farmers
Eric Schlosser wrote a book a very good book, he is no Micheal Moore, he likes a burger :) as do I :) called Fast Food Nation, I must have read a late my book is dated 2001, where in the back he did a Q and A and was accused of being Democratic, and he pointed out he chose Beef, but if he had chosen Chicken he would have been looking at Clinton, so I suppose this was him redressing the imbalance, he didn't talk about political links so... but it's only a hour and bit compared to a book, I mention that, as I do think politics are important and I felt they should have mentioned Clinton in the Doc, and for the record in case you didn't know, if I was American I would be Democrat, but maybe a bit more liberal :), I am not left wing, I am sort of in the middle, and like to read :) and learn :) and on this wonderful weekend for you guys and us, have a good one and demand food labeling, so you can be aware, personally i am more worried about HFCS, and links to Diabetes, but maybe that's just me?
but I suppose on balanced, this is one you could stop in it's track rather than, rewriting the book.
I was going to link you to a page I use a lot on Sunny delight about how from consumer pressure in the UK it is now completely different to Sunny Delight in the US and in fact called Sunny D, but it has disappeared, well not disappeared been shortened!and redirected by Sunny D? I will try again with another brand, consumer pressure is your friend,
and if any one dare say BSE! check out how many of your cattle get tested.... compared to Europe....if you don't look you ain't going to find it :)
Oh and on my link I love the fact the carcinogenic was not present in the tap water, but was after they bottled it, class :)

It's not stopping with vegetables, now they're working on GM fish (salmon) and possibly moving on to other animals. I personally don't think that we should be fooling with mother nature like this as she's liable to come back and bite us, and hard. I'm sorry to see that some of you have no problem being the test dummies for this.

Greg
Nevada

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think agribusiness has made some really unfortunate mistakes in issuing GM crops, even if not to home gardeners. Most gardeners do not trust them because of their reputation now.

nc-crn, I like your informed rational approach to the possibilities of responsible science as it attempts to improve the food supplies for the world.

I think if agribusiness wants the support of those who really care about the food supply, such as us, they'd better not fight labeling, and they'd better test everything to the nth degree before releasing the products. They need to stop acting like arrogant jerks concerned only with the bottom line, and let the sunshine in.

Unless they do that, there won't be any resolution of these matters any time soon.

The plant genetics won't be noticeable until 2 generations down almost even. They said they really couldn't tell from the first offspring, but next few they started to become sterile.

It's something you know not to eat if you can avoid it. The UK requires labeling warning of GM products. They are very strict and total environmentalists. That is good someone knew not to jump on the bandwagon and throw the gm foods into every commercial food company willing to take it.

It can be seen as a conspiracy then that people jumped to feed it to the public to see what it would do. Paranoia about conspiracy theories just makes the story more believable because of how far some go to make you take it. That 's when you see how far something you don't want can be forced on you.

You're taking this as people scared, it's not, they are angry because they put this crap in their food without their permission. There was no debates for the public to vote on for this issue, they did it behind our backs. What is stopping them from slipping their plants through commercial growers to sell in nurseries? Do you think they are going to ask first?

The products available are a wide range of vegetables now. What is for sale is the grains, but they have a full range of other vegetables waiting to hit the market.

It's paranoia to think at all then by the standards that every thing is a conspiracy theory. That's childish to insinuate. Why would you ask a willingly gullible public who follows like sheep anything government says to never ask questions or make changes to support their true beliefs? People should buy organic or heirloom to support their interests in not allowing gm foods and plants in their communities. It's their right as a citizen.

The problem is we've been fooling with nature ever since agriculture was born. Plant breeding and factory farms are not natural by any means. Breeding is a form of genetic manipulation,including the permanent loss of some traits. So why is GM worse?
That being said, I don't like the idea of GM salmon but only from an animal rights' viewpoint, not an anti-GM viewpoint.It's not any better OR worse than injecting cattle with hormones.

DrHort.,
I think you missed my post. It explained why some people such as myself find it worrisome. Here's part of it:

"two plants together works because they are similar species. They are closely connected enough genetically to support one and other. With GMOs, they are taking genes from completely different species as in taking genes from a fish and putting it into the genes of a plant, taking a bacteria and inserting it into the genes of a plant. This is what I find disturbing.
If you were taking specific genes of say a tomato that you found did something beneficial like say resist Early Blight and inserted it into new tomato varieties so that they would knowingly have that characteristic would be great. This would just be a speeding up the process that traditional plant breeders would be doing. I have no problem with that.
But that is not what they are doing. Inserting a gene into soybeans that keeps them from dying when the fields are sprayed with Roundup worries me. There has been talk of super weed developing because of over exposure to this practice. The weeds that live become incredibly difficult to kill. This is just like the bacteria that are now antibiotic resistant from overuse.
This is also a great money making scheme for Monsanto. They make the GMO soybean seed and they sell the roundup. So it is a win win for them."

Remy

"Inserting a gene into soybeans that keeps them from dying when the fields are sprayed with Roundup worries me. There has been talk of super weed developing because of over exposure to this practice. "

So what is the solution? In one case, Roundup becomes ineffective and is no longer used. In the other case, the use of Roundup is ceased before it becomes ineffective. It seems a dilemma to me.

Jim

Scarletdaisy is correct in the UK, GM food has to be labeled, and to be honest, I am not sure even uneducated people would buy it over normal food, as the price was not cheaper, due to the seed cost, maybe pence?? veg is cheap in the UK, in the supermarkets and even cheaper in the farm shops, 4 cabbages for a pound, as in money not weight, which would be say $1.40 at the mo, for 4 big cabbages or cauliflower, Brussel sprouts ect, admittedly I am 2 years out of date but that s what I was paying, and I was in the south east, so not the same story all over the country, just my experience :)

Just to throw something else in here on how ignorant we as Americans are and how with out question we will buy and consume products just because we trust the source or we just do not care. Thankyou to those concerned about this issue who have posted here. I am proud to be a certified Organic grower therefore I want nothing to do with GMO for me, or my familiy ,or my customers.
The link below is an article on GMO potatoes. I tried to find another article about a law suet with Mcdonalds but I couldnt'. Bottom line Mcdonalds and Burgerking have been serving GMO potates for nearly 10years in America till it came to light thanks to concerned groups which sued. Mcdonalds as a settlement in the suet to squash the issue before it became too public decided to stop using GMO potatoes rather than have a public backlash. If it were not for those who are concerned you would still be eating GMO potatoes. GMO potatoes that contain a herbiced tolerant gene (roundout) and a bacterial pesticide(BT). It is one thing to spray or coat our food with a toxin. I use BT the organic natural bacteria. But I at least have the option to wash most of it off, But to put that same pesticide in each and every cellof the plant I intend to eat I can not handle. I have not eaten at any national fast food chain in over ten years and am proud of that fact. I also will not and have not shopped at any big box store in nearly two years. I will not be a hipocrit and say one thing and do another. I want to know what I am feeding to my grandchild and family and I want to support my country by buying American and local grown food. and products. Rodger

GM potatoes was one of those things that sounded good to the industry (it's easier to develop things without acids/etc. that develop tastes in vegetables...the bland stuff is easier to manipulate to a decent end-result).

The thing is a potato farmer doesn't need it. By default a potato farmer is taking great care of his/her soil and knows what's going on with it.

They also tend to have defoliant sprayers for harvest that can also apply pesticides/herbicides while the season is going on.

These defoliants...now that's another discussion worth having. That's some nasty stuff that can leave residue on tubers.

Back on topic, though, we could use some labeling laws. We're having a hard enough time with country-of-origin laws...we got fruits/vegs, but we don't have meat yet.

I firmly believe that individuals can effect change by speaking out. The more that speak out, the better. And it is refreshing to know that more and more people are becoming mindful of what is going into their bodies.

On the other hand, when a simple cause like clean food is picked up by conspiracy theorists and alarmists, people start refusing to take it seriously. A legit concern gets lumped in with Grays, men in black and Sasquatch. That would be a shame.

One really good solution to this is, to find a "still reliable" heirloom seed saver, and there ARE still many of them out there, and start saving your own seeds. I have thousands of heirloom seeds, and they are true to their parents. You will have to painstakingly learn how to save and PROTECT them when polination time rolls around, but it gets easier each year, and when you get the "hang" of each plant.
They do need extra care, and yes, they need protection, but eventually, it becomes just a normal part of your planting schedule. Eventually you do with them, what seems like no more than you used to do with any other plant you have grown.

Besides, there is no better tasting vegetable in the world than an Heirloom vegetable.

I've already got some seeds saved from my marigolds, cucumbers, a zucchini a friend had, and am looking into saving a few others.

I think they grow better in my soil the next year. Maybe the plant adapts slowly to it, then the seeds do much better. That's only a guess, so regardless of what kind of seed you buy, it might not do well unless you save seeds for next year, just a thought and it works in my poor yard. I'm building it up again with compost this fall.

Hi again, you have all made extremely good points again, my worry which maybe I didn't make clear is that if your plant crosses with a GM plant, and you seed save, you can be sued, and many American farmers have, and have been ruined, and I have no idea why? in the UK the liable law is an arse, but in UK law so long as you have done everything possible, then you are not liable, so you buy your seed from Joe Bloggs organics and can prove that, and then seed save, and Big Bert chemicals says,but our plant DNA is in your seed's that is patented, I am going to sue" a UK court would chuck it out and if they didn't, Joe would counter sue for contamination of his crops, he would have headline news and the Brits would get behind him and donate money. I particularly, like this one, a liable case, longest in UK history :) okay they didn't win at this point, but they won the British Public, and European court later, and Mcdonalds even before the European judgment had been force to change their practices due to consumer pressure.
we are tiny in mumber to you guys I believe we are 61 million... yes 61 million! on our tiny island, if we can do it so can you :)