Is this joke from 1952? Ha ha.
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The solution is obvious - somebody write up an Ag Gag bill, stat!
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Iâm no expert but I would think that would depend on how bad it got. If, over time, it gets bad enough that US corn prices go up dramatically (and the farm bill isnât dramatically expanded to make up for itâŚ[big if there]) then theoretically in some developing nations this could mean less hunger. Theoretically in the countries where cheap, subsidized US crops get dumpedâŚif those crop prices raised to the point where developing countries could compete with their own cropsâŚeven your non-patented good old mother nature seedsâŚtheoretically it would spur the rebuilding of small farms, subsistence agriculture, happy little economies and less hunger.
But I imagine the situation would be very different from country to country, from crop to crop, from bug to bug. And would continue to change over time. Oh evolution, why ya gotta change all the time?
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Yeah, although that relies on âthe invisible handâ doing the rational thing, rather than the thing which will âbeat expectations for Q4!â
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The solution is obvious - somebody write up an Ag Gag bill, stat!
Iâm restricted by the bbs to like your post, so Iâll just leave this instead:
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The problem, I think, is that the âQ4! brigadeâ has those attributes in spades AND these seem to be the people best positioned to make decisions that will have broad consequences. Itâs hard(er) in this time of corporate person-hood and money is speech for a cautionary voice to be heard or heeded. If you canât argue for a big fat negative on the ROI --take your toys and go home.
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Perhaps it was intelligent design⌠A competitor to the Bt Corn may have developed the resistant bugs and then will come to the rescue with an insecticide that the bugs happen to be susceptible to.
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The âknowing about stuff peopleâ donât have the PR or hubris of the âbest product ever must make it a monopoly money makingâ machine. They believe in possibilities as opposed to âthe answer of all answersâ created by me, Iâm great, trust me, crowd.
As an aside, I doubt everyone back in the day was on board (pun intended) with the unsinkable Titanic either.
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â⌠is gorging on it with abandon âŚâ
YES! The GMO superbug is also remote-controlled by the corps âŚ
OK, ok, stupid nitpick, but it would be really awesome, if theyâd done it.
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Surely godâs punishing the farmers because of âteh gaysâ.
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You only left out the part about, ânobody could possibly have predictedâŚâ
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I knew bitcorn would cause trouble!
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My cats liked your post. Thanks!
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Ha.
Sometimes love equals hate, aka destruction.
Not related to Bt Corn â to my knowledge â but letâs give a shout out to plant pathologist Dr. Don Huber, expert on glyphosate and the bad things it does to us.
In February 2011, Dr. Huber sent a private letter to Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack. This is some alarming stuff, coming from a sober-minded senior scientist with formidable credentials:
A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and cornâsuggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science! This is highly sensitive information that could result in a collapse of US soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies. On the other hand, this new organism may already be responsible for significant harm ... For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks. Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In laymanâs terms, it should be treated as an emergency. Unique Physical Properties This previously unknown organism is only visible under an electron microscope (36,000X), with an approximate size range equal to a medium size virus. It is able to reproduce and appears to be a micro-fungal-like organism. If so, it would be the first such micro-fungus ever identified. There is strong evidence that this infectious agent promotes diseases of both plants and mammals, which is very rare. Pathogen Location and Concentration It is found in high concentrations in Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, distillers meal, fermentation feed products, pig stomach contents, and pig and cattle placentas. Linked with Outbreaks of Plant Disease The organism is prolific in plants infected with two pervasive diseases that are driving down yields and farmer incomeâsudden death syndrome (SDS) in soy, and Gossâ wilt in corn. The pathogen is also found in the fungal causative agent of SDS (Fusarium solani fsp glycines). Implicated in Animal Reproductive Failure Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of this organism in a wide variety of livestock that have experienced spontaneous abortions and infertility. Preliminary results from ongoing research have also been able to reproduce abortions in a clinical setting. ... I have studied plant pathogens for more than 50 years. We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure.
Full text:
http://www.greenpasture.org/utility/showArticle/?objectID=7173
Although meant to be private, the letter got some blog attention. (Virtually no major media attention, to my eye.) Dr. Huber issued a public cover letter, acknowledging his letter to Secretary Vilsack, and repeating his assertions with additional passion.
He says as much again â and earns my âI trust this guyâ empathic trust â in this interview:
This new entity ... we don't know what it is. It's not a fungus, it's not a bacteria, it's not a mycoplasma, or a virus. ... They can now culture it, so that it's self-replicating in culture, it doesn't grow very well by itself. Like most of our very fastidious organisms it tends to die out with three or four subculturing but grows very well with other organisms, so if you have a yeast, or a bacteria or a fungus in the culture that this entity then grows very well. We're waiting on getting enough material, pure material, for DNA analysis, but also looking at some other possibilities. We haven't published just because until you can put a name on it all it does is create a great deal of speculation, and that's one of the reasons why the letter was sent, it's a very private letter. The other reason is it could have a tremendous potential impact on our exports, because where we find high populations of this, are in our soybeans, in our corn ... It's a novel entity, new to science .... We know a lot about it, we know what it isn't, we don't know what it is ... it appears to be common in nature, but new to science. It's boiling down to one of three potentials ... and none of the three are happy considerations ...
Last word: Dr. Huber has been culturing this stuff since 2005, according to a petition which challenges him to release his findings:
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This guy sounds totally insane. Mysterious new life forms my assâŚthis is jogging my memory - this kind of crack pottery has been around a long long time.
Anyway, he made these startling claims in 2011, and the clock on the wall says itâs now 2014. So where are these new life forms, these super pathogens?
I guess this is going to be one of these anti-GMO urban legends that will make the rounds for the next 50 years.
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if we only had several different insectidicide genes to plug into the corn
then resistance would be less of a problem since we could cycle between
them. But that requires many companies to invest a lot to develop many
products. But investing in a product with bad public relations image is
not easy
therefore its the fault of the anti GM crowd
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Aâ course, there is the school of thought that destroying the effectiveness of Bt (a pesticide of last resort for organic farmers) through overuse, occasioning evolved resistance, was precisely the object of the exercise. Or, at least, a delightful side benefit.
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The problem is less about GMOs and more about monoculture.
âŚWhich GMOs are specifically designed and marketed for.
âŚWhich is a good reason in and of itself to avoid them.
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Not much of what Dr. Huberâs saying actually makes sense though. He makes a lot of extraordinary claims, but doesnât seem to have any evidence.
Saying something is a "micro-fungal-like organismâ as small as a virus just doesnât make any damn sense if you know anything about biology.
I suppose itâs possible heâs discovered some new, never-before-seen form of life, but I wouldnât consider it likely given how little evidence he actually seems to have. Heâs provided no pictures, or even any molecular analysis to prove if this supposed âmicro-fungal-like organismâ is even made of organic material.
He also claims the âpathogenâ âis found in high concentrations in Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, distillers meal, fermentation feed products, pig stomach contents, and pig and cattle placentas.â He fails to give exact amounts, or give any mention of a controlled comparison. In order to actually show âhigh concentrationsâ, youâd nee to compare roundup-ready corn sprayed with roundup, roundup-ready corn not sprayed with with roundup (weeded by hand or other non-chemical method), and non-roundup ready corn also weeded by hand or other non-chemical method.
Itâs more likely what he saw in the electron microscope was an imaging artifact, scanning electron microscopes can show all sorts of odd-looking things that arenât really there if processing of the sample isnât done right, the machine isnât used right, or the imaging scanner isnât working properly.
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