Marketing Genetically Modified Crops - Pamela Ronald

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/07/28/Pamela_Ronald_and_Raoul_Adamchak_The_Food_of_the_Fu...

Pamela Ronald explores the controversy surrounding labeling genetically modified food. She calls the current system of labeling "complete marketing" and advocates for a system where everything from pesticides to proteins are included on a label.

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Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak present "Organically Grown and Genetically Engineered: The Food of the Future" as part of The Long Now Foundation's Seminars About Long-term Thinking. They explore how genetic engineering can work with organic growing practices to produce food in a more sustainable way than either of them could alone. - The Long Now Foundation

Pamela Ronald is Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis, where she studies the role that genes play in a plant's response to its environment. Her laboratory has genetically engineered rice for resistance to diseases and flooding, both of which are serious problems of rice crops in Asia and Africa. She also serves as Vice President for the Feedstocks Division and Director of Grass Genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute.

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• frankenfood
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[hebephoebe]

GM labelling should be mandatory. We have the right to decide if we want to support this industry from the 'paddock to the plate'. Personally I do not want to eat GM foods because I do not trust an industry that is self-regulating and does not welcome independent research to take place. The whole GM system is fraught with problems from segregation, contamination, patent and ownership, liability, and health and safety. There are no long term benefits, but the long term problems could be immense.

[RandyBful1]

I live in Canada and 100% of our canola is GMO! I've been trying to tell people for a long time, that if this keeps up, there will be no REAL food left...and we're almost there! Part of the problem is that every single agency around the globe has been paid off by criminal corporations like Monsanto; and Big Pharma, like GSK!!!

[hebephoebe]

@Gatodefelix You may have misunderstood what I wrote...that the Haitian farmers refused both GM and hybrid seeds,which they know are not the same, but both pose problems to heirloom seeds specifically bred over centuries to suit their farming conditions.

I take offence to your suggestion that they are all uneducated and thus incapable of deciding what is best for their farms, familes and future. Do you think that ther are no intelligent people in Haiti?

[hebephoebe]

@Gatodefelix And those people have to have medication for the rest of their lives as their bodies are constantly fighting the 'alien' introduced parts. Organ transplants do not change the DNA of the body, and the body has ways to recognise these new parts, hence the rejection.

In a similar way, when foreign GM DNA is transferred from one species into an unrelated species it takes up residence and promotes the trait that it is chosen to do but nobody is testing to see what other changes occur.

[Gatodefelix]

Opponents of GMO hold double standards.

People undergo genetic modification all the time. DNA from donor organs is inserted into a living organism to promote better functionality. A new heart, lung, bone marrow, blood, etc...all foreign DNA.

[Gatodefelix]

@TheRivetthead so can non GMO peanut, wheat and soy allergies. So can driving a car or smoking.

[Gatodefelix]

@hebephoebe Hybrid and GM seeds are not the same thing. A country full of uneducated people can't make the scientific decision on whether their food is safe. The turning down of food is ignorant and perpetuated by activist groups such as Greenpeace that use fear mongering and negative imagery to put down a science they don't understand. Fact of the matter is is these foods have been tested and approved as safe for the environment and can allow farmers to use less inputs to produce a livelihood.

[hebephoebe]

@Gatodefelix Do you mean if I had no other choice? Naturally if it was life or death you would eat anything (in such circumstances people have turned cannibalistic) but there is always a choice. Take the earthquake which devastated Haiti in 2010. When US Aid supplied hybrid and GM seeds the farmers protested and burned seeds. Their fear was that they would be a threat to their own seed banks and biodiversity. They also knew that alternatives were available, and these were fianlly supplied.

[Gatodefelix]

@hebephoebe

What if you were hungry? would you turn down transgenic food?

[TheRivetthead]

gmo can kill you

[myndy86]

"GM-fed mice of all ages considered, the number of perichromatin granules is higher and the nuclear pore density lower.""we found enlargements in the smooth endoplasmic reticulum in GM-fed mice Sertoli cells." ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/ ­15718213?dopt=Abstract&holdin­g ­=f1000,f1000m,isrctn "our data suggest that GM soybean intake can influence hepatocyte nuclear features in young and adult mice" ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/ ­12441651?dopt=Abstract&holdin­g ­=f1000,f1000m,isrctn