Schooled on GMO

[Hawnjigs]

Done with the doom & gloom ranting, but on the bright side check this out. Local residents organizing and being heard. Kinda long, but if you stick it out there will be some gorgeous scenery of the place we live, not what one sees from a tourist bus.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Sorry, bumping, since we tend to overlook issues like food safety due for more important ones like Clinton emails, Benghazi, etc.

Kansas seems to be ground zero of wealthy-corporate benefit agenda legislation, Rep. Mike Pompeo sponsored "H.R.1599 - Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015". Sounds good, except main purpose of this bill appears to prevent states from GMO labeling by popular consent.

And, judging by the list of co-sponsors, the bill has bi-partisan support. I suppose legislators now consider themselves employees of their contributors, rather than representatives of their constituents.

 

[toadfrog]

Atta boy Kieth keep carrying the mantel son . Like fishing they all count one . If just one person listens that is one that may save his kids misery in the future .

 

[Radtexan]

Sorry, bumping, since we tend to overlook issues like food safety due for more important ones like Clinton emails, Benghazi, etc.

You left out the Clinton crime family foundation, and jade helm.

 

[Hawnjigs]

RT, Thanks for the mention of the Clinton Foundation. Had to wade thru some R. Lim rants but the list of donors was noteworthy. Thank Goodness there is a GUY running for Prez choice who appears to NOT just be the lesser of two evils.

I'll file Jade Helm with Texas secession.

Toad, nice to know they didn't come to take you away yet.

 

[Radtexan]

. Thank Goodness there is a GUY running for Prez choice who appears to NOT just be the lesser of two evils.

Glad you listened to some Ted Cruz info.





I assume you are referring to dr Ben. And yes I'm a fan too. To bad he probably doesn't stand a chance. I've seen him twice in person and I don't think there's a better candidate out there.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Maybe we'll have Canadian pres follow up to the Kenyan - who knows?

I'm surprised that Dr. Ben's declared income is only a quarter mil for such a renowned medical practitioner. Maybe he's looking for greener pastures?

Edit: just found out that even a political pundit makes more $ - a LOT more. War Zone Bill's reported income is 88X as much as Dr. Ben. No, not a typo.

 

[Hawnjigs]

I didn't fully realize how EVIL Monsanto is till I saw this:

In addition US House of Representatives just passed HR 1599 "Safe & Accurate Food Labeling Act" 275-150 which despite its title essentially makes GMO labeling voluntary and prohibits state and local govs from enacting their own GMO labeling laws. Startling amounts of contributions to Reps from support groups for this bill - the noteworthy top 5:
Valadao(D)CA - $627,174
Boehner(R)OH - $605,866
Denham(R)CA - $592,065
Conaway(R)TX - $519,100
Lucas(R)OK - $430,461
Guess which way they voted?

Hard to believe that 3 years ago ignorance was bliss. Best I can do now is sign petitions & call my area lawmakers, but better than letting unbridled gov corruption run rampant. My conservative values have been totally betrayed by the Republican party & now it seems that PROGRESSIVES best represent my views.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Today the House of Representatives voted to overrule the EPA's ability to enforce the Clean Water Act protecting the surface source drinking water of an estimated 117 MILLION Americans. So, guess we'll have to depend on polluters to voluntarily monitor and mitigate pesticide, fertilizer, manure, sediment, organic waste, & industrial discharge and runoff. What does this have to do with GMOs?

GMOs = Agri Chem industry = industrial farming.

Guess which political party apparently doesn't give a sh** about contaminating our water? Hint: its the one that wants to shrink Federal government and support states rights. Its also the party that supports a federal law prohibiting states from enacting their own GMO labeling laws, like Vermont did. I read this as "We'll shrink government services that protect Main St., but will make exceptions for our big $ donors.

More breaking news: Campbells Soup will voluntarily label their GMO ingredient products, and expect no impact on pricing.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Geez, this agri-chem industry manipulation just gets more & more scarey. Yesterday, was checking out back road access to a river courtesy of Google maps satellite view and found the road was blocked and diverted thru a cattle grate next to a farm house. So, inquired about passage with the owner and he turned out to be a really nice guy who gave me permission to go thru his land with prior courtesy notice. Inquiring, he mentioned looked like a bad year for corn as price had dropped below break even. Said the big operations could weather it, but family farms might go bust. He also mentioned the high cost of seed since Monsanto had driven the independent seed processors out of bizness and since saving seed was patent infringement Monsanto & other GMO seed was the only option year after year.

Maybe I'm conspiracy paranoid, but it seems that big ag may be price fixing to crash and aquire their competition.

 

[duffy]

That WOTUS bill could have the potential to put many land owners out of business or force them to sell their land to pay for legal fees in courts. The way some of it is written they are changing the rules to basically make you a criminal. It would change the designation of a low area or draw into a "intermittent stream" and thus if there ever was a trickle of water that ran out of it onto other property you would be liable. In other words they are saying that if I spilled some fuel on my property it has the potential to leave my property and make it to the pacific ocean because the draws in my fields are now waterways. I live 235 miles from the pacific ocean and there's the cascade mountain range in the way. I couldn't afford to spill that much fuel to get there! Besides, I don't know what other farms do but we take pride in taking care of our water and land because it's our lively hood and if you take care of the land it'll take care of you. I only raise standard wheat, non GMO and don't care to. It's more expensive and all the bs you have to go through doesn't pay off in the end, at least not on our small dryland farm. Most of us are not high tech, were just trying to make an honest living. BTW our average rainfall around here is 8-9" annually and a really wet year is 14".

 

[Hawnjigs]

Duffy, as one who could be affected by WOTUS, how can we improve the law to prevent polluting our water resources without victimizing small farm and ranch operators? Think I read that 17 million Americans depend on surface sources for their household use water. The # of harmful ag chemicals that can get into our water is staggering, and most are untested for.
http://www.epa.gov/your-drinking-water/table-regulated-drinking-water-contaminants

Thank you for not growing GMO. Lucky you have a choice - it appears here in Nebraska corn & soy farmers have none. Anyone attempting to grow non-GMO would likely be wind drift pollen contaminated and sued by Monsanto.

 

[duffy]

Truthful education would be a start. It seems that everyone has an agenda and you and I both know how well the spin can be put on each side. There is so much junk science out there it's just impossible to weed out the truth and I think they like it that way. Each side can deny what's wrong and nobody wins. In the 80's the grape farmers in the horse heaven hills claimed that our 24D spray was killing their grapes. They are 80+ miles south west of us and the prevailing winds are FROM the SW! Years of arguing back and forth, law suits much money spent and they found out that it was coming from the guys upwind from them DUUUHHHH. They were even claiming that our spray was getting into the atmosphere, circling the earth and killing their plants! No Sh*t! If it's doing that why the h#ll won't it kill the weeds I sprayed it directly on? Now we still have a cut off date when we have to stop using 24D but when that date arrives guys on one side of the highway have to stop while others across the road can still spray. Most of the time we'r done well before the date anyway. Years ago the EPA mandated that all underground fuel tanks over 1000g had to be dug up and stored above ground. I know that 99% of the tanks around here were just fine and some were 50+ years old. Some were rusty inside and to me that's part the fault of the owner for not keeping his fuel clean and dry. If you wanted a buried tank it had to be double lined and some that are above ground have to be also. The problem I have with that is #1. Cost. A large farmer here bought a 10K gallon double tank with a pump and it was $40K. He may be able to afford that but I cant, I couldn't afford to FILL it. #2 With all the terrorist crap going on how long do you think it's going to take for some idiot to shoot one of those nice big tanks. Frankly I'm surprised it hasn't already happened. #3 With the tank above ground you have much more heating and cooling plus gassing off of vapors into the air. That will be the next thing they'll throw at us and I already have vapor canisters on my tanks but it probably wont be good enough. With the WOTUS you can't have a bbl of oil outside of a containment fixture. This is either a lined wall or a building. They take into account ALL of the fuel and oil on your property not just the one bbl. This is what I was saying about contaminants leaving your property and getting to the ocean. And where do you draw the line on your property beings you really don't own it. Just a little too vague or wording for me. I wonder about some of the farmers in the midwest from some of the things we've heard out here. They have totally changed our crop insurance format because of many of the MW farmers were basically farming the insurance companies. They would over insure  a crop they knew would fail and then collect on it. Some were caught and prohibited from getting ins so they would simply use their spouse's name and SS# to get around it. So now everybody has to be on your policy including relatives if your spouse shares in a crop farmed by the relatives. No real biggie but it just makes things more of a PITA because some a-hole was trying to cheat the system. If you want to talk about total pollution of the water the Hanford Nuclear plant is a doozy! An you can guess who owns that friggin mess! Look! A three headed fish in the Columbia River!! Yes we'r part of the downwinders from that place. Fortunately as far as I can find, most of the "accidental discharges" were before I was born but right around the time my brother was. Lot's of cancer, thyroid problems  and MS around here. There's been much much more serious damage done by our own gov to our water, land and air than any of us have ever done and now the EPA want's to be the guys in the white hats to claim to fix it all. Nice mess they left in Colorado huh? And what about the boneheads in Flint? I'd like to know what Einstein thought that one up. I just wanted to mention also that the 245T and agent orange ordeal wasn't necessarily the chemicals, it was the way it was processed. While processing if the solution was overheated it changed state and turned it into the deadly toxin. Apparently Dow notified the Gov and other people knew but they went ahead and used it anyway. Never enough time to do it right but plenty of time to do it over! The other thing you have to remember is now they can measure in PPB and PPT (parts per Billion and Trillion) a PPM is from what I was told at a meeting, one eye dropper drop in a rail road tanker car. Not much. So when some of these people tell you about the thousands of gallons of chems put on one field you have to question their statistics. Take 14oz of water and spray it evenly over a 200X200 foot area and see if you can see where it all went. Many of the chemicals are applied at a  lower rate than that and those fogging pictures you see, most of that is water as a carrier.  Sorry to be so long winded and there's a bunch more but this is some of the stuff that they do to make it look like somethings really being done but it mostly hurts the good people and accomplishes nothing.

 

[rich mc]

has any pres candidate stated his or her position on gmo labeling ?rich mc

 

[Hawnjigs]

Agri-chem industry including Monsanto apparently has majority polis of both parties in it's pocket. Altho I avoid GMO suspect foods, there doesn't appear to be a clear scientific consensus on the long term affects of consumption, due to lack of research. A more immediate problem is ag poisons residues in our food & water, Roundup getting in the news recently since CA listed it as a carcinogen and was promptly sued by Monsanto for doing so. This despite the World Health Organization of the United Nations this year listing primary ingredient glyphosate as carcinogenic.

This is Bernie Sanders position on GMO labeling:
http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-agriculture/

Hillary Clinton ENCOURAGES GMO consumption.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillar...yist-takes-huge-dollars-from-monsanto/5450985

Republicans:
http://naturalsociety.com/virtually-all-major-2016-presidential-candidates-oppose-gmo-labeling/

 

[rich mc]

thank you for posting that but im still not voting for bernie rich mc