Why i do not want GMO in my food or my pets food

[Bunnylady]

That's new to me; all of the seeds I've ever bought never required anything like that. That being said: I am speaking in terms of vegetables/fruit trees, I hear in some varieties, particularly roses; people do have issues with patent infringements and so on by reproduction of their plants. Even the roses we have though never required that. Or the Trumpet Creepers, and various other plants we have recently bought.

The biggest point though: Was that had the chickens truly been GMO as Monsanto products are, even they would probably require you to sign a contract. But in reality, most hatcheries couldn't careless whether or not people use the birds they buy from them for future breeding purposes. It is about money to them, but they will get plenty of it anyway from new chicken keepers, the people who do not save back brood stock so that they don't have to buy more, losses, and even people trying new breeds.

God bless,
Daniel.

The process of patenting plant varieties has been around for a very long time. By law, when someone introduces a new plant variety, they can patent it for a certain period of time (I believe it is 17 years). This is to allow the developer of that variety to profit by the enormous amount of effort it took to create that new variety. Most of these types of plants are reproduced asexually, so the law prevents someone buying one of the variety, propagating cuttings and selling them as that variety. Anyone who wants to produce that variety must pay a royalty of x amount per cutting to the patent holder. Once the patent expires, anyone can grow them. Most seeds that are available on the market today are the product of a certain cross. If you take the seeds from the plants that grew from seeds that you bought, they will not be genetically identical to the ones you bought, and the plants they grow won't have quite the same characteristics of their parent plants.While I may be able to harvest seeds from my African marigolds, for example,I can't depend on the seeds developing into plants with the same size and flowering behavior as the ones that I bought.

What you say about hatcheries and chickens isn't entirely true. Commercial growers are working with a carefully developed cross of breeds; the precise combination is not disclosed. If you were to try to use a "Cornish Cross" to produce future generations of meat birds, the resulting chicks would not be identical to the parent birds.

Big difference between "hybrid" plants and animals and GMO ones that have genes from a different species in them. To each his own, just LABEL so I have a choice. Don't just tell me it's safe.

How is this so different? Some plants are naturally resistant to the action of glyphosate. Someone deliberately "borrows" the gene that creates glyphosate resistance from a plant that naturally has it, and plugs it in to a plant that doesn't. Farmers have been spraying glyphosate for 40 years, there are now plenty of weed populations that have naturally developed their own resistance. I daresay that if someone wanted to spray corn plants with slowly increasing doses of glyphosate, they could come up with a naturally occuring strain of resistant corn, but with all the other traits that they'd be selecting for, it could take a very long time.

Viruses transfer DNA between species all the time. A fair percentage of your DNA is stuff that came by accident from another species in a DNA swap done by some virus long ago. Because the stray genes don't code for anything a human does, it just sits there, inactive.

 

[DTchickens]

The information I mentioned regarding hatchery fowl was not regarding Cornish cross 100%. I know enough about chickens to know that Cornish crosses may not reproduce the exact offspring, nor will Sexlinks; what I said "Was that had the chickens truly been GMO as Monsanto products are, even they would probably require you to sign a contract. But in reality, most hatcheries couldn't careless whether or not people use the birds they buy from them for future breeding purposes. It is about money to them, but they will get plenty of it anyway from new chicken keepers, the people who do not save back brood stock so that they don't have to buy more, losses, and even people trying new breeds."

The Cornish Cross was mentioned, but what was mentioned also was the amount of chicks the hatcheries produce not being "the same old chickens grandma had". Therefore, when I spoke regarding hatcheries; I spoke as of a whole. Meaning this: My Buff Leghorns have been bred by hatcheries to produce excellent egg laying capabilities, maybe not as good as some other strains but they have been bred for that because the more a hen lays- the more eggs they can hatch and the more profit they can gain.

Because of this, I do not expect show fowl from hatchery quality birds. I do not expect dual-purpose breeds to be as good at meat as they supposedly will be. Leghorns are supposed to have yellow legs, yet I was sent a pullet with white legs? It is quite common among hatchery birds, it's known that they are mostly crosses, perhaps the white legs are a result of a cross with a Minorca sometime back? Regardless, they're beautiful birds and are supposed to be good egg layers which is why I bought them.

To keep from having to buy more stock in the future, I kept back 5 hens I wanted to use for egg layers. I kept one cock that was the largest/most beautiful of them all (he's not even buff, to be exact. More of a White-Tailed Buff but I like that more anyway). There would be nothing wrong with this.

At the same time I bought Kraienköppe which are a wide mix of genetics, they've obviously been crossed quite a bit with who know's what. But regardless, hatcheries are the main suppliers of them. So I bought about 20 (I wanted more, but I bought what I could) and culled down to one, possibly 2 cockerels and about 5 or so hens I plan to use that have fair type/personality. Then I have to raise a lot, cull a lot, until I get them to where I want them. That being said though, a bird can look excellent and still be a poor producer; hidden genes can crop up that one might not have even known were there simply because of the genes are not manifesting themselves.

I raised gamefowl for a little while now, and actually grew up around them. I've been breeding fowl myself for 9 years (which I am turning 18 October, so since I was 9). Before that I was sitting out in the chicken yard everyday with my father and my little feist "Bandit" discussing breeding practices, breed histories, fowl care, and so on. Gamefowl do not follow textbook genetics at all, I have a black hen on the yard right now, she was bred by a yellow legged/wheaten cock that also carried some Gilmore Hatch blood (I.e. BBred/green legs).. Somehow, that hen produced white legs, which are not in her genetics at all as far as I know (nor the cocks). The spangled gene, which is also recessive, showed up in 50% of the living offspring (She lost some as young chicks).

I have various other instances too: So I realize birds will not throw exactly what their parents are at all times. It can be any number of combinations between individuals, even full brothers and sisters will not have the same genetic coding; there will always be one gene probably that is different.

That being said though, they don't have to throw exactly what their parents are for me. I just want something to work with to advance the birds to where I want them; Cornish cross and Sexlink may not be on this list, but I don't keep them either. If I bought Cornish cross I would not breed them, I don't know if it would even be possible due to them being so large as even some Cornish fowl have trouble and I refuse to A.I.

If I wanted Cornish Crosses, I'd just buy from someone (like a hatchery) who already has bred them and raise them for a couple months then cull. I merely said hatchery birds are selectively bred, which includes crossing between breeds; it is not the same as gene splicing like Monsanto does.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[Tammy N]

I just read that Monsanto's Workers wont even eat the GMO foods that they make They refuse and Eat Only Certified Organic . WOW even in the Workers Lunch area's .
Now thats saying something!

 

[AuntB]

I, too, am concerned about feeding my animals GMO food. I have done quite a bit of research on this lately, and have found chicken food that is non GMO: Scratch and Peck Feeds is the one I've switched my chickens to. I've also discovered Acana Pet Foods; the products they make the dog food out of are GMO free, or so their food bags claim.

 

[Black Jaque]

I'm not particularly for or against GMOs. However I do appreciate justice. And when a farmer's crops are cross-pollinated through natural means with a Monsanto GMO I don't see the justice in Monsanto suing the farmer. Unless perhaps Monsanto paid for the entire crop to be destroyed. It would also seem just for the farmer to sue Monsanto for contaminating his heirloom variety.

But true mental acuity is the ability to discern where the real evil is in this story. The evil is in the business and legal practices. It is not necessarily that the practice of genetically modifiying an organism is evil. Suing a farmer who, through no fault of his own, had a crop that picked up some of your GMO pollin is evil.

Also if this experiment with the consuming public is to truly work, they ought to allow labelling. That way, if there is an unforeseen health problem with GMOs, it will show up in that population who consumes GMOs whereas those who select against GMOs will enjoy a health benefit. And of course the results of the experiment coulf work in reverse with those who consume GMOs enjoying the better health.

Going "fresh" and "organic" is not always the healthiest. For example people may not realize that there is a difference between "supermarket fresh" and "home garden fresh". The fresh produce at the supermarket may actually be a poorer nutrition source than many of the canned and frozen produce. That's because the produce is bred for visual appearance and transport tolerant, it often is picked early, and it sits disconnected from the plant/soil source for days before purchase. The same type of produce that gets frozen or canned is often processed the day it was harvested and the preservation process can preserve SOME of the nutrients. This produce does not need to be bred to tolerate great transportation distances, and it doesn't have to "look good".

 

[AuntB]

But true mental acuity is the ability to discern where the real evil is in this story. The evil is in the business and legal practices. It is not necessarily that the practice of genetically modifiying an organism is evil. Suing a farmer who, through no fault of his own, had a crop that picked up some of your GMO pollin is evil.

Black Jacque--

I couldn't agree more with you.

 

[barnaclebob]

Be afraid, be very afraid...

Or you can stop perpetuating these myths...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/20...ve-myths-of-genetically-modified-seeds-busted

Otherwise you better make sure they cant scan your brain waves...

http://www.ehow.com/how_2049858_make-tinfoil-hat.html

 

[Tammy N]

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[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote:
It's gross MISinformation such as this which makes the Monsanto bashing crowd lose all credibility.
The plants don't produce herbicides at all.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: I just read that Elvis Presley is alive on Mars.
Reading something on the internet doesn't mean it's true