GMO's and Factory Farming...

[ndemerly]

GMO: Genetically modified organisms. How is this not in our news every evening? It seems as though if half of the people in america new what was going on they wouldn't even be vegans.

I'm not going to spam with links, but do your own search for either and see what comes up. I'm not hating on meat God knows how much I LOVE steak. Just suggesting supporting local small scale family farms.

 

[Cat Water]

I searched myself and all I got was stuff about glo-fish. And please excuse my ignorance, but I don't understand what is wrong with them.

 

[duckluv]

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Factory farms cram birds into cages to small, give turkeys steroids to make them fat, all sorts of things to pigs... I won't go into detail.

 

[ndemerly]

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Monsanto, the leader of the current push for genetically modified seed, patents life - the plants - and harass farmers, who had no knowledge that their seed was on their land. http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog/articles/perry-schmeiser-vs-monsanto
The movie "the future of food was based almost completely the wrong doings of the Monsanto corporation.

 

[Ohne-Fehler]

Read “Omnivores Dilemma” that is enough to get anyone thinking about what they are putting on their table and where it comes from or watch “Food Inc.” I recently graduated college, a small conservative agricultural college and both of these were required in several of the Ag classes.

Here are my thoughts, people are to disconnected from their food source. I grew up on an organic cattle dairy and have exhibited livestock my entire life. Do you have any idea how many times I was asked if the brown cows made chocolate milk? For the most part many people do not know where their food comes from. My boyfriend’s mom is a teacher and we sent her fiber so her class could make a project of processing it. Most of the students had no idea where wool came from; they didn’t even realize that it was off a sheep.

Currently I am managing a small farm that practiced sustainable farming and is direct to market, no GMO, no pesticide. While not organic most of our practices are organic based. While I personally do not favor GMO’s and would prefer not to eat them I can see the benefits behind them. Here I go committing treason

! The worlds population is ever growing and much of the world is starving, GMO’s can produce higher yields with less inputs and can feed more people as such. Large conventional farms can turn a better profit growing these crops as they get more output with less input and the bottom line drives agribusiness. So long as consumers buy it they will produce it.

Truly I can see both sides of this coin. I believe that GMO’s need to be extensively tested before being released on the market and I would prefer to see more heritage crops being produced by small local farms. If you care about what you are putting in your body then buy local. Buying local keeps your money local, promotes sustainability and offers the consumer a “safer” product (direct accountability). The up side is that the local food movement is picking up steam and the Tester Amendment on the New Food Safety Bill was a major step in keeping this movement going.

Really this is just such a broad subject it’s hard to do it justice in a single post. Entire books have been written on the topic.

 

[Dunkopf]

GMO's have a place. No doubt about it. What you said is completely spot on.

Why do they have brown cows then?

 

[ChickieBooBoo]

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x2 GMO's are needed to help feed the worlds growing population

 

[theOEGBman]

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x2 GMO's are needed to help feed the worlds growing population

Agreed. GMO's are not the terrible things people make them out to be. Blindness is very prominent in many parts of Africa due to lack of beta-carotene in their diets, which is found in veggies such as carrots. Rice can be grown very well in Africa, but as us gardeners know, carrots probably do not! Scientists have been able to create a variety of rice, a GMO, that grows well in Africa and is packed full of beta-carotene. This will hopefully help prevent blindness in not only Africans, but people around the world.

The news media will shine a light on the bad stuff because it gets the most attention. Please dont believe one side without seeing the other.

Factory farms cram birds into cages to small, give turkeys steroids to make them fat, all sorts of things to pigs... I won't go into detail.

Although the first part of your sentence may be believed by some people here, the 2nd part shows a bit of ignorance. All of the BYCers here that raise their own turkeys for meat know that a broad-breasted turkey is going to get fat, no matter what you feed them. They are bred specifically to grow quickly be economical for the farmer. As for the pig thing, I am not as knowledgeable about swine as I am poultry, so I will leave that part alone.​

 

[Dunkopf]

I saw an episode of Dirty Jobs where they were inseminating broad breasted turkey hens. At the time I wondered why they had to do that. I've always wondered how they can sell turkeys so cheap at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We raised 12 Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys once. They were about 25.00 each by the time we were done. Between 7.00 for each hatchling and the cost of food and processing. I still think the stores got to take a hit to sell a 13lb bird for 6.99.

 

[vfem]

I am so against GMO's its ridiculous! There are people on both side of the coin though like always....

Everyone needs to weigh the good and the bad... though I believe there are a lot of people paid off to keep their mouths shut on studies I think we would find to show the true problems with GMO's. ...but money talks. As long as people scream about the poor starving people and the need for more food the more GMO's will be out there.

Read about the crisis in Haiti and the farmers refused the "FREE" seeds from Monsanto. These people knew it was a scam to get them stuck with GMO seeds they'd eventually have to PAY to keep using.

I believe its only a matter of time before articles and studies get leaked to the press finally notifying people of the harm they are doing to their bodies and the planet.

Just like Bayer pesticides don't harm bees, Right? Read the article about the studies leaked to the press in Australia a couple of months ago and how Bayer paid to cover up the studies so they could continue to sell the pesticide.

Its not about better farming or feeding the world, its about turning a profit and greed leads to human suffering... it always has, it always will.