Doesn't work. It's not about education it's more about economics. Your own children equal cheap labor in a subsistence based economy and and you need a lot of manual labor in places without mechanization.
GMO's are a cornerstone of Monsanto's goal of contolling the entire world's food supply. http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/201...a-and-the-government-theyre-killing-us-11650/
In a non-agricultural society, having cheap labor becomes less important and the extra mouths to feed could become a negative. So make the megacorp food super cheap and everywhere.
I don't get why people see GMO as a safe way for growing a food supply? Monsanto's main seed is a GMO that work with their herbicide "Round Up". Adding this herbicide will add to our food supply. It is a huge snowball for the negative.
Big Ag is in the business of making profit, not feeding the world. As I said before (and Denny underscored with a statistic) we don't have a supply problem, we have a distribution problem.
Nik has a great point. Lost in this so far is the fact that as people live longer, the population is going to grow. More births than deaths means growth.
Monsanto's a bigger danger in the way that they've patented seeds, implant them in small farmers' fields, then sue the farmer for illegal growth. Farmer drowns under legal costs, Monsanto gets to buy the land at auction. Nice business model, if you can get it. BTW, nutrient levels in GMO are nowhere close to heirloom crops. Yes, the pumpkin is bigger (for instance). But the nutrients aren't there. And the GMO plants (as said earlier) are now dependent on chemicals to eradicate "pests" (some of which are needed in symbiotic relationship with "normal" crops) and "weeds", then dependent on chemical nutrients to grow because they've sterilized the soil from giving the plants nutrients, then dependent on trucking/refrigeration/etc (all energy drains) to get them to cities where they don't actually supply the nutrients that people think they should be getting.
This is why I see a solution of taking rural areas and developing a grow program is essential. The import duties, shipping costs and storage wouldn't be a problem. I think industries like Ag in america are wasting the supply. We need to subsidize the distribution to where areas in need can grow their own fresh food, harvest good potable water and have extra to generate more economic growth. I do understand that the spread will only increase population, but if a good model is in place; we won't have starvation. We have plenty of dry land, we just lack water and soil. If you can work around them, there isn't a problem, IMO.
This sounds like a move I somewhat recently saw with Dennis Quaid. I think it was called At any price or something along those lines.
Exactly!!!! Just because the fruit is bigger, doesn't mean you have more nutrients. The plant can only uptake a certain amount of nutrients. More mass, equals mass of undesired material in crops. Some say "Just add more fertilizer to get nutrients". It doesn't work that way. Adding too much will only lock the soil and you get even less uptake. Remember the carrier of most these minerals are bound with salts. That salt constricts the root system and lowers the beneficial microbiology of the soil. This doesn't help, but only hurt, IMO.
You guys raise some good points. And don't get my wrong, i'm not pro-Monsanto. I just think it's wrong to say "Ban all GMO food."
I don't want to ban gmo, I want people to have the right to not have to eat them. I also think people need to be more educated on the pros and cons.
Nature gave us a lifespan of 30-40 years 300 years ago. Even if GMO today isn't the answer, I'm sure one day science will definitively surpass all organic foods. If they're not somewhat there already. This weird experimenting thing will pay off.
All of this! Also agreed on hunger being an infrastructure problem, rather than a supply problem With that said, I'm not entirely anti-GMO. While I have no interest in eating them or supporting Big Ag, I do think that GMO research is important to our long-term survival. Once we leave this planet we'll be dependent upon GMOs. For now I think it should be confined to research labs, though. GMOs are not necessary to our earthly survival - ideally they'd be used solely for sustenance in space exploration programs.
Agreed, i was talking hypothetical, as in, how can we both increase food supply and distribution and not have the result be population increase.
Massive agricultural subsidies in combination with forced abortions and forced contraception administered by a totalitarian state.
I'm not saying you're wrong Brian, but do you have a link about lower nutrients? It seems logical, but then I know that uptake channels can be manipulated as well, so depending on what type of M we are talking about in gMo, I could certainly see it at least plausible that gmo foods become more nutritious. Right now the companies are concerned with time before spoilage, yield of product and perhaps even flavor. But that could be calibrated to increase vitamin A or C, or whatever nutrients the company decides will help them sell their product. I agree that there is some horrible practices that Monsanto is involved with, and for the time being, I prefer organic foods myself, but se shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I do agree that labeling things as GMO, hormone free, pesticide free or Organic would be beneficial, let people make up their own minds and vote with their wallets.
