[p2p-research] controversy: GM foods and organic agriculture

Hervé Le Crosnier herve at info.unicaen.fr
Mon May 25 18:32:13 CEST 2009



	Please Michel,

	Get me off the list.

	As a long time anti-imperialist from France and
	against my onw country, i can't bear such insults.

	I have a position. May be someone get another one.

	But not that wazy to talk about.
	Not that sense of nationalism as we are building the
	commons for a new age.

	I try, even with my poor english writing to give
	informations, analysis...

	But i only harvest those kind of remarks.

	Please get me off.

Hervé Le Crosnier


Ryan Lanham a écrit :
> The real imperialism (your word) was done a century and more ago.  Let
> the British stop drinking tea for pennies a cup.  Let's fix that first
> if we care about the people.  I recommmend people in France stop buying
> cheap green beans from Senegal and people in Switzerland and Austria
> stop stealing cocoa and coffee from Africa before they preach on how
> farmers should operate there.  The French have done endless evil in
> Africa.  Fix that first.   
> 
> Ryan Lanham
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Hervé Le Crosnier
> <herve at info.unicaen.fr <mailto:herve at info.unicaen.fr>> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>     Ryan Lanham a écrit :
>     > I agree with your distinction, Michel.  GMO is not bad.  It is the
>     > corporate system that markets it that appears evil.
>     >
>     > 200,000 people go blind in Africa each year from Vitamin A deficiency.
>     > Almost 3000 die each DAY from hunger.  I would prefer a system that
>     > redresses these ills, and that also builds a post-colonial economic
>     > system that takes people out of dependent poverty and the pitiful
>     state
>     > of sending fruits and vegetables north for cheap table goods while
>     > suffering themselves.
>     >
>     > If GMO can do that, I am for it.  I also am slightly suspect that the
>     > anti-GMO crowd is really pro keep Africa and Asia down, crowd.
>     >
> 
>            Hello Ryan,
> 
>            I am very sorry you answer this way to a list of references
>            that i suppose you don't take time to read in between.
> 
>            So if you prefer believing than trying to understand,
>            i will shut my mouth.
> 
>            Kevin Carson, in another post hit the real problem of
>            agricultural techniques.
> 
>            Roberto Verzola also...
> 
>            Suman Sahai (India) explain how GM crops, who go with pest,
>            are destructive of village life. Especially because what
>            the industrial farmer call "bad seeds" is also the basic income
>            for family life, for healing and feeding poultry. After
>            harvesting, women go into the field to this activity.
> 
>            Is India in Asia ?
> 
>            But I'm alway be happy to have evidences of the success of
>            GM crops (in fact there's no one GM crops producing
>            Vitamine A in the fields... it's pie-in-the-sky projects,
>            but i you prefer to believe marketing information than
>            reality...)
> 
>            Remember also that a great majority of farmers even don't have
>            access to animal traction in their fields... let's talk about
>            GM crops as a way to save for hunger.....
> 
>            Give them hope, not opium, even GM opium.
> 
>     Hervé Le Crosnier. Stop talking now if it didn't help to have
>            more than two lines of this sort when trying to give
>            real information.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     > Ryan
>     >
>     > On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Michel Bauwens
>     > <michelsub2004 at gmail.com <mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>     <mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com <mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com>>>
>     wrote:
>     >
>     >     Hi Herve,
>     >
>     >     Thanks for that, but don't forget that what is obvious for
>     you, may
>     >     not be for Ryan, so these things still need to be argued.
>     >
>     >     However, I just realized that neither you nor Roberto really
>     >     answered my argument, which is different from Ryan's.
>     >
>     >     My point is: would it be different, if GMO where part of an open
>     >     commons, not part of corporate profitmaking. So if we assume open
>     >     and participative science, not under the control of privatizing
>     >     companies, would that make GMO different?
>     >
>     >     Imagine for a moment Monsanto was not there, and GMO
>     investigations
>     >     are practiced by farmer-scientists ... does that change anything?
>     >
>     >     Michel
>     >
>     >     On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 8:37 AM, Hervé Le Crosnier
>     >     <herve at info.unicaen.fr <mailto:herve at info.unicaen.fr>
>     <mailto:herve at info.unicaen.fr <mailto:herve at info.unicaen.fr>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >         Ryan Lanham a écrit :
>     >         > Professor,
>     >         >
>     >         > Care to comment?  I've suggest GMO is a good thing for
>     >         Africa--a line
>     >         > I've been told many times by development economists.  Maybe
>     >         you could
>     >         > give some pointers to "independent" studies.  Is there an
>     >         honest middle
>     >         > party?  How would one know an honest middle party?
>     >         >
>     >
>     >                Dear Ray,
>     >
>     >                You can't say things like this in a list devoted to
>     >         thinking the
>     >                process of changing society with a common-based
>     approach.
>     >
>     >                Let me say in three points :
>     >
>     >                1 - GMO and Africa
>     >                -------------------
>     >
>     >                Have a look at the own Monsanto site to hear about
>     >                a buggy OGM created in the States, and whoput South
>     African
>     >                Farmers on their knees.
>     >
>     >         White Maize in South Africa
>     >        
>     http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto_today/for_the_record/south_africa_gm_corn.asp
>     >
>     >                They have to apologize after a vast movement of
>     framers.
>     >
>     >                Michel recently send and interview about massive
>     farmers
>     >                suicide in India.
>     >
>     >                Where do people get data to say GMO is good for Africa.
>     >                I will be very please to read such an article, if
>     based on
>     >                data, not "pie-in-the-sky" for "future" GMO, that will
>     >                certainly never exists.
>     >
>     >                Bayer, an european chimist is near to lauch the
>     modified rice
>     >                LL62, which is built to resist the glufosinate weed
>     killer.
>     >                Problem : this pesticide is to be ride off europe,
>     considered
>     >                as too dangerous.  But rice market is Asia, isn't
>     it. And
>     >                so will it be of glufosinate market. (i only got french
>     >                reference for this)
>     >
>     >                Please send us datas and articles to explain how
>     one can
>     >         develop
>     >                a country with such a bio-imperialism over their heads.
>     >
>     >                The IAASDT Group, a council of worldwide scientists, as
>     >                important for future of food production as the GIEC
>     was for
>     >                asserting the global change, issued a real
>     worldwide study
>     >                on april 2008. You can have an idea with the BBC
>     article :
>     >
>     >         Global food system 'must change'
>     >         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7347239.stm
>     >
>     >                And the full report
>     >                http://www.agassessment.org/
>     >
>     >                The future of food production, if we want everyone
>     to have
>     >                food, is aimed at small farmers... the contrary of
>     >                the gmo-pesticides stanza... They are scientist, they
>     >                studied real situation, and they collectively make
>     >                proposals.
>     >
>     >
>     >                2 - What does it mean to ask for "independant" studies
>     >                ------------------------------------------------------
>     >
>     >                Most studies that really get data against GMO are
>     >         independant.
>     >                They are not paid by agro-giants.
>     >
>     >                When Ignacio Chapela, a scientist from Berkeley working
>     >                with communauties in Oaxaca find existance of maize-GMO
>     >         in the
>     >                very cradle of maize, in Mexico, he wonders. No indian
>     >                people never use GMO... but pollinisation is very
>     hard to
>     >                predict.
>     >
>     >                Do you think it's university was proud of this
>     independant
>     >                research and findings published in the most
>     influencials
>     >                scientific journals ? No they just put him apart,
>     because
>     >                Monsanto was one of the funding partner of the agro-bio
>     >                university center.
>     >         The Sad Saga of Ignacio Chapela
>     >         http://www.theava.com/04/0218-chapela.html
>     >
>     >                Where is independance in research when whole
>     monopolistic
>     >                industries take hands on university ?
>     >
>     >                3 - the "middle party"
>     >                -----------------------
>     >
>     >                Why have we to look for a "middle party" ? Is it
>     science ?
>     >                No it's political negociation. Sometimes we need to
>     >         negociate.
>     >                But when it comes to science, we need assesment.
>     >
>     >                Let's have a look at the diverses strategies used
>     by the
>     >                tobacco industry to say that passive smoking don't
>     matter,
>     >                even if scientific facts say it really.
>     >
>     >         How the tobacco industry responded to an influential study of
>     >         the health
>     >         effects of secondhand smoke
>     >         http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7377/1413
>     >
>     >                It's in the leader British Medical Journal. Not an
>     opinion,
>     >                a research.
>     >
>     >                Let's have a look at strategies used by petrol
>     monopolies
>     >                to negate global change only to go on with their
>     profits.
>     >
>     >         Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like
>     >         Disinformation
>     >         Campaign on Global Warming Science
>     >        
>     http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
>     >
>     >                And we really can go on (for example with absestos,
>     with the
>     >                new campaign from the platic industry against home
>     bags,..)
>     >
>     >                The GMO case will be based on the same process :
>     >                - a "scientist" (even not) say there's controversy.
>     Don't
>     >         mind
>     >                  the data, medias love controversies.
>     >                - if there's controversies, as the one about
>     organic food
>     >         that
>     >                  began this thread, so we're not sure, then let's
>     go the one
>     >                  that have the power to put us in front of their
>     wills.
>     >
>     >                Because, today, there are no democratic debate,
>     neither about
>     >                usefullness, neither about dangerosity of GMO. The
>     ones who
>     >                think they can dominate the world through
>     domination of food
>     >                are putting their experimental buggy GMO on the
>     fields !!!
>     >
>     >                These are facts, reflexions based on studies of
>     documents.
>     >                I have a lot more, and some in french too... It's not
>     >                opinion, even if I am not a biological scientist.
>     >                I'm a computer scientist, and trained with
>     epistemology. So
>     >                i can use my reasonning schemes in other domains...
>     if I take
>     >                the time to read, to inform, to be open for surprise.
>     >
>     >                But with GMO, i was not surprized. I found a new
>     >                bio-imperialism playing with life on earth for their
>     >         miserable
>     >                profits.
>     >
>     >                We have to take time to read, compare,
>     understand... and
>     >         explain
>     >                what we have found, read, understand. Sometimes
>     simpler than
>     >                the complex reports and articles we read. Because
>     the future
>     >                on earth is at stake.
>     >
>     >         Hervé Le Crosnier
>     >
>     >         PS : sorry for my english writing. That's not my mother
>     tongue,
>     >         and it's a lot longer to think  and write in english. Keep
>     this
>     >         in mind... it's not far away from the debate on the use of
>     this
>     >         list. I can't read just a glance and send back to the minute
>     >         a two sentences reflexion. I always need to be sure I really
>     >         understand, and take time to content information.
>     >         That's real list governance, and collective individualism.
>     >         And understanding the multicultural approach is also good
>     for this.
>     >
>     >
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>     >
>     >
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