High Country News reports:
[...] Scotts got permission from the USDA to plant larger fields for seed production. Farmers sowed 80 acres of bentgrass in Canyon County, Idaho, and 420 acres in Jefferson County, Oregon, north of Bend. The Oregon Department of Agriculture picked the site - an irrigated island in the sagebrush sea - to keep the plant far from the Willamette Valley. There, on the western side of the mountains, farmers grow forage and turf grass for a $1 billion-a-year seed industry.
Then two windstorms swept through the eastern Oregon fields in August of 2013, scattering flea-sized seeds well beyond the designated control area. Roundup-resistant pollen fertilized conventional bentgrass plants as far as 13 miles away.
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GMO Grass is Creeping Across Oregon
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @11:34AM (47 children)
This is one of the scenarios anti-GMO groups have been warning about for years and years, and all that time have been told that they are fear-mongering.
Is it still fear-mongering when it's actually happening?
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday July 02 2018, @11:38AM (9 children)
> Is it still fear-mongering when it's actually happening?
Yes, it's the same fear.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:00PM (1 child)
Spoken like anti-vaxer? Or Trump supporter? Or Chavez/Maduro supporter? You know, like reality has no impact on your world.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Tuesday July 03 2018, @12:42AM
I thought it was quite funny actually. In that lovely deadpan way that good comedians deliver lines dripping with invisible sarcasm.
*sips coffee*
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday July 02 2018, @12:36PM
Only now, reality has now rendered judgment and found it plausible.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday July 02 2018, @02:24PM (5 children)
Okay, I checked what does this word exactly means and it is
So it is not the same what I was thinking. Sorry, I was not aware of the "needlessly arousing public fear about an issue" part. It's not needless to arouse the public fear. I meant it's the same fear and the warning should stay, and the process of warning. But apparently the "-mongering" part means something different. I am also not sure about the "exaggerated" part, no specific info to measure.
So I have to use more words to describe what I meant. It's the same fear, it's the same warning. For some people (me included) the risk of spreading via natural means (seeds scatter, cross-polination etc.) was never minimal or non-existing, it was obvious this can happen, therefore in some areas it _will_ happen. It will get out of the expected "controlled" areas and from there on it will be knowingly uncontrolled.
My fear is actually this will enforce some short-lived monocultures which won't resist the test of time but until the rest of the ecosystem takes back there will be not enough for the grazers (us). That's actually the natural way of controlling the grazers popuation and in this case it comes well deserved with bonus karma. But even if it's fair I'm still afraid.
(Score: 1, Troll) by frojack on Monday July 02 2018, @06:56PM (4 children)
Even using more words, you've failed to state an actual risk to anything or anybody.
What the hell are you actually saying? Does it not make good grazing grass? Does it kill cattle or sheep? Does it kill off trees and other grasses?
What keeps you awake at night?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 02 2018, @07:43PM (3 children)
If you're trying to grow crops, it's a weed. The most commonly used weed control won't help you since it's engineered to be resistant.
And actually, it's a terrible grazing grass. About half as productive as other varieties. If I was grazing animals, I'd be pretty ticked off if someone's super bent grass took over the pasture.
Further, no trying to make lemonade. Someone else claims to OWN that grass except when you try to tell them to keep their pet in it's own yard.
(Score: 1, Troll) by frojack on Monday July 02 2018, @08:27PM (2 children)
This "terrible grazing grass" is fast growing, handles trampling well, and has been used as grazing grass ALL OVER THE WORLD for centuries.
It was planted by earliest settlers in north american colonies. Calling bullshit on your pronouncements.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Monday July 02 2018, @11:25PM (1 child)
Funny, searching google for "bent grass grazing" comes up with a long string of articles about how to eliminate bentgrass from pasture land, and suggesting that it is of poor nutritional quality and inferior productivity. Perhaps you typo-ed?
for [vic.gov.au] example [thehorse.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:22AM
Your second example isn't a good one. It says "Nimblewill (Muhlenbergia schreberi) is a wiry, upright growing warm-season perennial grass that looks similar to creeping bentgrass and Bermudagrass in structure" and nothing more about bentgrass.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:04PM (21 children)
Roundup resistance is old news, and a blip compared to the fear-mongering about the "health effects" of GMOs.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:21PM (11 children)
I have some vegan gluten-free non-GMO no additive no preservative organic water for you. Only $29.99 a bottle, straight from my tap!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:27PM (3 children)
Do you live in Flint, MI?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:35PM (2 children)
Our water comes from a "variety of sources", which may or may not include Flint, MI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:40PM
Fresh from the Tijuana river.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:53PM
I RO all of my water. And also run it through various other filters. I can turn tea back into pure water. It's fairly inexpensive.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:55PM (3 children)
Yeah, but it has Round-up in it?
https://toxics.usgs.gov/highlights/glyphosate02.html [usgs.gov]
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Widespread_Glyphosate_Contamination_in_US.php [i-sis.org.uk]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:32PM (2 children)
You don't seem to know what "straight from the tap" means. The relevant statistic: "Glyphosate Found in Urine of 93 Percent of Americans Tested [ecowatch.com]."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:44PM (1 child)
So "straight from the tap" means "urine"?
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 02 2018, @04:08PM
I'll tell you, some taps have hot & cold, right? That one only has warm. As in 98.6 degrees. Enjoy!!!!
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Monday July 02 2018, @03:38PM (1 child)
How did you get the fluoridation out?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @06:40PM
Well, no additives by me. Anything that was there when it came out of the tap doesn't count. We are talking about deceptive marking anyway so why not?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @05:12PM
(the following, from the book Anguished English, which has a whole chapter dedicated to hilariously poor translations into English language. The sign is intended to assure restaurant patrons that the water is safe to drink.)
Sign seen in a foreign restaurant: All of the water served in this restaurant has been personally passed by the manager!
Thank goodness the 1st amendment forces people to listen to you and agree with you.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:30PM (8 children)
I can see Monsanto coming after golf-club owners first, then everyone later, RIAA style, that they are due royalties because they have a patent on those seed's DNA.
I'm serious. It happened to my Grandpa. Corn farmer. Monsanto shows up and insist that he buy seed corn from THEM. Grandpa had always saved his seed corn from one planting to the next, or at least that's what he told me... I remember barn fulls of corn... it was always around the farm.... used for everything.
But Monsanto shows up, demands compliance, and has legal staff and lawmakers to back them up. What's grandpa to do? Fight a Suit-Man, when the only known way of getting one out of your hair is either to comply with whatever it wants, or to use a shotgun to remove the head from its mounting?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Monday July 02 2018, @12:48PM (7 children)
Thank you for sharing your story which seems to pop up in conjunction with Monsanto. I would be interested in hearing about the timing. As this has now been going on for more than a decade, I wonder whether documentation standards have been developed to indemnify you from such external claims. I totally believe that the individual farmer caves in when confronted with a multinational but would imagine that over time there must have been some way developed to prove you have not (re)used GMOs deliberately but done your best to avoid them. This by using procedures mutually agreed upon.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 02 2018, @02:53PM (2 children)
I'll believe you when I read the settled case law showing efficient and generally applicable use of such defense.
This has only been going on a couple of decades, I imagine the Monstranto legal team has a strategy in place to maximize their rent seeking success for as long as possible.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday July 02 2018, @03:17PM (1 child)
I am not making any claim one way or another. I just surmise that if a defense has not been established by case law it could have by mutual agreement or by an actual law. This would be in the interest of the industry but as you suggest a clever legal strategy (AKA corruption) might prevent that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 02 2018, @06:49PM
I'd rather say that it would be in the interest of the farming industry, peoples of the world, general economy, etc. Not in the interests of the individual or even collective GMO industry players.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:59PM (2 children)
Wasn't the only farmer to be convicted shown to have collected and specifically bred roundup ready crop for seed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeiser [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @06:22PM
You don't need to be convicted to be bankrupted by the law suit.
And I believe that there were a few other cases that were less clear, but which Monsanto also won. I don't know that they've lost any, but why would I expect to?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Monday July 02 2018, @07:53PM
That was the FINDING, but it was based on the court believing claims the plaintiff (Monsanto) made that were later proven false. Monsanto claimed that roundup readiness could ONLY happen by genetic engineering. Not through pollen spreading nor through selective breeding. Since then, weeds related to canola have turned up with the resistance and coca farmers (cocaine) in S. America have bred resistant strains (meaning the DEA was providing them with free weed control).
(Score: 3, Informative) by dwilson on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:46AM
If you bought GMO seed that was contract-laden and saved some to re-plant in breach of contract, you're an idiot and deserve what you get.
If you grow and sell non-GMO seed, saving some for next year's planting (as... everyone, does?) and Monsanto or it's like come knocking, you tell them to Get Fucked (As my neighbour did). If they present compelling evidence your seed has been contaminated with their IP and you think they'll win a court case, or think they'll get around to bringing it to court, you apologize, settle out of court, chem-fallow your land for a year to murder their GMO crap and go down the road to John, Jim, Bob, or whomever-the-fuck-it-is who's anti-GMO and refuses to touch it, buy more non-GMO seed from him, and carry on. If you're smart, you get it tested (yearly!) and establish an iron-clad paper trail to prove you're not touching the stuff (also as my neighbour did) and spend your days cackling, hoping those bastards try again.
- D
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday July 02 2018, @12:44PM (11 children)
What they said would happen in terms of distribution, quite obviously that happened. Unless every field was contained in a hermetically-sealed lab, that was inevitable. As such, that's why it took lots of testing to prove this stuff doesn't actually operate any differently to normal crops, in all respects except for those it was designed to change.
For DECADES wild crops and non-GMO have been being cross-pollinated from GMO crops. Nobody has ever denied that's happened. In fact, Monsanto are famous for them pursuing it and trying to get those farmers to pay even though they didn't ask for it to happen.
The fear-mongering comes from "this stuff is somehow magically worse than 'normal' crops". That's always been there. It will always be there. It's also not inherently true (there's certainly the theoretical potential for someone to make a crop designed maliciously to cause some effect, but that's true whether or not my sandwich came from GMO ingredients or not).
What's NOT true is that those crops are in any way harmful to humans (extensively tested by now because most humans are eating them), or that they are damaging the environment (if anything, they are saving crops from pests and weeds!). Certainly they're not damaging anything more than just plain old farming ever did anyway (destruction of habitat, etc.).
And, as people are finding out, the inevitable cross-pollination means that ALL crops are getting those genes (which they could have from naturally occurring mutations just the same). Hence that gene is advantageous, hence eventually everything will have it, hence pests and weeds will evolve (they are already) to compensate.
GMO is just a human-triggered shortcut in evolution to aim at a particular purpose. It's nothing that couldn't, or doesn't, happen every single day naturally. But for a short time, we can use it to our advantage, no different to growing potatoes that resisted bugs naturally, or growing fruits to provide more of what we need.
The fear-mongering isn't coming true. What the scientists always told you would inevitably happen, hence why they tested everything, first came true. And the next stage came true too (those same GMO become prevalant and then quickly useless as natural selection takes hold).
The question is really, do you want to listen to the fear-mongers who don't understand what they're dealing with? Or the scientists who accurately predicted exactly what would happen?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:58PM (6 children)
Except the testing is,
FDA: did you do testing?
Company: yes
FDA: ok, good to go!
Err, contradicting much?? *MONSANTO* denied that! That's what they argued in courts. And they ended up with lots of money because of those lies.
No it's not. Anyway, seems wasting my time rebuking all these categorical falsehoods.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday July 02 2018, @02:08PM (4 children)
Yes, seems like your time would be better spent educating yourself about the subject. In the definition of evolution, it requires inheritable traits that are mutable between generations and selection. GMO provides a new process for generating the former and agricultural practices routinely provide selection as they have for thousands of years.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EETech1 on Monday July 02 2018, @11:56PM (3 children)
What bothers me Is not the fact that the GMO plant doesn't die when they cover it with poison...
It's the fact that they seem to think it's just fine to cover my food with poison before selling it to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:41AM (1 child)
So you're afraid of chocolate because it's poison to dogs? Insects aren't human. However, everyone keeps ignoring all the additives they add to the poison to make it easier to spread. That's where the issues are. Plenty of studies have shown that the chemical is safe enough for humans. Plenty of other studies have shown toxic results from those who apply the product and work around it. If you pay attention, the safe studies and toxic studies are studying two different things even through everyone and the media uses the same name for everything. Since no one is lying and both sides have valid proof on their sides, everyone's arguments go nowhere and nothing changes.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:39AM
No, I'm not afraid of chocolate, but if someone genetically engineered a dog that shit something that looked like chocolate, smelled like chocolate, and even tasted like chocolate, would you mind if this cheaper dog shit chocolate was served to you instead?
Would the fact that it's actually dog shit bother you?
And I don't know why it matters that insects aren't human?
As far as arguing about if the binder is more dangerous than the chemical within it that destroys cell replication, I'm sticking with my original opinion that not having the poison on your food has to be better. I guess it's a bonus that they won't be spreading around the toxic binder as well. Ditto for everyone not poisoned applying these totally safe chemicals.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 05 2018, @12:21PM
While that's an interesting mental trainwreck to watch, why do you think they'd spray an herbicide on a plant right before they take it off the lot and put it on your plate?
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday July 02 2018, @03:00PM
And they do anything differently for non-GMO food?
And it's not quite automatic approval:
https://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GEPlants/default.htm [fda.gov]
Monsanto quote? It'll be on a court record, yes? That their plants could NEVER spread in any neighbouring field? You'll have that as a legal statement read in court?
(P.S. Let me just say, Monsanto are the devil-spawn, I hate them, and I know geneticists who hate them for vastly different but also similar-base reasons: They're only interested in money. So don't listen to one company's marketing. Listen to scientists. As we said all along that the seeds would spread into the world once you have the very first open-field trial).
And, yes it is.
You rebuked nothing. You provided no source or pertinent data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:12PM
The fear mongers obviously because it gets more page views.
I think this is a built in feature to human behavior as they become too rich. The guilt takes over.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 02 2018, @02:56PM
When it becomes an invasive exotic and disrupts wild ecosystems (more than ordinary crops already do), yeah, it's worse.
These things are generally designed to be hardier than normal crops, so if they succeed in that goal then when they get out in the wild they are worse.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @10:37PM
GMO is a human triggered shortcut in evolution that you can be charged for whether you want it or not, and which has been developed to achieve corporate goals, and which has not been acceptably (by me) tested for harm.
There's also the matter that proving one particular strain harmless wouldn't prove a separately developed strain harmless. And that things act and develop differently when exposed to different environment. Natural varieties have all been seen (and sometimes adapted to) under a wide range of different conditions. Et multitudinous cetera.
GMO is not guaranteed to be either good or bad. It isn't even guaranteed to be different, except that it can be patented (in which case anything that a standard breeder comes up with that is legally equivalent is in violation of the patent).
I'm much more concerned about the legal landscape surrounding GMO products than I am about the ecological one, though I am also concerned about that.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:43AM
This is a weed when it shows up in a wheat field or whatever your normal crops is. A wheat that is resistant to your weed killer (Roundup).
So yes, this stuff is "somehow magically" worse than normal weed.
Which is exactly what the "fear-mongers" have been screaming for years.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday July 02 2018, @03:02PM (1 child)
Speaking of repeated unproven assumptions, a plant has to burn some energy and effort to be resistant to glyphosate herbicides (not merely just name brand Round-Up(tm)) so supposedly anywhere that glyphosate herbicides are NOT sprayed, the local non-resistant plants should out compete the resistant plants, not immediately of course but "in a couple generations". That's kinda the whole point, WHY normal non-engineered plants are NOT resistant naturally. If resistance were free, why wouldn't natural plants have evolved to be resistant, every crop field in the nation seems like it would be motivational, LOL.
So in theory, this will suck for like a year or two until the resistant varieties are out competed and wiped out, unless the locals are saturating the ground with herbicide in which case things might suck forever, or until they stop using that herbicide. Speaking of stop using that herbicide, in the long run the people hurt most are not going to be the local farmers but will be the herbicide mfgr and seller.... "Your spray doesn't kill turf grass anymore, I don't care why, I'm simply not buying your spray anymore"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:50AM
Because we haven't been using Roundup for long enough yet.
We are getting close to having used anti-biotics long enough, that's why you hear more and more often about resistant bacteria. It's not all bacteria yet, but it gets worse.
(Note that "long enough" is counted in generations, and many bacteria have very short generations).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @04:55PM
Yes, in the same sense that you are still a Chicken Little even if THE SKY IS ACTUALLY FALLING!
Thank goodness the 1st amendment forces people to listen to you and agree with you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:39PM (9 children)
Clearly the copyright owners of this GMO don't care enough about their IP to prevent it's spread in the wild so farmers should be in their rights to just pick it off the wild and replant it in their fields.
Make this a precedent and I guarantee big GMO will be dealing with this in no time.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:44PM (2 children)
Wasn't one of the GMO trait to be a one time crop and it wouldn't grow up again?
If so, then the regenerating crop isn't the same that was sold. No need to pay any "IP license".
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @10:42PM
There is no single GMO trait. Let me say that again to emphasize it. There is no single GMO trait.
Some GMO varieties are, indeed, supposed to kill off the second generation. I do worry that there will be some varieties that kill off the 10th or 20th generation, so I really support non-GMO varieties. But that's not why I'm against GMO varieties. The reason I'm against GMO varieties breaks down into two major sections:
1) Legal liabilities and limitations, and
2) They weren't developed to be safe, but rather to be profitable for their corporate sponsor.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Monday July 02 2018, @11:49PM
You are correct! It was called the Terminator Gene.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology [wikipedia.org]
DRM for seeds!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
Some farmers grow grass as their crop, as mentioned in the article. Some farmers, such as the one interviewed for the article, are trying to grow other crops. To them this GMO grass is a weed--one they can't suppress with glyphosate. That's not good for the farmers, not good for Bayer/Monsanto, and not good for people who eat.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Spamalope on Monday July 02 2018, @02:21PM (1 child)
So we can nail Monstanto by developing roundup resistant weeds? Where do we start?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:31PM
> roundup resistant weeds
Already happening naturally, just like the internet, nature routes around it.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Monday July 02 2018, @03:02PM
Except the farmer
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @05:05PM (1 child)
GMO is not copyrighted. It is patented.
with rounded corners!
There is a big problem with that. It is the same problem that everyone has been concerned about with GMO crops. If farmers could, with impunity, or even with punity, help the spread of GMO plant organisms, then the problem is accelerating! Faster.
The problem is that GMO crops creep because they are better Darwinian competitors than natural plant organisms. Maybe just because of their resistance to insect pests they are more fit to survive. Or they are more immune to certain "illnesses" that spread through plant populations, which would also make them more fit for survival.
Once only the GMO crops are left and the natural variants are extinct, our crops are all alike genetically. Once those "illnesses" or insect pests evolve to be successful at attacking the GMO crops, and they will, then the entire crop, planet wide, could be destroyed much more quickly than the natural variety of plants which had some diversity and thus natural resistance. The natural variety had survived for a very long, long, long time. GMO crops, probably not so much.
Then we'll really be in trouble.
But as long as it is profitable for Monsanto, then it's all alright.
Thank goodness the 1st amendment forces people to listen to you and agree with you.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @10:45PM
Actually, GMO plants are mainly spreading because the seed corporation (Monsanto == Bayer) gets more money from them, and they control the sale of plant seeds.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.