Those who point out the oppressive and misleading tactics of chemical
companies promoting genetic engineered seed often betray their ignorance of
basic genetics. Plants have been finding genetic solutions to various
"management" problems (e.g., progenitors of wheat with stem rust) for eons.
When wheat breeders put stem rust resistance genes in public varieties,
surely their genetic solution to a management problem is not "misguided or
misleading" (except maybe to Puccinia spp.).
But when private seed companies try to insure through U.S. law that
consumers cannot tell whether they have inserted bacterial genes in their
seed, surely someone is trying to mislead. Dale, does your company believe
in "truth in labeling"?
Of course, those U.S. growers I know who sell non-GMO seed to Europe and
Japan just smile all the way to the bank. They haven't fallen for the
agri-chemical party line that Europe and Japan are the enemy because they
don't like GMO seed. Do agri-chemical-seed giants think they can ignore
the dictum "the customer is always right"?
The silver lining is that farmers selling non-GMO seed to Japanese food
companies are capturing a nice market. I hope for their sake that big
grain exporters continue to swallow the misguided, misleading lure of the
U.S. pro-GMO lobby.
Isn't Canada's approach ("We decide what labels to use here and they can do
the same") refreshing?
Jim Worstell, Delta Enterprise Network
Phone: 870-673-6346 Fax: 870-673-7219
www.deltanetwork.org jvworstell@futura.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Wilson, Dale [SMTP:WILSONDO@phibred.com]
Sent: Friday, January 16, 1998 8:39 AM
To: 'sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu'
Subject: RE: Biological research, - another twist
Think system, not atomized categories of "problems". Genetics and
management are intimately intertwined in crop production. If I were
going to reduce these interactions to simply categories, I would point
out that the norm is solution of genetic problems by cultural practices
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".