> Also wondering it appears that Europe is going to be GMO free,
>Some GMO constructs have been accepted in Europe.
right, they are accepted in medical and pharmaceutical
applications. argument: you can stop intake and incorporation of
the gm proteins..
>The bigger issue there is labeling.
a "must be". consumers over here have a lot of power. you heard
anythink about the "brent spar" oil platform-conflict. shell hads
to surrender even if their arguments were the ecological better one.
>item. There are special wheats for noodles, steam bread, cookies,
>special soybeans that are better for soy-milk and tofu, low
>phytate soy, non-GMO herbicide resistance, high-oil corn, corn
>that mills better, low mycotoxin varieties etc, etc.
not sure. i only can speak of german farmers and even they differ
in the north and the south. one thing is common for all. they tend
to keep their independance. and producing for a special market
largely reduces selling alternatives. and another thing: grain
buyers are very careful and snow to offer contracts with fixed
prices. the durum market absolutely went down for this reason. no
miller was willing to offer a fixed price before seeding.
consequence: no farmer grows durum wheat anymore. two years ago
miller saw, that they made an error and again were offering
contracts. noone was interested !!!
>conventional corn under heavy ECB pressure. Herbicide resistant
>crops offer
>a lot of weed management flexibility. The seed industry was taken
>by surprise at how fast these products took off. It is all market-
>driven by farmer demand.
this does interest the farmer, but certainly not the consumer. in
fact we had a symposium some time ago, where one of them told
me: "all you government institutes told us for years, that
pesticide residues were in the safe range. so if they are absolutely
safe. so i see no argument, why reduction or elimination of
them should be an advantage for us !!" that has some logic, eh ??
Klaus Wiegand
Landwirtschaftl. Untersuchungs- u. Forschungsanstalt (LUFA)
(Governm. Inst. for Agricult. & Environm. Res.)
67346 Speyer, Obere Langgasse 40 (GERMANY)
Dept. of Seed Sci., Microscop. Analysis & Plant Pathol.
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