Engineering a False Hope

I am not a writer, farmer or activest I am very concerned about the food I eat and able to buy at the store or farmers market. I am 70 years old and by nessisity must watch my health as well. I have read many articles about GMO's and the companies behind them. These companies are motivated by profit and rightly so, however there have been many rigged or slanted reports submitted reporting that GMO food are perfectly safe however the last report that I read used rats and offered them natural corn and GMO corn they would not even approach the GMO corn. This is a test anyone can preform and view the results for them selves. I my self am not able to eat GMO corn or soy products because of the reaction I have when I do, Is it mental? I do not think so! If you want to read about these tests just do a search about Monsanto and read the reports on the net. The move to sustainable farming is the best hope for our future I am now reading the book Food not Lawns which to me is a sensible approach to help everyone to eat healthy.

of course biotech companies would say that!.. they have the most to gain from it!!!
altering the natural form of ANY food intended for consumption is just plain wrong. even cooking it destroys its valuable nutrients.
i am very much opposed to anyone using science to play God. food is His gift to us and we have the audacity to think we can make it better?!? we have no business messing with any of his creation.. stuff like cloning and engineered "food" is all stepping on his toes. That's not our place and we will pay the price.. we are seeing the effects every day, only we are too self-absorbed to notice.
Have you seen the continuing decline of health and rise in obesity? Why do you think that is? now more than ever we are consuming massive amounts of un-natural food .. and i hesitate to even call it food because it's not.. it once was, but now most of what you see in the grocery store is manufactured "food products". is there really any mystery as to why our bodies are rejecting it? bodies react by gaining weight and developing diseases, that we then attempt to treat the symptoms with synthetic chemicals that we call medicine. really.. when will people wake up???
of course biotech companies want to convince people that their food needs to be engineered... those companies will make tons of money! not to mention they can patent what they create so they will protect their profits! just like the big pharmaceutical companies have done! the USDA knows how profitable that business model works.. don't think they won't have their hands all in it. so why shouldn't they do it with food too?!
i don't know about you, but the whole thing stinks and i can smell it miles away. I refuse to have any part of it. i will grow and eat my own natural food and I suggest you do the same.. before it's made illegal.

I do not have a degree in science, but I am a humble farmer that is working with a family farm that is 3 generations old. I can say without doubt that GMO soybeans fall short of it's promises. In the last 5 years, we have at the home farm planted Heritage seed, and on the rented farm land, the roundup ready beans. The round up ready's have consistently been lower in average of the heritage seed (which we were told would not happen) and the use of roundup has almost doubled this past couple of years. The weeds are resistant and now the herbacide is not even working chopping away at our crop totals even further. We farm in a no till manner, and this has made a great difference, but the RR soybeans simply do not measure up to the claims that we were told by the reps.

As far as the safety issue with RR soybeans. It is proven that the protein is far lower than it's heritage counterpart. This is just common sense as Round up is designed to kill amino acids (the building block to protein), and this leaves the protein levels low. This makes it a poor food source for anyone or thing. Genetic modification does not work, has not work, and from a farmer's point of view, has come close to driving family farms completely out of business. It is time to get rid of the GMO's. If farmers in countries like the United States and Canada can go bankrupt buying this seed and it's chemicals, how do you expect a third world country farmer to afford it? Time to get rid of them, completely.

When it comes to evaluating the safety of genetically modified (GM) crops and food the world should rely on experts with good credentials. The media can, of course, add words of caution from critics. But it must be clear which opinions come from detailed knowledge and training, and which may be driven by other agendas.

Evidence-based reports showing the low risks associated with GM crops are scarcely reported. For example, there was little, if any, coverage of the International Council for Science 2004 report. It stated that there is no evidence that current GM crops damage the environment, or that consuming foods containing GM ingredients harms people.

Rather, headlines about 'frankenfoods' are common, with alleged health threats and environmental risks frequently gracing the pages of newspapers around the world. Most of these stories come from biotechnology critics and anti-GM lobby groups. A few are extreme extrapolations and one or two exaggerations from a kernel of truth. Such scare stories consistently lack evidence from quality peer-reviewed literature.

A 2002 report (updated in 2008) by the American Medical Association said "attempts to introduce GM foods have stimulated not a reasoned debate, but a potent negative campaign by people with other agendas. Opponents ignore common farming practices and well investigated facts about plants, or inaccurately present general problems as being unique to GM plants".

Genetically modified crops are not a panacea, but they are also not the bogeyman the media has allowed the public to believe. So how can the media differentiate between fanciful hypotheses and real concerns regarding GM crops and food?

Just because someone calls themselves an 'expert' in GM crops does not mean they have formal credentials in the field. Far too many critics have little or no training in the science - their opinions should be corroborated before being believed.

Science writers would be well served