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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ThirdEye who wrote (77831)	8/31/2006 4:14:30 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361009

Genetically engineered grass found in wild Roundup-resistant bentgrass was developed for golf courses MSNBC PORTLAND, Ore. - Grass that was genetically engineered for golf courses is growing in the wild, posing one of the first threats of agricultural biotechnology escaping from the farm in the United States, a new study says. Creeping bentgrass was engineered to resist the popular herbicide Roundup to allow more efficient weed control on golf courses. But the modified grass could spread that resistance to the wild, becoming a nuisance itself, scientists say. "This is not a killer tomato, this is not the asparagus that ate Cleveland," said Norman Ellstrand, a geneticist and plant expert at the University of California, Riverside, referring to science fiction satire about mutant plants. But Ellstrand noted the engineered bentgrass has the potential to affect more than a dozen other plant species that could also acquire resistance to Roundup, or glyphosate, which he considers a relatively benign herbicide. Such resistance could force land managers and government agencies like the U.S. Forest Service, which relies heavily on Roundup, to switch to "nastier" herbicides to control grasses and weeds, Ellstrand said. The bentgrass variety is being developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. in cooperation with Roundup's manufacturer, Monsanto Co. Companies say they're on it Spokesmen for both companies said they had been expecting the results of the study, published in the journal Molecular Ecology. "We've been working to mitigate it," said Jim King, spokesman for Ohio-based Scotts. "Now we're down to maybe a couple dozen plants." King said seed from a test plot escaped several years ago while it was drying following harvest in Oregon's Willamette Valley, home to most of the U.S. grass seed industry and the world's largest producer of commercial grass varieties. The main question now, King says, is whether the government will allow commercial use of the experimental bentgrass for golf courses. "Eradicating it has not been a difficult issue," King said. "The only difference between the turf seed we're working to produce and naturally occurring varieties is that it has a gene resistant to this specific herbicide (Roundup)." The engineered bentgrass is under review by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which published a "white paper" in June that assessed the threat but did not reach any conclusions — leaving that for an environmental impact statement being prepared by the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. But the USDA review paper noted that glyphosate is "the most extensively used herbicide worldwide," and that creeping bentgrass and several of the species that can form hybrids with it "can be weedy or invasive in some situations." Earlier lawsuit In 2003, the International Center for Technology Assessment in Washington, D.C., filed a federal lawsuit seeking to halt development of genetically engineered bentgrass. The suit is still pending, a USDA spokeswoman said. The latest study was done by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists based at Oregon State University. Jay Reichman, an EPA ecologist and lead author, has said there is a possibility the engineered strain could persist in the wild. "There could be consequences," said Steven Strauss, who heads the biotechnology issues analysis program at Oregon State. "But they're not catastrophic because there are Roundup resistant species out there — I have them in my back yard right now." He noted that scientists have been dealing with genetically engineered corn and soybeans for years, but those crops do not pose the airborne seed problems faced by commercial grass seed growers. Ultimately, Strauss said, development of the engineered grass may be an economic question rather than a biological issue — whether it could affect the cost of agriculture and weed control. "And that's very difficult because this is in a gray zone," Strauss said.

To: ThirdEye who wrote (77831)	9/1/2006 10:04:50 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 361009

Monsanto buys ‘Terminator’ Seeds Company F. William Engdahl, Geopolitics-Geoeconomics The United States Government has been financing research on a genetic engineering technology which, when commercialized, will give its owners the power to control the food seed of entire nations or regions. The Government has been working quietly on this technology since 1983. Now, the little-known company that has been working in this genetic research with the Government’s US Department of Agriculture-- Delta & Pine Land-- is about to become part of the world’s largest supplier of patented genetically-modified seeds (GMO), Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri. Relations between Monsanto, Delta & Pine Land and the USDA, on closer scrutiny, show the deep and dark side of the much-heralded genetic revolution in agriculture. It proves deep-held suspicions that the Gene Revolution is not about ‘solving the world hunger problem’ as its advocates claim. It’s about handing over control of the seeds for mankind’s basic food supply-rice, corn, soybeans, wheat, even fruit, vegetables and cotton-to privately owned corporations. Once the seeds and their use are patented and controlled by one or several private agribusiness multinationals, it will be they who can decide whether or not a particular customer-let’s say for argument, China or Brazil or India or Japan-whether they will or won’t get the patented seeds from Monsanto, or from one of its licensee GMO partners like Bayer Crop Sciences, Syngenta or DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred International. While most of us don’t bother to reflect on where the corn in the box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes or the rice in a box of Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice come from, when we grab it from the supermarket shelf, they all must originate with seeds. Seeds can either be taken by a farmer from the previous season’ seeds, and planted to produce the next harvest. Or, seeds can be bought new each harvest season, from the companies which sell their seeds. The advent of commercial GMO seeds in the early 1990’s allowed companies like Monsanto, DuPont or Dow Chemicals to go from supplying agriculture chemical herbicides like Roundup, to patenting genetically altered seeds for basic farm crops like corn, rice, soybeans or wheat. For almost a quarter century, since 1983, the US Government has quietly been working to perfect a genetically engineered technique whereby farmers would be forced to turn to their seed supplier each harvest to get new seeds. The seeds would only produce one harvest. After that the seeds from that harvest would commit ‘suicide’ and be unusable. (27 Aug 2006) Also published at Financial Sense Online. Contributor Corrie Collins writes: This is such a chilling revelation - that the farmer's ability to regrow crops will depend on buying new seeds every season from a corporation. The corporate control on our ability to eat will become complete - at a time when cooperative farming may be the only way people will have left to survive the petro-collapse era. This sheds new light on the importance of Norway's world seed bank. Let's hope that the genetically modified seeds cannot contaminate normal plant seed production or that will eventually mean certain doom. energybulletin.net