Bayer/Monsanto

[ollie989898]

Groudnuts (peanuts) are an excellent source of Aflotoxins if my memory serves me correctly !

Most of the most deadly poisons are naturally occurring compounds. Ricin, botulinum etc.

It is worth noting that not all organo-phosphates or organochlorines had serious mammalian toxicity. They did have a habit of finding themselves stored in fatty tissues though.

 

[Breakthru]

With costs like that for spurious claims, it is a wonder why they bother with crop protection and productivity chemicals at all. Researching, developing and bringing to market genetically modified crops with massive benefits to human kind has crippled Monsanto. Such a damned shame. More so for consumers and especially consumers in less developed countries with specific environmental or human health problems and for future developments in these areas that desperately need solutions to malnutrition due to infestations, crop failures and specific nutritional deficiencies.

There is nothing at all wrong with glyphosate. It has been used by farmers and gardeners with no ill effect for decades. Now anyone with anything wrong with them will claim "I used Roundup so that must be the cause. Pay up!" and American courts are daft enough to uphold the claims and award stupidly high damages.
If I was Bayer I would withdraw completely from the crop protection and breeding market and tell the population to go forth and eat shite or starve.

Commercial decision to pay up without admitting fault. Lawyers will get more than half of the claim. Pay up now avoid more legal expenses and keep reaping the profits from one of their most profitable products which dovetails with the breeding. Won't make a dent in their overall profits.

 

[Longlowdog]

Gylph' has no C.O.S.H.H warning on the label despite the efforts of dozens of governments who would love to burn Monsanto/Bayer and every other licensee. One damning report cherry picked from many exonerating it was later proven to be written by a guy who was actively involved in a class action against the company. The school janitor who basically became the banner boy for the claims had only worked with it for a fortnight. This claim is nothing but asswipes on a gravy train. However given how much is used in the almond groves and grain crops I almost hope to see it removed from use just so folk can see what a boon it was when everything comes tumbling down.
'oh but we can find traces in food' the befuddled dumbfecks cry. Yeah because you're using a spectrometer capable of finding molecules of stuff that hasn't hasn't actually been proven to cause harm at doses millions of times higher than the traces you found. How many p.p.m of lead, mercury, arsonic are you finding in the same sample?
Facebook is simply chock-a-block with mindless sheep bleating the same unproven codswallop time and time again. Not one of the morons can come up with peer reviewed science to back up their claims. It makes me sick to see the gullibility of some folk.

Glyphosate: WHO cancer agency edited out 'non-carcinogenic' findings

When the International Agency for Research on Cancer reviewed weedkiller glyphosate, significant changes happened between a draft report and the final version.

www.reuters.com

 

[Breakthru]

It's how much in the water supply that matters. If it was usage then huge numbers of agricultural sprayer operators would have that form of cancer.

 

[uztrac]

Am I correct in assuming that a large quantity of " Bayer " shares are held by the PRC anyway ?

 

[Cowabunga]

they patented glyphosate as an anti-biotic in 2010.

It is also an effective fungicide that,sprayed pre-harvest in grain crops, obviously observing the withdrawal interval, results in lovely bright clean straw for baling.

 

[Cowabunga]

Of course thats why they have done it, nothing to do with profit at all.

Thats why many "useful" products are being withdrawn because the cost of the licence means they don't make enough margin.

As a farmer and businessman do you not need to make a profit? Of course you do. So do all seed producing businesses and farms producing seed for sale.
Obviously they will withdraw products if is not viable, for whatever reason, to continue.

Not sure what mixed logic or lack of reason this direction has taken you.

Not all scientific advances have been made for purely selfish reasons. People working in these organisations also have a clear altruistic desire to better the lot of their fellow human beings and the environment. Roundup and RR crops have drastically reduced both the total volume and number of applications of crop protection chemicals and also the toxicity or environmental effect of the chemicals used.

This is not primarily to provide extra profit for the farmers. It is to make affordable and nutritious safe clean food available where otherwise it might not be. It lowers the cost of production, which means it can be sold cheaper and therefore consume less of poor people's disposable income.

If people wanted to make huge profits, they would not be into crop protection or even food production. They could just as easily redirect their talents to pharmaceuticals or industrial chemicals or products.

Glyphosate effectively killed off Monsanto, so how do you square that with your idea of money-making selfishness?

 

[Cowabunga]

With the latest damages being awarded against Bayer etc it does make you wonder why they bother with agrochemicals at all.

Because some of the people working in those companies actually do it to improve life and the quality of life. They may hope to make money out of it but if that was their main purpose they would stick to pharma.

 

[Cowabunga]

Most of the most deadly poisons are naturally occurring compounds. Ricin, botulinum etc.

It is worth noting that not all organo-phosphates or organochlorines had serious mammalian toxicity. They did have a habit of finding themselves stored in fatty tissues though.

DDT is still used, or was reintroduced in certain areas because it is the most effective pesticide available for the job required.
The same goes for Thalidomide of course, but using as much care as possible to avoid pregnant women in the light of experience and the lax testing done by previous generation. It is now quite widely used against bone marrow cancer and leprosy.

The toxicity scale kindly posted by someone puts glyphosate into its proper perspective. Yet some will always have an irrational beef about such things.

 

[ollie989898]

DDT is still used, or was reintroduced in certain areas because it is the most effective pesticide available for the job required.
The same goes for Thalidomide of course, but using as much care as possible to avoid pregnant women in the light of experience and the lax testing done by previous generation. It is now quite widely used against bone marrow cancer and leprosy.

The toxicity scale kindly posted by someone puts glyphosate into its proper perspective. Yet some will always have an irrational beef about such things.

Thalidomide is still used, it is very very effective against leprosy in developing countries, but women taking it are prescribed oral contraceptives at the same time. I think thalidomide has use against TB as well.

DDT has saved millions of lives because of it's role in malaria control.

 

[Longlowdog]

Glyphosate is just the public face of a 60 year old battle with Monsanto that stemmed from Agent Orange use in Vietnam. Now, for sure it was extremely nasty stuff but when your government tells you that they want a herbicide that really does the job and 'oh no we'll never use it near our boys' you have two choices;
be ON the government's good books
or
be IN the governments bad books.
'Oh and you'll be paid as well' what would anybody do?
You serve your country and expect that service to be rewarded. Now the bonkers state of Cancerfornia is bowing to rhetoric over science to vilify old friends and appease the bunny huggers and sue-me-culture vultures. It's not right that science is sidelined at the demand of a vociferous group. Even if everyone bar one screamed Monsanto were evil and the one had proof they were not everyone else would be wrong. He who shouts loudest is no way to judge anything.
It's not like they won't recoup the fine by increasing prices across the board to the detriment of all, is it???

 

[ajd132]

As a farmer and businessman do you not need to make a profit? Of course you do. So do all seed producing businesses and farms producing seed for sale.
Obviously they will withdraw products if is not viable, for whatever reason, to continue.

Not sure what mixed logic or lack of reason this direction has taken you.

Not all scientific advances have been made for purely selfish reasons. People working in these organisations also have a clear altruistic desire to better the lot of their fellow human beings and the environment. Roundup and RR crops have drastically reduced both the total volume and number of applications of crop protection chemicals and also the toxicity or environmental effect of the chemicals used.

This is not primarily to provide extra profit for the farmers. It is to make affordable and nutritious safe clean food available where otherwise it might not be. It lowers the cost of production, which means it can be sold cheaper and therefore consume less of poor people's disposable income.

If people wanted to make huge profits, they would not be into crop protection or even food production. They could just as easily redirect their talents to pharmaceuticals or industrial chemicals or products.

Glyphosate effectively killed off Monsanto, so how do you square that with your idea of money-making selfishness?

Sorry but you are in absolute cloud cuckoo land. A large marjority of roundup ready crops go to making ethanol not feeding people.
things like roundup ready crops promote the worst in lazy and industrial farming, empty calories, vertical integration of multi nationals into farm business, specialisation do farms grow one crop which is then shipped to a feedlot to feed a cow or made into ethanol FFS bt cotton now has 4 different traits stacked into it and they still need to use insecticides. It’s a treadmill, it’s broken.

 

[Cowabunga]

Sorry but you are in absolute cloud cuckoo land. A large marjority of roundup ready crops go to making ethanol not feeding people.

That is a management choice on the farmer's part. Obviously farmers are not forced to grow food where food is abundant and there are more lucrative markets.

things like roundup ready crops promote the worst in lazy and industrial farming, empty calories, vertical integration of multi nationals into farm business, specialisation do farms grow one crop which is then shipped to a feedlot to feed a cow or made into ethanol FFS bt cotton now has 4 different traits stacked into it and they still need to use insecticides. It’s a treadmill, it’s broken.

You are living on another planet where reality and practicality is completely at odds with planet Earth where pesticide use has dramatically reduced, or certainly herbicide use had and sometimes insecticide and fungicide also as a result of genetically engineered resistant crops to both direct pets and diseases and herbicide resistant crops like RR ones.
You would have us back to having failed crops if not for more regular and toxic chemical applications. To some utopian past that never ever existed without regular crop failures, shortages and regional starvation.

 

[ajd132]

That is a management choice on the farmer's part. Obviously farmers are not forced to grow food where food is abundant and there are more lucrative markets.



You are living on another planet where reality and practicality is completely at odds with planet Earth where pesticide use has dramatically reduced, or certainly herbicide use had and sometimes insecticide and fungicide also as a result of genetically engineered resistant crops to both direct pets and diseases and herbicide resistant crops like RR ones.
You would have us back to having failed crops if not for more regular and toxic chemical applications. To some utopian past that never ever existed without regular crop failures, shortages and regional starvation.

But all these have failed. Roundup resistance has failed, bt traits have failed. Glyphosate is being used in ludicrous quantities. It’s 20th century reductionist agriculture. They are vertically integrated into farm businesses who are essentially grunts who take all the risk. the same problems still exist that the green revolution promised to stop. Have you actually studied around this subject or just read some Monsanto ‘feed the world’ rubbish?

 

[Cowabunga]

But all these have failed. Roundup resistance has failed, bt traits have failed. Glyphosate is being used in ludicrous quantities. It’s 20th century reductionist agriculture. They are vertically integrated into farm businesses who are essentially grunts who take all the risk. the same problems still exist that the green revolution promised to stop. Have you actually studied around this subject or just read some Monsanto ‘feed the world’ rubbish?

I have indeed studied it. The only reason farmers use Roundup is because it works, reduces the workload, the number of passes and applications of more toxic herbicides and lowers the cost of production. It is not compulsory and there are alternatives.
Now go and measure the climate or better still, do something useful.

 

[Longlowdog]

What better business model is there than to become intrinsic to someone else's business, if they let you? No-one has to buy better seeds, anyone can live with weeds. You buy into Monsanto et al they don't make you. You can still grow dirty crops and add a cleaning process if you want to. You can mechanically weed if you want to. You can plough pasture under without killing it first if you want to. Choice has not been removed. You can still farm the way it was done before the firms you hate came along if you want to. If we are guilty of buying in to 'feed the world'...what are you basing your aversion on? Hearsay, vegan/organic rhetoric??? What exactly, because there is no peer reviewed science?

 

[ajd132]

I have indeed studied it. The only reason farmers use Roundup is because it works, reduces the workload, the number of passes and applications of more toxic herbicides and lowers the cost of production. It is not compulsory and there are alternatives.
Now go and measure the climate or better still, do something useful.

https://www.darrinqualman.com/canadian-net-farm-income/ looks wonderful

 

[ajd132]

What better business model is there than to become intrinsic to someone else's business, if they let you? No-one has to buy better seeds, anyone can live with weeds. You buy into Monsanto et al they don't make you. You can still grow dirty crops and add a cleaning process if you want to. You can mechanically weed if you want to. You can plough pasture under without killing it first if you want to. Choice has not been removed. You can still farm the way it was done before the firms you hate came along if you want to. If we are guilty of buying in to 'feed the world'...what are you basing your aversion on? Hearsay, vegan/organic rhetoric??? What exactly, because there is no peer reviewed science?

I’m not vegan or organic. I just think we have become far too reliant on buying in answers and have lost the ability to actually find the the causes of problems. All we do is treat symptoms year after year. The U.K. staying gm/ge free could be a brilliant market. Trying to compete with South American GM mega farms is just madness.

 

[Longlowdog]

We know what the problems are and glyphosate was a somewhat miraculous solution to many of them and it came with very few in any side effects. Issues that held our forefathers back vanished over night. I call that progress.
There is no need for gen' mod' products in a well organised British marketplace currently but if the vultures have their way and our armoury is depleted then there may be no option. Better the peer reviewed, super scrutinised devil we know than Frankenseeds we don't in my opinion.

 

[Cowabunga]

I’m not vegan or organic. I just think we have become far too reliant on buying in answers and have lost the ability to actually find the the causes of problems. All we do is treat symptoms year after year. The U.K. staying gm/ge free could be a brilliant market. Trying to compete with South American GM mega farms is just madness.

The market is going to open up more and cheap[er] food is what sells and our production, however we produce it, is in direct competition with our competitors and therefore even if perchance it cost double to produce, the price will be dictated by the cheapest competitor.
If we cannot compete with perfectly good quality food produced by more efficient means elsewhere, due to domestic luddites and arsewipes adding costs to us here, then there is no prospect of a sustainable agriculture of any scale in the UK. We will be wiped out by more efficient producers. Which is as it should be in any vibrant economy.