Glyphosate Good, Bad, Neutral

Are Glyphosate helpful to mankind or hurtful. Does the benefits outway any detrimental effects.

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-glyphosate/glyphosate-ext.html
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/roundup-and-risk-assessment

 

This is more of a measure of how people think and not what people think. I would say that the majority of the public, that is ready to lynch Monsanto, doesn't even know what glyphosate is, what it does or how it is used, but they hate Monsanto because of it. A few of the people knows something about it, but do they know any of the real details.

There are two conspiracy theories about this issue:

1) Force Monsanto to fall in line with the Climate Change Agenda.

2) Blackmail Monsanto to contribute money to the Liberal cause.

 

See. Monsanto is evil because they claim that the seeds grown from their seeds still belong to them. Most of the other "whining" is, effectively, that they use selective "Evolution". Like FARMERS HAVE FOR CENTURIES IF NOT MILLENNIA. They just do it quickly instead of "over hundreds of years like Mother Earth". Want to know why weed is so much better now than it was when I was a teen in the 1990s. Because a segment of society learned to farm it instead of plant and pray.

 

As to anything I googled on that chemical. It made me dizzy like Chem class used to. I am seeing words I have not seen in 20+ years. And I remember why I did not major in science.

 

The majority of people don't know what glyphosate is. A lot of them don't know that glyphosate is found in several products one of which is Round Up weed killer. And few people know that Round Up is produced by Monsanto. But a lot of people know that they are suppose to hate Monsanto for giving people cancer. They were told to think this and like good little followers they believe what they are told, while knowing little or nothing about why they are to hate Monsanto. Whether or not the claims are true doesn't matter, they just do as they are told.

 

There are 2 definite hate Monsanto groups. The ones who think they are creating "Frankenfood" by selective breeding the seeds. Also known as idiots who did not pay attention in Bio class. Because NATURE does that.

Then there are those who hate that Monsanto sells the seeds, then sues the farmer if he tries to sell "offspring seeds" from HIS grown plants. Because "Monsanto owns the seeds of subsequent generations as well" according to Monsanto.

 

This glyphosate issue is unrelated to the seed issue, though I would liken the selling of the seeds to something like a person buying a dvd, then making copies of the dvd and selling the copies as his own.

 

Not entirely. It would be closer to someone selling a dog to someone, then saying the new owner can not sell offspring of the dog because the original dog belonged to the original seller when it was sold. I will use Marijuana because it is easiest. Monsanto is saying that they sold the original plant seeds. So they have rights to the seeds in the shake as well. They have sole sale rights to every subsequent generations of seeds because they sold the original. Monsanto is not suing for selling the seeds the person bought. They are suing because the person grew a plant, then sold the seeds. DVDs would be a bad example because that is the same intellectual property in the end. I think, not in the office right now so I cant look, but I think that Monsanto even sued because cross pollination was created by NATURE in a wild plant that had genetic markers from their seeds or something like that.

Also, after a quick call to BiL who knows Civil Cases better than I do (these mostly happened when I was with the NYC DA and AUSA), he said there were also cases where the farmer planted offspring seeds himself and Monsanto sued because those seeds belong to them and he should not be allowed to use the seeds from his own plants to replant. To use your example. That would be the purchaser burning a DVD backup for himself instead of buying a backup copy.

 

When you say intellectual property, I think the seed can fall under the umbrella of intellectual property since most likely Monsanto is suing because of the gene design and not the seed itself. The genetic makeup of the gene is Monsanto's intellectual property and the farmers are duplicating the genetic coding and using it for profit. Another example would be franchising. McDonald's for example. Each franchiser owns his restaurant and he purchases the supplies to produce their product, but they must pay Corporate McDonald's for the intellectual property of things like the BigMac or the Quarterpounder.

 

True to a point. But I think Monsanto won on the "Cant sell the seeds", but lost on the "Cant use the offspring seeds". If I remember? It was something like "They bought the seeds to grow crops. You can not argue they have to buy new seeds each season to grow the same crop."

Mostly I am pointing out why people hate them. I am indifferent, as I buy produce wholesale anyway.

 

The seed issue really has no impact on me. I was just taking up a contrary position. I don't care either way on that. But the number of people that was adversely affected by that does not account for the number of people that hate Monsanto. Even if you count friends and friends of friends the numbers aren't close. I would wager that the number of people that gets positive benefit from Monsanto is on an order of magnitude higher, if not more, than the people that are adversely disposed. So there must be other reasons for such hate.

 

Yeah. The much larger hate is the "Frankenfood, not ORGANIC" crew. Who do not realize that nature does the same thing. Just slower.

 

People should be shown what their food would look like if they had not been modified by selective and cross breeding. Tomatoes more closely resembled the heirloom variety. Potatoes were the size of walnuts. Wheat only had a fraction of the numbers of grain on each stalk and so many other differences, even in food animals.

 

I know. I am surrounded by "Family Farms" up here. Fourth Generation guys have given me the history over beers. They drink one free when they drop.