strangley I was sitting in the waiting room of the dentists today and there was a NZ geographic magazine with a long article on just this thing. very unbiased but the alarm bells sure did ring.the justification for GM engineering was interesting it must have been written by a vegetarian or vegan. it takes more grain to produce a steak than you need to get the same food value if you just eat the grain. whoopdy fn doo!!!! I will stick to my steak thank you very much and you can stick your grain.......you know where!!!
If these african nations are starving because they have bred too much well stop breeding or start eating each other the population problem would sort it self out fairly quickly that way.

the other thing that was an eye opener was the possibility of DNA going awol across other species, now I can picture some bright spark creating a tree that wont reproduce and the thread of naasty stuff moving across to another type of tree. now that maybe ok if its pinus contortus but what if it jumps alittle more and hits radiata. bam multi million dollar industry up shite creek without a paddle!!! or maybe to Rimu or Totara our lovely native trees. doesnt even bear to think about. as for roundup resistant plants god help us if they breed with gorse etc.

AMEN Elvis...these money hungry organisations need to pulled into line before they create an ecological disaster that cannot be reversed and will impact on all other species on the planet.

Cheers, Vince

Remember the rice shortage a couple years ago; this is scary, in Elvis's words SHITE. Well I did not put it together till I started looking into this stuff, but here it is. Am I wrong?

abcnews.go.com/Busines...amp;page=1

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Despite Mass Opposition USDA Allows Cultivation of Biopharm 'Cannibal' Rice with Human Genes U.S Approves 'Cannibal' Genetically Engineered Rice Field Trials of Rice Contain Human Proteins Greenpeace, May 17, 2007 WASHINGTON approved the open field trial cultivation of a genetically engineered (GE) rice that contains human proteins, defying the US rice industry's opposition to the trial and ignoring the economic impacts that would be caused by contamination of GE-free rice, Greenpeace said today. The 'cannibal rice' is intended to produce drugs for alleviation of diarrhea and if contamination to rice food crops occurs, the effects could be disastrous. "Crossing human genes into rice is bad enough, but to engineer drugs into a food crop and then release it into the environment, is completely insane," said Jeremy Tager, Agriculture Campaigner with Greenpeace International. Last year, almost half of the US rice supply was contaminated with several varieties of unapproved GE rice produced by Bayer CropScience - contamination that originated with field trials. It caused significant losses for the US rice industry. The USDA still doesn't know how or why the contamination occurred, but it spread all over the globe, resulting in major financial losses for the rice industry - US production of long grain rice, the type affected by the scandal, is expected to fall by 18% in 2006/7 with further declines expected in 2007/8. Even more extraordinary, is that the USDA has not required an Environmental Impact Statement be prepared. In this case they are not only threatening the US rice industry but traders, processors and retailers all over the world. "No one in the rice industry thinks using rice to produce drugs is a good idea," said Doreen Stabinsky, Greenpeace GE campaigner currently attending the Rice Congress of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico. "In fact, the food industry as a whole considers it one of the stupidest ideas put on the table by the genetic engineering industry. But the USDA has been mindlessly approving these crops with no regard for the strong concerns raised by food producers, most recently rice growers and sellers." The GE industry has shown they are both completely unable and unwilling to prevent contamination. Food crops should never be used to produce drugs or industrial chemicals and drug-producing plants should be kept under lock and key in secured laboratories and not released into our environment.

And to Elvis's point about Africa, you know the "cradle of civilization" where according to scientists all life began. Well if that's true, why are they still a third world country, they have had longer than anywhere else to develop an economy and advanced life style why is Europe, Australia, New Zealand, America and so many other countries so much more advanced who have not had near the centuries to work at it.

[quote=".
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And to Elvis's point about Africa, you know the "cradle of civilization" where according to scientists all life began. Well if that's true, why are they still a third world country, they have had longer than anywhere else to develop an economy and advanced life style why is Europe, Australia, New Zealand, America and so many other countries so much more advanced who have not had near the centuries to work at it.[/quote]
Hey Lester-they gave us mobambo.....What more could they do to "help" improve the world with"hope and change"?

My 10 cents worth.
I grow some of my own veges, I also go to our local market and buy fresh produce including meat. Why?
Because it tastes better and I enjoy food, its better for you, costs less than the supermarkets and I like to support my local growers and suppliers.
Nat and I bought 20kg of tomatoes for $10 a week or two ago and turned the whole lot into pasta sauces, we worked out we spend $40 on ingredients which included two bottles of wine for the wine, basil and tomato paste (awesome as a pizza base) we got 28 bottles of sauces/pastes which would have cost in the vicinity of $200 at the supermarket.
My garden isn't huge I just grow things that are a bit different like chili peppers and courgettes and piles of herbs. All from seed.
Our food bill for two adults is about $200 a week which includes wine and beer. We don't eat much processed food as we both enjoy cooking and prep and I believe we make it better ourselves.
When both the kids were at home it would have been about $300/week.
We really go out because we find that we get disappointed by eating crap food that we know we could have done ourselves for 1/4 of the price.
Good food isn't expensive and I agree with Elvis kids are missing out on the finer things in life like peas from the pod and milk from the cow.

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Mother should I trust the government.......?

10 cents plus
In relation to being outlawed by Monsanto and alike; they can try but they can't stop us! I buy reputable seed from reputable sources. Won't be touching Monsanto products though.
Genetic engineering is a very wide and variable subject.
Trans species genetics I do have an issue with. But I believe that natural inter species doesn't and can't occur even at a sub cellular basis. The 4 amino acids involved have to be is a perfect order and number to allow the cross over ....the possibilities and probabilities of this happening are measured in light years. Even with scientific help. All they are doing is adding spliced genes into a species, this more commonly than not renders the new species sterile as it cannot transfer its genetic material to the donor because the Amino Acids cannot link.
Even selective breeding within species is onerous but we do it all the time and the results are there to see....English Bull Dogs are so badly inbred they are at risk of becoming a non viable sub species in the near future.

I could go on but there's bigger and better things to worry about than loose genetics.

As far as I'm aware the NZFood bill isn't worth wiping your bum with on the paper it's written on. It aint gonna make no difference to me.

hear hear
and if someone starts poking around in the garden......
well the shovel is already there

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well the shovel is already there

we practice the three SSS over here, too