Greenpeace object to Monsanto patents.

[Trolldeg]

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/monsanto-pig-patent-111

[Dr. Shoe]

Don't worry too much. You will find that only the huge commercial farmers will even want to use their products, the smaller farmers will use the same grain they've always used. Moreover there is a growing organic market and many farmers are rushing to exploit this which will not be possible using GM seeds.

[texasbumpkin]

I hate to tell everyone that the food that we are eating has been genetically engineered for years. Farmers have taken crops and cross bred them with others that had the same favorable traits, hoping to get the desired outcome, just like Mendel with his peas. It is when companies and farmers start introducing foreign proteins in to the plants - like tomatoes where they have introduces animal proteins to make them grow larger, or into plants to make them produce pesticides - that problems can arrise. We do not know where this protein's transcription into DNA is going to be located turning on or off certain genes that may be active or dormant after injection from the vector or plasmid. The other problem is when one farmer is use GE plants, and the farmer in the next field is not - you can not control the flight of the bees or the blowing wind - crosspollenation occurs. That is personally what I think.

[Trolldeg]

so nobody read about the pigs?

[Dr. Shoe]

Yes, there was a big thing in the paper over here about the so called superpig but with the increasing demand for organic goods it seems that many farmers are reluctant to adopt the concept.

[texasbumpkin]

I read about the pigs.

[texasbumpkin]

I read about the pigs. sorry about the double post......I got a funny debug message when submitting and thought that it did not go through.

[hoverfly]

The bottom line, even they own the patents, the manufacture must be held liable for any trespassing of their product cross breeding with other indigenous or other products. It may have their own patent genetic pattern but if they can't control how and where it grows, then it's free game under that act of god clause in which no body is in titled to. I would say it would be a matter of time where the lawyers battle out between farmers suing each other for trespassing and sabotaging each other crops. Mexico has all ready band such crops in order to protect many verities of corn that they grow in the country.

[Dr. Shoe]

You sound rather stressed. )

You obviously don't know me too well!