@shatterdose,
Would you have examples of the farmers Monsanto has sued or driven out of business over cross contamination? I'm not familiar with any myself despite hearing the claim repeatedly and would hate to be blind to such a serious injustice.

I also have trouble understanding your overall position. You seem to spend most of your time arguing how terrible GMO is for farmers and seem to be arguing it is bad because it is harmfull to them. You end your post arguing in favor of farmers again and calling for a return to showing them greater respect than they are being shown today. I hope I followed that much correctly? As a guy who grew up as a farm kid, and have a very big portion of my family and social circle running family farms I would second the importance of those businesses. What I wonder is if you understand that virtually all family farms whose primary income is that farm have been choosing by their own free will to plant GMO crops because it helps their bottom line.

It's not a corporate conspiracy driving the GMO domination of seeds planted here in North America. In fact, all the family farmers I grew up around are well agreed that GMO crops have been one of the biggest factors that has helped them keep their family operations profitable so they didn't have to close up shop and sell things off. The picture you paint of Monsanto systematically driving family farms out of business is simply put, fictional from what I see in the Family farm dominated economy of the region I live in. I haven't looked outside of North America nearly as closely, but for this region your account just does not bear out to the reality I see around me everyday.

If that is all true (and I read through much of the linked study and made little sense of it since I'm not a nutritionist and only took one semester of advanced molecular biology, it was particularly technical and hard to follow), then golden rice seems to be the exception.
As I read it, 55-70% the RDA was the maximum vitamin A that could be expected, with the range being quite large. (oddly they cite a 200 gram rice dose given in the study has 1.3mg b-carotene/3.8 to get .34mg retinol, then a 100 gram dose is estimated to provide 55-70% EAR , then they say a 50 gram dose, a more reasonable amount for children to eat, would provide the same amount as the 100 gram dose did?) Even if it can supply 1/2 the daily allowance of vitamin A (which I'm not sure it can from the study you cite), that still does not make it 'safe' to release into the 'wild', or 'better' than natural, easy to grow alternatives as unknown long term side effects have not been studied. It may be better than doing nothing, or even better than natural alternatives, but without long term studies we simply can't know. That's my main point.
$10K a year is not much for a farm to make, most small farms make far more than that, but also need to spend all they make to keep going. That limit seems to say they DO intend to charge most farmers for this seed eventually. If that's $10K a year profit, I'm OK with that.
I would say we should hold up potentially life saving technology until we know the unintended side effects, we should not experiment on the needy (or the public in general) and claim it's in their best interest. We certainly should not do it in secret, as in non-labeled gmo's.
Monsanto is not the only bio-tech company that acts like this, just the most public. Most GMO creating bio-techs are pitbulls about protecting their 'intellectual property', even when it floats onto someone's property without their knowledge.
I stand corrected, she did say that. I missed it. I do not claim they don't have higher yields, I think that's their whole point and I think they do a decent job of producing more. I just don't see that higher yields are worth the possible long term damage and I think more, longer term, double blind studies need to be done by disinterested parties. Long term side effects can take a long time to show up, and with something this new to the food source, it deserves careful consideration, not profit driven usage.
Again, 'golden rice' is an exception if you are correct. My limited experience is with Monsanto corn and soy, which seem to be in a different category. Most GMOs are not made with variety, and ARE made to have a clear adaptive advantage, so I made an assumption that 'golden rice' would be the same. My bad. Even with that though, the genes WILL end up mixing with some other non-gmo rice, making it difficult or impossible to ensure your crop is not gmo of that's what you want. They may not dominate, but if they end up causing cancer in 10 years, and by then 99% of rice is 'contaminated', then what? I just think safety (edit: I meant to say forethought) is the better part of valor, and better that a few go without today than open the possibility of all going without tomorrow when patience and thoughtful examination can prove safety. Of course, I'm not going blind of vitamin A deficiency or starving from lack of corn...so perhaps my opinion doesn't matter.
To a few of your other points, if gmo's are safe, prove it (Monsanto and the like) and do it incontrovertibly and publicly, then we'll all want them. If the argument is that 'stupid hippies have convinced everyone they're bad, so we have to sell them in secret', that argument doesn't hold water in my mind. Monsanto could certainly afford a public service campaign if the science was in, but the LONG term studies aren't done yet.
Teaching someone to grow peppers or other vegi's seems easier than modifying a crop and spreading the seeds, it takes about 5 minutes and adds variety. I think that's better than treating them as un-teachable and experimenting on them.
...and I agree with the scientists in sciencemag, destroying the test fields isn't helpful and answers nothing.

Look, I provided a link to a peer-reviewed journal publication showing that Golden Rice is an extremely good source of vitamin A, with one cup providing 50% of the recommended daily amount. I can also provide other citations supporting this claim if you'd like. So, if you have references to actual peer-reviewed scientific research (rather than unfounded claims by anti-GM activists) refuting the efficacy of Golden Rice, let's see them.

As for your claim that the initially free distribution will be rescinded, that seems unlikely. The licenses under which Golden Rice is being distributed explicitly allow farmers to freely save, replant and sell the seeds from their crop for as long as their annual income remains under $10,000. Also, most of the patents relevant to the production of Golden Rice are not internationally valid, so they cannot be used to sue people in third world countries. And all the patents that are internationally valid have been explicitly waived by the patent holders. Is there still some remote possibility that poor farmers will end up getting screwed? I guess. But it seems bizarre to me to just hold up potentially life-saving technology because its possible (though highly unlikely) that it will be used to exploit farmers. Also, I should note that Monstanto does not own Golden Rice. They merely own one of the patents for a process involved in the creation of Golden Rice.

On your third point, Rachel explicitly says "You know that GMO’s actually don’t have higher yields either." It's in the video, at 5:45. Watch it again. So she is claiming quite clearly that they do not produce higher yield, which is false. And it is simply not true that all the research showing higher yield comes from corporations. For instance, see this paper published in Science. The authors do not claim affiliation with any major GM corporation. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There has been volumes of independent research on GMOs.

On your last claim, about monocultures, you are again mistaken. Golden Rice is not a single variety. The International Rice Research Institute (a non-profit, not owned by any major corporation) has created "Golden" versions of hundreds of different rice varieties, so potentially Golden Rice can be as diverse as regular rice. Also, if rice plants are separated by a few feet, then cross-pollination becomes extremely unlikely. Rice is typically self-pollinating. So as long as a small separation is maintained, GM and non-GM crops can be grown in the same location without any significant gene flow between them.

Anyway, gene flow is only a danger if the GM plant has a clear adaptive advantage in its environment (if its pest resistant, e.g.), but that is not the case with Golden Rice, so even with gene flow Golden Rice won't end up dominating non-GM rice evolutionarily.

@Sotto_The issue is the power and influence one corporation has over the world's food supply and those who would use their influence in the Department of Agriculture and the Supreme court to implement sweeping legislation or hinder the free will of the small, medium, large or other farmers who would have nothing to do with Monsanto's seeds or who wish only to use sumbunall of their products, not whether a farmer is given their rice for free in an ethical fashion to grow some proprietary rice (ever try to grow rice? S'pretty dependent on climate and seasons, rainfall and other environmental conditions, not to mention the hectares it requires to cultivate) as opposed to say leafy greens of all kinds, sweet potatoes, squash, all of which are much more easily cultivated AND, have shorter seed to fruit times as well as requiring much less space AND, are chock-full of Vitamin A.
We don't even mention here Paprika, Red Pepper, Cayenne, Chili Powder, which are WAY higher in Vitamin A and pretty much grow like weeds when cultivated by morons.

Shaky and hollow point your study cited as well, to support what is obviously a fishy prospect providing this option to poorer countries when you consider the back-door dealing that a corporation like M practices and their track-record of driving small farmers out of business with endless litigation and an army of lah-yahs, investigators, all petty thugs and criminals on their payroll.

A no-brainer? Yeah, if you spout the party-line and din't use your brain but instead cited an "official' study from a 'recognized', 'expert's' journal.

Again, loaded language in your closing with the assumption that most opponents and vocal activists of GMO crops are science deniers. Broad, brush-strokes my friend.
Labels.

I for one want these motherfucker's labs under extreme scrutiny and their science tested and re-tested by those not on their payrolls or whose interests do not include stocks in their concerns. I also want heirloom seeds, regardless of yields, whose fruits produce fertile seeds.

MOST GMO crop's fruited seeds are as sterile as your argument, the genetic markers tweaked similarly to insure that the market on common-sense and centuries-honored methods be cornered and rendered inadequate.

I hate to say something 'pro' Monsanto but the example listed in Percy Schmeiser is NOT an example of a farmer that accidentally had his field cross contaminated by Monsanto's seeds. Percy collected seed from his own crops to plant the following year. One year that his crop bordered a neighbour's Monsanto crop, he intentionally harvested seeds only from along that border. Even more importantly, he sprayed the strip with round-up first. Deliberately destroying your own seed crop with round up isn't 'normal' procedure for any seed grower. Percy Schmeiser knowingly and deliberately did everything he could to plant Monsanto's round up ready seeds. He in many ways went to greater lengths and efforts to get the seed than farmers regularly using it.

His case is one of whether what he did should be legal, in my opinion it should be, and tough luck to Monsanto as long as he's not off re-selling it I think it should be ok. Turns out Canadian law went the other way and declared it copyright infringement. I can understand the argument that GMO research can't happen if there's no profit in it, but it's a hard line.

All that though is to simply point out that this doesn't seem to be only about those guys accidentally being contaminated. The specific example the speaker references went to great lengths to get Monsanto's seed into his fields.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Mermaids (live) has been added as a related post - related requested by oritteropo.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Nick-Cave-The-Bad-Seeds-Mermaids-live

Could someone give me a *related=http://videosift.com/video/Nick-Cave-The-Bad-Seeds-Mermaids-live ?

Invocations (related=http://videosift.com/video/Nick-Cave-The-Bad-Seeds-Mermaids-live) cannot be called by Zawash because Zawash is not privileged - sorry.

1) Don't be confused, and think that I've decided the casting of ant colonies for art is justified. I'm pointing out that the issue is more complex than many, including yourself, may realize. I find the video disturbing... and unlike our resident @ant have not voted for it.
2) Please look up Godwin's law. Using Nazi analogies generally undermines your argument.. it just makes it hard for people to accept that you have thought things through.
3) But hey, assuming that you have thought things through, let's continue with your analogy:
Perhaps the holocaust analogy does work, but to be sure the fire ants are not the Gypsies, they are the Germans. Fire ants are rapidly spreading across the world, drastically reducing both the abundance and diversity of native species. This includes native ant species, as well as a huge range of arthropod prey, potentially plants (through seed consumption), and even small vertebrates (e.g. lizards and ground nesting birds).
If you are arguing from a pacifistic stance, that violence against another creature is never justified, even if it is in the defense of others more helpless or in self-defense, I thoroughly respect that position. Although any violence turns my stomach; I cannot say that I agree.. for sure, the next time I get an infection, I will take antibiotics; the next time I see purple loosestrife, I will tear it from its roots.

This can't be understated. If we could see the same anti-science lash back for the anti-nuclear and anti-GMO crowds that'd be great. Too bad a lot of the most vehement and vocal climate change warnings come from folks also trying to 'educate' everyone about how terrible nuclear power and GMO crops are. After all the last thing we need are energy sources and seeds that radically reduce the amount of fossil fuels we burn each year.....

From now on, when people ask how tall I am, I'm going to tell them I'm 864 poppy seeds. If they look confused, I'll explain that's 216 barleycorns.

Shows what you know about the rapist mentality -- it isn't (always) about sex, my friend.

80 year old nuns have been raped. Downs syndrome and disabled men and women have been raped. Fat women have been raped. The whole rape culture in prison, nary a slender woman in a miniskirt in sight. It can be about control and power and anger.

Besides, even for those men motivated by lust, what are the odds that zero percent of them are attracted to women of size? Women are shamed about being large, men are shamed about finding large women attractive, so you may not even be aware that there are men out there who like large women.

I don't think you are a horrible person -- I think you are uninformed of the complexities of the subject.

I know you are just making an offhand, presumably mildly funny?, remark and here I am, getting all complicated. However, this comment is the seed from which the mighty oak "she was asking for it" grows. Just thought I'd take the opportunity to point that out.

Just cut them in half and spank the seeds out into a bowl by hitting the back with a wooden spoon. You chop a few seeds, but you can still eat the cut seeds just as well as the whole ones, and it's much quicker than this!

I remember pomegranates being very expensive in the US, to the point that they were a "once a year on Thanksgiving" kind of thing for my family. But that was in rural Kansas - maybe they aren't so expensive in cities with more fresh fruit import infrastructure.

Now that I am living in Thailand, they are cheap and readily available. And interestingly enough, the flesh around the seeds is clear or possibly with a very slight red/pink hue -- but not at all like the deep red they were in the US version.

So, here I've gotten into the habit of just ripping the fruit open with my bear hands and eating handfuls -- no staining issues. But, this will video definitely come in handy if I want to be a little more dignified when cracking one open. Thais call the deep red version "Indian Pomegranate" (translated), so maybe the US sources most of their imports from there.