the question nobody asks is, "If GMO foods *did* have some effect on people, what kind of effect would it be?"

The primary concern about the GMO stuff (I think -- this subject is not something I'm even well informed on let alone expert) is that it introduces new forms of proteins.

Various sorts of proteins are behind many allergens.

So should you be living in nowhere Ohio, and should you happen in the process of all the other food you eat, to be eating something containing GMO products, and should you have more allergies, or slightly worse asthma, or a minor skin rash that comes and goes, exactly who would be attributing this to the GMO they didn't even realize was in one of the products they ate three days ago?

Amen. It's hard enough with gluten as it is. And I agree too with Ysa - in the third world, there are so many other problems that need fixing...why create bandaid solutions? Clean water would be a huge first step. Not as profitable as the rice thing, perhaps? I am not trying to be cynical, but I do wonder. So many political problems there as well getting in the way.

As an aside, I foster a family in Zambia through Foster Parents Plan and it is very simple to donate small amounts of money for things like a community well, etc. I bought them a goat for $40. Plan is really good, very transparent...and who knows, maybe things like this will make a difference, and then GMO solutions won't be required? One can hope.

I'm reading a book on genetics called "Genetics for Dummies". If this is for dummies... then I'm worse than a dummy. This book makes my brain hurt.

Anyway, I just started the chapter on genetic engineering. Of course it starts out saying humans have been doing genetic engineering for 1000's of years, through selective breeding.

What I didn't realize was how much genetic engineering we've done using forced mutations by bombarding seeds with xrays. That is how we've gotten a lot of our new breeds of plants over the last... 50+ years.

Another genetic mutation we humans like is making plants become polyploid (more than 2 sets of chromosones) versus diploid (2 chromosones -- one from each parent). Apparently it makes the fruits sweeter and bigger.

And here's something interesting... we know we get genetic change from mutation and also viruses induce genetic change all the time, but apparently there's another sort of genetic transfer you can get just from eating DNA. I started that section of the book last night and I can't recall the name. I'll post more when I finish it.


I confess, I stopped reading before I got to that part.

It's for political reasons.

Let me give an example, a true story I once read an article about. Some background too.

A fellow is in a country with a food shortage, and desperately needs to farm. What he could really use, mostly, is seeds, and some kind of nutrients for the poor soil that will allow the seeds to come to fruition.

Because the food shortage is so well known, and because countries have to borrow money from world banks to pay for "aid" programs, there are endless numbers of corporations clamoring to get some of that money.

Like any "bids and proposals" situation with government (I used to do this work with a firm that made 911 systems), it means everybody presents their idea, tech, etc. as the best, and a bunch of government people consider the options and, usually with profoundly insuffiicent understanding of the details of how it's going to work, put out a "specification" request for proposal about it. This generally provides slightly less time than actually needed for any intelligent plan to be fully worked out for it, let alone documented and fit into the proposal format and got there on time.

This generally chooses one primary approach, and has within the spec about 417 things that are mutually contradictory and cannot possibly be simultaneously applied. So any vendor that bids is actually violating half the spec. But that's understood as a given. Between the spec and the proposal deadline, the sales reps of the corps work on the people they know will be evaluating the bids, to convince them that the specs they can meet are the important ones, so if others with different techs can't do so they shouldn't be taken seriously, and that the specs they can't meet are trivial, and/or better done in their different way.

Finally the proposal deadline arrives, and a committee takes those which arrived on time (literally you cannot be 10 seconds late) and after what amounts to juggling, scrabble, and figuring out how they can choose the one they really wanted to choose all along and make it look like it had something to do with the proposal (it's not always price of course though that is a "consideration"). The "contract is awarded" to one of the vendors and the plan goes into motion.

Now let's get back to the farmer. He's got too many kids in an african country and not enough food for the family let alone for the village. It's hot as hell and there isn't much water and the ground is baked into a near sterile product.

Had some small-time enthusiastic former-engineer like say, Mel Bartholomew, where the focus was learning how to MAKE soil (compost) and how to use the smallest amount of soil for the largest return on edible crop, something useful might actually have been accomplished. But this is not the kind of source (read: mega-corporations) that makes bids on international aid world-bank funded projects, in part because the sheer quantity required, no matter what solution were applied, would be essentially impossible for any but a company with more existing personnel and money than god to take care of.

The technology chosen was a "nutrient composite fluid" that would be made available to the farmers for what they hoped would be an affordable price. The nutrient composite fluid was a petroleum-based product with several additional chemicals that contributed nicely to the local water supply. The package deal also provided seeds for growing food. Of course the seeds were terminators; that is to say, you could only use them once, and you could not take seeds from those plants and plant again, they would not grow at all or would heavily mutate.

Because the farmer was dependent on a petroleum-based chemical product and one-use-only terminator seeds he would of course never, but never, become independent, self-sustaining, or capable of feeding his family without constant active assistance of the products provided by the company paid by the country funded by the world banks. The world banks, for political as well as financial reasons, very much want this eternal customer the size of a country, and have much political influence in which ideas become specifications and which proposals become awarded contracts.

With much hope, our farmer takes his gasoline can and he walks, for TWO DAYS, to the place where he can get this nutrient-fluid and seeds that he can grow for food. It costs all he has, but at least he has it. He comes home and he plants, and he and everyone around him work hard to keep the farm/garden in good shape and there's hope that they might almost have enough food this year that they won't have at least one child die of starvation or related disease.

Unfortunately, about halfway into the season, after months of two days there and back to buy more of the nutrient-fluid and working hard on the garden, the price of petroleum in the world market rises.

After walking two days to get more, he discovers he can't afford to buy any at all.

He comes home without it, and the crop dies. Another child or two will be gone this year.

He can't even take the seeds from the plants and try again, because nothing grows from those seeds except once.

His country is in eternal debt for this help they are being provided by such generous multinational corporations.

His people are not all that grateful though.

I can't imagine why.

Wow, that's horrible.

(I failed to mention that in all likelihood, 25% of the billions borrowed from the world bank came from the USA as part of foreign aid, and hence either directly comes from American taxpayer's pockets or more likely comes from "the air" and contributes to the surreal rising 'debt', inflation, worsening economy, etc. That's political though...)


The below isn't ideal for a country with utterly-nothing, but Mel has adapted it very small-scale in many countries. This is not a mass-farming approach -- it requires humans -- but it is a TON better than traditional growing methods when issues of arible soil and water are at hand.

from www.squarefootgardening.com

• Requires very little space; 80% less than conventional gardening.
• Can be done in as little as 4 feet by 4 feet, -- or as large as you want.
• Your existing (bad) soil doesn't matter because we don't use it. Start with an ideal soil mix that is weed-free and requires no tilling.
• Uses much less water; only about 20% compared to conventional gardening.
• No fertilizers or pesticides to handle -- it's all natural
• The planting method requires no thinning and very few seeds.
• All the hard work has been removed in the Square Foot method - only the enjoyable part remains.
• Can be started in any season.
• Produces 5 times the harvest of a conventional garden.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the lactoferrin-bearing rice, though? It is not meant to be grown abroad.

Also, can you provide some cites for that African story? It would interest me to read more.

I'd love to. If I had it. That's why I called it a story I read and not a 'fact' I was referencing (sorry). I've seen 'reference' to highly similar things that made it believable to me is all.