GMO SEEDS: WHAT ARE THEY?
Genetically Modified Organisms (abbreviated GMO) is any organism that has
been modified or altered by use of genetic engineering techniques. This
involves taking DNA molecules from different sources, and recombining them
into a molecule to make a new set of genes.
A Genetically Engineered Organism is just another name for GMO.
GMO Seeds are seeds that have undergone genetic engineering techniques to
produce certain plant traits, drought or disease tolerance.
Unlike hybrid seeds, GMO seeds are not created using natural, low-tech
methods. GMO seed varieties are created in a lab using high-tech and
sophisticated techniques like gene-splicing.
Furthermore, GMO seeds seldom cross different, but related plants. Often the
cross goes far beyond the bounds of nature so that instead of crossing two
different, but related varieties of plant, they are crossing different biological
kingdoms — like, say, a bacteria with a plant.
For example, Monsanto has crossed genetic material from a bacteria known as
Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) with corn. The goal was to create a pest-resistant
plant. This means that any pests attempting to eat the corn plant will die
since the pesticide is part of every cell of the plant. The resultant GMO plant,
known as Bt Corn, is itself registered as a pesticide with the EPA, along with
other GMO Bt crops. In other words, if you feed this corn to your cattle, your
chickens, or yourself, you’ll be feeding them an actual pesticide — not just a
smidgeon of pesticide residue.
GMO SEEDS: THE CONSEQUENCE
Sadly, GMOs are deadly and fake/unnatural plants. Biotech firms like
Monsanto create GMO seeds they create that they patented to enslave
developing countries — It’s something that has far-reaching and devastating
effects on the global economy.
Testing of GMO seeds has been done in many countries, and it takes
investigative journalism to expose just what’s at risk. The trouble is that
nobody knows how these unnatural new organisms will behave over time. The
seed companies that develop these varieties claim intellectual property rights
so that only they can create and sell the variety. In some cases, companies —
such as Monsanto — even refuse to allow scientists to obtain and study their
GM seeds. For some crops, such as corn, wind can carry the pollen from GM
varieties and contaminate non-GM varieties. And there is no mandatory
labeling of GM content in seed.
Are GMO seeds bad?….Or good?
They have proven to be deadly. There’s clear relations to growth of brain and
body Tumors, retarded brain growth, drastic loss of reproductive powers in
grownups, in some case up to 70%, loss of sight and memory are just some of
the proven side effects. but because they are owned patented and sold by the
most powerful mafia organizations. No one dares speak against them. They
are also ways to enslave nations. Rissala also states that that this process
began as far back as the Narasimha Rao government in the early 90s, under
the directive of the World Bank.
“The (Indian government’s) growing reliance on cheaper (and highly
subsidised) imports of agricultural commodities—including pulses, edible oils,
wheat, apple, rubber, coconut, silk, fish, a horde of fruit products and juices—
are linked primarily to the policy imperative that aims to drive farmers out of
agriculture. This approach follows the World Bank’s prescriptions from way
back in the 1990s—that India needs to move 400 million people from rural to
urban areas by 2015. To achieve this, successive governments have been
systematically squeezing public investments in agriculture and impoverishing
farmers by denying them a fair and remunerative price.”
Speaking of the 90s, remember one of the last speeches former Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi gave. It appeared in a now-extinct magazine called The
Illustrated Weekly of India. I was in my early twenties and the speech had
such an impact on me.
[T]here has been a concerted, state-sponsored effort afoot… to actually make
agriculture unprofitable and unviable and push farmers off the farms and into
the cities, and turn them into cheap labour… Uneducated, uncertain about
government orders, fearful of complex procedures, even of beneficial schemes,
and living in a world where temptations abound as gadgets and things. In
such a scenario, and with the feeling that no one really cares, farmers take
loans, get indebted and, as a RBI study recently revealed, the shame of debt
becomes too much for them to bear and they resort to suicide.
Rajiv Gandhi had said words to the effect that the greatest danger to India lies
in consumerism as much as it does in communalism. The subjugation of one
country by another which used to happen by military means now happens by
economic means. Our materialism and consumerism will cost us our national
sovereignty if we are not careful.
Prophetic words. The Prime Minister was assassinated shortly thereafter. The
World Bank opened its office in New Delhi one month later.
The conclusion I have reached is that the plight of the farmer is India’s
greatest problem and we should vote for anyone who will walk his or her talk
and initiate the massive and systemic changes needed to address it.
The big question on my mind right now is—does anyone actually care enough
or have the courage to do so?
HYBRID SEEDS VS. GMOS
In short: Hybrid Seeds are nothing to fear, but you may not want to support
them given that they fail to breed true and have caused so much global
havoc. GMO seeds are far more deadly, unnatural and likely to cause harm —
both to your environment and your health. People eating GMO food for over
five years have proven to have lost 50-80% of their reproductive prowess. One
may say good for the population control!!! Have developed tumors and babies
have retarded brain growth. Most European countries have banned the same.
HOW TO AVOID GMOS
Unfortunately, because GMOs aren’t currently labeled, you have no way of
knowing whether or not you’re eating them. Roughly 85% of all grocery store
foods contain GMOs, and there only a handful of sure-fire ways to avoid them:
- Opt to buy single-ingredient certified organic food.
- Choose Non-GMO Verified labeled foods.
- Grow your own open-pollinated, heirloom variety plants.
Seeds labeled GMO—the acronym for “genetically modified organism”—result
from one of the industry’s most controversial practices. GMO seeds are bred
not in a garden but in a laboratory using modern biotechnology techniques
like gene splicing. Scientists modify a seed’s DNA to ensure the resulting plant
produces desired characteristics.
Non-GMO seeds are cultivated through pollination. They can be bred two
different ways: as hybrid seeds or as open-pollinated seeds. The term “hybrid”
refers to a plant variety developed through a specific, carefully controlled
cross-pollination of two different parent plants to produce new traits that can’t
be created by inbreeding two of the same plants. Hybrid varieties—also called
F1 or “first-filial” hybrids—produce seeds that are not “true to type,” meaning
that they do not conform to the known characteristics of a given plant variety.
Open-pollinated seeds, by contrast, are produced from random pollination by
wind, birds, insects, or other natural means. Gardeners who save seeds from
open-pollinated plants can keep them genetically pure by isolating the plants
from the pollen of other plants. They then save seeds from those plants to
grow out the following season, confident that the seeds will possess the same
characteristics as the parent plant, or grow “true to type.” many of which are
heirloom seeds that have been passed down through many generations.
HYBRID SEEDS: WHAT ARE THEY?
Farmers and gardeners have been cultivating new plant varieties for
thousands of years through selective breeding. They did this by crosspollinating two different, but related plants over 6 to 10 plant generations,
eventually creating a new plant variety.
The process required patience, but was rewarding. By selectively crosspollinating related plants in this way, farmers could create varieties that were
healthier and stood up to the farmer’s micro-climate — their soil, their
weather patterns, their predatory insects.
Yet in the mid-nineteenth century, Darwin and Mendel discovered a method of
controlled crossing that can create these desired traits within just one
generation. This method produces what’s known as F1 hybrid seeds.
These hybrid seeds are just as natural as their historic counterparts; they’re
still cross-pollinating two different, but related plants.
HYBRID SEEDS: THE CONSEQUENCES
The biggest disadvantage of hybrid seeds is that they don’t “reproduce true” in
the second generation. That means that if you save the seeds produced by F1
hybrid plants and plant them, the plant variety that will grow from those
seeds (known as the second generation) may or may not share the desired
traits you selected for when creating the first generation hybrid seed.
Rissala Organics describes it:
When two dissimilar varieties are crossed, the result is a hybrid which will
often be bigger, brighter, faster-growing or higher-yielding than either of its
parents, which makes for a great selling point. But it’s a one-hit wonder.
Subsequent generations don’t have the same vigour or uniformity, and the
idea is that you don’t save seed from it, you just throw it away and buy some
more. This is bad for the plants, bad for the garden and bad for you, but the
seed companies make a packet out of it and gain increasing control of what we
buy and grow.
While there may not be anything inherently wrong with this process, it does
keep you dependent on seed companies year after year since you can’t save
your seeds and expect the next generation of plants you grow to be identical to
the first. While this is a small nuisance to a home gardener, it can be
devastating to subsistence farmers around the world.
In fact, this is precisely what happened. When the peasant farmers grew these
new hybrids, they were indeed more productive, even though they required
more fertilizer and water. But when they collected and saved the seed for
replanting the next season—as they had done for generations and
generations—none of it grew true to the parent crop, little food grew, and these
poor farmers, having none of their open-pollinated traditional varieties left
viable, had no choice but to go back to the big companies to purchase the
hybrid seeds again for planting year after year and then also their deadly
poisons in name of fertilizers.
U.S. companies like Cargill intentionally disrupted the traditional cycle of
open-pollinated seed saving and self-sufficiency to essentially force entire
nations to purchase their seeds, and the agricultural chemicals required to
grow them. This is indirectly slaving the nations. as food and its growth will
soon be controlled by these giants called Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Cargill,
Bayer, Dupont, etc.
Most of these poor subsistence farmers never had to pay for seed before, and
could not afford the new hybrid seeds, or the new petrochemical fertilizers
they required, and were forced to sell their farms and migrate to the cities for
work. This is how the massive, infamous slums of India, China Latin America,
and other developing countries were created or are being created.
By the 1990s an estimated 95% of all farmers in the First World and 40% of
all farmers in the Third World were using Green Revolution hybrid seeds, with
the greatest use found in Asia, followed by Mexico and Latin America.
The world lost an estimated 75 percent of its food biodiversity, and control
over seeds shifted from farming communities to a handful of multinational
corporations.
GMO Seeds – Facts and Myths
Many home gardeners, and all organic gardeners, are concerned about the
topic of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). After all, most home gardeners
partake in the hobby to provide healthy food for themselves, their family, and
friends, too.
GMO, is Genetically Engineered Organisms (GEO).
This information will help to put your mind at ease about the seeds you
purchase, and the safety of your garden vegetables.
Here are a few pros and cons:
GMO can produce greater yields, and help to feed a hungry world.
They can reduce or eliminate the need for pesticides and fungicides. That
means more food.
GMO can create new allergens in the foods we eat.
There is the potential for many unknown, long term, negative health effects.
Extensive tests and trials over the years on animals have proven beyond doubt
that They are deadly. There’s clear indications and proof to growth of brain
and body Tumors, retarded brain growth, drastic loss of reproductive powers
in adults, in some case up to 70%, loss of sight and memory are just some of
the proven side effects.
The most deadly effect is that they have proven to result in “Colony Collapse
Disorder” (or CCD). Beekeepers world over and in India are reporting CCD
and have lost 50-90% of their colonies.
Bees and insects like mayflies and midges are remarkable creatures that
create the building blocks for life on Earth. Bees alone pollinate nearly threequarters of the world’s key crops. But experts say imidacloprid is linked to
colony collapse for bees and widespread loss of insect populations —
threatening our natural world and our food system.
Monsanto is vying to merge with Bayer, and Dow chemical with DuPont. These
beasts are growing in power, and pushing to keep their poison on the shelves.
But Europe already stopped the use of this bee-killing chemical. The next step
is Canada and India. If we can close those markets, it could trigger a domino
effect and get countries everywhere to follow suit. Rissala is committed to
bring out the truth behind the deadly chemical combined with our real time
on ground experience of last 7 years.
Conservationist Rachel Carson, who led the charge to ban the chemical killer
DDT in the US, once wrote: “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth
find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” Let’s let the
miraculous strength and beauty of the nature all around us be our inspiration
to come together today and back the bees!
The cause of CCD are mainly three and a brief explanation of their potential
role is as under.
Genetically modified crops: Genetically modified crops are responsible for
the widespread bee deaths. Interestingly, many seeds from which genetically
modified crops are grown are dipped first in systemic insecticides that later
may appear in the plants’ nectar and pollen. This makes genetically modified
plants the main cause. Healthy colonies of bees contain thousands of worker
bees. Colonies suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder have few or no bees
remaining in the hive. Honey Bees die due to their chemical treatment history,
not just because they are genetically modified. Scientists have conclusive.
Chemical use in bee colonies: Like farmers in other agricultural sectors,
beekeepers often attempt to chemically-control the various maladies affecting
their honey bees in an effort to keep their bees healthy and productive.
Investigators recently have found a number of sub-lethal effects of these
chemicals on honey bees (workers, queens, and drones) even when the
chemicals were used according to label and in accordance with best
management practices suggested by specialists. These sub-lethal effects have
led some to consider the role of in-hive chemical use in the CCD paradigm.
Chemical toxins in the environment: Another chemically-oriented reason is
that toxins in the environment are responsible for CCD. Because pesticides
are used widely in cropping systems in an effort to kill herbivorous insects,
one is left to consider the potential for non-target chemical effects on foraging
bees. In addition to being exposed to toxins while foraging, honey bees also
may encounter toxins by drinking water contaminated with chemical runoff,
encountering various chemicals through contact outside of the hive, or via
direct inhalation.
IF BEES DIE BE REST ASSURED HUMAN RACE WILL PERISH IN LESS
THAN 4 YEARSImidacloprid is a systemic insecticide which acts as an insect neurotoxin and
belongs to a class of chemicals called the neonicotinoids which act on the
central nervous system of insects, with much lower toxicity to mammals. The
chemical works by interfering with the transmission of stimuli in the insect
nervous system. Specifically, it causes a blockage of the nicotinergic neuronal
pathway. By blocking nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, imidacloprid prevents
acetylcholine from transmitting impulses between nerves, resulting in the
insect’s paralysis and eventual death. It is effective on contact and via
stomach action. Because imidacloprid binds much more strongly to insect
neuron receptors than to mammal neuron receptors, this insecticide is more
toxic to insects than to mammals.
As of 1999, Imidacloprid was the most widely used insecticide in the world.
Although it is now off patent, the primary manufacturer of this chemical is
Bayer Crop Science (part of Bayer AG). It is sold under many names for many
uses; it can be applied by soil injection, tree injection, application to the skin
of the plant, broadcast foliar, ground application as a granular or liquid
formulation, or as a pesticide-coated seed treatment. Imidacloprid is widely
used for pest control in agriculture. Other uses include application to
foundations to prevent termite damage, pest control for gardens and turf,
treatment of domestic pets to control fleas, protection of trees from boring
insects, and in preservative treatment of some types of lumber products .
Recent research suggests that widespread agricultural use of imidacloprid and
other pesticides may be contributing to honey bee colony collapse disorder,
the decline of honey bee colonies in Europe and North America observed since
2006.As a result, several countries have restricted use of imidacloprid and
other neonicotinoids. In January 2013, the European Food Safety Authority
stated that neonicotinoids pose an unacceptably high risk to bees, and that
the industry-sponsored science upon which regulatory agencies’ claims of
safety have relied, may be flawed, or even deceptive. INDIA IS THE LARGEST
MARKET FOR THIS CHEMICAL TODAY.
“If the Bees disappeared Off the Face of the Earth, Man would only have four
years left To Live.”
Five important species of honey bees are Found in India as follows - The rock bee, Apis dorsata (Apidae).
- The Indian hive bee, Apis cerana indica (Apidae).
- The little bee, Apis florea (Apidae).
- The European or Italian bee, Apis mellifera (Apidae).
- Dammer bee or stingless bee, Melipona irridipennis (Meliporidae).
GMO Facts and Myths:
Cross Breeding seed varieties is not GMO. It is nature’s way of producing new
varieties. Cross breeding has occurred naturally since the garden of Eden, as
the pollen of one variety of a plant species, pollinated the flower of another
variety. Squash are good examples of this, resulting in many, many natural
varieties of squash.
Hybrid seed are not GMO seed. The process of creating hybrid seeds uses
controlled cross breeding of certain varieties.
Most GMO seeds are used in commercial farming.
Organic seeds and Heirloom varieties, by their very definition, are non-GMO
seed.
Rissala Polo & Organic Farm;
Karnal, Haryana – 132001.
www.rissala.in
www.rissala.co.in
http://rissalaorganics.com
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