Andrew Weil, his woo, and anti-GMO hysteria...

[NickB79]

75. As a son of 6 generations of farmers

1) Yes, Roundup Ready crops get sprayed with Round-Up. Before the invention of Round-Up, what did you spray your crops with? My family used shit like atrazine, a herbicide FAR worse for both human health and the environment than Round-Up. You make it sound like farms were all no-spray, organic, chemical-free zones before Round-Up made an appearance, when it actuality farmers were dumping massive amounts of poison on the land for 50+ years.

2) I agree with you on this point and have no rebuttal; the business practices of seed companies like Monsanto are truly repulsive in this respect.

3) We've been reducing biodiversity for over a century, ever since we came up with the first hybrid crops. GM crops aren't helping the situation, but I don't see them making it worse either, because we'd still be going down this path with conventional hybrid seed anyway. The seed market is being cornered by a few big players (Monsanto, Cargill, Syngenta) and they have their favorite seeds to push.

4) Same as #3, we've been going down this path for the better part of a century since hybrid crops were first trotted out on a large scale. You can't save seed and replant from hybrids any more than you can GM; the resulting offspring will be all over the map with regard to traits (tall, short, lots of cobs/beans, very few cobs/beans, etc). I can remember my grandfather bitching about buying new hybrid seed every year 30 years ago! However, he kept doing it because the yields blew the old heirloom varieties out of the water.