Post in Food security for Canterbury

andrew wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-06-08 at 13:36 +1200, Brian Sandle wrote:
>
>> I feel the Canterbury Plains with the proposed irrigation scheme may be
>> a target for GMO biofuels and feed crops, with disaster in store for
>> us.
>>
>
> I agree, Brian, it would be a disaster. We're now well into the period
> that James Kunstler has dubbed the "Long Emergency" [1]. It's not your
> classic civil defence emergency that triggers our fight or flight
> response, and it's not business as usual which triggers our "sit on your
> backside and do nothing" response :-) - it's a whole new animal to deal
> with but deal with it we must.
>
> I think it's time for ECan, CCC and other groups to get together to do
> some strategic planning around medium-to-long term food security for the
> region. I know this is not within the normal scope of either agency, but
> these are not normal times ...
>
> Are there any politicians in the group (who are still listening)
> prepared to comment on this ?
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Emergency
>
>
>
> Andrew Groom
> Bryndwr, Christchurch
>
>
It's going to be quite hard.

As I showed some in Government are trying to use the food security
argument to promote GMOs.

It  would help if Government gave more money to public good research.

Here is an example of how AgResearch, set up from public money, is
forming alliances with big overseas companies to get funding. Those
companies can then start to call the tune by threatenuing to pull out.

http://www.ruraldelivery.net.nz/absolutenm/templates/issuesTemplate.asp?articleid=237&zoneid=5
"Roger: Who are some of these big companies? Are we talking Monsanto,
Syngenta, De Pont?

Danny: All of those companies, Merck Sharpe and Dome and so on, all
these are large international chemical companies."

Here is an example of the political influence of the company producing
bovine growth hormone, to get it approved, then giving vets money to
promote it, then the vets would get more work treating the cows who it
made sick.

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/rateConnection.php?id1=5580&id2=89

And when we had the GM maize accidental release in NZ here is the sort
of talk that was happening

www.biosecurity.govt.nz/files/regs/imports/plants/gm-seeds/appendix-4.pdf
"However, what if the GM
seeds came from another source and not Pacific Seeds? We will have to
wait for results
before this can be addressed.
• Barry O’Neil (MAF) confirmed that MAF will not release any information
without
consultation with Pacific Seeds about the accuracy of the information,
and Pacific Seeds
are committed to giving this issue the highest priority.
• David Wansbrough (MAF) said that a request under the Official
Information Act for the
information presented by the company is highly likely. Howard Morris
confirmed that
the company had prepared the folder with that in mind and was prepared
for the folder to
be released. However, he was very concerned not to release partial
information before
final conclusions had been drawn.
Pukekohe crop
• Pacific Seeds have not asked if GeneScan can specify which YieldGard
types (MON810,
MON809, MON802) were present."