Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Refuge Requirements, Bt stacks and above and below ground pest resistence

What the fuck am I talking about?


Well, I just read a Monsanto press release on their new technology, "a new insect-protection and weed control platform in corn".  It is called "SmartStax".  The key to this new bio-engineered corn and soy is the reduction of something called "refuge requirements".  

What are refuge requirements?  I had no clue, so I looked into it a bit, basically, what they are is regulations that require plots without "in-plant protections" to be separated from protected plots, like those of SmartStax.  These stand around 50% in the corn belt of the US, meaning 50% of the fields have pesticide built into their genetic structure (enjoy that coke next time!).

So monsanto wants this percentage reduced to 5% for corn.  Which would mean that 95% of corn production in the corn belt would be deeply genetically modified.

These guys are going to make a killing on this product, while we take one step closer as a country to ecological meltdown and the bankruptcy files on the American Farmer continue to grow.  


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