Share The Seeds
Gardening Area => The Eco-Garden => Topic started by: PermieGing on October 15, 2013, 07:48:57 PM
-
This is to help identify the preferred way we should go about teaching this.
I hope to help encourage and teach food foresting and permaculture here, as i now know theres quite an interest! I hope others will take up this noble task as well!
8)
-
So your basically talking about building sustainable edible landscape gardens and what not right? Also maybe just planting edible and medicinal plants in areas that will likely remain undeveloped for some time as a means of ensuring future annual harvests of seasonal species if the need arises?
-
Umm yes im talking about that, but its alot more also.
Everything sustainable is permaculture imo :)
But a food forest is like a designed ecosystem, based off of nature, and designed for biodiversity and a human benefit.
But theres many definitions that are better :)
-
One quick question: How large would could of these food forests be? I'd assume there'd be a minimum size limit to assure a big enough biodiversity with the proper spacing between plants.
-
Hmm, a food forest has such an ambiguous definition, i would say theres no minimum size.
However, a minimum of a certain size is beneficial, yet not required.
-
Ideas like these are what will shape our species future. Individually all humans should maintain a small edible biodiversity in their own yards. Instead of paying out the ass for low quality nutrient deficient GMO irradiated and gassed franken veggies and fruit we should all have a little of this or that in our yards to share in exchange for our neighbors this and thats so to speak. Not f'd with chemically and picked at the right time. Nutrient full foods... Your on to something great if you get people to start doing it. At the end of the day most people are sheeple and not inclined to care as long as society keeps on a rolling. There must be a way to stop the age old rule that pieces of crap continue to teach new pieces of crap and the smell only gets larger. From within our own families and communities a grass roots idea to just stop the perpetuation of shit so the air can clear a bit. Then there may be a large enough group of well wiped asses to start change.
-
GMO doesn't necessarily mean bad. There are some plants which contain animal genes and shit like that, in those cases its bad. Eating the product of those plants can cause a plethora of problems.
But as for plants like certain grains which are genetically modified with the genes of a more hardier grain and stuff like that, those are perfectly fine. Genetic modification of this kind is safe and helps to feed millions of people.
The problem arises when people start trying to play god and insert genes from other kingdoms which may seem to do good by increasing hardiness, yield, etc...but in actuality can cause IBS, fuck up your gut, and a ton of other bad shit.
Also, using natural plant growth regulators to delay ripening, and to increase yield and increase shelf live isn't so bad either. After all, the plants produce these naturally and we have been eating these plant hormones for thousands of years. Its always good to wash fruit you buy at the store anyways. Of course, fruits ripened this way won't taste as good and contain as much nutrients as vine ripened veggies and fruits.
Overall I agree with you though. It would be best if people grew what they needed and didn't buy the lower quality shit from the store.
Just thought that needed to be said. Not hating on you bro. ;)
-
Any GMO plant that would be grown outside of a highly secure place is bad.
The gmos pollinate non gmos of the same species....
In 100 years, that whole species will have the possible irreversible genetic modification.
I do realize this is a bit exaggerated, but you get the point. Not to mention GMOs are patented, and if the genes spread to other crops, say on someones heirloom corn field, the patent holders can come in and sue for everything the farmer has got........
I could see gmo being plausible in controlled conditions for very specific results, say growing in a triple locked down lab and the plants produce like a cancer cure...
Also, gmos are no good for out health, theyve been grown in and are dependent on a puddle of roundup. So, just think what irreversible damage theyre doing to the rest of the ecosystem such as the gmos pollinators, then what eats the pollinators etc etc
-
Any of the genetically modified foods are dangerous in my opinion. Recently there was a viral gene found in a bunch of the GMO crops.
HERE (http://www.responsibletechnology.org/posts/breaking_news_viral_gen/)
There is something seriously wrong with all of this. GMO's are poisening the people and monsanto and the other companies responsible have such a stranglehold on the government that they are impervious to lawsuites. (Monstanto Protection ACT) It's not about feeding the people. It's about mass profits.
-
Researchers went to Asia with a genetically modified rice strain that they had inserted more drought resistant gene in from another less nutritious, less tasty strain of rice and they gave it to the farmers. They didn't make any money off it, they just gave it to them. Now when there are droughts there are a lot less people dying of starvation. Millions of lives are saved. Since the gene was taken from the same species of rice eating it will not cause the previous mentioned negative health effects. They are essentially doing a fast version of selective breeding in a short amount of time.
I'll try to find the source where I heard this. It was a you tube video on GMO foods.
Any of the genetically modified foods are dangerous in my opinion.
Care to explain why you think that?
EDIT- I can't find the video, but I will say that after watching it my views on GMO crops changed after watching it.
-
There's a reason why they are banned in many other countries. There's also a reason why there are hardly ANY studies on it and the ones that prove that they have detrimental health effects are pushed into a dark corner by monstanto. They have been proven in many different ways to affect the body. Look into it and you'll see, and i'm not talking about some youtube video. Google scholar.
The only reason they are allowed is because there is too much money to be made from it. Monsanto is prettymuch above the law at this point so there's not much we can do except NOT eat them. And I think even that one link that i posted is enough to turn people away. I guess not though.
-
Forgive my huge wall of text but I just had to chuck in my 2 cents. :P
In Australia all GMO crops are grown in "secure facilities with a cleared safety area around the crops to prevent cross pollination".
The safety area is 3 f#@*ing meters!
Seriously, not kilometers, meters.
Needless to say but now there is GMO canola all the way up and down the main highway, and it was detected in WA, (and Japan and parts of EU) on the other side of the country from the NSW crop it originated from.
Australia is a bloody big country folks, so that's a long way.
I cant even send bloody guava seeds to WA due to quarantine laws and it being a "high risk material", but untested or evaluated in any way (as it was from the first planting,) GMO canola had made it there and was/is growing along side the highway, near non GMO canola crops.
"Limited cross-contamination and pollination has occurred, but it has been isolated and is being monitored by the relevant authorities"
I don't know about your government but I don't really trust mine to be responsible...
Regardless, there is just no need for this stuff, as there are ALREADY much hardier crops available of just about everything.
That rice for example.
The folks were growing the weaker stuff as the price was higher at market.
It was white, it had a uniform grain size, and a loose hulk making bulk processing easier.
That's economic and market forces of the big wholesalers, not any real logistic issue.
The hardier varieties grow fine, are disease resistant, nutritious, and can feed a nation with ease.
BUT, they will not get top $ in the market, and will be classed lower in the grading system.
That is the cause of the starvation issues world-wide.
There is only a market for "A grade" products, even in the third world.
"A grade" whatever is worth $80-100 a tonne
"B grade" whatever is worth $10-25 a tonne
"C grade " whatever is worth $1-5 a tonne
You can't honestly tell me that there is anything wrong with B or C grade, (and 50 years ago we had D, E, and F as well) but the big suppliers just will not buy it, and a lot of the time the cost involved with transporting, marketing and selling it, outweighs the profit of growing it.
There is the reason for mass starvation, and GMO rubbish doesn't fix that problem, it only enhances it, by increasing the standardization of food crops, and destroying the market of traditional varieties.
And even more scary is the fact that the surrounding "weed crops" become resistant to standard "safe" chemical herbicides, or the crappy GMO crops escape and become weeds themselves.
Although the origin of the Genes used in GMO crops is pretty scary stuff, lets put that aside for a minute.
The facts are this "solution" doesn't actually fix the "problem".
If the problem is starvation, just utilize B and C grade foods more, and adjust the pricing of them to match there real economic and nutritional value.
Problem solved.
If your after a way to control large populations of people and create international instability, in turn creating massive profits for BIGAGRA, then GMO is the best way to go.
You can't really fault the business model or the marketing department of Monasanto or alike.
1/3 of the population doesn't understand the risks involved, not physical or medical, just the huge economic risks I am talking about.
1/3 of the population doesn't care, and assumes someone else will sort out any issues. As long as they get their 100% visually perfect food, nice and cheap, then all is well.
1/3 can see the problem, but doesn't have a way to solve the problem by themselves, and fighting something that is 2/3 stronger than you is pretty hard going, so they eventually give up.
With a business model like theirs, then market domination is unfortunately inevitable....
GMO everything is gonna happen, and the only way to minimize the effect of a GMO dominated diet, is to grow stuff like amaranth instead of wheat and corn.
That way when your old style heirloom corn or wheat or whatever you have been growing for generations, is crossed up with the wild weed GMO varieties or your neighbours crop, or the new diseases that come from the increased reliance on those few select crops come and wipe out your older stable varieties, you will still be able to harvest a feed from your amaranth.
Forget about cancer and all those other distractions, put out by BIGAGRA to keep the agitators in the community occupied.
The $ alone should be enough of a reason to put a stop to the GMO industry.
Its not economically sensible to rely on GMO anything.
Amaranth is just an example, but you get the idea.
;)
-
Researchers went to Asia with a genetically modified rice strain that they had inserted more drought resistant gene in from another less nutritious, less tasty strain of rice and they gave it to the farmers. They didn't make any money off it, they just gave it to them. Now when there are droughts there are a lot less people dying of starvation. Millions of lives are saved. Since the gene was taken from the same species of rice eating it will not cause the previous mentioned negative health effects. They are essentially doing a fast version of selective breeding in a short amount of time.
I'll try to find the source where I heard this. It was a you tube video on GMO foods.
Any of the genetically modified foods are dangerous in my opinion.
Care to explain why you think that?
EDIT- I can't find the video, but I will say that after watching it my views on GMO crops changed after watching it.
What about the heirloom varietys of rice that will soon have gmo genes in them??? No stopping that in this situation at this point
-
Fairdinkum, our government is completely in bed with the company that is making a lot of these GMO seeds. There was even a bill passed here called the "Monsanto Protection Act" that basically grants them immunity to a lot of the laws other companies have to follow. They are impervious to lawsuit. My government fully supports this because i'm guessing monsanto has a TON of lobyists speaking on their behalf in congress and i'm sure they've infiltrated the FDA.
-
"Fairdinkum, our government is completely in bed with the company that is making a lot of these GMO seeds. There was even a bill passed here called the "Monsanto Protection Act" that basically grants them immunity to a lot of the laws other companies have to follow. They are impervious to lawsuit. My government fully supports this because i'm guessing monsanto has a TON of lobyists speaking on their behalf in congress and i'm sure they've infiltrated the FDA."
Yeah for sure, its the same situation here.
GMO is not allowed in any Aussie foods.
But, its technically not a GMO product if it is processed to remove "all genetic material" like in canola oil for example.
The oil is considered a refined food product of "negligible genetic content", and therefore ITS NOT EVEN LABLED GMO.
Technically its not GMO, even though its from GMO plants ::)
Its in everything, but most folk still assume there is no GMO products in Australia, as the government tells us there isn't and never will be.
Same for imported US processed corn etc.
They discussed labeling but the advisory group said that these GMO products would likely be unfairly boycotted and targeted by the extremist members of society, and as such, "labeling was not only unnecessary, but also a potential risk to our economy".....
Money is the only thing that makes folks think about stuff, so that's the message we should be pushing.
No one cares that the rats and the pigs both got cancer eating that GMO rubbish.
No one cares that they use terminator genes in developing countries to force reliance on the big companies for seed year after year.
But I reckon that explaining that in 10years max, and the data backs me up on this, all these crops will be useless due to disease and overreliance on chemicals is the way to go.
Even better, if we don't eat the shit, they wont have a market for it.
Plenty of food in the bush and in your footpath for that matter.
Just in a 5m square patch of lawn at the caravan park in town I found chickweed, sorrel, purslane, nutgrass, oxalis, dock and wombat berry.
All good for a feed, highly nutritious, sustainable and cheap.
I would say its the same pretty much anywhere.
Just because the system is broken, doesn't mean you should be a contributor to it as well.
We cant win the war or the fight by direct or even indirect conflict with a more powerful opponent.
That wont even win any of the little battles along the way.
Its a statistical impossibility.
BUT, we can always just walk the away and do our own thing........
Then "Karma" will sort it all out for us. 8)
-
Corn - a product of 1000 years of breeding and genetic selection of mutations. The current Maize plant we know now started out as Teosinte, an almost unusable plant. ALL corn is genetically modified. The only thing about it all that really changed is when Monsanto introduced a Bacillus thuringiensis gene into their standard crop. Personally i think it was a great piece of work and we need this type of work to be done, I do not agree with the implementation of their findings though. It is just another example of good science being abused by corporate powers.
The main problem with gmo´s, especially corn, is what it is being used for. Most currently think that it is being used as a direct food source for humans, and that is not correct. At this time the majority of grains in the US (the largest producer by far), mostly corn, is used for ethanol production or livestock feed. The livestock feed is exported to almost every country. So it does not matter if your country has laws against gmo´s or not, because all the laws are about human consumption not general consumption. The driving force behind the industry is mainly concerned about producing cheap grains that are used to fatten up livestock, and there is no law about gmo in that area. So weather or not if you live in a place that bans gmo´s, or has labeling laws, you still consume gmo´s in your meat and dairy products.
Oh, and there is one gmo masterpiece that i could not live without, the orange, specifically the Sunkist orange.
-
You can call selective breeding genetically modifying technically, but it shouldn't be grouped in with these modifications like the "round up ready" plants. And these cancer causing genes that are found in these plants. Just look at what monsanto is doing to this country and it's farmers. It's all very screwed up in my opinion and I wouldn't group in selective breeding with the lab genetically modified plants at all. I'm talking about the plants that they design the dna themselves and then patent and screw over any farmer that ends up with one in his stock.
One of the biggest issues in my opinion though is what they do with the plants afterwards. How they reconstruct the corn and soy and make all this junk food with. It's causing a lot of disease and suffering and shouldn't be allowed. The point you bring up about the livestock eating the GMO plants. It's very sad. It's almost unavoidable and it is detrimental to our health i believe whole heartedly.
-
"Most currently think that it is being used as a direct food source for humans, and that is not correct. At this time the majority of grains in the US (the largest producer by far), mostly corn, is used for ethanol production or livestock feed."
I have to disagree on that bit.
It is used as a direct food source for humans, its just that there is also a lot more use as animal food in feedlots.
Takes a lot of GM corn/soy to make a steak(7:1 from memory?), so livestock and fuel production does use a hell of A lot more than humans directly.
But that doesn't change the fact it still takes quite a bit to make your breakfast cereal, coffee whitener, bread, chips etc etc etc.
Approx 60% of all grocery items in the USA and about 30% in OZ are made from GMO products....
On a side note.
Monsanto are also famous for production of another famous orange that was raved about in its day.
Agent orange......
That product alone doesn't give me a lot of faith in their corporate responsibility, or in the governments that endorse and sponsor them.
-
Holy shit. 60%?!
Do you have a source of that.
I mean, I believe you, but I'd like to see the source of that with my own eyes. That's crazy high.
I looked it up. Its actually 7-10:1 Grain to meat. I thought it was actually higher than that...
-
Its totally cool you have doubts of my figures.
It is the internet after all.
Hahahaha.
Im not 110% certain to be honest, but way back in the beginning of our Facebook page there was a bit of a heated debate about GM and someone posted a link.
Cant find the source but its a pretty commonly quoted....(not that that means a lot, but when I look at the ingredients of most stuff and the grain data it looks about right to me?)
Unfortunately we will probably never know for sure as the figures are a bit less advertised these days.
http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/news/522.usa_2010_more_genetically_modified_crops_once_again.html
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/9-investigates-70-percent-processed-foods-have-gen/nYcpK/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margie-kelly/genetically-modified-food_b_2039455.html
http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/02/adoption_genetically_modified_crops
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops
GM food products on sale in Australia and New Zealand – either as a whole food or as an ingredient in a processed food – must have their GM status identified if introduced genetic material or protein is present in the final food. However, there are exceptions.
- Foods where GM ingredients are highly refined, such as cooking oils, margarine, sugars, starches, chocolate, baked goods. Many processed foods fall into this category.
-Foods made at bakeries, restaurants and takeaways.
-Foods from animals that are fed GM feed.
-
I should have worded that a bit better, only a very small proportion is used for direct human consumption.
Approx 20% of the total us harvest is used for seed, ethanol or human consumption, and only a percentage of that is used for food products. The numbers vary year by year as they are subject to industry and environmental changes. The U.S. Corn Council states that for the 12/13 season 34 million metric tons of corn was used for human consumption, seed and other non ethanol products while 219 million metric tons were used for ethanol, livestock feed and residual products.
This was taken from epa.gov:
According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production. The National Corn Growers Association also reports that each American consumes 25 pounds of corn annually. The crop is fed as ground grain, silage, high-moisture, and high-oil corn. About 12% of the U.S. corn crop ends up in foods that are either consumed directly (e.g. corn chips) or indirectly (e.g. high fructose corn syrup). Corn has a wide array of industrial uses including ethanol, a popular oxygenate in cleaner burning auto fuels. In addition many household products contain corn, including paints, candles, fireworks, drywall, sandpaper, dyes, crayons, shoe polish, antibiotics, and adhesives.
While it might seem that we use a huge amount of these grains in our everyday eating habits, it is vastly less than the amounts used in everything else. My point being, we can try all we want to enact labeling and safe food laws but it makes no difference because all the proposals only cover what we directly consume with no thought to indirect consumption. About the only way around it is to produce all of your own food and never eat corn. It does not matter what the label says all corn seed produced in the us has been tainted by cross pollination.
We only eat 25 pounds (approx 11kilos) annually and the average 500 pound (approx 225kilo) cow would consume 3500 pounds (1590kilo) annually. The actual numbers behind the 7-10:1 ratio is staggering.
-
Just imagine when terminater genes of GMOs cross pollinate with the rest of the species.
:( irresponsible.
-
I believe ALL GMOs are potentially dangerous.
I have watched multiple documentaries on Monsanto and GMOs. 2 of the best were The World According to Monsanto (older) and Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives (newer; better). There was also a fantastic segment on the topic on The Melissa Harris Perry Show in April 2013 about GMOs and had multiple expert scientists on there, a big name tv chef, and a different person who worked for Monsanto. :o
I recorded it and have a multiple dvds of Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives, and that segment of The Melissa Harris Perry Show of April 2013. [anybody wants a copy, PM me].
Also, Clarence Thomas (on the US supreme court for life) used to work for Monsanto, as did a revolving door of lobbyists/government personnel.
Senator Bernie Sanders wants to repeal the "Monsanto Protection Act"...
-
I really don't see how the point about how much corn is used for human consumption has anything to do with whether GMO's are bad for you or not. Anyways, in america a HUGE portion of the foods eaten are all GMO. Whether or not the corn is directly consumed very much.
-
I feel like eventually the people in the US will wake up and realize that GMO's aren't any good and ban them like in many other countries, but then enforcing that may be difficult at first because as it's already been discussed the GMO genes are being cross pollinated with the surrounding area so it would be like a game of cat and mouse trying to eliminate all the GMO from everywhere. Not to mention the farmers who have grown dependent on Monsanto's 'Round Up Ready' GMOs would have to basically do a complete detox of their entire farm to try to get rid of all that poison they've sprayed, I'm not even sure how that would even be done....
-
Well, to get a bit back on topic (not that i mind the current topic), expect a bunch of informative videos about food foresting and permaculture to be otw!!
;D