Angus_Mesmer's Comments
Borlaug's work was based on plant breeding. Not gene splicing in a lab.
GM foods, or rather crops, do come with a "slight" catch for the producer.
They are not allowed to use seeds from one crop to grow the next. In some cases, they wouldn't even be able to do so, as the seeds would be sterile. This goes against thousands of years of farming history.
Companies such as Monsanto make a mint by altering a few genes in something that took actual farmers ages (counting in centuries here) to select and turn into the produce we know, and slapping a copyright on top.
Efficient? Possibly, yes, for the moment, at least. But you leave a multinational corporation (known to lie about its products, see "RoundUp") in charge of the world's food supply.
Organic pesticides are made from natural products (as opposed to chemically synthesised). I know that in France it took a very long time to get "nettle manure" on the list of approved pesticides and fertilizers because of the lobbies, who didn't like people making efficient treatment products out of a very common plant. It had been used for centuries... Big Corporations didn't like losing money to nature.
Unfortunately, as long as there will be "conventional agriculture", the kind using chemicals, there will never really be any 100% Organic crops grown.
Pesticides carried by the wind, or through water contamination, will reach organic cultures.
GM foods, or rather crops, do come with a "slight" catch for the producer.
They are not allowed to use seeds from one crop to grow the next. In some cases, they wouldn't even be able to do so, as the seeds would be sterile. This goes against thousands of years of farming history.
Companies such as Monsanto make a mint by altering a few genes in something that took actual farmers ages (counting in centuries here) to select and turn into the produce we know, and slapping a copyright on top.
Efficient? Possibly, yes, for the moment, at least. But you leave a multinational corporation (known to lie about its products, see "RoundUp") in charge of the world's food supply.
Organic pesticides are made from natural products (as opposed to chemically synthesised). I know that in France it took a very long time to get "nettle manure" on the list of approved pesticides and fertilizers because of the lobbies, who didn't like people making efficient treatment products out of a very common plant. It had been used for centuries... Big Corporations didn't like losing money to nature.
Unfortunately, as long as there will be "conventional agriculture", the kind using chemicals, there will never really be any 100% Organic crops grown.
Pesticides carried by the wind, or through water contamination, will reach organic cultures.
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There was the Bettancourt affair, in which it came to light that the richest French woman, who inherited her wealth and the source for it (L'Oréal, because she's worth it), not only used fiscal paradises to hide some money, but also used... er... "fiscal optimisation", ie: having someone use legal loopholes to allow your millions or billions to escape taxes normal people have to pay too, but she still asked for the tax rebate.
And on work hours, over ten years ago, France officially switched to 35-hours week. The aim was that some people would get more time off, but mostly that other people would be hired, to cover that time. You know, lower unemployment. Somehow, it mostly turned to more overtime, often undeclared and unpaid. New rules about overtime have been put in place to try again, but somehow that is also eeeeeevil, and mostly means that more overtime will go undeclared and unpaid.
TL;DR: Yes, we hate rich people who are rich because they won't pay the taxes or wages they should.