When will global population start to be controlled ??

sparksfly

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Wait now are you in favour of dumping or not. If we were to meet Europe's possible food capacity - and you are right that we are nowhere near that - then we would be able to export to Africa even cheaper i.e. what you call dumping.

Dumping means selling subsidised food at below cost to poorer nations at prices that they cannot match themselves for the purpose of making that country dependent on foreign food supplies. The CAP system in Europe is guilty of this.

An Oxfam spokeswoman recently stated "The CAP lavishes subsidies on Europes wealthiest farmers and biggest landowners at the expense of millions of poorest farmers in the developing world".
Claire Godfrey, trade policy adviser for Oxfam, said: "Not only does the Common Agricultural Policy hit European shoppers in their pockets but strikes a blow against the heart of development in places like Africa.
Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Advisor on the Right to Food, has condemned the hypocrisy and deadly dumping of food on the African continent by the European Union, which drives African farmers to bankruptcy. "The European Union, and particularly France, subsidize their own farmers with billions of euros, creating cheaper prices for European fruit and vegetables on African markets than for domestic products. This destructs African agriculture,” Ziegler states.

Companies lake monsanto sold cheap, GM seeds to native farmers in places like thailand and then increased the cost by 1000's of percent. Non GM seeds then no longer worked, putting the farmers out of business and gaining control of vast tracts of land.

Policies like this cause hunger, not over-population.

Helix

Stiffler2 wrote: »

We're running out of food / resources / fuel / land etc...

there's more than enough resources, food and land for thrice the population. we just need to use it all properly

Duggys Housemate

sparksfly wrote: »

Dumping means selling subsidised food at below cost to poorer nations at prices that they cannot match themselves for the purpose of making that country dependent on foreign food supplies. The CAP system in Europe is guilty of this.

An Oxfam spokeswoman recently stated "The CAP lavishes subsidies on Europes wealthiest farmers and biggest landowners at the expense of millions of poorest farmers in the developing world".
Claire Godfrey, trade policy adviser for Oxfam, said: "Not only does the Common Agricultural Policy hit European shoppers in their pockets but strikes a blow against the heart of development in places like Africa.
Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Advisor on the Right to Food, has condemned the hypocrisy and deadly dumping of food on the African continent by the European Union, which drives African farmers to bankruptcy. "The European Union, and particularly France, subsidize their own farmers with billions of euros, creating cheaper prices for European fruit and vegetables on African markets than for domestic products. This destructs African agriculture,” Ziegler states.

That makes no sense. If the CAP is increasing prices for Europeans why is it reducing prices for Africans, unless there is an export subsidy, if so that should be dropped.

Removal of the CAP will reduce prices in Europe, not the opposite. It will also create more food - well thats to say the same thing. So more will be exported to Africa.

Companies lake monsanto sold cheap, GM seeds to native farmers in places like thailand and then increased the cost by 1000's of percent. Non GM seeds then no longer worked, putting the farmers out of business and gaining control of vast tracts of land.

Why would non-GM seeds not work? That makes no sense. Monsanto does stop its seeds re-seeding, that is to resell the product and to stop any bad GM getting out of hand. In fact environmentalists demanded it, then criticised it.

GM, on the whole, will benefit the poorer parts of the world.

sparksfly

I am working for a related biotechnical company and have a great interest in GM foods and foods in general. I have studied as many reports as I can on the subject.

First the CAP

The CAP was designed to defend European producers from cheaper products outside the EU by subsidising agricultural produce. If surplus food is produced then the EU intervenes in the market either by subsidising export of the product at below cost price, by storing it, or destroying it.
Such exports are generally dumped on poor countries, especially in Africa. The CAP also seeks to control production by setting quotas on how much a farmer can produce then paying them not to produce more. This makes no sense especially when farming contributes relatively little to EU GDP.


Producing top quality, high value food products (again like Denmark) and allowing the free market prevail as in every other commodity would allow our food exports to increase and find its true market value.


GM, on the whole, will benefit the poorer parts of the world?

On the contrary, in the US, studies by scientists from the USDA and the University of Georgia show that GM soya has decreased yields by up to 20 percent compared with non-GM soya. It also has shown that growing GM cotton can result in a drop in income by up to 40 percent. The study gave clear indications that unless the GM seed monopoly is put to an end, our whole ENTIRE food supply will become controlled by a small number of corporations, putting everyone's health at risk

Why would non-GM seeds not work?
In some cases non GM seeds will not thrive after a GM crop. India has lost the use of its traditional cotton seeds because of contamination from Bt Cotton - a seed strain engineered to contain the pests but also kills non GM seeds. In other cases the farmer is bound by contract to the GM company and cannot purchase non GM seeds or save GM seeds for re-use.

One example:

In the latter end if the 1990's, Monsanto convinced the Indian government that its GM seeds would produce better cotton crops.

Monsanto offered its GM cotton seeds to the farmers with promises of plentiful crops.
Monsanto’s seeds in India largely failed. They proved to be totally useless in dry land. The result was large debts for farmers and destruction some farming fields due their contamination of the soil and are now referred to as "killer seeds".
By a contractual clause, common in most of Monsantos terms and conditions, the farmers could not save Monsanto’s GM seeds for reuse (without paying huge royalties) after the first season or could they purchase traditional seeds. The farmers still had to buy and pay a huge price for the expensive GM seeds. Many farmers had to borrow large sums of money. In 2010, 100 grams of GM cotton seeds cost Indian farmers $15, compared with $15 for 1000 grams of traditional seeds.

With poor harvest, the farmers could not pay back the lenders. Burdened with debts, some committed suicide by drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto supplied them with, in front of their families. Over 95 per cent of the country's cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto
According to the most recent figures (provided by a study by the New York University School of Law in Nov 2010), 17,638 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2009, an estimated 200,000 farmers have committed suicide all over India since the GM fiasco began.

An article in the Ecologist Magazine revealed that over the past 15 years or so, a collection of five giant biotech corporations -- Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow and DuPont -- have bought up more than 200 other seed companies, allowing them to dominate the sale of seeds in the USA and other countries. It also revealed that Monsanto is not only patenting their own GM seeds. They have also succeeded in patenting a large number of traditional crop seeds.


It's unbelievable but true, Monsanto has sued farmers whose organic crop fields became contaminated with their seeds simply by the wind. In Monsanto's mind, that equals patent infringement. Many U.S. organic farmers have said their fields were contaminated with Monsanto's GM seeds without their knowledge.

Again, I say dont blame population increase for our world food problems.

kryogen

The global population is being controlled, naive question.

Duggys Housemate

Back to the CAP and logic.

1) If the CAP is pushing up prices and export subsidies are lowering them then the result of losing the CAP would be the reduction in prices over all. So if prices fall then there is no need for export subsidies. The second point on "dumping" is this: concern with farmers in poor parts of Africa is not the same as concern for the consumers. African famers may need protection but they are getting it at the cost of people who buy food.

You attack the CAP for protecting Europe from outside competition, and support the right of African farmers to protectionism. Which is inconsistent.

2) GM is generally a good thing. There are conflicting reports on the GM in India. In general a google search will get anti-Mosanto articles but heres a recent one from Nature which says yields increased.

http://www.nature.com/news/genetically-modified-cotton-gets-high-marks-in-india-1.10927

V_Moth

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

2) GM is generally a good thing. There are conflicting reports on the GM in India. In general a google search will get anti-Mosanto articles but heres a recent one from Nature which says yields increased.

http://www.nature.com/news/genetically-modified-cotton-gets-high-marks-in-india-1.10927

Unfortunately the article doesn't mention who funded the study. Sadly, large corporations have been funding "tame scientists" for too long and this has had disastrous effects (see Vioxx for example)

Duggys Housemate

V_Moth wrote: »

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

2) GM is generally a good thing. There are conflicting reports on the GM in India. In general a google search will get anti-Mosanto articles but heres a recent one from Nature which says yields increased.

http://www.nature.com/news/genetically-modified-cotton-gets-high-marks-in-india-1.10927

Unfortunately the article doesn't mention who funded the study. Sadly, large corporations have been funding "tame scientists" for too long and this has had disastrous effects (see Vioxx for example)

Here's the link to the original article.

http://m.pnas.org/content/early/2012/06/25/1203647109

They declare no conflict of interest so prove the funding - which in itself is not a proof of the veracity or otherwise of this report - if you can.

Nature is well respected too of course.

sheesh

IrishAm wrote: »

Its near impossible to become Chinese. They don't allow dual citizenship. They only give indefinite leave to remain to 0.5% of people who apply. The Chinese, as a whole, would laugh at a Paddy claiming to be Chinese.

I have a second cousin that has Hong kong residency which means can come and go as he likes, he was a priest there for about 15 years he was born in the US to irish parents so he has those passports too it was handy as he used do alot of ecumenical work