New GM crops in Europe

A couple of weeks ago, somewhere in the middle of Saturday's newspaper was an article about the European Commission having granted cultivation authorisation for GM Amflora potatoes and three types of altered maize. This seems to have crept in by the back door with little excitement or protest. The potatoes are not destined for the plate, but will produce starch for the paper making industry - nevertheless, they will still be growing in fields near to non GM crops! One concern is that Amflora potatoes contain a controversial antibiotic resistant gene - it cannot be guaranteed that this will not by one means or another get into the food chain. Just thought this decision should be remarked upon! Germany are planning to grow the potatoes in the eastern part of the country, and they will also be grown in the Czech republic. Sweden and the Netherlands plan to follow next year.

The GM potato crop experiment is now up and running in East Anglia - an item on Radio 4's Today programme this morning revealed that the fence to protect the crop cost in the region of £10K, so they're obviously worried about protesters. (One of the scientists involved made the comment that he had been working with GM crops for a number of years and none of them had bitten him yet. Ha ha ha)

Try telling that to
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Is Quorn considered a GM foodstuff?

Umm well it was...at least by those I mixed with while doing various anti GM stuff in 2000 and for a few years after

damned tasty though

?you think?

personally I can't stand the stuff...........would rather eat mushrooms...........which have a similar meaty texture and "umani" mouth feel...........

but that is just IMO....

Compostwoman wrote:Try telling that to
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edited because the link I thought I had put in did not appear...........

I used to love it, specifically for the Umani taste, can't get it over here, so not had any in years and years...

Badger wrote:I used to love it, specifically for the Umani taste, can't get it over here, so not had any in years and years...

Can't? Do you think that's Canada in general or just your location? Thus while we would have no trouble finding Quorn in our immediate area bet that in 90% of the US there wouldn't be a place selling the stuff within 100 miles of wherever you were, possibly entire states where not available.

I was once at anti GM rally where they had a vegan catering van selling Quorn burgers (doubly odd because Quorn isn't vegan either).

I have seen that happen as well......

another reason why I do not like Quorn

Surely you are not becoming vegan CW?

non vegans can eat vegan food you know Billy...I actually rather enjoyed my time at the 2007 BGG as there was lots of really nice veggie and vegan food available...

but I did enjoy the pork roast CM did for me as a welcome home dinner....

Or was it that I was at an Anti GM rally?

we had a GM crop trial quite close by...I helped organise a huge public meeting and all sorts of protests ensued afterwards...

I don't have a problem with GM in itself, there is so much potential to be had with it.
And how many of those that cry "we shouldn't be playing god" actually believe in God in the first place?

But a lot of it does seem to be done for the wrong reasons: don't make plants better at competing with weeds, just make them more resistant to the weedkiller so you can sell higher doses of it.
And of course there is the old: pollinate the competition and close them down for breach of patent tactic, which is decidedly disturbing.
And there is the rumour that Super-Skunk was created by GM means, and that is proper dodgy stuff.

But it like any technology, it is open to abuse. Should we ban knives because some people stab each other with them? No.