I was contacted recently by a Spanish customer asking if we use Monsanto Terminator Genes in our cannabis. We most definitely do not. The Spanish customer mentioned he had heard rumours that some of the big seed companies may be looking to do this, or maybe are already. This would mean that their strains we all sterile, and customers would not be able to make their own seed.

Has anybody heard anything reliable about this? To me it just sounds like a rumour, but I wouldn't put it past people to be this crap and unprincipled...

Namkha

some more info:



Monsanto is in the process of acquiring and patenting their newest technology, known as "Terminator Technology." This technology is currently the greatest threat to humanity. If it is used by Monsanto on a large-scale basis, it will inevitably lead to famine and starvation on a worldwide basis.

Billions of people on the planet are supported by farmers who save seeds from the crops and replant these seeds the following year. Seeds are planted. The crop is harvested. And the seeds from the harvest are replanted the following year. Most farmers cannot afford to buy new seeds every year, so collecting and replanting seeds is a crucial part of the agricultural cycle. This is the way food has been grown successfully for thousands of years.

With Monsanto's terminator technology, they will sell seeds to farmers to plant crops. But these seeds have been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are harvested, all new seeds from these crops are sterile (e.g., dead, unusable). This forces farmers to pay Monsanto every year for new seeds if they want to grow their crops.

In less rich countries, hundreds of millions of people rely heavily on small farms which produce foods for the region. If these farms begin to use Monsanto's terminator technology, and cannot afford to buy new genetically engineered seeds from Monsanto the following year, many of the people in the region may starve. Under normal circumstances, food could be brought in from other regions. However, many of those other regions will likely have the same problems with famine due to Monsanto's terminator technology.

"It's terribly dangerous," says Hope Shand, "half the world's farmers are poor and can't afford to buy seed every growing season, yet poor farmers grow 15 to 20% of the world's food and they directly feed at least 1.4 billion people - 100 million in Latin America, 300 million in Africa, and 1 billion in Asia. These farmers depend upon saved seed and their own breeding skills in adapting other varieties for use on their (often marginal) lands."

What is even more frightening is that traits from genetically-engineered crops can get passed on to other crops. Once the terminator seeds are released into a region, the trait of seed sterility could be passed to other non-genetically-engineered crops making most or all of the seeds in the region sterile.

Camila Montecinos, an agronomist with the Chilean organization, CET, has another concern, "We've talked to a number of crop geneticists who have studied the patent," she says. "They're telling us that it's likely that pollen from crops carrying the Terminator trait will infect the fields of farmers who either reject or can't afford the technology. Their crop won't be affected that season but when farmers reach into their bins to sow seed the following season they could discover - too late - that some of their seed is sterile. This could lead to very high yield losses. If the technology is transmitted through recessive genes, we could see several years of irregular harvests and a general - even dramatic - decline in food security for the poorest farm communities."

Because of the worldwide condemnation of terminator seeds, Monsanto appears to be verbally distancing itself from its own technology that it is in the process of acquiring. Even without the threat of this technology Monsanto is contributing significant to the destruction of health and environment around the world. But if this technology is released by Monsanto, it could spell disaster for hundreds of millions of people around the world. How anyone could invest in such a company is difficult to imagine!

Other resources for Monsanto Terminator Technology information on the Internet:

Terminator: Profiting By Spreading Sterility (RAFI Web Page)
Pure Food Campaign - Help Stop the Terminator

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?show...t=0&start=0

Have a read there mate

I worry they will add it too commercial hemp seed, ostensibly to prevent people cultivating it..and in the quiet hope it will infect the drug cannabis genepool.

I was just going to say Arjan would probably jump at the offer of "Terminator genes".

Thats not good as Sensi seem to be buying out other seed companies so if they got that gene working they would have a good hold over the market

Is this true?!

News to me that ... mind you so are many things ...off to Google.

e2a: CAn't find anything that suggests Sensi are owned by Monsanto

was just about to ask for a link
Sensi own Flying Dutchmen but I've not heard that Monsanto own sensi until here today

Had a quick google there cant find anything on it

They already do this in many other countries. They didn't tell a lot of farmers, either, if i recall correctly.

This sounds like the single biggest problem in food/farming today.

For millenia, farmers have reseeded from stock, that's how we get different species and traits. That's why we've got different strains of weed all over the world.

And now?

Globo-Wheat.

I can't believe they are allowed to develop and profit from it -that technology should be looked away like some kind of biological weapon..

It is petty fucked up that a company is allowed to control all seeds/plants, its mother natures to give and she gave it to all so how can they be allowed to stop what the world has always had, surley this has got to be illegal in some way, it must break some rules some where.

Codex Alimentarius is here dude Fucked up profit heads recon they are god personified and that they can control the natural.

uhhhh

If the monsanto seeds are sterile, how do they pass on their (sterility) genes on to other plants. One might say pollen but wouldn't the pollen from the monsanto plants be sterile as well?

It would be the seeds of the descendants of the non terminator plants crossed with the terminator plants that would be erratically sterile..The saved seed of the neighbouring fields for instance.

I imagine it would be recessive, with some normal plants growing and carrying the gene - it would just reduce yield drastically, occuring for several generations after?

Monsanto is a truly evil company.

a bleek future it is when these profiteering abominations are aloud to get away with tech specificly designed to keep poor folk poor,thought that was the booze and cig companies responseability?

so Feminised seed is effectively useless for people who want to reproduce their own seed? wow

Well Arjan is on the record as saying he would like for "Third World" farmers to buy feminised seed from him

It is on record here on his strain hunters on youtube

In that vid I'm sure he hands the farmer a handfull of his dodgy genetics. He doesn't say "here you go, fuck up all your and generations of your family's hard work", but I think that is what he means.

" Shya, Franco.......hesh tha biggesht shmoker in de world"

if you can face watching the whole thing, it may be in later sections where he talks about how wonderful it would be to have the farmers buying feminised genetics from him

the basic premise of the video is pretty sound... shame about the neo-colonial attitude, latent racism and vomit-inducing group dynamics among the Westerners

Sensi seeds,owned by Monsanto?

I mean where huge amount of money is nothing is impossible ,but i would like to here more about it from fellas that gave this info. u cant just say it and leave...give us the source!!

OLd http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?show...=136423&hl=

Both Franco and Arjan looks a bit retarded in that movie

yep, truly unbelievable racism

I think this quotation:

" By Henk from DP
Henk says it's a lot harder to produce feminized seeds than regular seeds, and he has to be careful about feminizer technology and its resultant pollen. As with Terminator Seed technology utilized by greedy corporations like Monsanto (the company has designed food crops that produce sterile seeds, forcing farmers to buy new seeds from Monsanto every year), plants grown from feminized seeds cannot reproduce naturally; at best, they can be cloned."

Might have lead to the confusion maybe?

I think the pollen angle is very dangerous and and the obvious line for greed based institutions to take, random, generalised global infection.
Who lives 300 years to notice the oaks have stopped dropping acorns that work?

That's western humanities problem most see less than one generation as an influenceable? future.

T'
'The seed is sterile to protect you' Who?, 'We take your D.N.A., to exclude you from our investigations'? What other traits do you check for or select for further sociol-psychological experimentation?
(Paranoid? Informed? Aware? Er, A bit of all and not really any, they sort of cancel each other out in cycles)

Short term profit is an imperative for any with a financial motivator alone.
Big business with theoretical wealth slowly stealing the means of creating real wealth.
Standard practice.

Who decide whom and what get financed?
Erm,........ let me think for a moment........
Oh yeah, finance, business, banks. Seem a bit loaded?

Run for the caves, we have our 'Hydroponic Lights'and geothermal energy to keep us, warm, fed and happy little underlings but we can only survive as long as the entrances to our world remain hidden from the powers of darkness,( hang on, isn't that meant to be us?), and we all must remember to bring Safe Seed Stock and packed lunches and toolbelts with.

Come on folk we really must keep this one together, at least until first crop is in, then we can relax a bit.

I'm sorry for being glib and not, it is truly inhuman to contemplate originating technology of this or similarly defective gentics, for profit.

Financial profit, long term sustainability, fairness and equality, all sit very uncomfortably until one word is removed.
Profit can be a multiplication in production or an increase in a persons understanding or a widening of compassion, profit is not the word out of place.
Financial, is a motvator capable of destroying the closest of friendsips, partnerships, benefit to the planet as most will have experienced.
Rise above it, it is the only way.

It is this financial/perceived wealth differential motivator and the resultant inherrent power it confers that really motivate most of the real wealth and economic controllers globally.

Meyer, red shield, Rothschild, an assumed name, apart from the Meyer bit, really kick started his dynasty off the back of money owed as mercenarys widows pensions, a really substantial sum, at the time, and an inkling into the psyche that spawned the continuing capitalist economic megalith that is the Rothschild dynasty.
The syllables are getting the beter of me today. Ill shut up.

Literally Killer Genetics by any reasoning are wrong.

I totally disagree with it ! Feminized strains CAN reproduce themselves. Even the third generation will be dioecious again!!! The males will always turn the population inti dioecious state again
Males CANNOT be eliminated from the population. Take a good read at Ivan Bócsa work ( hungarian breeder and pioneer in hemp breeding in the second half of the 20th century.
The first generation will be 70% females1-2% males and the rest will be between the two mainly female plants with some balls on them. How many balls ? Depends on the selection criteria.
So this 99% female thing is shit
monoecious strains have one benefit -----seed for the food industry. That is what these are bred for....
Not for us, dioecious cannabis WILL alwys outperform feminized ones in vigor yield toughness etc because fem strains can pollinate themselves which turns out to be an inbred shock as Bócsa describes.

Peace
tukorponty

Wouldn't of expected anything more from arjan, the guy is ethically compromised and morally bankrupt.

well, you better hope these engineered super crops are sterile and don't propagate or infest the genepool. I don't agree with their business model , especially in third world countries, our tax dollars and money given to charity goes towards funding GMO crops in third world countries, leaving farmers dependent on seed producers.

and I think the vitamin part of the codex alimentarius isn't understood by a lot of people, this was set in place to prevent 'naturalists' from labeling their products as unproven cures for diseases, and if marketed that way vitamins will be labeled as a drug, while this costumer protection might go too far, not all countries classify vitamins as drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alimentarius#Controversy

and anyone who thinks terminator genes can wipe out a food crop line is not thinking this through very well.

Don't most western farmers already use this sort of technology?
I know there's been sterile wheat,barley and corn around for a very long time that farmers use.

The genes can be passed to other crops (and between species) by a process called gene flow. Although gene flow can occur between plants of the same species via cross pollination, it can also occur between different species via processes such as horizontal gene transfer, a process that doesn't rely on pollination and so can transfer genes from sterile sources. Inter species gene flow can occur when certain viruses or bacteria infect a host plant and incorporate genetic material from that host, then spread to a nearby population of a different plant and transfer the genetic material into the new population. It is one of the reasons why GM is such a potentially dangerous thing and should be stopped, these fuckers are messing with things the long-term consequences of which they simply don't have a clue about.

or, as likely: simply don't give a fuck about

thanks for adding that Boojum

I think it's from plant to bacteria/virus and not the other way around


http://www.gmo-safety.eu/en/gene_transfer/...s/226.docu.html

A single study, based on microorganisms in the digestive tract of bees. Hardly conclusive, doesn't in any way, shape or form address the myriad other possible methods of gene transfer. I also note that the website of the FAL research centre is less than forthcoming regarding where they get their funding (Monsanto, perhaps ? ).

they don't outright say genes don't get transfered but that there was some evidence of gene transfer in laboratory conditions

I was just trying to point out that lateral gene transfer is something that happens from plants to bacteria

But lateral gene transfer does happen between viruses and eukaryotes, in both directions, it's an established fact that viruses are able to transfer new genes to their host.

spot on booj. does st. louis, mo. have seven hills.
gen

too bad the only people with money to fund research are gm labs...

Well spotted, mate!

In the same way in which children are hereditary, I guess - i.e. if your parents never had any children, chnces are you won't either.

Just sounds like the usual brain-dead stoner paranoia and conspiracy shite to me. As if any seed bank would have the resources - or even the interest - to go there... sheesh!

monsanto is the largest seed producer in the world and has patents on all this new technology. this isnt stoner paranoia. this is because monsanto so graciously wants to make sure that nobady goes hungry. smart people, them, and they should control food supply. there is sarcasm in this post so be careful
gen

monsanto isn't really in the nutrition business, other companies try and develop more nutritious plants, monsanto is in the herbicide business... but plants are starting to develop resistance for Round Up.


I might just set aside some room to grow dandelions and spray them with some minute amount of round up in hopes of creating round up resistant dandelions through numerous generations ...... that's eco-terrorism haha...

but seriously, you would hope these guys would respect nature but they are to blame for many contaminents being dumped into communities, I am pretty sure you can find a documentary on google videos about monsanto and everything they've been convicted of

This isnt stoner paranoia:

This is:

Can you spot the subtle difference?

I'm not up to speed with this issue at all

sure, it would seem obvious that if the seeds of crops with terminator genes are infertile, the trait of infertility will not be passed on

what I would like to clarify is this:

is the pollen from crops with terminator genes infertile?

and what are the consequences if it is fertile and pollinates non-terminator crops

I don't think we are looking at a black and white situation here


(pollen does not typically travel very far from fields... however... ...)

Sorry for being so negative in your thread namkha, think you are doing a really good thing
The nepalese and lebanese look fantastic, must save some pennies.

Burningfire
Patents for Bovine, lactose and growth hormones, attempting to patent certain animal fertilisation processes based on principles of greater than natural success rates, isn't nutrition orientated?
Being the biggest seed producer in the world, isn't into nutrition?
Ffs.

NOW.
SLAPS HARD ROUND HEAD, metaphorically speaking, the slap that is.

What are seeds the source of? Plants? Nutrition?
Seeing a pattern emerging, burningfire?

Corporations are not benificent towards humanity on any level, unless it is intrinsically profitable and/or to be written off as a tax loss.
Try joining more than one dot mate.

Monsanto are a huge corporation owning many sub companies, as to what do they want?

Profit. Plain and simple.
The single basic motivating factor of a modern corporation.
Humanity are the end con(ed, optional)sumers of whatever the product.
Killing off the unprofitable part of a system/business is the very model championed by capitalist business.
Why should non consumers be considered at all?
They are, after all, not on the demographic and are, therefore, not a factor.

Food is a basic neccessity and globally farmers are already paid huge sums to underproduce or not grow crops to maintain price levels, rather than redistribute to feed the hungry elsewhere and/or lower prices.

Hemp by it's own nature is a fantastically useful commodity it does however grow virulently in almost any conditions, given it's basic neccessities.
In short it is abundant naturally. Easy to grow, easy to use.
Hasn't stopped the 80 odd year villification and attempted eradication almost successfully by big industry and their influential governmental lobbyists. It's morphed three times I know of. Hemp, cannabis, marijuhana, skunk, all the same, rebranded as scary to the general, K.N.O.B.S.

Eradication is still a major issue and has been globally for 40 years.
However, and importantly, hemp, being as bad as us humes for propagating itself, regardless of law and, generally, of it's own volition, sometimes, with a little help from it's friends though, will probably outlive us as a species.

We can assist and benefit from it or hinder and refuse to employ a vital renewable resource.

Hemp will continue to grow regardless of any laws passed and good on it.

You already pay for your water. How long before the right to it disappear?
Seeing the pattern yet?

What if those fertilisation patents are passed?
What if we are a obliged to pay Monsanto or a similar business for every new plant/animal we want/need.

We all need to realise humanity is no concern of capitalist business, it has to be combatted by education on and at personal level as critical mass
is the only way to overcome the inhuman global governmental systems that exist at present.
Ta for listening, all we have to now, is do.

Hops down off box, again.

I mean compared to other companies that develop genetically modified sorghum with better nutritive qualities for african farmers, monsanto isn't in that business, they're selling herbicides... I don't think anyone is being forced to grow gm crops but if they do they have to follow the rules, which make no sense to me on a humanitarian level but there's enough money to be made that people will enforce those rules ( no seed saving, etc. ) not all GM crops are bad, some are cisgenic and that's absolutely fine with me, it's just speeding up the selective breeding process.. transgenic crops are another story.

and you pay for your water to be treated... of course your tax dollars are going to go into maintaining these infrastructures. you can still collect rainwater if you want. there's no pattern to see here

Stop being insulting.