US rice crops contaminated with GM seeds - farmers win lawsuit

[shitstorm]

Winning a lawsuit against one of these bio-tech/big pharma/ag monsters is a huge deal. Monsanto contaminated a Canadian farmer's crop and they sued him for their frankenfood plants popping up on his land and THEY won.


2011-03-19 A HUGE WIN! GMO: Riceland Awarded $136.8 Million In Suit Against Bayer CropScience
By Jan Cottingham

2006-08-31 USA has knowingly been shipping banned GM rice to Great Britain. US rice farmers sue Bayer CropScience over GM rice.
2009-12 Bayer to pay two American rice farmers $1 million each for losses from Bayer’s GM rice.
2010-02-01 EU urged not to approve Bayer’s GM rice. Staple food endangered.
2010-02-11 Manipulators without conscience. This is your food. Bayer’s GM rice.
NOW THIS! (makes me smile!)
US rice farmers were awarded $136 million in their lawsuit against Bayer CropScience over genetically modified rice. In July 2006, Bayer´s Liberty Link Rice, a variety that was not approved for commercial distribution or human consumption anywhere in the world, appeared in the harvest of American rice farmers.

The Coalition against Bayer Dangers which leads a campaign against the authorization of LL Rice welcomes the verdict. All info on the campaign: www.cbgnetwork.org/3193.html

March 19, 2011 Arkansas Business News

Riceland Awarded $136.8 Million In Suit Against Bayer CropScience

A Stuttgart jury on Friday awarded Riceland Foods Inc. $136.8 million in its lawsuit against Bayer CropScience over genetically modified rice. The award is believed to be the largest in Arkansas history. The circuit court jury said Bayer CropScience owed Riceland $11.8 million in compensatory damages and $125 million in punitive damages.

In an e-mailed statement Friday night, Bayer CropScience expressed its disappointment with the verdict and said it was considering its legal options. It also noted that Arkansas law limits punitive damages to $1 million.

A Riceland spokesman, Bill J. Reed, said in an e-mailed statement: “We are pleased that the jury’s award recognizes the tremendous harm caused to Riceland and the entire rice industry when Bayer contaminated the U.S. rice supply with its Liberty Link rice.

“Riceland feels vindicated that the jury also found that Bayer was solely responsible for the farmers’ damages resulting from the loss of the European Union market.

“Although Riceland sought more in compensatory damages, we respect the jury’s verdict.”

Riceland had alleged that negligence on the part of Bayer CropScience of Research Triangle Park, N.C., had cost Riceland, a farmers cooperative, $380 million in both projected and future losses since August 2006. That was when the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that Bayer’s experimental Liberty Link rice had been found in the U.S. supply of long-grain rice.

The European Union, which had been a major customer for Arkansas rice, refused to import any rice showing traces of genetically modified organisms, or GMO. With the USDA announcement that trace amounts of GMO rice had been detected, Arkansas farmers lost the multination market of the EU, and, they said, millions of dollars in sales. Arkansas grows more rice than any other state. Although the EU in June lifted its testing requirements for U.S. rice, other suppliers have moved into the European market and supplanted American farmers, according to advocates of U.S. rice farmers.

Since then, a number of lawsuits have been filed against Bayer. In April 2010, a Lonoke County Circuit Court found Bayer responsible for $5.9 million in compensatory and $42 million in punitive damages to 12 Lonoke County rice growers. Bayer appealed the decision.

http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=1829

[BlueTiki]

Monsanto is the fourth horseman of the apocalypse.

[Cracker]

If we relied on nature to feed this overpopulated Earth, we would all have starved to death.

Bayer should have know better than let the "crazy rice" get in the food supply, but all the yuppies live in Raleigh-Durham and they are sometimes hungover on Mondays and miss important memos and shit.

[IMaDick]

If we relied on nature to feed this overpopulated Earth, we would all have starved to death.

Relying on nature consists of self reliance as well as having earth to plant crops in.

The more accurate statement would be why would a government pay farmers to not grow crops? Why pay for fallow ground? the program is just another moronic government program to artifically raise the price of staple foods.

We can feed ourselves and much of the rest of the world, and we do not need GE food to do it either.

[Cracker]

If we relied on nature to feed this overpopulated Earth, we would all have starved to death.

Relying on nature consists of self reliance as well as having earth to plant crops in.

The more accurate statement would be why would a government pay farmers to not grow crops? Why pay for fallow ground? the program is just another moronic government program to artifically raise the price of staple foods.

We can feed ourselves and much of the rest of the world, and we do not need GE food to do it either.

Yes we do, Dick. In the late 1800s, when the world poplation was still around a billion, an acre yeilded about 10 bushels of wheat. Now the average is 40 bushels (due to science, not nature), but Earth's population is 6-7 times what it was. We exceeded the carrying capacity of Earth for our species using purely natural faming methods. Most of our food is engineered now in some manner. Even organic foods are engineered if they aren't heirloom species.

Why have fallow fields? Because it keeps us from having another dustbowl. Crop rotation and fallow fields are necessary, as are organic and inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. The rate of American desertification and soil degradation is astounding (I remember reading it takes about 10,000 years for Earth to create a layer of organic topsoil naturally). Our potable water resources are shrinking. We rely on science to feed us.

[Maggot]

I'm gonna need more canning jars I see.

[shitstorm]

Monsanto is the fourth horseman of the apocalypse.

I like to think of them as Satan incarnate but yours works.

The World According to Monsanto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4OwBYDQe8

[shitstorm]

If we relied on nature to feed this overpopulated Earth, we would all have starved to death.

Bullshit

[Cynical Ninja]

Food crops have been scientifically manipulated for decades.

Cracker speaks the truth, shitstorm once again regurgitates the conspiracy koolaid with her greatest weapon the copy/paste.

[IMaDick]

Food crops have been scientifically manipulated for decades.

Cracker speaks the truth, shitstorm once again regurgitates the conspiracy koolaid with her greatest weapon the copy/paste.

Crops have been cross bred to produce strains of crops that were more drought and pest resistent.

I was actually part of that as a kid, I tasseled corn crops to allow a cross breeding of the types.

genetic engineering of the plants is a different aspect. and apparently the failure showed up in europe.

[Duchess]

Crops have been cross bred to produce strains of crops that were more drought and pest resistent.

We have entire fields dedicated to that here. Most studies are done by the university but some are done by private companies, I see their little signs identifying themselves all over the place. Agriculture is huge in the southern part of my state.

[shitstorm]

Food crops have been scientifically manipulated for decades.

Cracker speaks the truth, shitstorm once again regurgitates the conspiracy koolaid with her greatest weapon the copy/paste.

Crops have been cross bred to produce strains of crops that were more drought and pest resistent.

I was actually part of that as a kid, I tasseled corn crops to allow a cross breeding of the types.

genetic engineering of the plants is a different aspect. and apparently the failure showed up in europe.

^^This


Making a species Round Up ready or splicing spider genes into a tomato is not the same thing as crossing two species of a plant.

[NightOwl]

I'm gonna need more canning jars I see.

Thats a good one! LOL

[NightOwl]

I'm glad the farmers won - I am against GMO's in food, Bovine Growth Hormones (rBGH) what ever in dairy products. Tampering with strawberries we don't need fish genes in them. I don't like bleached flour either - just plain flour. We the consumer can make an impact by not purchasing this unhealthy food.

[Cracker]

If we relied on nature to feed this overpopulated Earth, we would all have starved to death.

Bullshit

Please match your conspiracy theory retardedness against my degree in Environmental Sciences. Because I need a fucking laugh.

[Cynical Ninja]

Don't you realise cracker?, conspiracy theorists immediately become experts in anything they turn their attention too.

The plane that hit the Pentagon? = expert in airline crash investigation.
The twin towers collapsing? = expert in structural engineering and metallurgy.
GM crops = expert in agriculture.

[Cracker]

Don't you realise cracker?, conspiracy theorists immediately become experts in anything they turn their attention too.

The plane that hit the Pentagon? = expert in airline crash investigation.
The twin towers collapsing? = expert in structural engineering and metallurgy.
GM crops = expert in agriculture.

I figured she was probably reading up on it before she answered.

My claim is valid. If the world were using only natural methods, we would have reached human carrying capacity at around 1 billion people.

[IMaDick]

Don't you realise cracker?, conspiracy theorists immediately become experts in anything they turn their attention too.

The plane that hit the Pentagon? = expert in airline crash investigation.
The twin towers collapsing? = expert in structural engineering and metallurgy.
GM crops = expert in agriculture.

I figured she was probably reading up on it before she answered.

My claim is valid. If the world were using only natural methods, we would have reached human carrying capacity at around 1 billion people.

Your claim may be valid, but that is because you generalised the response.

We do not need to add shit to food.

Genetic engineering right now based on this story alone has cost this world a shit load of food.

how long is that sustainable, I mean with the population of the world today?

you do know that the US population is just over 300 million right?

so based on your numbers we could feed ourselves very well without any of the GE food sources, as well as several other small nations.

How many nations would we need to add as growers of food to feed several other nations?

at any rate, your numbers tell us that we can feed ourselves and many others without genetically altering our food supply.

How long until we can't grow shit because we have no native seed left?

oh well never mind, I know that question is a tough one to answer and we can save it for another conversation.

[Cracker]

We don't feed ourselves "naturally" and haven't for millions of years. Hunter/gatherers were the last organic eaters. Their carrying capacity was exceeded soon after their numbers forced them to become agrarian societies.

I laugh at people being so concerned with Genetically Modified or Engineered crops. If you people knew what herbicides and pesticides REALLY did, you would have to withdraw your arguments and STFU. Cross pollination ALSO changes the genetic makeup of the daughter species, it just happens between more closely-related species.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I understand the historical, natural, and technological influences on Earth's systems. As such, we CANNOT feed ourselves using only natural means, and haven't been able to for a long time.

[Cynical Ninja]

We don't feed ourselves "naturally" and haven't for millions of years. Hunter/gatherers were the last organic eaters. Their carrying capacity was exceeded soon after their numbers forced them to become agrarian societies.

I laugh at people being so concerned with Genetically Modified or Engineered crops. If you people knew what herbicides and pesticides REALLY did, you would have to withdraw your arguments and STFU. Cross pollination ALSO changes the genetic makeup of the daughter species, it just happens between more closely-related species.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I understand the historical, natural, and technological influences on Earth's systems. As such, we CANNOT feed ourselves using only natural means, and haven't been able to for a long time.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Some people genuinely seem to think that GM foods are literally Frankenstein like creations created to destroy us all, gigantic poisonous tomatoes and kidney beans laced with aids and cancer. Glow in the dark wheat and apples you can have conversations with before you eat them.