Bob Darrell said:

>  most people in the world are fed by farmers  
>  who save seed for next years crop.  

I think it is more accurate to say that most of these farmers are feeding
their own families in most years, selling a small surplus in extraordinary
years, and thereby feeding others, and in poor years, they are living on US
and EU food aid or dying.

Saving seeds is part of the whole subsistence farming romantic cachet, and
the problem with seed saving is that one must be able to at LEAST feed one's
own family to avoid eating their seeds.

What happens to a seed saver who eats his seed?
What happens after one too many droughts or crop failures, where there is no
seed to save?

The newer drought-resistant genetics are likely going to allow more land to
be used, land that otherwise would have been useless.  This means more
farmers, be they subsistence or "truck" farmers.

Further, GMOs increase yields, turning subsistence farming into farming that
creates a surplus to support more than the farmer and his family.

Further still, reduces crop failures, which is when even the farmers starve
unless the 1st world sends C-5A Galaxy loads of food aid.

> Try saving GMO seed and watch the corporate lawyers descend.  

I don't see any reason to dodge the point about the technological advantages
with speculative comments about intellectual property.  But the neat thing
about 
this type of technology is the low cost of entry, and the low cost to
reverse-engineer things.  If the corporations get greedy, they will find
themselves undercut by local in-country knock-offs, legislated into legality
by individual 3rd-world nations. (Check out early US history - we were a
country of intellectual property tieves and gangsters of the first order in
the early days of the USofA - no one ever paid any royalties, and everything
was copied and "knocked off" by US copiers of imported goods.)

> Having lived in Africa and travelled in all continents 
> except South America has shown me...

You should have bought first class tickets, and ridden with me, the robber
barons, the local strong-man dictator's henchmen, and the leaders of the
usual revolution.  They are all crooks, and each one is constantly trying to
take advantage of all the others.  Funny how you forget that the inventor of
the seed is not the only person that might be greedy and unethical. In my
experience, the corporate boys were the ones stupid and naive enough to
bring fountain pens to a knife fight.  (See Warren Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns,
and Money")

> Just noticed that the reply to box on  
> your post is set to yourself not to Bee-L.  Hmmmm!!

Yes, those of us who are Bee-L members from the days before the internet was
opened up to the general public have a slightly different set-up.  None of
us did this
ourselves, it is an artifact of having been here back before much of any
else even knew what an "internet" was.  :)

Dee said:

> ...helping rid our agriculture of the poisons 
> that are hurting human health worldwide. 

An accusation is not a fact.

> I cannot see the technologies you write about here 
> continuing to feed a world if it is killing the honeybees, 

That's a very big "if"! No one with any credibility has ever even accused
any GMO crop of containing anything that might hurt a bee.  In fact, bees
and beekeepers
might be the vector that causes most of the GMO outcrossing that so many
people fear.

> hurting other agriculture animals

More pure speculation.

> organicbeekeepers list for reading and sending 
> of clean honey to Prince Charles.

Jerry B?  Could you please comment on the levels of various pesticides and
pollutants that are certain to be found in samples of wax, honey, and pollen
sent in by self-proclaimed "organic" beekeepers, given the incredible
ability of bees to act as "pollution detectors" for the entire area where
they forage?

I know Jerry's standard after-dinner talk on this subject, so, for anyone
anywhere in the lower 48, my retort to Dee is:

"Clean Honey" my foot!
		

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