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GM News

Here are a few important recent developments concerning GM plants.

Monsanto vs Schmeiser: Percy Schmeiser is a Canadian farmer who first had his canola (called rape in Europe) fields contaminated with Monsanto’s Round-Up ready genes, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Monsanto not only refused to pay the costs of cleaning it up but demanded Schmeister pay fees for the privilege of growing plants containing their genes.

In a victory lacking much in the way of compensation for Schmeister, Monsanto settled out of court giving up on their demand Schmeister pay for using the genes, and agreeing to pay the clean up costs for Schmeister’s crops. The settlement clears the way for Schmeister and others to claim compensation for future contamination. Canadians, and indeed people all over the world, owe Schmeister thanks for establishing the right of farmers to stand up to companies like Monsanto.

This case went all the way to the Canadian supreme court, and cost Schmeister a huge amount in legal fees that were never recovered.

Genetically Engineered Sugar Beets: Starting this spring GM sugar beets will be grown in the US. This is a development potentially more important for Europe than the US, because sugar in the US is primarily from cane and in Europe sugar beets. Since sugar beets are highly out-breeding plants, there is the potential for widespread contamination to take place without being noticed right away. It’s unlikely Europe’s sugar supply will remain totally free of GM contamination.

Grab for Climate Ready Genes: Thanks to Ottawa Gardener who pointed this out to me. Seed company giants like Monsanto and Syngenta have been making a run on patents for so called ‘climate ready’ genes. These are genes intended to withstand environmental stresses such as drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. As global warming becomes a more important issue, we know who we will be buying our seeds from!

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Food Growing Get-Together, Part 2

In a post a few weeks ago I proposed a Food Growing Bloggers Get-Together in the UK.

So far roughly 23 people, either publicly in comments or privately in email, have expressed an interest in coming (some of them very tentatively). It seems like every few days another person pops up, so I would say this number is likely to grow. I’m guessing that even if a few people on the current list drop out, more people will emerge, and around 20-30 people will come in the end.

It should make for a nice get-together!

So Far

It seems like Oxford, Berkshire or somewhere nearby is a good location for most people.

Saturday is better than Sunday for most people.

No one has expressed a preference for a particular date, so I suggest we plan for 20 September.

There seems to be a lot of interest in organizing a symposium.

Most people seem okay with something along the lines of a picnic or barbecue, indoors if necessary.

We need an indoor area to use, both for presentations and for our picnic in case it rains.

A number of people would prefer to meet at or near a pub, because we don’t know each other.

Did I forget anything?

Venue

There is not complete agreement on the type of location this should be held at.

For example there are people coming with little or no affinity with flowers, and while I don’t think anyone is against flowers per se, some feel meeting at a public gardens might be a distraction from the stated purpose of a food growers get-together.

I personally am very oriented toward non-commercial plants, and meeting some place that either sold or promoted commercial plant varieties would be a distraction for me. I think there might be others that feel this way too.

I think we have to be a little careful to choose a neutral location for the main Saturday event.

If anyone is around on the Sunday following the event, I would be happy to make less formal plans for a group visit to a public garden somewhere!

There have been some suggestions of trying to use University facilities, allotment facilities or perhaps a community centre, preferably with a kitchen, loo and picnic facilities nearby for use if the weather is nice.

Can anyone help with specific suggestions of locations near where they live that might be suitable for this, together with approximate costs?

Does anyone have connections with the University at Oxford, that might allow us to make use of classroom or other facilities? I had a look at the University website, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to formally request this kind of thing, but these facilities do of course exist. This sort of thing seems to be administered at the college level.

Presentations

What would everyone like to see in terms of presentations?

Is there anyone who would like to give a presentation, perhaps about what they are growing or interested in?

I might be interested in saying something about what I am growing, and perhaps hosting a mini heirloom seed swap.

Does anyone have specific suggestions of interesting people we might invite to talk to us?

Costs

Finally, what does everyone think is a reasonable amount to ask people to pay for something like this?

It’s certainly possible to do this totally for free. We may not be able to find free indoor accommodations besides a restaurant, pub or other facility where we would likely be expected to purchase something. What do people think of this?

While we can probably find people who will come and talk to us for free, some people who give talks at events like this expect to at least have their travel costs paid, and sometimes want a honorarium.

Should we only look for people who will talk for free and pay their own travel costs, or should we collect some money for this?

Can anyone think of anything else we should collect money for and provide as part of this?

What would everyone think about paying £5-10 (or more?) per person?

Links

MustardPlaster
Spade Work
Daughter of the Soil
The plot thickens
Vegmonkey and the Mrs.
Joanna’s Food
Kitchen Garden in France
Growing Our Own
The smallest smallholding
A Blog Called Fuggles
Veg Plotting
Soilman’s Allotment Blog
My Tiny Plot
Manor Stables Veg Plot
Fluffius Muppetus

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Some Things Not to Buy

Build a Ball/Pyramid Cane Caps

I recently bought some garden products I was very unimpressed with, so I thought I would try to save anyone else from going to the trouble only to find themselves disappointed.

Pyramid Cane Caps

Cane is the British English word for what Americans would call bamboo stakes, and these caps shown on the right side of the picture are supposed to be used to make teepees for supporting peas or beans.

While this is a good idea, this product is just not well made. The plastic these are made from has no grip, and the canes/stakes just slip out with the very slightest of provocation. They are not even cone shaped, and the plastic is not very flexible, really limiting the diameter of bamboo stake/cane they will accept, since all canes/stakes are slightly different sizes anyway.

They really are not useful in any way, and a complete waste of money.

In addition, in sunlight the plastic becomes soft, and I think it’s very unlikely these would last any more than a season or two of use. This is even if you were to find them somehow useful.

Build-A-Ball

These are intended to be used in the construction of garden cages, and suffer from similar problems as the cane caps above.

These are made from very hard plastic, and the holes are made to a very specific size. Supposedly you can use these with normal canes/stakes to build garden cages of custom sizes, but in reality normal canes/stakes don’t fit without some considerable effort (cutting and whittling) and even then the resulting structures are not strong enough to be useful. I did not try the special poles you can purchase with them, but I wouldn’t expect them to be any better and after you have bought the balls and the poles, the total cost is too high anyway.

These too are in my opinion not useful in any way.

The basic idea behind the cane caps and build-a-ball is a good one, and I’d like to hear from anyone who has managed to get home made versions of these kinds of things working.