Kudos to you, Enchanted Gardener, to be the Earth's representative in the land of BioEngineers--sorta like Daniel in the Lion's Den!

actually, I believe that most of the bottom line biotech scientists who are in the labs doing the day-to-day grunt work are good people who really want to help the world--feed the poor, clean up the environment with biofuels (corn is NOT the way to go with biofuels!!), cure the world of cancer, etc etc--that's why they are so passionate about what it is they are doing, but from the perspective of Mother Earth, they are VERY MISGUIDED. in other words, their hearts are in the right place, but their massive brains are in the WRONG PLACE.

...and then there's that pesky thing called CORPORATE GREED, of which MONSANTO, among others, is a LARGE MONSTER--bioengineered food is one massive way to control the world's food crops--farmers must buy seed every year from THE MONSTER, rather than using seed from last year's crop. Farmers must use pesticides and herbicides in increasingly large numbers, also sold by Monsanto to go with their bioengineered seed--studies have shown that initially bio-crops need less poisons sprayed than conventional crops, but over 5-7 years the amount of poisons actually INCREASES. Monsanto is happy--they make more money as more of their poisonous product is sold.

so, for example, you have a poor third world farmer trying to eek out a living on land that's probably been monocropped for years so you have soil depletion, and with that comes more bug damage because the crops are not healthy enough to ward off the insects. Additionally, rain is unpredictable and a regular source of water is nonexistent. Farmer is talked into bio-crops by some Monsanto "sales rep" telling said farmer his crop yield will increase with less pests eating the crop. said farmer signs contract, buys Monsanto bio-seed. he also has to buy the herbicides/pesticides that Monsanto also manufactures. said farmer is initially happy that he gets a better yield. said farmer is not so happy when he has to pay more and more $ to Monsanto every year as he has to buy seed and his crop now needs more and more poisons to keep it going because the pests adapt to the biocides over time. said farmer also poisons himself and his family with the Monsanto herbicides/pesticides. maybe there's a drought one year and the crop fails. said farmer can not keep up with the payments to Monsanto--he is stuck in the contract and can't get out. said farmer can not afford the increasing costs to maintain his farm; he cuts back or stops buying the poisons; he must still buy the seed or have no crop for next year. he may be driven out of farming altogether, or even kill himself in despair, as is happening in parts of India.

the folks touting Organic is the Solution! need to have a campaign to counter the damage that the Monsanto "salespeople" are doing. they need to go to farmers around the world and tell them the benefits of organic farming, and how to properly do it, by rotating crops, letting depleted land go fallow, principles of biodiversity (planting several different kinds of crops to avoid monocropping and soil depletion), water projects and water conservation, natural insect control, etc, etc, everything successful organic farmers do in the U.S. and Mexico. they need to get to the farmers BEFORE the Monsanto people do. there are some farming projects around the world that take this approach, but not enough, and we're not getting to the neediest farmers soon enough.

then, of course, there are all of the problems with politics/corporate greed to contend with--Monsanto has BIG BUCKS so they can operate easily, pay off or "buy" government officials, pay for their "sales reps", their massive propaganda campaigns, etc etc.

what kind of funding do the Organic folks have? donations?

to use another Biblical analogy, it's like Organic is David to Monsanto's Goliath.

...but then again, Daniel survived the Lion's Den...and Goliath fell!

Blessings,
Liora