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A Website of Alternative Thinkers & Dr. Joseph P. Farrell

GMO GEOPOLITICS: EU SET TO APPROVE BAYER’S TAKEOVER OF ...

Yesterday, you'll recall, I blogged about GMO geopolitics and the Ukraine, and what appeared to be not only Western meddling with the food supply in general, but a scheme to turn "Europe's breadbasket" into a GMO testbed, complete with IMF loans and the presence of Mon(ster)santo in that nation. Well, Ms. M.W. spotted this story which appeared on RT and passed it along, and I'm blogging about it today because this one just made me laugh. We'll get to the reasons for the laughter in a moment. Here's the article:

EU to approve ‘marriage made in hell’ between Bayer & Monsanto

Now, I've blogged about this story before, and even gone so far as to suggest that what it portends is the re-emergence of I.G. Farben in a a new guise, that of "agribusiness giant", a vast agribusiness cartel that controls the lion's share of the GMO market, which is already dominated by but a few corporations. But little did I know. Ponder this one for some knee-slapping in-your-face globaloneyism, hilarious only because it's so transparently awful:

Bayer has already pledged to sell certain seed and herbicide assets for €5.9 billion ($7.2 billion) to chemical company BASF to address EU regulatory concerns. It will also give BASF a license to its digital farming data, people familiar with the matter said. BASF will thus have exclusive access as Bayer has not offered a legal obligation to license to other rivals.

Bayer said on Wednesday that additional antitrust concessions would include the sale of its vegetable seeds business. 

The Bayer-Monsanto deal, which would create a company with a share of more than a quarter of the world’s seed and pesticides market, has been criticized by environmentalists and farming groups. Some of them met with the European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who has received more than 50,000 petition emails and more than 5,000 letters opposing the deal.

“Approving this merger would create the world’s biggest agribusiness company, potentially crushing competitors and establishing an unprecedented monopoly on lucrative farming data,” said Adrian Bebb from environmental lobbying group Friends of the Earth Europe. (Boldface emphasis added, italicized emphasis in the original. Note to the editors of RT: italicizing is not used for quotations, it's used for emphasis.)

Now, not even those always-meddling-never-to-be-trusted-Byzantine-Russians and their super-criminal-evil-genius-mastermind Vladimir Putin could cook this one up. "Why?" one might ask. "What's the big deal? It's just business as usual for the EU trying to earn a few extra Deutschmar....er.... euros." Well, just for a bit of context here, let's recall that the final legal liquidation of the big German chemicals cartel, I.G. Farben, occurred only in 2002.

Yes, that's right, 2002. It was that big and that complex.

And here's the knee-slapper: two of the major German chemicals companies - multi-national giants in their own right - that were components of that vast cartel were (you guessed it) Bayer and BASF (Bayrische Analin und Sodafabrik, to give it its older name).

So, the EU deal would have one former component of IG Farben, Bayer, selling off certain of its business to another former component of IG Farben, BASF. No interlock or coordination there, no siree. Nothing to see here, move along.

As I pointed out in my book The Third Way, the current structure of the EU goes back to a 1942 study, sponsored by the Nazi-era Reichsbank and its Economics Minister, Walther Funk (who just also happened to be the Reichsbank president at the time), and sponsored also by IG Farben. The goal was to create a "European space" in which the big Grossraumkartel (IG Farben) could operate freely and without restraint in the projected Grossraum (large space) of a European federation.

So it should come as no surprise that the EU approved the deal. Its cartel business as usual. And that means that, despite all appearances, the cartel may not be functioning de jure any more, but it certainly appears to be functioning de facto.

See you on the flip side...

 

GMO GEOPOLITICS: RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE TOPS ITS ARMS TRADE AS A MAJOR ...

Back here on Earth, things are getting intriguing. Last Thursday in my News and Views from the Nefarium I spoke about my idea of GMO geopolitics, and how it now has become clear that this is the game Russia is playing; it is deliberately using its ban on GMOs to export normal foods to a world increasingly skeptical of GMOs and various Western governments' pronouncements about their safety, pronouncements which increasingly sound hollow given a growing body of literature linking glyphosphates to increased cancer, and other potentially GMO related problems such as falling yields. Which brings us to today's high octane speculation in relation to the following article shared by Mr. B.:

Russia's Flourishing Agriculture Overtakes Its Word Class Arms Industry in Exports

Now, before I get to today's high octane speculation regarding all this GMO geopolitics, first let's set the record straight. Russia meddles in Western affairs all the time. It has had the unmitigated gall to meddle in Western culture with the contributions of scallywags like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekov, Solzhenitsyn, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.  Shame on them! For a while it was even trying to re-export its imported revolutionary Marxism with such people as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin. It got tired of that troika and its descendants, and now seems to have successfully re-exported that contagion back into the West where it appears to be alive and well in places like Nuttyfornia. And as everyone knows, it is second only to Israel in meddling in other people's elections.

But one thing it is not meddling in is the world's food supply. In fact, it refuses to do so and has passed laws in the State Duma to that effect. For meddling with the food supply, one has to turn to the West and to its corporate agribusiness giants like I.G. Farbensanto, Duponzanto, Mon(ster)santo, and so on.

Now what's very interesting about this article is that Russian agriculture seems to be flourishing, and that without the presence within it of what once used to be called the "Breadbasket of Europe" the Ukraine, part of the Russian Empire prior to World War One, and part of the Soviet empire until its collapse. So in other words, the Soviet Union, with the Ukraine, still had to import grain from the West, and now, without it, they don't. There's a lesson there somewhere, and I'm not sure what it is, but it's there nonetheless.

Which brings me around once again to the subject of "GMO geopolitics." It has seemed clear to me (and others) for some time that the whole GMO mania was not about "feeding the world's poor" at all. It was about corporatizing and gaining control of the world's food supply. I recall Henry Kissinger having a few things to say about that back when he was working for President Waterga... er... Nixon. Say what you will about Richard Milhaus, at least he didn't start a foundation and sell uranium to the Russians.

I find it interesting that in a climate of meddling accusations that no one is bringing up the West's meddling in the Ukraine, with the disastrous results it  has produced for that country. And GMOs might be at the very heart of it:

What They’re Not Telling You About Monsanto’s Role in Ukraine

And in case you missed it:

In fact, a bit of political maneuvering by the IMF gave the Ukraine a $17 billion loan – but only if they would open up to biotech farming and the selling of Monsanto’s poison crops and chemicals – destroying a farmland that is one of the most pristine in all of Europe. Farm equipment dealer, Deere, along with seed producers Dupont and Monsanto, will have a heyday.

In the guise of ‘aid,’ a claim has been made on Ukraine’s (sic. et passim) vast agricultural riches. It is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat. Ukraine has deep, rich, black soil that can grow almost anything, and its ability to produce high volumes of GM grain is what made biotech come rushing to take it over.

And that, of course, leads me to wonder if the whole sanctions regime against Russia has, at its core, the whole GMO issue. After all, that means Russian agricultural goods cannot be imported, things like, oh, natural heirloom seeds and healthy grains and so on. That would, after all, represent a severe threat to the "market" that is all but dominated by the likes of I.G. Farbensanto in the west.

That would be meddling with the already-meddled-with food supply.

But think about it. There are already certain studies indicating declining yields per investment dollar in GMO fields as opposed to non-GMO fields. The end result seems predictable: either the cost will go so high that farmers will return to heirloom seeds as a matter of financial responsibility, or their lands will simply become so leached with chemicals and pesticides that they're no longer productive. Either way, it leaves Russia in the driver's seat.

The bottom line: the West needs to rethink - and soon - its entire GMO domestic policy, for it could quickly become national security matters.

See you on the flip side...

THE GMO SCRAPBOOK: SYRIA, IRAQ, AND SEED BANKS

Here's a bit of intriguing dot-connecting about GMOS to put in your GMO scrapbook:

One of the very interesting things about a "community-driven" blogsite such as this is that I am constantly amazed at people's ability to connect dots, and that's the case today with some very interesting dots connected by Mr. M.A., who took the time to share his labors, and whose dot-connecting I hope to do some justice to today.

First, a little context. Many readers here who have been following my various interviews and blogs over the years are probably already aware that I view the US "intervention" as being an operation with a multitude of objectives, among them obvious ones like "securing the oil supply"(Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria) to much less obvious ones such as "securing the drug supply"(Afghanistan) to securing access to potential ancient archaeological sites, ancient knowledge and its potential awareness of technologies and weapons of mass destruction (Iraq, Syria), and so on. Another way of putting that is that the so-called intelligence briefing about Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be a complete fabrication (that is, if one were only looking for a-bombs and chemical and biological weapons) may not have been so, if one considers the angle of potential "ancient technology."

Which brings us to Mr. M.A.'s high octane speculation, which I am going to try to do my best to summarize, for there may be yet another motivation in addition to the above: seeds, and food, and more specifically, non-GMO seeds.

He begins by pointing out this old article from Zero Hedge, and specifically, one sentence within it:

The Arctic Doomsday Seed-Vault Is Getting Some Major Upgrades

Toward the end of this article, Mr. M.A. drew attention to this statement:

According to the Norwegian government, the seed vault has been used one time.Back in 2015, ICARDA International Research Center, which operated a location out of Aleppo, Syria, was blown up. The organization requested seeds from its deposits at Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which demonstrates the importance of the backup vault in the Arctic. (Emphasis added)

In other words, Syria had a natural seeds vault in Aleppo (see this article, says Mr. M.A.: In the midst of war, this Syrian seed bank is still going) which, gee whiz, turned out to be a hotbed of terrorist activity and a constant thorn in the government of Mr. Assad, until Mr. Putin decided to intervene and stop the Turkish-Israeli-Saudi-US-sponsored nonsense.

Funny how that worked out.

But wait, there's more: for in the second article linked above, one reads this:

The destruction of Iraq’s seed bank in Abu Ghraib in 2003, and the subsequent domination of Iraqi agricultural reconstruction by U.S. agribusiness interests, provides a cautionary tale. Here, destruction and reconstruction occurred over a decade rather than a millennium, transforming rural economies. When war ravages a country, the continuity of its agricultural systems is also destroyed. Farmers might keep their lives but lose land and seed stocks carefully stewarded for generations because they lack the resources for reconstruction. (Emphasis added)

Abu Ghraib... a seed vault! You don't say! Was this the real reason that the "powers that be" were in such a snit to shut down media attention on American crimes against Iraqi prisoners there?

But wait, there's yet more: in that same second article, one reads that, lo and behold, there was yet another seed bank in - you guessed it - Kabul, Afghanistan (where presumably I.G. Farbensanto may have been concerned about the non-GMO opium poppy seeds):

ICARDA’s effort is itself a result of previous conflicts. In 2002, the American war in Afghanistan destroyed the national seed bank in Kabul, and looters completed the destruction unfinished by combat. ICARDA’s collection holds seeds salvaged from Iraq’s national seed bank in Abu Ghraib. These are among the collections duplicated in Svalbard. (Emphasis added)

And there's this, too, which conjures images of Mr. Putin, who, let it be noted, hails from St. Peterburg (the former Leningrad); the staff of the Syrian seed bank stayed on site to maintain it at the risk of their lives, for a very simple reason:

Employees without the means to flee crisis have preserved the facility, at considerable risk to themselves. In this, they are like the staff of the Vavilov Research Institute in Russia who would rather starve during the Siege of Leningrad than consume or surrender the seeds they guarded.

Well, if I were in high octane speculation mode, I'd say that this looks an awfully lot like a pattern of the deliberate destruction of seed banks of natural seeds in the Middle East, leaving the monopoly with the seed bank in Norway, while "American agricultural interests" entered the region and sold, you guessed it, GMO seeds. Gee, I wonder who would do such a thing, and why...

And if Mr. M.A's dot-connecting seems to be something of a one-off, think again. And I'll even give you a couple of clues: can you say "The Ukraine" and "Monsanto?" and "Black Sea ports"?

See you on the flip side...

 

 

 

IG FARBENSANTO’S LATEST SCAM

Just when you thought that IG Farbensanto couldn't possibly stoop any lower, a story will come along which reaffirms one's faith in the utter irredeemability of modern corporate crapitalism and the joys of GMOs and their conjugate pesticides. This story was shared by Mr. B.H., who also shared his moral assessment of the newest gimick and scam, which we'll get back to later. Here's the article that appeared on Reuters':

Monsanto offers cash to U.S. farmers who use controversial chemical

In case you missed it, here's the newest low in IG Farbensanto's bid to keep its GMO gavotte going:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Monsanto Co will give cash back to U.S. farmers who buy a weed killer that has been linked to widespread crop damage, offering an incentive to apply its product even as regulators in several U.S. states weigh restrictions on its use.

The incentive to use XtendiMax with VaporGrip, a herbicide based on a chemical known as dicamba, could refund farmers over half the sticker price of the product in 2018 if they spray it on soybeans Monsanto engineered to resist the weed killer, according to company data.

The United States faced an agricultural crisis this year caused by new formulations of dicamba-based herbicides, which farmers and weed experts say harmed crops because they evaporated and drifted away from where they were sprayed.

Monsanto says XtendiMax is safe when properly applied. The company is banking on the chemical and soybean seeds engineered to resist it, called Xtend, to dominate soybean production in the United States, the world’s second-largest exporter.

Oh, and there's more "good news," as we're informed that IG Farbensanto is joined in marketing the new pesticide by Duponzanto and BASF( an actual component - surprise surprise - of the former IG Farben chemicals cartel):

BASF SE and DowDuPont also sell versions of dicamba-based herbicides.

Well, at least, so far as we know, those two firms are not involved in the bribery scheme rebate scheme, but one is tempted to think, "give 'em time, they'll come around".

So there you have it: when the revolving door of personnel flitting back and forth between agribusiness and the FDA doesn't work, and when "substantial equivalence" doesn't work, and when suing farmers doesn't work, or slapping lawsuits against states passing GMO labeling laws doesn't work, when the "assured science of GMO safety" doesn't work because it's challenged by genuinely independent studies, or farmers' pictures of livestock with cancers that have developed after prolonged feeding with GMOs show up, or other studies showing declining yields and profits on GMO fields challenge the whole narrative, then simply go straight to the market itself, and offer bribes ...er... "rebates."

Mr. B.H. summed it all up in his email sharing the article, and for once, I forego my own evaluations to pass along his, because his reaction to this story is "substantially equivalent" to my own: "I hate to make the obvious connection in plain English but I believe the word 'whore' would figure in it."

Yup, that about sums it up: a disease-ridden whore pedaling a disease-ridden product at a discount to drum up more business.

Breathtaking.

And shameless.

See you on the flip side...

 

 

JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU’VE HEARD IT ALL, YOUR PLANTS ARE SPYING ...

It's been a while since I've ranted about the dubious doings of the Diabolically Apocalyptic Research Projects Agency (our nickname, courtesy of a suggestion by Mr. J.B., for DARPA, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency), or the monstrous machinations of Mon(ster)santo, or vilified the vaccinatory frabrications of big Pharma, and indeed, I thought I had "heard it all", that we were at the ne plus ultra of the goofy games of globaloney and worldwide surveillance and police state. We've seen the "bathroom" sexcapade, the No-longer-Lutheran-"church"-of-Sweden banning any "sexist" terms like "Lord" or "Father," the Catholic Church in some countries having to dispense with asking questions on applications about one's "mother" or "father"... I swear, we need a "Just When You Think You've Heard It All" or a "Science and Technology Run Amok" category on this website for stories like this one, sent by Mr. C.S.  (you'll have to copy and paste this link into your browser):

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/us-military-gm-plants-spy-gentically-modified-research-development-sensors-environments-a8071646.html

And yes, all this genetic modification of plants for "remote sensing of the environment" is the brainchild of DARPA:

Genetically modified plants could be employed as self-sustaining sensors to gather information in settings unsuitable for more traditional technologies.

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is responsible for the development of emerging technologies in the US military, has called for scientists to submit ideas for how to harness the power of plants.

In the past, DARPA has produced information-gathering technologies such as the satellites and seismographs employed to ensure Soviet compliance with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

But in this new initiative, termed the Advanced Plant Technologies (APT) programme, the agency is looking to the natural world for help.

“Plants are highly attuned to their environments and naturally manifest physiological responses to basic stimuli such as light and temperature, but also in some cases to touch, chemicals, pests and pathogens,” said Dr Blake Bextine, the manager of the ATP programme.

“Emerging molecular and modelling techniques may make it possible to reprogramme these detection and reporting capabilities for a wide range of stimuli, which would not only open up new intelligence streams, but also reduce the personnel risks and costs associated with traditional sensors,” said Dr Bextine.

And of course, if DAPRA is behind it, one can just bet that IG Farbensanto, DuPonzanto, and all the big ugly agribusiness companies will be chomping at the bit to become "defense contractors" and hence secure, not only their position, but to seal the GMO agenda; GMOs will become "essential to the national security". And we'll hear all the usual arguments: it's all perfectly safe; there's no long term danger to the environment, no threat to the human food supply, you have nothing to worry about so long as you're thinking the acceptable thoughts, &c &c &c...

Now of course, we're a long way from your azaleas or violets or Swedish Ivies reporting back to No-Longer-Lutheran headquarters on your recalcitrant refusal to use "gender neutral" language, but patience, "we're getting there," for in addition to your "smart homes" and "smart appliances" reporting on your electricity usage, we can now "build in redundancy" and have your house plants doing it. Absurd? Well, in a world that recently saw the advent of "the smart pill" which reports to doctors whether or not their patients are taking their medicine on time and in the correct dose, I'm hot hedging my bets.

Seriously, folks, you can't dream this stuff up. And think about it: there are people who get paid to sit around and dream up this stuff: How can we screw up the world even more? Ruin the food supply? Spy on everyone in a variety of bizarre ways?

So, today, I'm foregoing my usual "high octane speculation" to address this personal plea to Dr. Fu Manchu, wherever you are: could you please take all that personal wealth and scientific genius, and genetically engineer some bugs that would consume only genetically engineered crops, while at the same time reporting back to the rest of us on the machinations of these screwball nutcases that occupy the corporate cabals and black projects world? Yes, that's right: I want a bug (insect) that's also a bug (eavesdropping device... and yes, I know folks, insects have been proposed by the Clowns In America as yet another new surveillance technology).  Get back to us on that as quickly as you can...

I mean, c'mon guys, plants as "intelligence streams" !?!?

Ok... now we can all sigh deeply in frustration...

See you on the flip side...

 

WILL OREGON FARMERS FINALLY BE ABLE TO SUE FOR GMO CONTAMINATION?

Mr. B.H. found this article, and if you've been following the whole story of GMOs and the underhanded and unethical behavior of I.G.Farbensanto over the years, this is a whopper-doozie, and if true, finally a bit of good news.

For those who haven't, a bit of a review might be necessary. When GMOs first came into play during the administration of G.H.W. Bush (who else?), I.G. Farbensanto (our code for the big "agribusiness" companies) developed the principle of "substantial equivalence" to avoid the normal procedures of testing products. Substantial equivalence simply meant that, as far as regulatory policy was concerned, GMO products were no different than ordinary natural seeds and crops; GMO corn and soy beans and so on were to be treated exactly the same as their natural counterparts, and hence, there was no need for "a closer look." If it looks like a potato and tastes like a potato, then it's a potato.

Except, of course, when it came to licensing fees and sales, in which case, the GMO seeds and crops, which were of course genetically modified and therefore proprietary patented organisms, were owned by I.G. Farbensanto. Farmers could not withhold seeds for subsequent planting. For one thing, the seeds were engineered not to reproduce. Farmers would have to buy more seeds from the same company if they wished to grow and harvest GMO crops. But wait, there's more: I.G. Farbensanto actually sent out spies to make sure their seeds were not being grown on fields where farmers had not paid the requisite licensing fees. If these were discovered, the farmers were sued. "But wait," you might ask, "what about fields that were contaminated by GMO seeds that the farmers didn't want growing in their fields?" Answer: too bad.

That was the one-sided nature of the fascist alliance between I.G. Farbensanto and the government of the USSA.

Unfair? Yes, absolutely. Dangerous manipulation of the food supply? Yes, that too.

Well, finally, farmers that do not want their fields contaminated by this "substantially equivalent" nonsense might get an opportunity to sue I.G. Farbensanto back, if a new bill in Oregon goes through: http://ewao.com/2017/10/06/new-bill-would-allow-farmers-to-sue-monsanto-if-gmo-crops-invade-their-property/

Notably, the article references precisely the non-equal status of farmers under the "current arrangement" who have been squeezed by by agribusiness. Additionally, as the article also points out, the non-GMO farmer's livelihood is in danger by field contaminations from GMOs, which could lose his organic food producer certification status, and make it difficult to support export to countries banning GMOs, a list which is growing (see today's "tidbit').

It doesn't take much imagination to see why the debate in Oregon is so vociferous, but the bottom line is that organic farmers need the same equality before the law as the big agribusiness companies have. Their patents are not in question, and as the article points out, they can choose not to sell there product in Oregon. One can only hope other states will enact similar measures.

In the meantime, I don't know about you, but I continue to spend a little extra money for organic dairy and produce if for no other reason than the behavior of I.G. Farbensanto has been reprehensible, at best.

See you on the flip side....

THE NANOCHIP IMPLICATIONS

Why bother asking if you can chip someone? Just make it small enough to be invisible, and sneak it into them via their food supply, those oh-so-helpful yearly "flu vaccines", your drink, and so on. That, anyway, is the implication of the following article that was shared this week by Mr. V.T.:

Nanochips and Smart Dust: The Dangerous New Face of the Human Microchipping Agenda

What caught my eye in this article were two things, firstly, the absolutely noodle-baking smallness that engineers have now been able to make an actual, functioning, chip:

The word “nano” is 3 orders of magnitude smaller than “micro”. Nano means “one billionth” while micro means “one millionth”. While microchips are about the size of a grain of rice and measured in millimeters, nanochips are completely invisible to the human eye. Some of the nanochips are far smaller than human hair (e.g. the μ-chip that is 0.4 x 0.4 mm). In 2015, IBM announced that they had developed functional nanochips measuring just 7 nm or nanometers (7 billionths of 1 meter). In comparison, a strand of human DNA is about 2.5 nm and the diameter of a single red blood cell is about 7500 nm! These nanochips power themselves from their environment (they don’t need batteries) and have a 100 year life span. They are slated to be rolled out first on products (so the corporatocracy can have total knowledge of consumer behavior in real time) before they can be used inside people’s bodies. Did you know that nerve cells grow onto/meld with the chip?

...7 billionths of a meter, and nerve cells can, according to this article, "meld" with the chip. Now, I have no doubt whatsoever that the corporations will have as their goal to more or less taint the food supply - heck, why stop at food? why not taint everything? - with their nanochips, all with the goal of greater data mining and control. They will, of course, spend millions buying off this or that Demoratic or Republithug Congressman or Senatrix, who will rush the bills through, and the the FDA will insure us that there's nothing unhealthy about nanochips and besides they might help that unruly child/boss/spouse/in-laws of yours. General Mills will market breakfast cereal... maybe something like "Coco-bots", which you can douse with your non-organic milk and drink down more chips along with a little glyphosate. Indeed, the author of the article asserts that this whole tainted food supply game is "the plan." I don't know whether it is or isn't. But one thing is certain: it is in line with their behavior, their corruption, and their unbounded lust for power, and their "Google is God" delusions. In other words, it fits their inhuman, and anti-human spirit and character.

In short, the tech companies will join I.G. Farbensanto in the big business of tainting the food supply, and they'll use the same underhanded, one-sided mercantilist policies to do so. One side poisons you, and the other controls you, and makes you "like" it.

There was, however, a second thing that caught my eye in this article, and as one might imagine, put me into my high octane speculation mode of thinking. It was this:

So what can you do about this? Firstly, get informed and make sure you understand the true nature and danger of nanochip and smart technology. Secondly, make sure you never acquiesce to getting chipped, no matter what reason you’re given. Doing so is tantamount to opening yourself to being remotely controlled without your knowledge. Thirdly, if you do discover a chip inside your body, get it removed. There are various ways to do. Some people crudely cut the chips out if they are large enough (i.e. a microchip instead of a nanochip). Other people claim you can used magnets such as neodymium magnets to render the nanochips useless. Hopefully, there will be intelligent inventors to step forward with new technologies that we can use to deactivate, disable and remove nanochips inside of our bodies.
(Emphasis added)

What caught my eye here was the reference to the development of anti-chip technology and the whole cottage industry that might grow from it. This provoked an entirely different line of speculation: with the export of food tainted with such technologies, one can imagine two consequences, and both are high with geopolitical and economic implications. Firstly: no cyber-system is absolutely secure; with all the hacking stories in the past few years, a nano-chipped population might be a "controllable" population, but it could also be a "hackable" population, and overnight it might be transformed into a wildly out of control population ala the Kingsmen scenario from the movie of that name. And no - message to big Pharma here - Ritalin won't stop it. Secondly, tainting the food supply in this fashion will provoke an inevitable backlash against agricultural exports. If you think the opposition to GMOs is spreading add "Coco-bots" to the mix and the revolt is all but certain. Will Russia, China, Japan, India want to buy such products and expose their populations to the potential of outside manipulation?

Probably not.

It only adds yet another layer of mistrust to any dealings with the good ole USSA...

See you on the flip side...

GMO SCRAPBOOK: RUSSIA, GMO GEOPOLITICS, AND THE EMERGING PATTERN

Over the years as I've been watching the bewildering march of several countries, including the USSA, to pollute the food supply with GMO seeds, to court the favor of various governments to promote them and conversely, to make organic foods cost prohibitive, I've been arguing that eventually we'd see a kind of GMO geopolitics emerge on the global stage, and that Russia would lead it. The playing field, now, is certainly not level. Think about it: on a level playing field, the non-GMO farmer or dairy producer would be able to bring his product to market at more or less the same cost as the farmer raising GMOs or injecting cattle with hormones, if not less. What does one see? The opposite:  article for article and ounce for ounce and pound for pound, the "organic" products cost more. Why? There are many reasons but among them is the reason that most western governments have been bought and paid for by I.G. Farbensanto. The agribusiness cartel gets "breaks" and perks, among which are sheer economies of scale.

What is needed is a similar economy of scale for "organic" products, and someone willing to point out the not only the health dangers of GMOs (there are many in spite of what the FDA is telling you; we like to call it the Food for Disease Administration), but the potential risks to the global food supply, and that can make non-GMOs available and compete on the global market. What is needed is someone willing to speak for those farmers and health experts in the west that have been marginalized for questioning the GMO Gospel of I.G. Farbensanto.  I have called this position "GMO geopolitics", and years ago predicted that Russia, at least, would lead it.

There were a number of indicators - at least to me - that indicated that this was the course that Russia would take both domestically and geopolitically, for there were bans on GMOs in Russia, then there was talk of doing multi-generational, genuinely long term studies of GMOs and their environmental and health consequences. There was something else going on too, but we'll get back to that in our high octane speculation. Meanwhile, it looks like I might be entitled to the "I Told You So" Award, Second class, according to this article from RT shared by Ms. K.M. and Mr. S.D.:

Russia looks to become leading organic food exporter as Europe sees future in GMO

There are several paragraphs at the end of this article that indicate that there is a pattern to watch that has been emerging, which paragraphs are the center of today's high octane speculation:

In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to make the country the largest supplier of healthy, ecologically clean and high-quality food which Western producers “have long lost.”

While Russia already has a significant share of the European market at around $2 billion, or 11.8 percent of Russia's overall agricultural exports, there are obstacles in increasing that share, admits Kobuta.

“The main obstacles to increasing exports of agri-food goods to the EU market are non-conformity with EU food safety requirements, small tariff import quotas applied by EU for agricultural goods, infrastructural and regulatory issues. With regards to the export of organic products, in Russia there is no official certification system or certifying agency,” the economist said.

Due to lack of proper regulation in Russia, local producers keen to operate in organic food have to obtain official certification from third parties like the United States or the EU, to label their products as officially certified bio or organic, and be able to export them outside Russia, Kobuta said.

The draft law "On the Production of Organic Agricultural Products and Amendments to Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" has not yet been adopted. However, the situation has improved after Russia adopted the national standard for organic products, she added. (Emphasis in the original)

Assuming the editors at RT are emphasizing the quotation by italics - and I have my doubts, since they seem to think italics should be used for quotations - an important point (and pattern) is emerging. First, Mr. Putin and Russia deliberately have targeted the food market for Russian organic food exports, and are simultaneously playing to growing opposition in the West and elsewhere to these products. They want to make money off of this opposition, and in a certain sense, to feed it, literally. This, presumably, would include the marketing of non-GMO seeds, which when I first proposed the notion of "GMO geopolitics" years ago, was the real centerpiece of my argument.

The problem, as this article points out, is to bring Russian regulation and labeling standards up to par for export-import purposes to those which exist in Europe and, presumably, the Americas. This, the article indicates, the Russian government is apparently trying to do, though we're not informed as to why a draft law has not yet passed the State Duma.

The larger pattern, however, is far more noteworthy, for if one has been following the pronouncements of Mr. Putin and some of his advisors and ministers in the past few years, a pattern and  deliberate strategy of analyzing opposition movements in the West, and then speaking directly to them, is emerging. For example: President Putin has directly spoken to the issue of vaccines and the rise of autism in the West; he has spoken to the issue of making such vaccines mandatory by opposing that measure; he has spoken to the rise of obesity in Western countries and the decline of nutritive value in foods; he has spoken to the loss of traditional Christian virtues and the "progressivization" of churches in the West; he has even spoken on the transgender issue, and so on. When confronted with the hypocrisies of Russian society by Western media, he has responded in kind. Most importantly, he has publicly challenged, in statement after statement, the unipolar order, and the dogmas of Globaloneyism, that the nation-state is obsolete and that the world needs to be run by transnational corporations and trade agreements; he has spoken to the culturally suicidal refugee policies of Europe, and on and on it goes.

This, I suspect in  my high octane speculation of the day, is not accidental, but rather, reflects a genuine pattern,  a pattern that suggests that a great deal of socio-cultural analysis is going on in the various academic and intelligence institutions of that country. and that Russia is playing the soft-power culture card at every opportunity it can. This is a long-term strategy, in other words, and the GMO geopolitics is but one aspect or subset of this larger pattern and strategy. And the problem for the West is that its Mighty Wurlitzer of denunciations of Russia simply isn't gaining traction, and the reason it's not gaining traction is that Mr. Putin - whether one likes it or not, whether one agrees with him or not, whether one thinks he is "sincere" or not - is speaking to various issues where vast swaths of people in the West have been disenfranchised by their own institutions and leadership. The Russian election-hacking meme is another example, for as this continues to be harped upon in the American media, that same media largely continues to ignore the larger issues it raises: Hillary Clinton's own dealings with Russia, for example, or the even larger issue of people with dual citizenships affecting American policy, not to mention American influence on foreign elections and its use of "color revolutions" around the world. Russian policy is living -  and I would argue, thriving - to a certain extent in these systemic hypocrisies.

That, I contend, is a very dangerous course of action for the West to continue over the long-term.

See you on the flip side...

 

BIG AGRIBUSINESS: WE NEED MORE GENETIC MODIFICATIONS…

Mr. C.S. spotted this one, and it's a doozie, if one stops to ponder carefully what's being said. And I have to admit, when I read this, I felt sadly vindicated. Why? Because a few years ago, when blogging about the potential trans- or cross-species effects of GMOs, an interloper angrily accused me of saying things I wasn't actually saying; my "potential trans-species effect" had been translated into an accusation that I was more or less saying that eating a bacon and egg breakfast doesn't turn one into a pig or a chicken. My point rather was that with the lack of adequate long term trans-generational testing of GMOs, we did not really know what, if any, the trans-species effects might be, nor did we really know if they might be "cumulative" in nature.

Well, not to worry, because I.G. Farbensanto is now proposing this precise mechanism to deal with the effects of... well, I'll just let you read it for yourself:

Big Ag Offers More Genetic Modification To Solve Crisis Caused by Genetic Modification

Here's the central core of their "solution" from the article:

Transgenic methods are being touted as the answer to the overuse of chemical pesticides because the crop itself would be killing the pests and there would be no further need for chemicals.

Pest control through genetic crop modification has seen plants producing proteins that are toxic to insects in the past leading to questions about what those toxins are doing when consumed by humans.

This new form of genetic modification, however, does not produce a toxin – but produces RNA fragments that then affect the insects’ genes. In other words, because Big Ag has created a crisis of overuse of dangerous pesticides, Big Ag is now providing a solution. This solution is more genetic modification, however. What was once a business plan has now become extortion. (emphasis added)

Now, I hope you caught what is being advocated here. In effect, what they want to do is introduce a genetic modification that can cross from the plant to the insect, and then interfere with the insects' RNA and ultimately its reproduction.

Voila! solution found! No more nasty insects.

Uh huh. And if you believe this latest bait-and-switch from I.G. Farbensanto, then I have a few bridges for sale in the boroughs of New York City, cheap. (Cash or gold only, please, and if paying in cash, make it in yuan.)

Now, if you're like me, you'll have seen the twin dangers here immediately. The first is mother nature, who can adapt her insects much faster than humans can tinker with their genes via ingesting genetically modified plants and then bringing them to market. And of course, that will prompt yet another round of genetic modifications to deal with the adaptation, and so on.

Yes, these people really are that stupid, and that greedy.

But the second danger is even more disturbing, for after all, if one can engineer such a trans-genetic modification that can pass from plant into this or that insect and modify its RNA and interfere in its reproduction, is it not possible that that very same effect, in spite of all best intentions and scientific precautions taken against it, might do the same into whatever other species might be eating said plants, say, cattle? or humans?

And then combine the two possibilities: for if mother nature will adapt to the modification faster than humans can come up with a new modification to address the modification done by good old fashioned evolution, that means that modifications might occur within those species - say, cattle and humans - in response to their tinkering.

There's a solution to all this, of course, and that's to bust these agribusiness trusts, and to level the playing field once again, and allow seed manufacturers that sponsor the sale of non-GMO seeds a level playing field. And that means revoking the privilege that these companies have bought from politicians and government agencies and corporate "science." Indeed, even though I'm opposed to mercantilism of all sorts, on this issue, I'm willing to entertain the idea of special privileges for sellers and growers of natural, non-GMO seeds.

See you on the flip side...

 

 

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AGENCY CAVES TO IG FARBENSANTO… AGAIN

Well, the mandarins at the Environmental Pollution Agency have done it again, ensuring that your food supply will be contaminated with the very latest and best in GMO research, according to this article shared by Mr. O.S.:

The GMO Agenda Takes a Menacing Leap Forward with EPA’s Silent Approval of Monsanto/Dow’s RNAi Corn

The culprit in this case is "RNA interference technology." Now, I have to go back several years, when I first started blogging about GMOs, and raised the possibility that genetically modified food might (1) survive the digestive system and (2) enter the consuming organism - that's us, folks - and then cause or create genetic modifications in the human population itself. I was, of course, roundly and angrily denounced, and the denunciations actually at one point made me sound like I was saying that if you eat a steady diet of hamburgers, or bacon lettuce and tomato sandwiches, your children might turn into cows, pigs, or tomatoes. It was about that bad, never mind that it wasn't the point I was trying to make.

Additionally, I also have pointed out, repeatedly, that which other researchers have pointed out: GMO companies limit extensive intergenerational testing to determine the long term consequences to human health and the environment. Not only that, where such studies have been attempted on independent lines, the contrarian results are dismissed by the government, or simply quashed altogether. Russia wasn't buying, of course, and as I've also pointed out, the Russian government raised similar concerns when it began to ban GMOs: inadequate intergenerational testing, possible complications to the human genome itself, and so on. We were assured that the Roundup glyphosate problem wasn't a problem... until of course the studies showing carcinogenic properties became too numerous to ignore, even for the state of  Nuttyfornia, which, as the article points out, has now decided that these "food-like substances" need a similar warning as do tobacco products.

Now this article suggests that all of these concerns are implicated in IG. Farbensanto's latest GMO gimmick, RNA-interference corn:

One of the most important discoveries of our time is that all plants, including those we use for food and animal feed, contain a wide range of RNA molecules capable of inhibiting gene expression or translation. These non-coding RNA molecules neutralize targeted messenger RNA molecules (mRNAs), which prevents their translation into a protein, i.e. they “silence genes.”

Compelling research has surfaced suggesting that not only do these genome-regulating small RNA molecules exist in our foods, but that they are capable of surviving digestion, and being absorbed into our bodies fully intact where they alter, suppress or silence genes, post-transcriptionally. Moreover, some of these small RNAs — primarily microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) — are believed to be cross-kingdom mediators of genetic information, making it possible for RNAs in one species impacting many others through both their active and passive exposure to them.

Food therefore is essentially an epigenetic modifier of gene expression, making it a form of information, and not only a source of bodily building blocks and caloric energy, as conventionally understood. As such, any significant changes to food or feed staples within our food chain could have powerful impacts on the physiological fate of those consuming them, essentially rewriting the functionality of our genomic hardware via software like changes in RNA profiles. (Emphasis in the original)

Read the opening sentence of the last paragraph one more time: "Food is therefor essentially an epigenetic modifier of gene expression..."  Recently, in the field of genetics, more and more geneticists have been suggesting that there is another factor that impacts on gene expression, beyond the basic "materialistic" assumption that all expression is through the sequences of base pairs. In effect, what the Environmental Pollution (Promotion) Agency has now done is to fast-track a product whose ultimate effects are not completely known, because the model of epigenetic expression is still not completely known.

There's an expression for this; it's called "throwing the dice." Nor is this anything new for our corrupt government and the corporate crapitalists it favors:

Roundup, for instance, has demonstrated carcinogenicity in the parts per trillion range. Yet, theEPA considers it perfectly safe for consumers to ingest many orders of magnitude higher concentrations than that, proving its function as a cheerleader and not a regulator of the industry that controls our food supply.

The Atlantic, one of the only mainstream news outlets to report on the topic, pointed out how surprisingly low key the approval process was:

“The EPA’s decision attracted little attention from the press or even from environmental groups that reliably come out against new genetically modified crops.”

Bill Freese, The Center for Food Safety’s science policy analyst, told the Atlantic he was caught off guard by EPA’s decision to only allow 15 days of public comment, and the fact that it did not post its decision to the Federal Register, as it customary, especially considering how unprecedented the use of a RNAi insecticide in a plant intended for human consumption is.

Ponder that for a moment: the Environmental Pollution (Promotion) Agency allowed fifteen days of comment on a decision that has life-altering potential. Fifteen days to comment on this:

RNAi interference technology promises specificity — one RNAi molecule change equals one gene suppressed — but ignores the virtually infinite possibility of unintended, adverse effects in what are incomprehensibly complex biological systems. Indeed, researchers have warned that RNAi can not only profoundly affect gene expression, but that the changes it induces can permanently alter a species through inherited traits 1:

“Once a silencing effect is initiated, the effect may be inherited. The biochemistry of this process varies depending on the organism and remains an area of active research with many unknown aspects. Nevertheless, it is known for example that human cells can maintain the modifications necessary for TGS, creating actual or potential epigenetic inheritance within tissues and organisms (Hawkins et al., 2009). In some cases the dsRNA pathways induce RNA-dependent DNA methylation and chromatin changes (TGS) that persist through reproduction or cell division, and in other cases the cytoplasmic pathways remain active in descendents (Cogoni and Macino, 2000).”

(All emphases in the original)

IG Farbensanto strikes again, and once again, the government shows it is not on the side of reasonable caution, or the people, or a fundamental issue of food freedom. Just the corporations, and their "science". Consider the implications of this part of the article:

Surprisingly, Monsanto itself has produced one of the most damning papers on the topic yet. Several years ago I stumbled upon a study funded by Monsanto that raised a number of red flags for me. Titled, “Endogenous small RNAs in grain: Semi-quantification and sequence homology to human and animal genes,” researchers employed by Monsanto in their St. Louis, MO, laboratory analyzed the presence of endogenous small RNAs in common food and feed staples — soybeans, corn, rice — discovering that hundreds of these plant RNAs had a perfect 100% complementary match to human genes as well as other mammals.

Why is this significant? Endogenous small RNAs, such as small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs), are effector molecules of RNA interference (RNAi), which is a gene suppression mechanism found in plants, mammals, and other eukaryotes. The implication, therefore, of Monsanto’s finding is that plant RNAs — were they capable of surviving digestion and accumulating in target tissues to physiologically relevant concentrations — are capable of epigenetically silencing hundreds of genes within the human body. Below you will find a list of the RNA/gene matches between rice and the human genome:

Despite the abundance of perfect 100% complementarity matches listed above, Monsanto’s conclusion was a conveniently pollyannish dismissal of the safety implications of these findings, stating that:

“The abundance of endogenous small RNA molecules in grain from safely consumed food and feed crops such as soybean, corn, and rice and the homology of a number of these dietary small RNAs to human and animal genomes and transcriptomes establishes a history of safe consumption for dietary small RNAs.”  

While this may be true for traditionally used plants, it does not follow that genetically modified organisms would necessarily be safe because non-GMO versions are.

It's that last sentence that is the problem, and that has been the problem all along: the principle of "substantial equivalence" was the technique used to bypass the normal procedures of inter-generational testing on the one hand, because if it looks like corn and tastes like corn, it is corn; and on the other hand, allowed the corporations to patent their creations. In my book Genes, Giants, Monsters and Men, I argued that such genetic modifications, under the basic tenets of American - and other western - patent law could, perhaps, eventually be used to argue that a human being, who underwent such genetic modification due to eating GMOs, might eventually be viewed to a certain extent as the property of the company whose food he or she ate, since they exhibitted a modification that would otherwise not have occurred. At the very least, they might be forced to pay a "user fee" for the entirety of their lives.

That, of course, sounded ridiculous at the time. But now note this disturbing paragraph:

In a seminal paper published in 2016 in Trends in Microbiology, entitled, “How Our Other Genome Controls Our Epi-Genome,” it is proposed that the very RNAs biotech/agrochemical companies like Monsanto and Dow are tinkering with in our food should be reconsidered as part of the definition of our species versus the conventional view that it is just something informationally inert that we eat and exists “out there.” Using a revised version of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man, as pictured below, they propose that there are 4 inseparable parts of our species: 1) human cells 2) human microbiota and other bacteria 3) Fungi and Viruses 4) Food.  (Emphasis added)

Enough said.

See you on the flip side...

I.G. FARBENSANTO AT IT AGAIN: SEED EXCHANGES IN AFRICA UNDER PRESSURE

It appears that big "agribusiness" - which we less-than-lovingly refer to here on this website as I.G. Farbensanto - is at it once again, using its usual bag of dirty tricks to attempt to outlaw normal seed exchanges in Africa (whew! is that the distinct whiff of imperialism and even racism that I smell here? Sure smells like it). At least, it is if the following article shared by Mr. V.T. is true:

Monsanto and Big Ag Colonizing Africa, Criminalizing Traditional Seed Exchanges

Just in case you missed how utterly draconian their policies are, and how utterly immoral and out of touch with humanity they are, consider these opening paragraphs of the article, noting in particular the use of GMOs as part of John Perkins' "economic hit man" strategy:

Of the many concerns surrounding the dominance of agrichemicals companies and GMO foods, the most frightening dimension is that corporate manufactured seed is wiping out global biodiversity in food crops and creating a punitive legal framework for our total dependence on these companies for food.

Monsanto, Syngenta and other majors in agribusiness are presently colonizing Africa with the help of international aid programs which force nations into agreements requiring dependence on patented seeds, thereby prohibiting traditional seed exchanges.

Reporting on the situation in Tanzania, Ebe Daems of Mondiaal Nieuws informs us of recent legislation which puts local farmers under the threat of heavy fines of up to €205,300 and even prison terms of up to 12 years for violating the intellectual property rights of agrichemicals companies if individuals sell or trade in non-patented seed.

“If you buy seeds from Syngenta or Monsanto under the new legislation, they will retain the intellectual property rights. If you save seeds from your first harvest, you can use them only on your own piece of land for non-commercial purposes. You’re not allowed to share them with your neighbors or with your sister-in-law in a different village, and you cannot sell them for sure. But that’s the entire foundation of the seed system in Africa,” ~Michael Farrelly of TOAM, an organic farming movement in Tanzania.

This is highly disturbing, yet the laws are part of the umbrella of G8 agreements which require intellectual property rights to be enforced as part of an exchange for development aid. This type of agreement is shockingly similar to the methods described by economic hitman John Perkins, who, in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, explained how aid and development agencies conquer sovereign nations by offering at in exchange for natural resources.

Imagine, for a moment, that you're a poor African farmer. You may, or may not be, literate, but even if you are, you probably aren't a lawyer able to spend the time and sort through all the tangle of legalese that your government has engaged in, forbidding you to exchange your natural seeds in traditional seed exchanges.

The result?

As the author of the article, Alex Pietrowski points out (and as many others have also pointed out): the loss of biodiversity in seeds, and a corresponding loss of ability of natural seeds and food supply to adjust to changing natural conditions. And that imperils everyone, in the name of corporate profits and power for Mr. Globaloney. Why? Very simple: nature can respond far faster to changing conditions, than can Mr. Globaloney's scientists in I.G. Farbensanto's laboratories.

But no mind: I.G. Farbensanto would rather imperil the entire human food chain - including their own - in the name of profits and power than wake up and exercise their (here comes those words they hate) God-given rationality, conscience, and reason. There's only one thing worse than the atheist Communist, and that's the atheist crony corporate crapitalist. Both are forms of organized nihilism, but the crony crapitalist does it so much better, and makes more money in the process. Like the Communist, they attempt to shut down real discussion, and promote a narrative.

You know me, however, and know that I cannot resist a bit of high octane speculation when I see stories like this. I cannot help recall the third episode of the third season of the American television series, Blacklist, starring James Spader as the arch-international criminal mastermind, Raymond Reddington. In that episode, titled "Eli Matchett," Reddington and former FBI agent Elizabeth Keene(played by actress Megan Boone), stumble less-than-accidentally on a plot of an argibusiness giant, a fictitious corporation called "Verdiant Industries," to corrupt their own GMO seeds by genetically engineering a virus which attacks them, wiping out the food supply they themselves have foisted on most of the world via crony crapitalist means, which are, as they always are, special "concessions" for their products from governments.

Of course, the fictitious "Verdiant Industries" has a ready-made cure for their own pestilence, which after the food crisis breaks open, they will then offer to a starving world at a handsome profit, and, of course, even more power.

The trouble is, having watched the GMO "agribusiness" industry over the years, I put nothing past them.

And hence my nickname for them: I.G. Farbensanto.

Raymond Reddington, we need you.

See you on the flip side...

 

 

“HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES?”: ARTIFICIAL POLLINATORS

Over the years of watching and reporting on the GMO issue on this website, one of the things that many brought to my attention by sharing various articles and studies, is the apparent linkage between CCD(colony collapse disorder), as the populations of honey bees colonies and other pollinators have dramatically declined since the introduction of GMO foods and the heavy pesticides they involve. As a result, I have also blogged about the latest gimick to "repair" the damage: artificial drones as pollinators. It is, after all, "no big deal" if the world's pollinator population declines or simply goes extinct, after all, they only keep most of the world's plant life going, and most of its food supply going. No big deal, especially if one has artificial pollinators waiting in the wings. Indeed, as I've previously blogged, there were scientists actually seriously proposing this as a means to get around the phenomenon of colony collapse disorder.

Well, according to this article shared by Mr. T.M., it's now actually been accomplished:

Researchers use drone to pollinate a flower

The opening paragraphs say it all:

Researchers in Japan have successfully used a tiny drone to pollinate an actual flower, a task usually accomplished by insects and animals.

The remote-controlled drone was equipped with horsehairs coated with a special gel, which the researchers say was crucial to the process.
"This is the world's first demonstration of pollination by an artificial robotic pollinator," said Eijiro Miyako of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the journal Chem.
And, lest the connection between pollinator population collapse and the artificial pollinator is missed, the article itself makes the connection:
But many pollinators are under threat, particularly insects like bees and butterflies. They belong to a group -- invertebrate pollinators -- in which 40 percent of species face extinction, according to the same report.
The drone is an attempt to address this problem: "The global pollination crisis is a critical issue for the natural environment and our lives," the authors wrote in the study.
There is, however, a catch: it's still a long way from insect pollinators, due not only to the size of the drone, but due to the lack of artificial intelligence and independent movement in the artificial pollinator itself:
The peculiarity of this project is that it focuses on the pollination process, rather than the construction of a robotic bee.
As the authors note, "practical pollination has not yet been demonstrated with the aerial robots currently available."
However, pollination was achieved on a very large flower, and the drone was not autonomous: "I believe that some form of artificial intelligence and GPS would be very useful for the development of such automatic machines in future," said Miyako.
Much work remains to be done before we can emulate the complex behavior of insects and animals: "There is little chance this can replace pollinators," said Christina Grozinger, Director of the Center for Pollinator Research at Penn State University.
Hidden text: "we urgently need artificial intelligence in order to construct more efficient artificial pollinators."
And that of course, brings me to my high octane speculation of the day: suppose such artificial intelligence was constructed. And suppose, for a moment, all those artificial pollinators were under the controlled of a networked Artificial Intelligence, coordinating it all. Who is to say that said "intelligence" would even see the need for pollinator activity, or the human and animal populations that they ultimately aid in feeding? Waves of AI pollinators could conceivably become plagues of AI locusts. If this be the case, the "technological fix" could end up being an even worse nightmare.
Of course, one could always solve the problem by the simple fix of what appears to be the basis of the pollinator problem: get rid of GMOs, and let nature do what she was designed to do.
That, of course, would be far too simple, and not issue in enough research grants and profits.
See you on the flip side...