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Hey all, welcome to our site. We value you as a customer, friend or even as our enemy. If you have anything you would like us to post on our blog, feel free to write us. Obviously we would prefer to keep it agriculture related.

As you would've noticed, we are proudly a gm-Free company, and, the main reasons being that we are honest and ethical. Allow me to debunk some non-sense.

Since the inception of Bt maize in the late 90's, these products have been advertised as the best thing to hit agriculture in South Africa since the tractor and plough. Maybe they were right, it was gaining popularity very fast, and obviously, the BIG seed company, let's call them M, was coining on this 'new' type of maize. They sold this patented gene to anyone interested in buying it. As this was the answer to the woes of many farmers who themselves, or their chemical supply guy couldn't get the timing right to spray against the feared African Stalk Borer, it made life easy. Or did it really? M said that this gene will save the earth from toxic poisoning. Did it really?

The Facts

Nature has an uncanny way of making sure it gets the better of us humans and our neat bag of tricks. It is a common knowledge to any person with a bit of scientific agricultural background, that insects, disease and weeds normally develop a resistance to whatever us humans can throw at it, within 30 generations. Now before you swath me with a crop-duster, I am well aware that Bt has only been on the market for about 15 years, but, this specific species, has two breeding cycles a year. That amounts to thirty generations.

Then there is something that even the genius scientists at M could not foresee. It is the fact that the specific protein in Bt which acts as an insecticide in the maize plant, loses its potency as the plant matures. So Ms Second-generation moth lays her eggs on a plant with diluted strength toxin. Problem! Nature hits back with full armament. Entomology science has proven that once the insect has adapted to a new trick, they get streetwise very quickly, and the next one takes a much shorter time to learn.

So every season, from around mid December till late February, you'll note an ever increasing activity in maize fields, as crop-dusters spray concoctions of deadly insecticides to combat these little Bt resistant critters. A certain big company, let's call them P, went as far as offering free insecticides to farmers if they found more than 5% damage in their crops during the 2013/14 crop season. The chemical guys loved this, as they prescribed even nastier cocktails, all in the game of money.

The latest terror which will hit the South African farmer, is the dreaded Corn Root Worm, this is according to P. At date, this pest has never been found anywhere in South Africa, yet, they are registering the first CRW-reistant maize plants next year. According to entomologists, this pest has a chance of reaching our shores, eventually. It could take up to 100 years! But it's not here yet. Yet, P is pushing forward, scaring our farmers out of more money for something that controls something that is not there. Something smells of Bull-manure. Just my opinion.

Now, the neatest trick that any company can pull, is to sell something that doesn't work, at a much inflated price over something that does, and to get the client to believe so much in your product, that he will defend it with his whole being, even if it costs him extra. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Now I'll ask the questions again, is life easier? Do we really use less chemicals?

In our next post - the dreaded truth on Glyphosate.



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