GMO Blog: Organic, Schmorganic?

Share

Tweet

Email This Page

Sign up here for
our Newsletter: *

Dept. of Agriculture about to deliver big blow to organic farmers and foods

If you care about organic foods, you should probably stand up right now and make your voice heard. We posted something about this Monday, but here’s more information to fire you up.

For years Monsanto, the agricultural giant behind the conversion of nearly all the corn, soy and cotton in the US (80 percent) to genetically modified (GM) crops, Roundup-ready (herbicide) crops, has been working to deregulate the use of GMO alfalfa. Now it appears it has convinced the Dept. of Agriculture to approve the crop.

This is real bad news for organic farmers, and for the rest of us who want organic foods.

Why? Alfalfa is a wind-pollinated crop, which means it easily cross-pollinates nearby crops. Neighboring farms quickly take on the unwanted traits of the GM crop, making them vulnerable to lawsuits by the owner of the GM patent. And if you think the company is shy about filing such suits, Watch The World According to Monsanto. It has SWAT teams that look for evidence of patent violation, and sue the neighboring farm into oblivion.

We need organic foods

Think this is just some esoteric agricultural policy that doesn’t concern you? Think again:

• The American Academy of Environmental Medicine has unequivocally called for a moratorium on GM foods. They said, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation... The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.”³  

• Eighty percent of the dry-food products on grocery shelves now contain GM materials.

• Monsanto and its advocates claim that the use of GM crops and Roundup, the pesticide that kills everything but the GM itself, reduces the amount of pesticides in the environment. But research shows that herbicide use has increased by 383 million pounds since its inception.¹

• Steve Hoffman, a Boulder, Colorado-based consultant who has worked for years in the natural, organic and sustainable products arena, says “Native American maize seed stock, the traditional corn that still grows in Mexico, has been shown to be contaminated by GMOs. If you can’t keep even it out of the heirloom varieties of crops, you can see that the potential for genetic drift is tremendous. There may be other places for GMOs – perhaps medicine or packaging. But for important staple crops like alfalfa, the risks far outweigh the benefits.”²

• Investigative food writer Kimberly Lord Stewart (a WellWise blogger), reported yesterday that “If genetically modified alfalfa is approved, with no restrictions, it could mean the demise of many commonly found Colorado and western organic crops and foods like organic grass fed beef and lamb, organic dairy, organic grains, organic fruits and vegetables such as apples, potatoes, peaches and other stone fruits, as well as Colorado honey.

• Experts say that if GM-alfalfa is approved is will become increasingly difficult to keep organic crops “organic,’ thus prices will go up considerably. A coalition of non-GM farmers in the west, The Western Organization of Resource Councils, said “If alfalfa becomes as contaminated as other commodity feeds, non-GM feed sources will be increasingly expensive or impossible to find for farmers and beef and lamb producers who are, or want to be, GM-free.”

• The president of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and former Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Chuck Connor, said that up to 50 percent of land being exposed to contamination by GM crops, could effectively be taken out of commission.

So, dear reader, act now if you value organic food and farmers and want to make your voice heard. You can sign the petition here.

You can read more about scientific findings on GM crops and food here. 

James Townsend is editor in chief of WellWise.org, a nonprofit organization for the dissemination of science-based information about supplements, nutrients and strategies for health. You can read more of James Townsend's health blogs here.

Read more WellWise health bloggers here.

References:

1.        Benbrook, C., Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Thirteen Years, The Organic Center, November 2009.

2.        Modified Genes Spread to Local Maize, NatureNews, November 12, 2008.

3.        Genetically Modified Foods, American Academy of Environmental Medicine Position Paper, May 2009.