Tag Archives: GM food

Community News: Monsanto Wheat Returns from the Dead and the Rest of the Globe Kicks the U.S. Economy

Posted on by

In 2004, Monsanto ended its field trials of Roundup-Ready Wheat, the proprietary, genetically-altered version of the grain that would allow it to be sprayed with the company’s Roundup weed killer and survive.  The public was too uncomfortable with the prospect of eating techno-genetic food.  Last week, The New York Times reported that Roundup-Ready Wheat returned from the dead to kick U.S. exports in the shin.

The U.S. is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, but last week Japan and South Korea banned the importation of the grain – and the E.U. recommended that all 27 of its nations increase testing – because the Roundup-Ready strain was found growing in an Oregon Field.  According to Monsanto’s web site, tests of the grain were never conducted in that field.  This brings up a few points worth emphasizing:

  1. The very fear American farmers have about Monsanto’s techno-genetic seeds – that natural crops cannot be protected from contamination by them – is true even in the case of a controlled field test conducted by one of the biggest and most advanced companies in the world.
  2. When contamination of those natural crops occur, ownership of those crops automatically transfers to Monsanto, meaning that farmers must then pay Monsanto or have their businesses destroyed.  This is enshrined in law by the Plant Variety Protection Act and a recent decision by the John Roberts Supreme Court.
  3. Wheat can, according to Monsanto, linger in the ground for up to two years before germinating.
  4. The company’s GM wheat apparently lingered in the ground for nine years before germinating.
  5. Wheat exports contribute, according to U.S. Wheat Associates, an industry marketing firm, account for between $961 million and $1.8 billion of our GDP.  South Korea imports 2.5 million tons.  The E.U. imports over 1 million.
  6. Countries with large numbers of educated individuals do not want to import GM food.
  7. The inability to control the Roundup-Ready wheat – an inherent component of its design – threatens the U.S. economy and our trustworthiness as world merchants.

And on a final note, Monsanto’s new strategy to introduce its proprietary, fundamental foodstuff into the global food chain is to start selling it to India.

Community News: Prop 37 and Our Lens on Life

Posted on by
Prop 37, the California referendum that would have required the labeling of all food that includes genetically modified organisms, failed on Tuesday in a 47% to 53% split.  The initiative was riddled with holes indicative of the way the laws that regulate our daily lives today are bought and sold: exemptions for dairy products (feed the cows GM corn), exemptions for meat (feed them more!), exemptions for organic labels (wait, what?!)*

In spite of that disappointing reality, approval of the ballot would have brought to the fore a public discussion in a country dying of its own obesity and caloric emptiness.  We are what we eat, and we should consider our own physical well being a value beyond calculation in dollars.  Prop 37 lost because its opponents (spending $44 million, compared to $8 million) had the support of the rural counties where so much of our food is grown.  They convinced those communities that Prop 37 would cut into their profits, and for most folks those profits are already slim.  So those concerns are real for people, even if not for Monsanto, who donated $8 million themselves and would certainly not be harmed by a dip in profits.

And maybe 37 really would have cut into those profits.  Interviews with Industrial Agriculture companies indicate that those companies would switch to non-GM, and thus likely more expensive, ingredients rather than risk the market share loss anticipated from labeling. Continue reading →