14 Oct Another Perspective on GMOs

The information given in this blog was gathered from speakers at the Farm and Food Leadership Conference this Fall. There were many different opinions coming from individuals at every part of the food producing and distributing industry.

Dr. Stephen R. King was the first to start the GMO conversation, and certainly did so with an unexpected turn. His presentation was titled “GMOs: A View from inside the Industry.” This got everyone including me very curious as to what secret information would be divulged here. Who knew what would come next.

Dr. King has his Ph.D. in plant breeding from Cornell University and worked for many years as the top seed bio-engineer at Seminis Seed Company. Seminis, Inc. was a pioneer in Genetically Engineered seeds and was bought by Monsanto only a year after King left the company.

I was cringing in my seat when King began his presentation. He started out by giving a basic description about the rising population backed up with examples of the Malthusian Population Increase theory. Usually this is a classic argument in support of GMOs and how they are going to save the world. He does truly believe that this science can be very helpful in increasing production. If you are unsure what my opinion is about this particular subject or just want some more solid evidence about GMOs please see my previous blog post. 

Dr. King went on to explain his specific roles as the head Bio-tech Engineer at Seminis in the early 90’s. He was directly leading a team that created thousands of strains of GMOs for basically every common vegetable in your local grocery store’s produce isle. These seeds still cannot be legally released for sale to anyone to this day. They tested every single one of these new GMO seeds in the field just as you would with any new commonly bred seed. The scientists doing the field-testing were told very explicitly to keep the GMO seeds separate from the naturally bred seeds, but of course nature will be nature.

Dr. King provided a specific example of where this field-testing was utterly disastrous. He, along with his colleagues, would back check and make sure the naturally bred seeds were not contaminated with GMOs. After testing the UC-82B (common name: Zenica Processing Tomatoes) tomato, 100% of the seeds tested were contaminated with GMO. It doesn’t stop there. These specific seeds were also sold to a world tomato seed bank with out either the sellers or buyers knowing that all of the seed was GMO. These seeds were then sold to growers and eventually reached who knows how many consumers. What a disaster! There was certainly allusion, by King, that this had happened to other seeds in the field but perhaps not as much of a disaster. We can assume that if you are not buying organic that produce has an extremely high change of being contaminated with GMO. This was not specifically stated and cannot be taken as fact but it seems pretty obvious to me it is the true outcome based on all of the information Dr. King presented….interesting.

There was yet another disaster that caused Dr. King to stop believing that GMOs would save the planet. Seminis, Inc. discovered 7 years after the first Roundup-ready soybeans were release for commercial reproduction, that the genes had been spliced with part of an antibiotic resistant gene. After this extremely major mistake King said, “the point is, they commercialized something and they didn’t know what they were doing.” That is of major concern when we’re talking about altering the genes of plants that the whole of the population of the United States ingests on a daily basis.

King believes that GMOs have their place and can help many people. But, this science should not be in the hands of money hungry, corrupt businessmen. It should be a publicly funded open source technology developed only for the good of the human race and not to benefit agribusiness. The goals are skewed and do not benefit our planet or our people at this point in time.

Apparently many local farmers are trying their best to not let the entire seed market go to big agribusiness either. King explained how all non-organic lettuce in commercial production is sprayed with a know carcinogen: the herbicide curb. There is a GMO lettuce seed already spliced with round-up ready genes ready to be released as we speak. The farmer’s won’t let it happen though because they would rather be spraying with this herbicide than have one company own the rights to the whole lettuce market. That would eliminate competition and cause prices to skyrocket. Currently there are 12 commercial lettuce seed companies to help with price competition ensure seed availability.

Whew! What a load of information from one single speaker. I was simply blown away at how much new information I gained about the GMO industry.

Another exceptionally informative panel held during this conference titled “GMO Perspectives: Farm to Store” provided wonderful insight from different parts of the GMO industry that you also don’t normally get to see. It was so neat seeing people from three very different parts of the industry respond and react to different questions from the audience. They all had different answers that were very valuable perspectives.  I really enjoyed the laid back conversation happening here.

Eric Herm was the first to present. He owns an organic 6,700 acre cotton farm in west Texas. His cotton crops are certified organic. He shared with us that certified organic has to be less than 5% contaminated with GMO. This standard exists because it is so easy for all of the GMO crops surrounding him to blow onto his land.

I’m not sure how many of you reading this are gardeners out there, but this next bit of information was completely new to me and simply appalling. Apparently when Eric would go to his neighbors GMO cotton farms and try to pull up a cotton plant it would come right up out of the soil with no effort what so ever. This means their root systems are exceptionally unhealthy and are not giving back to the soil. Deep roots aerate and enrich the soil beneath it, which is good for every single part of the land surrounding it.

If you go to Eric’s cotton farm you have to get down on your hands and knees and wrench that plant out of the soil with all of you might. This means the roots are very healthy and go down deep into the soil. From here, Eric was asked by an audience member what he though about the potential release of GMO alfalfa. First of all, alfalfa is a perennial plant. This means that you don’t have to keep planting it year after year. It will keep growing for about 8 years before it dies. It is also is a very helpful plant to the soil because it fixes certain nutrients via its very large and deep root system. I could tell Eric was hot on this subject. Why make something GMO that doesn’t have issues growing or issues with pests, is perennial, and is actively improving the soil?!

An audience member asked about the market out there in west Texas. Remember the lettuce farmers spraying curb to avoid a market takeover? This is exactly what happened with the cotton market in west Texas. Eric explained that at first GMO seed from Monsanto was selling at $60 a bag to get people hooked. It then skyrocketed all the way up to $350 per bag. Wow! Eric saves his own seeds, which comes out to only $30 a bag. The farmer really does get lost in the GMO debate far too often I soon discovered. They are honestly where we should start in the first place! Imagine what this price increase does to these people’s lives.

I was also excited to see Alan Lewis, the director of Government Affairs and Food and Agriculture Policy for Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, speak during this panel. They are one of my favorite grocery stores here in Austin.

He was very intent to relay to all of us food activists in the audience to present your GMO argument properly, especially in the public area. The worst parts of the many GMO issues are not necessarily the health effects he said. There are very few peer- reviewed studies and certainly not any published ones out there currently proving GMOs are harmful to you. Monsanto won’t let that happen. In the professional realm people will beat you down if you try to argue on that point only.

I do want to point out that every single speaker during this conference despite admitting that there are no official proven studies that show GMOs are bad for you also made a point to say there has not been any proven peer reviewed studies to show there are not any harmful side affects. Every single speaker wants all of us listeners to avoid eating GMOs. Hearing this from very experienced professionals in the field says a lot, a whole lot.

The worst part of this whole mess is how Monsanto is taking over the entire market, period. They are doing so with bad research, bad policy, and bad practice. Not to mention with a heaping spoonful of government corruption.

A member from the audience asked Lewis for his ‘elevator speech’ on why GMOs are harmful. This was the main rundown. GMOs have completely taken over the market for corn, soybeans, cotton, and beets. This is affecting the price of seed to the farmers and lowering their standard of living. The seed that is planted is causing great damage to soil all over the country. The round up sprayed on those crops is causing even more damage as well as creating giant super weeds and super resistant illnesses. Big business is bad for everyone involved. This is why GMOs in our current market are detrimental to local farmers and the environment.

At Natural Grocers, Lewis makes sure they are buying from the small companies who don’t have GMOs in their products. Though, he openly admitted to us that GMOs are so widespread it’s impossible to have a functioning business without carrying products that contain them. He still warned to do your very best at reading labels and checking brands. The certified non-GMO label can be trusted and is good to look out for.

When reading labels you should look out for topherols, sugar that doesn’t specify a type (cane sugar is safe), cottonseed oil, dextrose, corn syrup, maltodextrin, anything with soy and countless others. The only whole vegetables or fruit on the market that have officially been released as GMO are papaya, sweet corn, zucchini, and yellow squash.

Ultimately what can we do that can be the most affective for ourselves at this point in the fight? The food choices you make affect not only your health but the pocket books of farmers, business owners, seed companies, your environment and corporate fat cats too! These corporate investors and decision makers are actively making decisions in the FDA and other parts of the government with them as the benefactor, not us.

One of the best possible things you can do is buy local! Go out to farmer’s markets and buy your food from the people who produced it right here in Central Texas! Judith McGeary who started FARFA and the Farm and Food Freedom Conference heavily emphasized during the event that each and every on of us take direct action by contacting our senators and congress people about all of these issues. There are very important decisions be made constantly about what is allowed in our food and where it comes from. Be the change and make food freedom a reality!