Millions Against Monsanto

I finally got around to signing the Millions Against Monsanto petition, which was one of my three "Take Action" mini-challenges for the NOFA-NY Locavore Challenge.  The petition is a call for labeling of transgenetic (a.k.a. GE or GMO) foods, something almost all Americans support but our government refuses to do.  Why?  Because if people could choose whether to buy cereal made with transgenetic grain or not, many of them would be products with made choosing traditionally-bred ingredients.  This wouldn't be good for big agribiz, which have links to the government through campaign contributions and especially the revolving door (where people transition easily to and from important positions in government regulatory bodies and the industries the said body regulates).  Of course, the revolving door doesn't just happen in agencies like the USDA and FDA (Henry Paulson?  Timothy Geithner?  Ring any bells?), but that's a subject for another day and venue.

Anyways, I feel that I should have a right to choose whether I'm consuming transgenetic crops or not.  Personally, I'm not as concerned as some about health problems transgenetic crops may cause.  What first truly turned me off to transgenetic crops was the way Monsanto, which dominates the transgenetic seed market, successfully sued farmers for patent violations.  To me, farmers having to choose between seed saving and risking a patent violation because of the crops their neighbors choose to plant seems wrong.  Seed saving is at the heart of agriculture -- without seed-saving, we never would have had agriculture in the first place!

This leads to questions about genetic diversity.  When people save seed, the crop will gradually adapt to grow best it it's microclimate over time.  On the other hand, when farmers are forced to choose from only a few varieties of seed offered by a limited number of companies, the uniformity of the genetic make-up of the crop makes it very easy for a pest to mutate a bit and easily begin to have a big negative impact on a large swath of our cropland.  Of course, it's also not great for farmers to have to incur the expense of buying seed they could have taken from their own fields.

Remember that pest problem I mentioned?  It isn't just a hypothetical, as "superweeds" that are resistant to Monsanto's Round-Up pesticide continue to spread.  This is causing farmers to turn to R, 2-D (an ingredient in Agent Orange) and other pesticides to augment their use of Round-Up.  Although various studies turned up different conclusions about whether more or less pesticides have been used because of genetic engineering, the appearance of superweeds and farmers' response doesn't make transgenetic crops look to green going forward, does it?

Anyways, I could go on about transgenetic crops, venturing into topics like Bt and all the unlikely places it's shown up, but I'll let you do your own research.  For me, it really comes down to this:  With their track record, do I really want companies like Monsanto gaining even more control over something so vital to human life as the food supply?  If you feel like I'm preaching to the choir when you read this blog post, please do sign the Organic Consumers Association's Millions Against Monsanto petition.  For now, the best way to avoid transgenetic products is to buy organic.