Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Boycott Walmart GM sweet corn and how we screw natural safeguards

Fellow Eater,

Walmart chain decided to start selling untested genetically modified sweet corn. [crickets...] This retailer is actively seeking any opportunity to do business in New York City. [crickets...]

If you still hear crickets think about main marketed properties of GMO corn:
 - It's to resistant to a common herbicide that allows generous application of this very same common herbicide (coincidentally developed by Monsanto) without much harm to the corn itself. Sounds good until you try to wash this poisonous generosity off before eating. And what about herbicide that got into cob through the roots and skin? Such crop would be good for ethanol production only. Not to mention the runoff of herbicide to lakes and rivers.
 - Crop produces a toxin that fends off certain pests. So in addition to absorbed herbicide it produces its own poison. Double impact ... in your liver ;-) [crickets crying...]

By the way, about crickets and other wildlife representatives that were usually involved in safety testing of new products that nature constantly develops through the mutations and cross breeding. Since the inception insects and animals were involved in spreading plants' seeds and pollen over a great distances. And if occasionally mutated plant is not attractive or harmful to those creatures then it will not spread. Pre-biotech people weren't any dumber than insects and were not seeding plants that made them sick or failed to reproduce themselves. This natural selection process safeguarded our food chain and environment long before the FDA and EPA buttoned in.

With the help of corporate power our civilization was able to circumvent this safety mechanism by making planting process nature-independent. Farmers were given tools to suppress nature's response to defective plants and unsustainable growing practices: fertilizers, herbicides, artificial irrigation, cheap transportation, food processing, etc. Biotech takes this ignorance to the next level by creating plants that don't reproduce themselves, harmful for the insects and require poisoning everything around in order to be grown. That's what? Plants on a life support? Not to mention that (intentional?) infertility monopolizes the seed market by letting biotech giants to be the only source of GM seeds.

Here is the press coverage: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-03/news/chi-walmart-to-sell-genetically-modified-sweet-corn-20120803_1_corn-insecticide-treatments-sweet-corn-patty-lovera

And let me finish on the note of controversy so you don't think that the Earth is flat and the Alex is anti-GMO maniac ;-) We, people should sponsor Monsanto's biotech research [dead silence. crickets shocked] so they could focus on the research rather than on commercialization of quick and dirty solutions to the world's food crisis they themself instigate . As a hard core techie, DIY geek and practicing web developer I totally for the brave innovations but certain industries like nuclear research, army and genetic engineering should never be privately owned. Also altering something fundamental and large scale as genetics of our globalized food system requires serious testing and I bet you don't want this test to be performed on you without any reward or even compensation for the loss of health.

Thank you for sharing.
Alex.

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