GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms are plants that have
had their DNA altered by inserting genes from other species. This is done to
increase a plant’s tolerance to various environmental factors, such as drought,
or non-environmental factors, such as herbicides or pesticides.
Traditional means of genetically altering plants have been
carried out for hundreds of years by crossbreeding. This is a process where
geneticists take plants with traits they desire, and cross (or mate) the plant
with another similar plant that they hope to enhance the traits their looking
for.
My father was a hop-geneticist; he was responsible for
creating some of the most widely used varieties of hops in the US brewing
industry. I grew up with plant breeding and science, and knew it to be a safe
way of creating new varieties of plants. This has been done for hundreds of
years to create many of the crops we commonly eat today, including tomatoes and
potatoes.
However, this type of genetic manipulation is time
consuming. It can take many years (sometimes as long as 30 years!) to achieve
what the breeder is working towards, and sometimes, the results never work out
the way the breeder hopes.
This is where GMOs come in. Scientists by-pass the
time-tested method of cross-breeding and just pluck the desired trait out of
one organism and put it into the DNA of another.
This can have beneficial results, such as creating a variety
of potato that is resistant to blight (a potato disease that was the cause of
the Great Irish Potato Famine of the 1800s). It can also help crops to produce
more, as in the case of some corn and wheat. All positive things when we’re
looking at feeding billions of people.
However, the flip side of this practice is where the entire
Prop 37 campaign comes in. This proposition is on the ballot for the simple
fact that many plants that are part of our food chain now have been altered
with non-plant based products, such as herbicides, pesticides and antibiotics!
A common practice among large commercial farms is to only
plant GMO plants that are resistant to herbicides and pesticides. It’s very
costly to weed large farms so growers spray their entire fields with a swath of
herbicides to kill the weeds and pesticides to kill pests. Why doesn’t this
kill their crops? Because those very same herbicides and pesticides have been
bred into the genes of the plants we’re eating to be resistant to these
chemicals, so you’re eating herbicides and pesticides whether you know it or
not.
Why is this something these huge commercial farms and
growers like Monsanto are trying to protect by dumping millions of dollars into
fighting Prop 37? It’s all about money. Once these Genetically Modified Plants go
into production, these companies hold patents on these plants, and no one can
grow them without paying Monsanto (or whomever holds the patent) a fee. It’s
about controlling supply and could have dramatic impact worldwide on how food
is grown and who can grow it. As the bio-diversity declines, so too does the
type of plants the world can grow to get food.
There are a lot of unknowns here, but the biggest unstudied
potential problems are how these plants will affect the environment when their
genes cross breed with other similar plants, a process called “wind
pollination” or by natural cross pollination done by bees and other insects
hopping around from plant to plant.
Suppose an organic farmer has his/her small organic farm
across the road from a large commercial farm. The organic farmer is planting
heirloom varieties of tomatoes (non-GMOs), and across the road, the commercial
farm is planting the GMO tomatoes. These farmers cannot keep the wind and
insects from visiting each other’s farms. Inevitably, cross-pollination occurs,
and the small organic farmer may produce a tomato plant that has the GMO tomato
traits of being resistant to herbicides and pesticides.
Monsanto can sue that small farmer because he/she did not
pay Monsanto (or whom ever holds the patent) the Patent fee to grow that
tomato! This sounds extreme, but this is
actually one of the scenarios that has occurred.
One of the other things not addressed with these genetically
modified plants is the effect it’s having on the pollinators. What’s happening
with the decline in the bee population could very well be a side effect of the
GMO plants with pesticides bred into them. We don’t know though; no study has
been done yet.
This is why labeling GMO based food is so important. Europe
passed a similar law a number of years ago. There is currently a ban on
importing certain food products from the US because there is no way to identify
GMOs versus non-GMOs. Europeans don’t
want to be accidently eating herbicides, pesticides and antibiotics, and
honestly, I don’t either.
As a master gardener, I work around all types of plants and
I have an organic garden. I assume everything I am growing is free of
herbicides and pesticides because that’s how I’ve designed my garden. I
consciously choose to garden in as environmentally harmonious way I can, and
that means using mechanical means to deal with weeds (hand pulling) and good
gardening practices to deal with pests (choosing plants that attract beneficial
insects to my garden). There are not many commercial farms around where I live,
so hopefully none of the food I’ve been growing has been contaminated, but I
honestly don’t know.
The opponents of Prop 37 are running a campaign of fear,
saying this type of labeling will drive up costs at the grocery store, put
small farmers out of business; create panic and confusion in the market place.
They focus on how “illogical” the bill is, pointing out that certain items must
be labeled, while others will be ignored (meat for example). Currently there is
no GMO meat that is in production for the consumer market place. There will be salmon
available soon, but currently, it is not on the market either. So yes, meat and
fish will not be subject to labeling because they are not currently being
genetically modified.
Opponents talk about how cat and dog food must be labeled,
but human food in restaurants won’t. Pet food would be labeled because most of
it contains items that are almost exclusively a GMO such as Corn and most pet
food contains some corn. As for restaurants, all agreed it would be much too
complicated to label food at restaurants. There is no clear way to do this.
However, by labeling the sources of food that most restaurants use, those
businesses can choose what they use to prepare their dishes, and can use this
to their marketing advantage. So this too is a mute point.
There are so many reasons to start labeling these types of foods
that are being made more and more available to the public. We already know that
the practice of over-using agents such as pesticides, herbicides and
antibiotics creates resistance through natural selection. By allowing the
public to make informed decisions about what they are ingesting, not only are
we educating the population, we are looking forward to protecting our already
fragile environment, where bacteria and viruses are becoming immune to the
chemicals we used to rely on to control them. This means continued creation of
stronger and more powerful chemicals used in the production of our food if we
don’t get a handle on this.
Really, the only thing to focus on is the fact that very
little research has been done on the effects of GMOs on our bodies or on the
environment. It is totally irresponsible to let these giant corporations
dictate how we live by keeping us in ignorance.
Californians, I urge you to join me in voting YES on Prop 37
http://www.carighttoknow.org/
If you want to read more on GMOs, please read this excellent article, written
in 2000, way before this was a topic of national interest:
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php
