Meanwhile, Back at Monsanto's Ranch...

This week I take a break from railing at the pending war. The Bush administration is going to have its way, regardless of public opinion, international opposition and the cautionary arguments of statesmen and scholars. But, sorry, there's no good news in its stead. For meanwhile, back at the ranch -- and on farms and in food stores -- powerful corporations, in defiance of public need and commonsense, continue to have their way.

Last week, a Canadian canola grower and seed developer named Percy Schmeiser came to Vermont to talk about genetically-modified (also called genetically-engineered) food. Schmeiser, a former member of the Saskatchewan parliament, told how the Monsanto Corporation has destroyed his seed stock and taken him to court, accusing him of growing Monsanto-patented genetically-modified (GM) seed without signing a contract and paying them for its use. Schmeiser didn't want to grow the Monsanto seed. It blew in from a neighbor's field and contaminated his own canola crop.

Genetically-modified seed, carried by wind, birds and other animals from field to field, is taking over agriculture. There are some arguments that can be made in behalf of genetically-modified seed. Seeds bred to resist insects and disease and to grow in inhospitable climates may, ultimately, prove a boon. But there are important health, environmental, and agricultural issues that have not been studied. More to the point, Europe and Japan have banned imports of non-labeled GM crops, thus threatening the livelihood of canola, soybean, corn, and wheat growers in the United States and Canada. Many of these growers, like Schmeiser, do not want to grow GM crops, but their fields have been contaminated and their export markets closed. The Bush administration is expected to pressure the World Trade Organization to nullify the European and Japanese ban. See neRAGE for more information.

The concerns of the growers, like the concerns of consumers, get short-shrift in the world of North American industrial agriculture. Elsewhere, farming is considered part of the rural fabric, a way of life, valuable in and of itself. In North America, despite the opposition of many farmers and rural communities, agriculture is simply an industry. Growers and consumers be damned! In GM seeds, Monsanto and other agrichemical giants have found a product they can push for potential profit.

Monsanto insists that seedmen have always engaged in genetic engineering, taking desirable traits of existing plant varieties and crossbreeding them for specific purposes. Thus we have tomato plants bred to be disease-resistant, fruit tree stock that can withstand cold, and sweet corn varieties, like Butter and Sugar and Seneca Chief, that are extra tasty. This is scientific agriculture at its best, proven, safe, and beneficial to farmers and consumers alike. With GM seeds, however, breeders take genetic material from non-species related plant and animal organisms and introduce them into existing crops. This is abusing nature, creating crop varieties that otherwise could not exist.

Monsanto create its Frankenstein seeds to tolerate the chemical herbicide glyphosate which they sell under the trade name Roundup. The herbicide kills all plants except Monsanto's genetically-modified crops. But some weeds have already adapted to Roundup and -- it's the law of nature -- the more the herbicide is used the more weeds will become resistant. Monsanto nevertheless claims that GM crops require fewer chemical applications, but this is disputed (see, for example, a paper by Dr. Charles Benbrook). And, as happened to Percy Schmeiser's canola crop, already-developed non-GM seed varieties are being contaminated by the GM seeds planted in surrounding fields. Over time, farmers will have fewer varieties, fewer strains to turn to if the GM seeds create problems. Already 75 percent of this country's soybean crop is grown with GM seed.