The reality is that GMO crop introductions have resulted in markedly lower use of far more toxic herbicides like atrazine, and have other environmental benefits.
That paper describes a speculative theory lacking hard evidence.
The other issue is the labeling of foods using products derived from GMO products (such as corn oil from GMO corn), which were to contain none of the foreign DNA or GMO-derived proteins. Should those products be labeled?
No kidding. Another thing I would like to know before GMO content is where my poultry and pork is being processed. Apparently, producers have figured out how to make a profit by raising chickens and pigs in the US, then shipping them to China to be processed, then shipping the meat back here for sale. Current US law only requires the label to indicate the country of origin, not the country of processing. I find that much more distressing than GMO food.
Is that true? I had no idea. The thought of China handling anything related to fresh food is worrisome. Do they have to meet USDA/FDA regs?
I just received a response to an email on this very subject I sent to my US Senator, Jean Shaheen (D-NH):
Bolding mine.
I, for one, am glad the bottles of Round-Up I buy are “safety seal for [my] protection”. I’d hate for someone to slip a poison in there without me knowing.
The alternative to all this is to grow your own food … it’s not difficult by any means. There may be seed companies in your community that even specialize in non-hybred seeds. Books and books and books in your library on how to grow a garden organically.
It’s hard work, but you’ll know exactly where your food comes from.
Partially related Snopes link.
As I read that, it’s simply not worth anyone’s while to send live animals to China for slaughter and then re-import the meat.
Growing enough food to fulfill all of your food needs, and all the food needs of the family you support (if you have kidlets), requires a hell of a lot of effort and a pretty sizable chunk of land.
And that’s assuming you live in a place with good growing conditions.
The beauty of real farms is that they take advantage of economies of scale, as well as the expertise necessary to grow a lot of food efficiently. If everyone had to grow their own food, most of the population would starve.
Or to put it another way: There’s a huge difference between growing a few vegetables in a private garden to supplement your diet, and growing everything in your diet including the wheat for the flour, the sugar beets for the sugar, the eggs, etc… To say nothing of grinding the wheat, turning the sugar beets into sugar, etc…
Uless you’re a farmer, when you say you “grow your own food”, you probably mean that you grow A LITTLE BIT of your own food.
If the email Fear Itself posted is true, it sounds like the animals are slaughtered here. I don’t understand how that’s profitable.
Blasphemy! Cane sugar only, thenkewverymuch.
China has been trying to get the rules changed for years. In 2013, China was approved to process chicken that was raised and slaughtered in the US. Here is the FAQ on the timeline and regulations from the USDA website, and the money shot is here:
I have no reason to doubt Fear Itself. But unless there’s a super cheap way of sending live or slaughtered animals to China and then returning them to the USA, I’m just not buying this. That’s why I posted a Snopes link - this sounds like a story that has taken on a life of its own.
There are plenty of processing places in the US, I assume. So unless the whole purpose of this suggested exercise is to send carcasses overseas in order to do unspeakable things to them, in a manner which will actually increase the price of the finished product…I call shenanigans.
Please know that I’m not doubting your email. I just find it amazing- I think it highlights how cheap labor must really be. Sad.
That’s what it takes to know what you’re eating. Otherwise, you don’t know what you’re eating, exactly. Do you trust the local supermarket? Do they trust their suppliers? Are the farmers to be trusted?
I do … what could go wrong?
There is another issue with GMO which can’t be resolved with common sense and rigorous scientific studies. How do you keep non-GMO foods pure?
Even if experimental leftovers, volunteer plants, food and seed handling and storage facilities are effectively isolated, what can you do when they can cross-pollinate?
http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/articles.00/gmo_issues-000307.html
And (at least for Monsanto) when 1% cross-contamination is eventually surpassed, then the non-GMO farmers can be sued for patent infringement!
The cross-pollination/“contamination” issue has a phony ring to it, seeing that all manner of plants cross-pollinate each other, whether GM/conventionally hybridized/organic/whatever.
If you’re growing a field of conventionally bred corn next to a field of “heirloom” organic corn which “contaminates” a small percentage of your crop, should you be able to sue? Or just use common sense about creating a buffer strip so your crop remains as “pure” as possible?
As to Monsanto supposedly suing people for accidentally having GM traits in their crop, the only such cases I’ve ever heard of involved farmers who deliberately grew a GM crop without paying a royalty fee to Monsanto.
My main concern with GM crops has to do with the continuing trend of food crops being mono cultures. If a fungus/virus is found that attacks these specific varieties of corn or soy, we can wipe out all the food producers out there. If more farmers grew a variety of strains of food crops the food supply would be better protected. As more large scale farms buy the same GM products, it further reduces the variety being grown.
If you’re trying to grow your own food, you’re gonna find it pretty difficult to grow sugarcane if you don’t live in the tropics.
This could all have been prevented with Variety GURT (“terminator seed” technology) … except that the anti-GMO crowd was so vehemently opposed to Variety GURT that Monsanto never brought it to market.
Shot themselves in the foot, they did.