5.26.09 GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD

this article is from a group, C.A.R.E., of which i must be a member as long as i get grass-fed milk/butter from the farmer i go to in bird-in-hand, pa. my prayer is that everyone who reads this would see the clear-and-present-health-danger involved in eating anything that comes through the normal food supply chain and begin taking steps to get out of it by moving toward such goals as 1) growing ALL your own food - honey,vegetables, fruit, nut-bearing trees, animals, you-name-it, etc., 2) establishing a network of relationships with like-minded people you can trust and with whom you can barter food, 3) learning the art and wisdom of foraging and 4) not cheating when you are 'out'. you may feel fine but your health is, in our current circumstances, likely a ticking time bomb, 5) if you can't or won't do the above but have called upon the Name of the Lord Jesus you are likely to see Him sooner than later. (i have no desire to be here forever but as long as i'm here i want to love the Lord my God with all strength possible) if the estimate of this article is correct AT LEAST 70% EVERYTHING YOU ARE currently EATING IS GMO-CONTAMINATED...and it may be safe to say that God intended us to eat things He created rather than plants created by Monsanto.

Where is this GMO Leading Us? Andrew K. Shetler, Jr. Reprinted with the author’s permission.

Do we think using the worldly technology of genetically modified seeds doesn’t really matter? Are the scientists of today, in their worldly wisdom which is an enmity to God, trying to do things which really belong to God? Are we so lured by the convenience of not having to cultivate or weed that corn or soybean field that we don’t really give it much thought? What about God’s words, after mankind’s fall, when He said, “Thorns and thistles shall it bring unto thee,” and “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return unto the ground.” Do we stop to think what we are funding when we pay the price for that bag of RoundUp Ready corn or soybean seed? How much more does it cost because of “tech fees”? Whether we care to admit or nor not, we are choosing what we support with the money we spend. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth.” And it was so. God’s plan was that the seeds these plants produced would be the basis for the next crop. But by becoming enticed by these genetically engineered traits, man’s inventions in the very substance of life which God had created, farmers have become ensnared and dependent by supporting huge companies that want to monopolize the world’s food supply.

Another question we should ask is: Are GMO’s healthy and safe? Numerous tests and observations have shown that they are not! I read an article that said conservationists who are planting corn specifically for the deer will not plant GM corn. Wild deer will not graze GM corn
stalks unless close to starving. So, what about us intelligent humans? What kind of choices do we make? Genetically modified Bt cotton has taken over much of India’s cotton production,
despite evidence of toxic side effects that have killed a number of goats and sheep that grazed on the post-harvest hybrid.

In a case report commissioned by Greenpeace, it said that there were “statistically significant” effects in the blood and organs of laboratory rats fed GM corn. The report said rats suffered
liver and kidney toxicity and differences in weight gain between sexes. It also contains Monsanto’s own health and safety trial of the GM corn, which also showed significant differences between rats eating the GM corn and those eating other corn. Monsanto, of course, said
the differences pose no health or safety risk.

Consider that almost 70% of the products we buy at the grocery store contain genetically engineered food. Yet we don’t know the long-term impact on our health, the environment, etc. Corn and soy are the two main culprits sincenearly all processed food use ingredients such as corn syrup, corn starch, or soy lecithin. GM corn and soy first entered the human food supply in 1996. The introduction of genetically engineered crops has confronted farmers with a host of new challenges and problems, including the loss of export markets, and vigorous pursuit and prosecution by companies for purported patent infringement. Farmers are being sued and harassed for doing what they have always done; all-out war is being waged on how farmers use their seed and conduct their farming.

Leading the assault is the multi-billion dollar Monsanto Company, headquartered in the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur. Monsanto is largely responsible fore the prevalence of genetically engineered organisms in our environment today. Their domination of biotechnology thus far has little to do with any economic or environmental benefits to the farmers. They provide 90% of the seed technology of the world’s genetically engineered crops. Already in 2005, they held 647 bio-tech plant patents, more than any biotech company.

They spend hundreds of millions of dollars and have scores of scientists working to develop new genetically engineered crops. The main factor in their success is their ability to control the adoption of their patented technology. They have three main tactics: buying or merging with most major seed companies; their multitude of patents; and the requirement that any farmer
purchasing their seed must first sign an agreement prohibiting the saving of seed, thereby forcing farmers to repurchase Monsanto’s seed every year. In less than a decade, Monsanto’s patented genetic traits have contaminated more than half of the conventional corn and soybean seed supply, and nearly all of the conventional canola seed supply in the United States. In 2008, GM sugar beet seed became available commercially.

Biological contamination of non-GM crops with pollen from GM crops has become a serious problem. Pollen drift is also causing contamination in organic crops. Because of their patents, when any non-engineered crop becomes contaminated with patented traits, that crop effectively becomes the property of Monsanto. Once the farmer signs Monsanto’s Technology Agreement, they are bound by Monsanto’s oversight. This agreement requires farmers to give up their time honored practice of saving seed, a crucial practice upon which the expansion of germplasm base in modern agriculture depends. Monsanto’s Technology Agreement also gives it substantial protections by holding farmers liable for its own uncontrollable technology.

Historically, life forms were excluded from patent laws based on the common human inventions. Then, in 1970, Congress enacted the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA), an alternative form of plant variety protection on sexually producing plants. But one of the two exemptions to this was that farmers were allowed to save seed for replanting. The first patent on life was awarded in1980 when the Supreme Court ruled that living organisms (in this case, bacterium) could be patented. This decision paved the way for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to decide that sexually producing plants are patentable. They began accepting patent applications for such plants, despite the fact that Congress had never given the U.S. PTO authority to grant utility patents for sexually producing plants. Unlike the PVPA, the patent allows its holders to exclude others from using the patented variety for research and agricultural purposes.

Monsanto’s research lead to the development of two main types of GM crops; herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant. Herbicide-tolerant crops are engineered to withstand applications of RoundUp, Monsanto’s most popular herbicide. Since the introduction of the herbicide-tolerant crops, nine years ago, herbicide use in the U.S. has increased by138 million pounds.

Insect-resistant varieties are engineered so that a toxin normally produced by a naturally occurring bacteria, Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt), is instead produced by the plant. The Bt toxin kills butterflies, moths, and beetles upon ingestion. Bt is one of the most effective pesticides available for organic growers. Widespread plantings of Bt crops could lead to insect resistance, reducing the effectiveness of this natural insecticide.

Monsanto spares no expense in investigating and prosecuting farmers suspected of patent infringement, committing seventy–five employees and an annual $10 million to the effort. Innocent or not, many farmers are coerced into settling out of court, therefore much of the public is unaware of their ruthless tactics. Often one provision of out-of-court settlements is that farmers are not allowed to disclose settlement amounts or they face further sanctions.

They promote a toll-free phone number that allows farmers and businesses to place confidential calls to the company and report suspected “infringement”activities by neighbors and customers. “Farmers are being sued for having GMO’s on their property that they did not buy, do not want, will not use, and cannot sell,” said one farmer. One farmer, who never saw an agreement, settled for upwards of $100,000. He recounted that the company told him, “We own you, we own anybody that buys our RoundUp Ready products.” This farmer asserts that he was never told that he could not save his seed, only that he was not allowed to sell it to others. At least six of the ninety lawsuits brought by Monsanto, up until 2005, involved the forged signature of a farmer on a technology agreement, a practice common among seed dealers. Even though at least twenty-five of the farmers sued by Monsanto never signed an agreement (most of them have never seen one), the court does not bar themfrom suing them for patent infringement, only from suing to enforce the terms ofthe technology agreement. The largest recorded judgement made in favor of Monsanto, of dozens and dozens of cases, as a result of a farmer lawsuit is$3,052,800.

Much of the information for this article GMO’s comes from a report already published in 2005, Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers (Center for Food Safety, 660 Penn Ave., SE #302, Washington, DC 2003), so many of the figures are outdated already. This report contains much information and details about the company’s prosecutions, many of which are almost unbelievable! Information was also taken from The Organic & Non-GMO Report (P.O. Box436, Fairfield, IA 52556).