I live in an area that is in an Agriculture
Land Preserve Program. That means that
there are signs that say “Forever and ever, preserved as agricultural land” all
over and there is either corn or soy planted and there are horses, chickens and
peacocks and peahens. It is a beautiful area. I am the only one on this vast
stretch, though, who is concerned with growing organically, or who worries
about non-GMO vegetables, fruits and herbs.
In fact, those who grow around here commercially swear that “You can’t
find non-GMO corn anymore.”
I
asked a neighbor once, in my ignorance “Why don’t those cornfields ever have
weeds?” Why do I have to put down paper
and straw as mulch and y’all have nothing but dirt?” He said: “That’s what happens when you try to
do things organic. We don’t have to
worry about weeds. We use GMO corn and
we spray.” This is why the realtor had
to have a reverse osmosis water purifier installed in our house before we were
allowed to move in to filter out the nitrates.
I have heard a lot of grief about my 60 foot by 43 foot
garden, because I work it by hand (not even by hoe, because I’m 100% disabled,
and that hurts my back, so I sit and do it literally, by hand), because I don’t use anything but organic, home-made
pesticide, and because I don’t use anything but organic fertilizer. (I also grow “weird” things like collards,
mustard greens and okra, which people around here don’t eat, and older things
such as depression era dragon tongue beans.) I order heirloom seeds and non-GMO
seeds so I know you can get them, so long as you look for them.
My
neighbors are pretty nice and supportive, and they appreciate a hard worker, although they see me out there working and shake their heads, because maybe
they think I am working a bit too hard and maybe not as efficiently as I could
be. They have offered me some of their corn.
It is good, but mine is sweeter by far.
When
I visited Hawaii after I got out of the Navy I read something about their
anti-GMO laws. That was my first
introduction on the topic, actually. I
didn’t understand the issue at all, but I thought that people had a right to
understand what their food was made of, and whether it was genetically modified
in a lab. Just like I felt like people
had every right to know exactly what was in every container of food they picked
up in a grocery store.
However,
what exactly does “GMO” mean for a farmer?
And for the consumer? So, first I
learned that in Hawaii during the mid-1990’s a case of Papaya ringspot virus
decimated the Papaya trees. Genetically
engineered papaya trees were developed with a gene from the ringspot virus to
produce an immunization. Regulators in America and in Japan approved the
genetically modified papaya and it reduced the amounts of pesticide required to
fight the aphids that carried the virus.
So, in this example, we think, good: more papayas, more money for
farmers, less pesticides used. The lead developer Hawaii-born Dennis
Gonsalves and his team were awarded the 2002 Humboldt
Prize for
the most significant contribution to US agriculture in five years. Great.
Here is the issue: according to critics such as Jeffrey Smith it could
harm people due to the protein produced by the new gene and no studies had been
conducted. That is pretty scary,
right? And to release such products to
the market on a wide scale without testing them first, that seems to be a bad
thing. And here is another thing, now
someone has patented and owns the seeds, so farmers can’t legally reproduce
them and replant them on their own.4
The ban of GMOs that did stick in Hawaii was
the one on taro, so that cross-pollination did not occur between GMO and
non-GMO crops. That possibly had to more to do with the nature of taro for the
natives of Hawaii, as it is sacred to their origin story.1
What about corn, specifically? What did my
neighbors mean when they said that “you can’t get a non-GMO corn” anymore? Reading the article about genetically
modified corn and those concerns that Hawaiian natives had about cross
pollination made me wonder if it wasn’t a lack of resourcefulness that caused
my neighbors to say such a thing, but rather a sense of alarm that perhaps all
corn had cross pollinated at this point anyway, and it is all GMO corn. Where I live, if my organic heirloom seeds
have actually remained such until I planted them, my best bet may well be to
NOT save my seeds, but to reorder each year from the certified organic,
heirloom seed sellers, and replant that way, because I am sure that I will have
cross-pollinated corn with all of the GMO corn in the vast fields that surround
me. So much for my beautiful 1850-era
corn crib.
Some tests done showed that tumors developed on
mice fed GMO corn may well have developed tumors anyway, and more studies
should be done.4 So, to this point,
really...the verdict is still out. Studies
are still being done, vast numbers of people are arguing against GMO’s,
although their passion is greatly out of proportion with the amount of data
that is available to support the argument against genetically
modified/engineered plants and derived food.
I believe responsible research is mandatory and should continue. In the meantime, I will be in my garden,
planting my organic, non-GMO seeds and enjoying my “weird” ways.
Message us on Facebook to inquire about our CSA options this season!
1. Boyd, R. Genetically
modified Hawaii. Retrieved August 28, 2016, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetically-modified- hawaii/
2. de Vendômois, J. S.,
Roullier, F., Cellier, D., & Séralini, G.-E. (2009a). A comparison of the effects of Three GM corn
varieties on mammalian health. , 5(7), . Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793308/
3. Di,
J., By, P., Bondera, M., & Query, M. (2006). Hawaiian Papaya: GMO
contaminated. Hawaii SEED, 1, .
Retrieved from http://hawaiiseed.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Papaya-Contamination-Report.pdf
4. Harmon,
A. (2014a, January 13). A lonely quest for facts on genetically modified crops. U.S. Retrieved
from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?_r=0
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