My post on the how to keep Monsanto out of your home garden seems to have really hit a nerve with supporters of GM foods.
This morning, I received an email from the CEO/President of a large soybean seed company in the Midwest who writes:
I just read your article “The Four Steps Required To Keep Monsanto Out of Your Garden”. I favor choice when it comes to the food you eat and agree with you on that part . I do not agree that it is right to attack Monsanto and all the good work that they are doing to increase yields for farmers to keep the price of food low enough so the poorest of the poor can afford to eat. If we all had to eat organic many people in this world would starve due to the higher cost of food and lower production.
I respect your views but attacking Monsanto is not in the interest of poor people and world food production. GMO’s are not bad and have passed all the standards set by regulatory systems around the world and are proven safe. Thanks for listening.
My word for word email response?
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid my friend.
GMOs are far from “proven safe” as this CEO claims and the sob story that Monsanto is somehow helping the poor and starving people of the world is nothing but a PR stunt that while effective, has no basis in truth or reality.
As Mark Twain once said, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
There are many highly capable and obviously intelligent people that have completely bought the scam that GMOs are safe and going to feed the world baloney.
Perhaps this most recent news out of Europe will give them a much need kick in the pants to wake them up to the reality of the situation.
Independent Experts Find GM Foods Contain Dangerous Gene
The European Union’s official, independent food watchdog group, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), is reporting that the approval process for GM crops failed to identify a poisonous gene discovered in 54 of 86 GM plants.
Most alarmingly, this viral gene known as “GENE VI” was discovered in the most widespread GM crops, notably corn and soy, which are heavily used in animal feed for livestock producing meat, milk, and eggs.
How did the viral gene get into the GM crops in the first place?
The problem starts right in the laboratory where GM foods are synthesized by an army of scientists playing God with millions of unsuspecting guinea pigs blithely buying unlabeled GM laced products at the supermarket.
These scientists insert foreign genes from other organisms (plant or animal) into a target plant using a technique which allows these foreign genes to “piggyback” on common soil or plant based viruses.
Assumption is the Mother of Error it seems as these scientists had expected that the virus genes transporting the foreign genes into the target plant would not be present once the GM plant was actually grown in the field.
The EFSA research (Independent Science News) has now conclusively shown that this major assumption upon which the supposed “safety” of GMOs is based is not the case.
Not. Even. Close.
How the presence of this viral gene could have been missed by the biotech companies, government regulators, and even university scientists is beyond comprehension.
The EFSA research indicated the following:
This situation represents a complete and catastrophic system failure.
There are clear indications that this viral gene might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.
A reasonable concern is that the protein produced by Gene VI might be a human toxin. This is a question that can only be answered by future experiments.
Dr. Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) which represents the biotech companies, had this to say in response:
... nearly three trillion meals containing GM ingredients have been eaten without a single substantiated case of ill-health. The combination of these two facts can give consumers a huge amount of confidence in the safety of GM crops.
I guess Dr. Little isn’t really paying attention to the skyrocketing cases of food allergies and digestive complaints in the past decade or so, particularly allergies to corn and soy, the top two GM crops.
It’s always easier to just continue with business as usual and hide behind PR campaigns focusing on starving children and fudged reports about the “safety” of frankenfoods when the corporate bottom line (and the McMansion mortgage payment) is at stake, isn’t it Mr. CEO?
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources
Uncovered, the “toxic” gene hiding in GM crops: Revelation throws new doubt over the safety of foods
Wow, this must be the company comeback/sales pitch to tell the public!. Feed them this line and try to “guilt” people into accepting their views.
It is crazy how agressive they have become. I recently lost a friend due to this propaganda. As their spouse works in the GMO industry (Sales), she attacked me during a conversation one day, telling me that I was ignorant and selfish to be sharing education on GMOs on my own FB page. I did not bring up this conversation and was not going to get into a debate while out at lunch. At the end of it, she told myself and our other friend that she could no longer be friends due to our differences on GMOs…
Somehow I think that the traditional food of humanity, which nourished humankind for uncounted thousands of years, are much better for us than lab made concoctions, developed solely to make money for the company who creates them.
Increasing the cost of food does not help the poor.
If they truly care about feeding poor people, maybe they could stop spending the millions they do on lobbying, litigation against organic farmers, suppressing research and labeling.
Then they would be able to compete in a market without government subsidies and still make a fair profit. And poor people would be able to eat the food they choose, since without the government subsidies, it would all cost about the same….
Exactly! The market is imperfect and skewed, leading to artificially low food prices. If we must subsidize food production, then perhaps we should subsidize things other than corn, to give other farming methods and food products a fair chance.
It seems like the more “advanced” our society gets, the more behind we get. I’m about ready to just have our own little family farm to live off of.
How can anyone believe a big company in business to MAKE MONEY cares about the poor? Moreover, many of the foods Monsanto encourages farmers to grow is not indigenous to their area. The poor literally have no idea how to cook or eat the crops. A friend who is actively working with farmers in other countries to grow local food has been telling me that for years.
I have a couple friends who worked for Monsanto. They were chemists who worshipped their company. I never saw such open adoration for a business. Until they got laid off quite abruptly. Monsanto, I believe, encourages such worship.
Just looking for the source of the Mark Twain quote. Mind sharing?
I never said that. But hey, like I didn’t say, it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.
Great article! Feed the poor people crap and poison them? Now there’s a great sales pitch for you, not!
Love your response to his pompous email.
Whenever I hear someone say that Monsanto is somehow “saving the world’s poor…” I get a little queasy. First, many people all over the world have grown their own food for years and years. No need for GMO seeds to grow your own food. And the reason organic foods aren’t affordable for so many are many thanks to Monsanto and USDA being in bed together keeping paperwork and certifications at high costs for those trying to grow real food. How about the fact that I can buy local, pastured eggs for $3/dozen rather than buying free range eggs from the store $4.79. I think that I pay .21 per dozen than the cheapest eggs I can find at the store.
Rather than thinking the solution is a scientist thinking they know how to feed our bodies the way we need, why not join forces with an organization that allows you to buy a goat and send it to the poor in foreign countries. Or the wonderful stories I’ve read of community gardens that feed so many people struggling financially in their own communities. There has to be a way to take care of our communities AND feed them well with real food. This victim mentality that we can’t take of ourselves and each other with organic food is a cop-out. I’m from the midwest as well and my tiny garden of non-gmo seeds and manure was way too much food to feed just my family and I have a ton frozen for the winter months.
Sarah,
I congratulate you for your far-reaching blog. It is so easy for one to feel useless in affecting change in the world but here you are with your voice being heard. Thank you!
It really helps your argument Andrea S to have so many sites in your response to combat what Sarah has posted. Good mothers teach their children to keep hate and nastiness to themselves, but since your mother failed you, I just figured I’d point out that your comment was hateful and unnecessary. You would do well to drink your Kool Aid and let the big people discuss. TIA!
If you spend any time really looking at what’s behind this, it’s pretty clear things aren’t as they seem. If you want a great source on GMO go to: http://www.responsibletechnology.org/ . And I certainly don’t find hungry people acceptable, but that doesn’t mean GMO is the way to solve it. Check out this article about what happened when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tried to pitch that explanation to a room fool of experts: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/vilsack-mistakenly-pitche_b_319998.html