Despite mounting evidence that GMO’s are a legitimate health concern, your Food and Drug Administration has given approval to agribusiness giant Monsanto to commercially release a new GMO corn strain into both the U.S. and Canadian food supplies. You may know Monsanto from the firestorm (not from large growers but from family farmers) over GM seed that produces sterile plant-stocks, effectively forcing farmers to buy seed rather than cull it from their crops -seeds which were “accidentally” mixed with normal seed-stocks and thereby obtained a broad footprint in planted acreage by subterfuge. Monsanto’s grab for total control of the world food supply is accelerating, with the company recently telling investors that it is on the verge of several revolutionary genomics breakthroughs.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the new SmartStax corn release is that the FDA permitted reduced refuge acreage requirements. Refuge acres are those dedicated to non-resistant corn, in order that the entire insect population whose diet primarily consists of corn root or kernel (the European Corn Borer, among others) will not develop resistance to the bt trait of the GM corn that protects it against these insects. In other words, GM corn that is specifically designed to be resistant to these insects is, over time, ineffective due to the created adaptability of the insects themselves, who become resistant to the genes, with the upshot being that the very reason for the existence of GM corn-stocks is vitiated by the adaptability of insects. Refuge acres reduce this adaptability by fostering a population of non-resistent insects whom resistant insects can mate with, thus supporting the non-resistant population of insects. This sort of population maintenance is something that biodiversity science knows very little about and has not had ample time to study. But more importantly, the increasing evidence that GMO food is not benign is being ignored by the FDA and the EPA, agencies chartered to protect the food supply and the broader environment. WIthout ample longitudinal studies of these engineered organisms, we cannot know what their long term health effects are with any certainty as our government (in spite of widespread public resistance to the introduction of GMO) forges ahead with its “damn the torpedos” policy, at the behest of frankenfood giants like Monsanto (and its parent company Searle).

What you can do to resist this reckless policy is simple:

1) Contact your representatives and voice your opposition to GMO release into the food supply and support tighter regulations on agribusiness.
2) Boycott processed packaged food produced by companies such as ConAgra and ADM. Particularly avoid food that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup, which almost certainly contains GMO corn.
3) Buy produce at your local farmer’s market or grow it yourself. Buy organic and grow organic. Often your local farmer’s market will be less expensive than the equivalent grocery store prices, while at the same time you are supporting local human-scale agriculture. Do you really want your children eating GMO food that has not been adequately tested and in some cases has known toxicity?

Above all pray that our leaders will see the light on the potential and actual dangers of GMO food and slow down the reckless rush to introduce it into our fragile food supply.

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