New York Times
THREE crops — corn, soybeans and wheat — account for a vast majority of the value of America’s agricultural crop output. But wheat is different in one important respect. Full story here.
Non-GMO wheat. May you live
long and prosper! PLT photo.
long and prosper! PLT photo.
1 comment:
Sadly this article is chalk-full of questionable or downright misleading statements. Remember that wise old saying,"If it ain't broke - don't fix it?" Well, guess what? Wheat ain't broken! So, leave it alone!
The premise that genetic engineering will lead to fewer or less potent chemicals is a myth. Pesticide use skyrocketed by millions of tonnes following the introduction of GM crops on this continent. Increased plantings of GM corn seed, coated with potent insecticides, are contributing
to the deaths of millions of honeybees, those precious pollinators which make many of our human food crops possible. Sadly, North America is still in denial of this truth which is emerging as scientific fact, albeit, all-too-slowly. (How much do you want to bet GM wheat won't be "treated" in a similar fashion?)
GMOs are first and foremost designed to be a cash-cow for giant seed and pesticide companies to sell more product. Period. Even now, Roundup is poured on wheat crops just to dry them out before harvest. And you want even more? Just how many pesticides are enough to be feeding to future generations? To actually now propose to alter wheat so it can receive even more of this already harmful product, sounds more like plain propaganda from the desk of Monsanto's PR department.
The old "feed-the-world" line is getting stale now, too. Too many North Americans suffer from the egocentric notion that - just as we need to act as policemen for the planet, all those poor souls "over there" need our technology to lift them up by their bootstraps. The fact is, smaller, family-oriented farmers in many developing countries, many of them organic, would be doing just fine, thank you, if we left them alone, too. Instead, GM crops and their handmaidens, potent pesticides, are either making them sick or driving them into bankruptcy and often suicide trying to pay for their high cost!
I sincerely hope the NYT runs an Op-ed piece to counter this one. And soon
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