After spending the first weekend of summer out of the city in an indoor water-park, my mind has turned to how to get my concrete bound kids back in the nature! Trips to the lake and forest preserves are on my mind as I type from my office window. Berry picking scheduled for the weekend and camping the next. With all of the planning we have to do to get out the door - is there any room left for spontaneity? For enjoying what the city lays out for us in the summer months? For hanging out at parks and picnics?
What do you all do?
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Torn up about GMO
The last weekend of April the Illinois Corn Growers Association sent me and about 20 other moms to Monsanto in St. Louis. It was a crazy day packed with a lot of information.
Here our guide explains one of the many grow rooms - rooms with recreated environments from all over the world. |
And the totally not weird or scary inside |
I wrote about it before the trip and had several questions I wanted
answers for by the time I left. I was not disappointed.
- What are we doing about cross-pollination with other crops?
The best
answer I got about this one was actually from one of the farm moms I toured
with. Katie Pratt told me that on her
farm, when planting happens, the farmers who neighbor each other get together
to talk about planting plans and schedules. This ensures that if a field of GMO
corn is pollinating, the field next door is a different variety which
pollinates at a different time. They also talk about wind direction, weather
predictions, and then plan for a buffer of soy between the different varieties
of corn.
I said to
her, so you aren’t like me and may have lived next to your neighbor for seven
years and not even really know their names? She sort of gave me the eyebrow and
remarked that farming communities always work together.
On this
issue I am no longer torn. I don’t think that Monsanto, or other seed
companies, are punishing farmers for cross pollination and I believe the
farmers are doing their best to make sure that it does not happen.
- What are we doing about allergies?
This was a
top concern of mine. People I love have allergies and I worry that all of the
fidgeting around with DNA will create a problem for them. The scientist at the
panel discussion informed me of a database of known allergen DNA. They compare
this to the modified DNA and if there is a match – they go back to the drawing
board. It seems to me that they are being very responsible about known
allergens.
Here is
where I am torn. What if they are creating new allergens that we won’t know
about until someone or a lot of someone’s have a reaction to it? To be fair, I
didn’t ask this question of the panel. It is still concerning to me.
- Why aren’t we labeling – and not just that the food is GMO but with information available by the food’s code on what has been modified and why.
I did not
get an answer from the panel about this, but at the airport I talked to another
farm mom, Deb, and she said that this was something that would have to be
addressed on a Federal level and couldn’t really be assigned to a seed company.
Ok. I will buy that.
- Why aren’t we letting farmers keep seed?
Now Katie
told me that they don’t want to keep the seed and reuse it – the genetics of
any seed may deteriorate over generations. Farmers in her community are not
crying out to keep seed.
Here is
another place I am torn. If they cannot keep the seed – won’t the seed
companies ultimately have control of the distribution of food? Now they say
that it is because of the patent on the biotechnology. That because the seed
company owns the technology then the only way for them to be profitable is for
them to also own the product of that technology. It is the most American of
ideas.
- How long do patents last? Can they expire like copyrights and the food is returned to the public domain?
So here is where I really
run into trouble. I don’t believe that
anyone should own a patent on a living organism. A seed is the beginning of
life. It is a fundamental difference in my personal philosophy. It is at the
crux of the GMO-hating among most of my community.
In the end, I am for the
science. I am for increasing the food supply and making things grow better.
But
in the end I am against owning a patent on life.
That is where I stand.
That is
where I am torn.
Travel expenses within St. Louis and lunch provided by Monsanto
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