How GMO’s Contribute to Climate Change
March 05, 2013
Story at-a-glance
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According to a recent paper by South Dakota State University
researchers, grasslands in the “Western corn belt” is being
converted to grow corn and soy at a rate "comparable to
deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia”
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This trend may have a significant impact on global climate
change, and subsequently, our ability to secure our food
supply long-term. According to another research paper,
converting sections of Midwestern corn fields into pasture
for cows could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from
agriculture by as much as 36 percent
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The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released a
report titled: "Climate Change and Agriculture in the United
States." According to the report, our current agricultural
system, which is dominated by corn and soy, is unsustainable
in the long term. Should temperatures rise as predicted, the
US could expect to see significant declines in yields by the
middle of this century
By Dr. Mercola
Corn and soy—much of which are genetically engineered—are
rapidly overtaking native grasslands in a number of US states.
This is a trend that may have a not-so-insignificant impact on
global climate change and subsequently, our ability to secure
our food supply long-term.
As discussed in a recent Mother Jones article,1
this conversion of grasslands to crop fields is the exact
opposite of what might be in our best interest.
“...to get ready for climate change, we should push
Midwestern farmers to switch a chunk of their corn land into
pasture for cows,” the featured article states.
“The idea came from a paper2
by University of Tennessee and Bard College researchers, who
calculated that such a move could suck up massive amounts of
carbon in soil—enough to reduce annual greenhouse gas
emissions from agriculture by 36 percent.
In addition to the CO2 reductions, you'd also get a
bunch of high-quality, grass-fed beef... Turns out the
Midwest are doing just the opposite.”
Federal Policy Worsens Environmental Concerns
According to a recently published paper3
by South Dakota State University researchers, grasslands in the
Western corn belt, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota,
Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, is being lost at a rate
"comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and
Indonesia."
Between 2006 and 2011, nearly 2 million acres of friendly
native grasses have been lost to corn and soy—two of the staples
in processed foods that are driving chronic disease rates in an
ever steepening upward incline. The same thing is happening in
South America, where native forests are leveled in order to
plant soy.
The researchers claim the land being converted into corn and
soy fields is actually much better suited for grazing than crop
agriculture, as it is “characterized by high erosion risk and
vulnerability to drought." So why would farmers opt to use such
risky land for their crops?
According to the featured article:
“Simple: Federal policy has made it a high-reward,
tiny-risk proposition. Prices for corn and soy doubled in
real terms between 2006 and 2011, the authors note, driven
up by
federal corn-ethanol mandates and relentless
Wall Street speculation.
Then there's federally subsidized crop insurance, the
authors add. When farmers manage to tease a decent crop out
of their marginal land, they're rewarded with high prices
for their crop. But if the crop fails, subsidized insurance
guarantees a decent return.
Essentially, federal farm policy, through the ethanol
mandate and the insurance program, is underwriting the
expansion of corn and soy agriculture at precisely the time
it should be shrinking.”
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released a
report titled: "Climate Change and Agriculture in the United
States." According to the report, our current agricultural
system, which is dominated by corn and soy, is unsustainable in
the long term. Should temperatures rise as predicted, the US
could expect to see significant declines in yields by the middle
of this century.
Unfortunately, the USDA failed to analyze how reliance on
monoculture might heighten our vulnerability to devastating crop
loss. As a general rule though, the more crop diversity you
have, the greater your food security, as different crops are
affected differently. Our dependence on two primary crops is a
recipe for disaster.
Monoculture—A Tremendous Threat to Global Food Security
The "faster, bigger, cheaper" approach to food is slowly
draining dry our planet's resources and compromising your
health. The Earth's soil is depleting at more than 13 percent
the rate it can be replaced, and we’ve already lost 75 percent
of the world's crop varieties over the last century.
In the words of Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's
Dilemma and a number of other bestsellers: "Mother Nature
destroys monocultures." What is a monoculture? Monoculture (or
monocropping) is defined as the high-yield agricultural practice
of growing a single crop year after year on the same land, in
the absence of rotation through other crops. Corn, soybeans,
wheat, and to some degree rice, are the most common crops grown
with monocropping techniques. In fact, corn, wheat and rice now
account for 60 percent of human caloric intake, according to the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization.4
According to
an article on GreenFudge.org, monoculture is detrimental to
the environment for a number of reasons, including the
following:
- It damages soil ecology by depleting and reducing the
diversity of soil nutrients
- It creates an unbuffered niche for parasitic species to
take over, making crops more vulnerable to opportunistic
pathogens that can quickly wipe out an entire crop
- It increases dependency on
chemical pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and
genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
- It increases reliance on expensive specialized farm
equipment and machinery that require heavy use of fossil
fuels
- It destroys biodiversity
By contrast, polyculture (the traditional rotation of crops
and livestock) better serves both land and people. Polyculture
evolved to meet the complete nutritional needs of a local
community. Polyculture, when done mindfully, automatically
replenishes what is taken out, which makes it sustainable with
minimal effort. Unfortunately, government subsidies and fervent
lobbying to favor patented seeds drive the monoculture train;
the goal of which is to maximize profits as quickly and for as
long as possible... At stake is our entire food supply, not to
mention farmers who don’t want to use patented seed.
Monsanto: Why We Sue Farmers Who Save Seeds
In a recent article in CropLife,5
Monsanto “provides the ‘justification’ they use to explain why
they are forced to protect their innovation.”
“Patents are necessary to ensure that Monsanto is
paid for its products and all the investments it puts into
developing products. This is one of the basic reasons for
patents. A more important reason is to help foster
innovation. Without the protection of patents there would be
little incentive for privately-owned companies to pursue and
re-invest in innovation. Monsanto invests more than $2.6
million per day in research and development that ultimately
benefits farmers and consumers. Without the protection of
patents, this would not be possible,” the article
reads.
Contrary to the “law of nature,” when you purchase patented
seed, such as those sold by Monsanto, you have to sign an
agreement confirming you will not save and replant seeds
produced from the seed you buy. This means you have to
repurchase new seed from them each season, opposed to the
ancient practice of saving seed from one season’s harvest to
plant the next. However, patented crops don’t know they’re not
supposed to spread like natural ones... Farms can easily become
contaminated by wind- or insect-carried pollen from GE fields,
thereby opening farmers up to patent infringement lawsuits.
Monsanto has aggressively waged war against farmers whose
only crime was to grow crops out in the open... According to a
report6
by the Center for Food Safety (CFS), Monsanto had, as of
December 2012, filed 142 patent infringement lawsuits against
410 farmers and 56 small businesses in more than 27 states. All
in all, Monsanto has been awarded a staggering $23 million from
their mafia tactics so far.7
According to Monsanto, only nine cases have gone through full
trial, and in each of those cases, the jury or court decided in
Monsanto's favor. I’m sure it helps to have some of the most
high-paid legal firms in the country representing them, and also
to have insiders in the halls of justice... Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas,8
appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991, is in fact a former
Monsanto attorney. And he has yet to rule against his former
employer.
Monsanto vs. Bowman
Not all cases are related to contamination however. On
February 19, the US Supreme Court began hearing the appeal of
75-year old Indiana soybean farmer Vernon Bowman, in which he
disputes Monsanto's claim that his farm used the patented seeds
without authorization. The central issue in this case is the
extent that a patent holder can control its use through multiple
generations of seed.9
According to a recent press release:10
“Farmer Bowman legally purchased seeds at a grain
elevator, which bought them from farmers who had, with
Monsanto's authorization, used the genetically modified
Monsanto seeds to grow their soybean crops. Monsanto claims
that Mr. Bowman infringed its patents on herbicide-resistant
plants and seeds by using the grain elevator seeds to grow
his soybean crops. Mr. Bowman asserts that Monsanto's sales
of the original seeds to authorized purchasers exhausted
Monsanto's patent rights and therefore Monsanto cannot
enforce its patents against second-generation and later
seeds that resulted from planting the original seeds.”
So far, none of the Justices have been impressed with
Bowman’s appeal. In fact, just seconds into Bowman’s attorney’s
opening arguments, Chief Justice Roberts interrupted him by
asking “why anyone would ever patent anything if Bowman were to
prevail?” And just moments after that, Justice Breyer openly
stated that “Bowman had infringed” on Monsanto’s patent, as if
the case was already decided. In a summary of the case, patent
attorney and founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, writes:11
“Justice Breyer, harkening back to the words of
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, said: 'There are three
generations of seeds. Maybe three generations of seeds is
enough.' Justice Breyer acknowledged that it was a bad joke.
Certainly a politically incorrect joke. The 'joke' referred
to Holmes’ 1927 decision in Buck v. Bell,12
which was a case of forced sterilization. Holmes concluded
in that case: 'Three generations of imbeciles are enough.'”
Indeed, making light of the government’s right to sterilize
mentally handicapped people is not just a bad joke, it’s a sick
one when you consider that the case in question (Buck vs Bell)
basically concluded that it’s okay for the federal government to
sterilize whomever they want—primarily those they consider
'imbeciles.' In Buck vs Bell, Holmes made the case that so long
as government can force vaccination, it can force sterilization.
If they can force medical procedures on your body, what rights
do you really have? Now they are establishing that corporations
have a right to patent not just one life, but the future
generations as well
“We have seen more than once that the public welfare
may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be
strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the
strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not
felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our
being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the
world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring
for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility,
society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from
continuing their kind.
The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is
broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes... Three
generations of imbeciles are enough.
But, it is said, however it might be if this
reasoning were applied generally, it fails when it is
confined to the small number who are in the institutions
named and is not applied to the multitudes outside. It is
the usual last resort of constitutional arguments to point
out shortcomings of this sort. But the answer is that the
law does all that is needed when it does all that it can,
indicates a policy, applies it to all within the lines, and
seeks to bring within the lines all similarly situated so
far and so fast as its means allow. Of course so far as the
operations enable those who otherwise must be kept confined
to be returned to the world, and thus open the asylum to
others, the equality aimed at will be more nearly reached.”
Jokes aside about government’s rights to do with life as it
pleases, the Court appears sold on protecting patent rights for
seeds through multiple generations. The judges' decision will
come by the end of June 2013. My guess is the Supreme Court only
took this case to clearly protect the future of genetic
engineering, and the rights to their products and of future
generations. Justice Breyer and Justice Holmes appear to have a
lot in common, and Americans can expect another moral injustice
to our laws.
Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods
While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a
very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over.
The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington,
where the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know
Genetically Engineered Food Act," will require food sold in
retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically
engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:
"Calorie and nutritional information were not always
required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required
and most consumers use this information every day.
Country-of-origin labeling wasn't required until 2002. The
trans fat content of foods didn't have to be labeled until
2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted
as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange
juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.
Doesn't it make sense that genetically engineered
foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect,
plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically
engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before
entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have
been done. The research we have is raising serious questions
about the impact to human health and the environment.
I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522
will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It
simply would add more information to food labels, which
manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522
does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does
not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to
initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do
so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid
raising costs to the state or consumers."
Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people
like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin
simply because we didn't have the funds to counter the massive
ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and
other major food companies. Let's not allow Monsanto and its
allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and
Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get
involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state
you live in.
- No matter where you live in the United States, please
donate money to these labeling efforts through the
Organic Consumers Fund.
- If you live in Washington State, please
sign the I-522 petition. You can also
volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
- For timely updates on issues relating to these and other
labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers
Association on
Facebook, or follow them on
Twitter.
- Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to
actively support the Washington initiative.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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