Choosing organic food creates benefits in two directions. In one direction, the choice supports sustainable and beneficial farming practices that protect the environment and make for healthier, more varied, and tastier food. In the opposite direction, the dollars spent on organic produce will not support some pretty terrifying developments in conventional agriculture. Although non-organic (conventional) farming practices are said to help provide more food to people at lower prices, the practices potentially pose various hazards, as described below.
GENETIC ENGINEERING
We’re constantly being reassured by the biotech industry that genetically modified crops are safe and represent a boon to mankind. But experience gives us pause.
One genetic engineering technique causes new plant varieties to develop at evolutionary hyperspeed, which allows farmers to select for more “efficient” crop varieties faster than ever before. However, this technique is accomplished by splicing genes that cause colon cancer in humans into a plant’s DNA, where they cause a chain of mutations that can produce thousands of mutated offspring at a fast rate. The offspring are then screened for useful characteristics.
Once these genetically modified varieties of plants (called genetically modified organisms, or GMOs or just GMs) are introduced into a crop, their spread may be hard to control as their pollen can spread and pollinate non-GMO plants, turning their offspring into GMO plants. Genetically modified corn was inadvertently harvested along with soybeans for human consumption in Nebraska in 2001. That corn contained a gene to produce Aprotinin, which belongs to a class of substances called trypsin inhibitors that are known to cause pancreatic disease when fed to animals. It also acts as an insecticide, making the corn poisonous to insects.
In a separate incident, a strain of genetically altered corn was found to produce a glycoprotein found on the surface of two strains of HIV and the closely-related simian immunodeficiency virus. Injection of the glycoprotein into the brain of rats has been shown to kill brain cells, while injection into the human blood stream results in the death of white blood cells.
The U.S. government ordered this corn crop destroyed, but a day after that order was given, it was discovered that the biotech company that had developed the corn had additionally contaminated 155 acres of corn in Iowa. That, too, was ordered destroyed. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” read a release from the Institute of Science in Society. “The true extent of the contamination remains unknown owing to the secrecy surrounding more than 300 field trials of such crops since 1991. The chemicals these GM plants produce include vaccines, growth hormones, clotting agents, industrial enzymes, human antibodies, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs.”
One of the leading developers in GMO crops and other agricultural chemicals is a company called Monsanto. Monsanto sells dairy farmers a hormone that greatly increases cows’ capacity to produce milk. An international committee has found that this genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) may produce chemicals in the cows’ milk that could cause breast or prostate cancer in humans who drink the milk (see Potential Dangers in Conventional Milk).
who drink the milk (see Potential Dangers in Conventional Milk).
It’s becoming harder and harder to get away from genetically modified crops. Corn, soybeans, and canola seeds available for sale to American farmers may have genetically modified (GM) seeds mixed in with them, according to a study released February 23, 2004, by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent nonprofit alliance of more than 100,000 concerned citizens and scientists that augments rigorous scientific analysis with citizen advocacy to build a healthier environment. The seeds studied were found to be contaminated with transgenic DNA at levels of roughly 0.05 to 1 percent.
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