genetically-modified (Page 2)

It’s been discovered that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide encourages the growth of toxic fungus in wheat. Genetically-modified wheat, also produced by Monsanto, has been especially engineered to be immune to Roundup, so that an entire field can be sprayed and only the weeds will be affected.

Andy Coghlan writes in New Scientist this fungus already destroys one-fifth of the wheat in Europe, and produces toxins that can kill both humans and animals. Since the GM wheat isn’t killed by the herbicide, farmers are likely to spray more often, producing even more toxic fungi. Switching to other herbicides isn’t the answer, since Roundup is one of the least harmful, because it quickly breaks down in the soil.
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72-year-old Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser is taking Monsanto to the Supreme Court. In 1998, Monsanto accused Schmeiser of planting their patented genetically-modified canola without paying a fee. He said he’d only done what he did every year: collect seeds from his own crop to plant. This made scientists aware of the fact that GM seeds were being spread by the wind into fields where they weren’t planted. The GM plants take over because they’re stronger and more resistant to insects, meaning we may soon have no non-GM varieties of these crops left.
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Traces of genetically modified grains are turning up in U.S. wheat, despite the fact that the sale of GM wheat has not been approved here yet. GM soybeans and corn, the two most widely grown genetically modified crops in the world, are getting into wheat supplies that are made into flour that’s used to make bread and other foods.

When U.S. wheat has been tested recently at Rank Hovis, the largest miller in the U.K. and an importer of U.S. wheat, traces of GM soybeans and corn particles were found mixed in with it. Director Peter Jones says, “We routinely find (soy)beans and (corn) and we must accept that these are genetically modified.” The U.K. is one of the countries that refuses to import GM foods.
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The U.S. government has announced two accidents in which soybean crops in Iowa and Nebraska were contaminated by corn from the previous year that was genetically-engineered to contain medicine. “This is a failure at an elementary level,” says Jane Rissler of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “They couldn’t distinguish corn from soybeans and remove them from a field. That’s like failing nursery school.”
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