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| Squash display at this year's Heritage Expo in Santa Rosa - all non-GMO! |
Every single argument they represent as 'our side' are secondary or are not even really one of our talking points. I'll postulate all their stipulations as accepted truth. (They are not, by the way, but all their points are trivial in the scheme of things.) There is one overarching reason to ban these plants in the city of Los Angeles:
The state and Federal governments have failed us as gardeners and consumers of food by not requiring proper segregation of GMO crops from organic crops, allowing GMO pollen to cross with the crops of those gardeners who want nothing to do with any plant that has been genetically tinkered with. And once contaminated with GMOs, there is no way to get it back out - that plant and all of its progeny are GMOed.Is this a problem? YES! Everyone knows, from looking at the family tree, a child inherits traits from both the father and the mother. Specifically, 50% of the genetic make up comes from 'dad' and 50% from 'mom.' The same is true for plants. Pollen is the plant equivalent of sperm and provides the male genetic contribution to the next generation.
In plants that are wind pollinated (corn, alfalfa and beets), this pollen can be spread quite a long ways. Monsanto, in its ever continuing lack of forthrightness and honesty, with their original application to the USDA, stated corn pollen could be viable up to five miles from the point of origin. That wasn't true - in fact, it had not yet even been studied, so the five mile figure was, at best, a guess someone pulled out of the air. In subsequent studies the actual figure seems to be 25 miles. NO ONE HAS DISTANCE FIGURES FOR BEET POLLEN - and beet pollen is more copious and significantly lighter than corn pollen. Beet pollen will cross with chard and mangles as well as beets. Mangles are not so popular today, but chard sure is! How far will that pollen be viable?
Gardeners, growing their own food at home or in community gardens, teachers with their school gardens, will tell you that one of their most important reasons for growing gardens is TO AVOID GMO PRODUCE. If the seeds they save from their own gardens have become contaminated with genetically engineered pollen, then their efforts are for naught. If LA continues to endorse the idea of LA Grown food, we must stop the cross of pollen because GMO growers will not grow their plants in greenhouses.
It is up to us - the citizens of LA - to join with other municipalities that have already declared themselves to be GMO free areas. We want to protect our own crops from becoming genetically modified by the pollen of crops grown nearby. Yes, it's true, right now GMO crops are not grown by gardeners - only in larger farming operations - however, we believe it's only a matter of time before Monsanto wishes to expand their presence in the homegrown vegetable garden.
Let's own up, LA Times. Monsanto is the largest SEED dealer in the US. Monsanto is very present in our home gardens, selling their non-GMO hybrids already. Sooner or later, they will want to increase their sales of GMOs as those sales begin to tank with farmers. Whoever paid for your editorial knows the GMO gig is coming to endgame already in our farmers' fields where the environmental degradation is palpable, the promises of higher yields largely discredited and the cost to profit ratio is dooming GMO crops to dustbins while the 'feeding the world' slogans no longer ring in headlines. The obvious truth now becomes illumined: GMOs exist only to sell the chemical products of the company behind them.
We are not fooled by your pandering to those wishing to keep the truth from our citizens. Better you keep quiet and not besmirch your journalistic integrity any further. You shame yourself and your heritage by treating your reading public as no-nothing sheep.
That's why many LA citizens are concerned about GMOs and that's why some forward-thinking councilmembers have moved for the citizens of Los Angeles against the behemoths of monopoly over our food supply. You would do well to take note.
david
