Agriculture at the Crossroads, Mother Nature Votes
October 26, 2009
Sustainability and productivity of agriculture have been at odds in many conversations around the world. Biotech makes the argument that only Genetic Modified Organisms (GMOS) can be productive and resist pretty much everything, including drought, and produce consistent high yields. These plant populations get narrower every year alarming some breeders that a single event could wipe out the entire corn crop that is the basis for our current food systems.
Oh, the other problem is that the balance of the essential amino acids and protein quality have gone away in corn. So, we get a bin-busting harvest that the pigs starve to death eating. Well, it seems that mother nature might be weighing-in with her vote. Reports are coming in all around the Midwest about light test weight in low-yielding GMO corns and non-GMO corns as well. A big part of the promise of GMO was to reduce mycotoxins caused by the many fungi that love corn. 2009 Grain Quality Armored against the entire lepidoptera class of insects, tolerant of the herbicide Round-Up, much of the corn crop has died premature from anthracnose and friends, fungi that lives in corn residue. Yields are cut in half and the grain quality is the worst in 30 years of affected fields.
At the World Food Prize meeting in Des Moines last week Bill Gates proclaimed “The world food crisis has forced hunger high on the agenda, this global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two.” Bill Gates GMO
Reports of the failures of GMO corns get buried by all the hype to call for world-wide acceptance of changing the dietary make-up of our basic foods. GM Corn Fails As our well-intentioned, hard working American farmers toil to bring in a low-yielding poor quality corn that is not suitable for consumption, maybe they will opt for more diverse genetics that gives up a bit of yield potential for reliability and sustainability. My wife and I have 22 heritage laying hens and we have noticed they steer away from my brother’s quad-stacked GMO trait corn for almost anything else. Maybe our chickens are smarter than we are. Smart Chickens
