American Organic: A Cultural History of Farming, Gardening, Shopping, and Eating (Cultureamerica) by Robin O'Sullivan

Author:Robin O'Sullivan [O'Sullivan, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2015-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

GMOS AND FOOD SCARES

Vermont college student Tom Stearns started out growing and selling just twenty-eight varieties of organic seeds in his own shed during his spare time. Less than ten years later, though he continued to look like a hippie farmer molded by the back-to-the-land counterculture, he had crafted a multimillion-dollar business out of his hobby. Stearns’s High Mowing Organic Seeds met escalating consumer demand for organic seeds by cultivating six hundred heirloom varieties. Stearns served as an evangelist throughout the state for “safe seeds,” genetically diverse agriculture, and healthy organic food.41 Many consumers buy organic food because they deliberately want to not only eschew toxic pesticides and excess chemicals, but also shun injected hormones, antibiotics, and the prospect of animal cloning. The Quinn Popcorn company advertises that its organic microwave popcorn—packaged in compostable, chemical-free paper—is made from non-GMO corn, non-GMO canola oil, and Parmesan derived from non-rBGH milk; essentially, it has no coatings, chemicals, or “other scary stuff.”42 Health food purveyors have long positioned themselves to assuage uneasiness by providing “safe” choices. Buzz about pesticide use, mad cow disease, and genetically engineered foods inspired major supermarket chains to ramp up their organic offerings. Polls suggest that food frights are an important factor in organic growth.43 In the wake of an alarming report about an E. coli outbreak or some other kind of outbreak, organic sales tend to soar. Since gene-altered crops produce their own toxic insecticides, they can withstand being repeatedly doused with weed-killers. With unknown considerations surrounding GE foods, a health-conscious corps prefers to avoid them and has pegged “Frankenfoods” as public enemy number 1.

The USDA has largely been love-struck with hybrid crops, which are closely allied to the profit interests of the biotechnology industry. Monsanto, a Fortune 500 multinational corporation that stands as the bête noir of organics, is a global leader in producing patented plant biotechnology traits, crop protection chemicals (for example the Roundup brand), and GE seeds. Shortly after the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) passed, organic food stakeholders met their nemesis: the first biotechnology food products, used for making cheese, gained FDA approval. The FDA announced that the FlavrSavr tomato was as safe as conventional tomatoes, so special labels were not needed on GE foods.44 Agribusiness embraced genetically modified organisms (GMOs), while organicists saw them as abhorrent. The war between organic growing and genetic engineering would go on for decades, and they would be held up as polar opposite food production methods. Some members of the organic movement have inculpated Monsanto for “undue influence over lawmakers, regulators and the food supply.”45 Monsanto seems to garner legislative favoritism and backdoor deals from this collusion, such as the Monsanto Protection Act of 2013, a temporary rider that allowed it to circumvent federal restrictions on planting unapproved GE crops. Powerful biotech corporations have advertised their goal of “feeding the world” but have aggressively promoted their pesticides and have strong-armed farmers in both first- and third-world countries to purchase seeds for GE crops. Over 90 percent of the soybeans and 80 percent of the cotton planted in the United States are genetically engineered.

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