Whole Foods Market Caves to Monsanto

Hi,

For the non-botanists in the room - the bulk of the calories that we consume are seeds - wheat, corn, soybeans, you name the grain - all are seeds. Seeds are produced when the pollen from the flower of a plant travels on the wind to the flower of another plant, where the pollen fertilizes the flower by mixing genetic material - the same principle as human sex that has resulted in the magnificent variety of life forms on this planet. When GM pollen fertilizes the flower of a non-GM plant, the seeds that are produced are essentially half GMO, and carry some of those traits. A few years ago Monsanto launched a new type of seed imbued with a gene they called the Terminator, which made it impossible for the plants that grew from those seeds to produce viable seeds themselves. Because of the extreme danger of introducing the Terminator gene into the food supply, where (through cross-pollination) it could easily sterilize many of the world's food crops, the Terminator gene was abandoned. However, Monsanto has achieved a similar outcome through patent law - farmers who buy the seed must sign a contract stating that they will not attempt to save seed (save some of the year's crop for planting the following year, as farmers have been doing for thousands of years). If they do, or if a non-GM farmer's crop is pollinated by GM pollen, they can be sued for theft of intellectual property (despite the fact that the law does not account for the laws of physics or botany).
Sadly GMOs have made their way into every facet of American life - from the health food store to batteries to the gloss on magazines - and beyond, to the world, to India, where farmers commit suicide en masse because they can't afford the fancy chemicals Monsanto salesmen are pushing down their throats. It is an ugly mess, and the only way out is to demand proper labeling of GM foods, to avoid them like the plague, and to spread the word to your friends. Your dollar is your vote.

Hello,

Cross-pollination occurs after the crops are grown. It doesn't have anything to do with the seeds. And typically, the farmer could keep seed from the GMO crop, but he is forbidden to do so by contract. He must buy new GMO seed each year. The GMO company (like Monsanto) runs periodic inspections of the farms to verify that the farmer is not keeping back crop seed.

Cross-pollination means that the farmer whose field is contaminated is now in violation of the GMO company's contract and must pay the GMO company compensation for the "use of" the GMO crop. This has been established in court.

mp