What is Genetic Pollution and How is it Affecting our Food, Economy and Environment?

Adam Says: “Allowable Limits for Genetic Contamination? The problem with “allowable limits” is that just like any other company that pollutes, G.M.O. Companies will continue to pollute and be willing to pay the fines, as long as the profit margin is high enough to cover the cost.”

This may be true, but one thing you can be sure of is that GMO companies will do whatever they can – short of not growing GMOs – to prevent genetic pollution. I don’t know the details of the Monsanto case, but it seems likely that the neighboring farmer forced the case into court. One can easily imagine Mr. Farmer walking out onto his fields one day, surveying his crop and noticing that some of his plants – the ones growing near the Monsanto spill – were bigger, greener and bearing larger fruits. Said farmer would want those crops and those seeds because he would immediately recognize the economic value inherent in greater crop yield.

One can just as easily envision Monsanto seeing these things too, and then visiting Mr. Farmer and asking to buy his whole crop.

Mr. Farmer refuses the offer because he sees dollar signs at the end of his biggest harvest ever. Perhaps he even sees bigger dollar signs at the prospect of selling Monsanto seeds harvested from his windfall crops. Off they go to court, because Monsanto doesn’t want their research and development capitol wasted.

The earth is a system, when conditions are favorable life thrives. Any small advantage is a huge advantage. If GMOs are more effectively adaptive they will, for good or ill, cross pollinate into their naturally occurring cousins, and even in some cases begin to displace them. It won’t take long for this to happen on a large scale and it will likely have consequences that the Monsanto’s of the world haven’t anticipated.

Reply

A very small area of cultivated corn could be harvested as seed and used to sow a vast acreage of corn the following season. For this reason Monsanto’s anxiety is easily understood. Yet they have easier options to prevent this loss of product, and certainly more image enhancing options than taking someone to court.

I’m not saying that your version of the Monsanto story is wrong, but it seems weird that Monsanto wouldn’t offer the farmer full compensation for his crop, or for that portion of the crop they wanted. I mean, why wouldn’t they do this?

Another way of articulating my same point is this: All the farmer would have to do in order to proceed with all of the goals I attribute to him in my previous post is say: “You cannot have my corn.” Well, this is what the farmer said. If he hadn’t taken this position at some point prior to legal action he never would have gone to court.

As laymen it is difficult to recreate the legal scheming on the part of attorneys, but I’d bet demanding that the farmer pay Monsanto for growing Monsanto’s corn was the only way to make legal progress against the farmer, as other laws, like the ones protecting the farmers property rights, were probably solidly behind the farmer and his goal of keeping Monsanto’s corn.

We all enjoy feeling outraged at big business and attorneys. At my most self-indulgent, I imagine a great day when many of the worst elements of these groups are punished and society is improved with a new social order. But even such dreaming must give sway to some sense of reality, and in the instance of Monsanto’s corn, one reality we must concede is that farmers are businessmen too.

Reply

Andrew – Woah! I didn’t realize that movies got banned here! Is that totally naive of me? Of course, this makes me want to see The World According to Monsanto more than ever.

Monsanto freaks me right out. That farmer’s story is not an isolated incident. I’ve read a few stories just like the one Adam recounts above.

Reply

Wow! I’ve never seen anything like that in my eleven years of living!!! I’m doing a speech for my language arts class about pollution and I found this page! I think pollution can be caused from that partially….. The biggest part (in my opinion) of pollution is us. From genetically mutated animals an foods to factories, and not to mention littering.

Reply