Vancouver Island GMO free zone?

Vancouver Island Challenges British Columbia Farmers to Boycott Monsanto Corn & GMOs
Farmers feel it's time to give GMO foods the TKO By Don Maroc Cowichan Valley News Leader (Duncan, British Columbia), Aug 15, 2007 Straight to the Source
At last weekend's general meeting of Farmers' Institutes from across Vancouver Island in Cobble Hill, farmers bravely declared Vancouver Island (plus Powell River) a genetically modified free zone.Brave because the governments of British Columbia and Canada are both solid backers of agricultural and pharmaceutical GMOs (genetically modified organisms). They have both refused to test and regulate GMO's, they will not require GMO food to be labelled, they hand millions of dollars in grant money to the corporations that "own" the GMO seeds and, in places like the Comox Valley, to farmers who grow it.There are farmers in the Cowichan Valley who will not be enthusiastic about the proposed ban on GMO's. According to our district agriculturalist nearly all Cowichan Valley dairy farmers who grow feed corn are growing Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn, which is genetically engineered to endure repeated spraying with Monsanto's glyphosate-based toxin.All of these farmers are shipping their milk to Island Farms Dairy in Victoria. Island Farms used to be a co-op owned by all Vancouver Island dairy farmers, but no longer, Quebec-based Agropur bought them out a year ago.Monsanto would have us believe that Roundup does not last long in the soil, that it will not wash away into creeks and rivers, where it has been shown to be toxic to fish and amphibians. They even advertised for a while that Roundup is biodegradable and "safer than table salt", but a U.S. court ordered them to stop the false claims.The largest seller of GMO seeds in the world apparently does not believe its own PR (or BS?). The company cafeteria at Monsanto's British headquarters serves only non-genetically modified products, no GMO soy and corn for their own employees.Part of the difficulty in dealing with a herbicide like Roundup is that we only know it's active ingredient, glyphosate. There are a number of other chemicals which help the glyphosate penetrate the plant tissues but Monsanto claims that would be revealing confidential business information. In our mad corporate-ruled, free-market economy all it takes is a "claim" by the manufacturer and all the information is top secret - no business of consumers who have to eat these mutant plants.So they created corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola plants that resist the effects of the hormonal toxins in Roundup. Whenever a weed shows its ugly head the farmer can douse his fields with Roundup and only the corn plants will survive. By the time the corn matures it will have soaked up a lot of glyphosate and other secret chemicals. So much so that the U.S. government had to increase the level of glyphosate residue legally allowed on our food crops.The Canadian government does not require labelling for GMO's, so there is no way for consumers to know if mutated genes are in their food.In a phone conversation last year an Island Farms spokesperson said they have no policy concerning the use of GMO feed corn for the cows that supply their milk. This year the question was emailed, but Island Farms has failed to respond.Let's all get behind the Island Farmers' Institutes' drive to declare Vancouver Island GMO-free.Got a tip or a comment?

E-mail me at maroc@islandnet.com.


I don't know which I consider the bigger evils of GMO. I think I am more afraid of monoculture crops than round up. I support organic growing, and working toward pesticide free. Is GMO evil, I am certainly not against science, and listening to what could be benefits of GMO. I absolutely don't trust that it is safe, in a society where super bugs are becoming an increasing threat. I don't believe it is being used appropriately, if it has advantages round up ready crops is not it. The means of introducing the genetic material into the cell concerns me more than the playing with nature. . Having said that it may be I can't fathom the potential for things to go sideways. I am all for trying new things, it's an exciting time, but this is too risky. Here are my thoughts on monoculture. It is the most dangerous ingredient in a recipe for our food supplies potential catastrophic failure. Monsanto, it's products, and philosophy is at best flawed, to my thinking. The big players here are involved in politics, fuel, pesticides, and war. I will leave specifics for someone better informed, but it causes me alarm. I do believe that we can feed our planet naturally, and that this line of scientific intervention is neither warranted nor capable of meeting the end result. It is simply the wrong direction; it will not feed the planet, or be a magic bullet for fuel crisis. We know loss of bio diversity is tragic, preserving it is pragmatic, this is not a sentimental value, but a survivalist one. How can we not be concerned about replacing bio diversity with mono- cultures designed with an almost symbiotic relationship to pesticides.
I fully promote that we motivate, and support farmers to create havens of GMO free areas, and Islands are ideal. I have noted PEI has a similar movement. I would be happy to see Vancouver Island realize the benefits I think will come from being GMO free. It would be great if we could put being on an Island with it's isolation to an advantage for our farmers, reap benefits of GMO free seed stocks, products, and preserve a valuable resource for the future. Other Islands around the world are also setting themselves aside as stewards of our GMO free plants.
Sandra