It was variable from place to place, farm to farm, even year to year. The system worked, and it was tasty. It had natural checks to ensure the needs of the people and the needs of the land remained in balance. That basically meant one thing: yield. Scientifically managed hybridization, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and industrial scale irrigation—these were the tools of modernity that made it all possible.
Fertilizers removed the natural limitations the land placed on crops. The soil could be changed chemically to meet the demands of the plant. But this also resulted in a boom of weeds and pests requiring the application of newly invented pesticides and herbicides.
In addition to changing the soil, wheat itself could be modified quickly to meet the demands of industrial farming equipment and protein quotas. However, it was created through intensive scientific hybridization to grow in a synthetic environment and designed to behave more like a chemical than food.
Yield has certainly increased spectacularly. So has diabetes, obesity, gluten sensitivities, cancers. We've managed to feed the world for now with a food system creating people who are obese, yet suffering from malnutrition! Our once noble farms have depleted soils, degraded nutrients and a staggering lack of diversity of crops and the people who grow them. The loss of flavour is another tragedy entirely! That will be taken up in another blog post.
Research shows that it is how we have altered modern wheat that is resulting in so many health complications linked to wheat. The health implications of modern compared to ancient grains are a major focus area for Kamut International. The most common types of GE crops, such as corn, soy, and alfalfa, are developed to be herbicide-resistant, allowing entire fields to be sprayed with herbicides without damaging the crops. This increases the amount of pesticide residue left on food and increasingly studies are finding high levels of pesticide residue in our water and our bodies.
Major biotech companies are pursuing GE wheat developed to be resistant to glyphosate, dicamba, 2,4-D, and glufosinate. There is the general concern for the impacts resulting from the type of agriculture promoted by GE crops: costly chemical inputs, monocropping, and the impact on surrounding ecosystems.
But his concerns go far beyond these and are focused on the farmers growing wheat and consumers. I think that this is a crazy and unsustainable system that is going to lead, many into financial ruin. Many will be forced to sell their farms and suicide by those who feel trapped has already started to occur. Right now, the price of organic wheat is at 4 or 5 times the price of conventional. With organic you are taking so much more net profit to the bank that it puts you in a very comfortable position rather than being on the edge of break even all the time or even worse, farming at a consistent loss.
The current system is an artificial system that is only propped up by large government subsidies, which are starting to disappear. This leaves farmers in a system where they are completely vulnerable and almost unable to make a living. Research in Canada has demonstrated that glypohsate residue is mimicking the symptoms that people have from wheat sensitivities and there have been all kinds of health problems that disappear, in children when they go on an organic diet.
This will be the problem in the marketplace; there is no way to differentiate it. The first time we end up with a boatload of wheat in Tokyo bay where they find traces of GMOs will produce a huge fall out. Who will pay for the GMO contaminated wheat that is rejected in faraway countries. We have already seen some boycotts of US wheat in when unapproved GE wheat was discovered in fields in Oregon.
More recently there were other cases of unauthorized, unapproved GE wheat found in a Montana experiment station and in a field in Washington. Although these finds did not trigger the economic fall out that the Oregon find triggered, they raise serious doubts about how GE wheat will be controlled if it is approved and released. Contamination seems a certainly and huge loss of markets to the detriment of US wheat growers seem a high probability.
Surrendering those choices to just a few agrochemical companies who prohibit farmers from keeping seed they grow for planting means that the companies will now provide all the seed and all the chemicals in a very controlled way.
Farmers will have no say over price, they will have no say over what seeds they can use, and what chemicals they can spray with. What is Bioengineered Food? Categories Blog Events homepage feature News Uncategorized. Search Search for:.
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