Monsanto’s Toxic Corn
Farmer Jake from my local CSA just wrote a post on why he's no longer growing corn, mainly due to the general inability to control the pollen coming off of GMO corn. This is a real problem in Ohio due to the sheer number of farmers who grow GMO corn as their only crop. With all that pollen flying around in the air, it's impossible to control what gets on your corn versus what doesn't. Farmers who don't want to grow GMO and want to save seeds can run into problems in this environment; from not being able to control the pollination of their crops to actually being sued by Monsanto because they're accidentally growing GMO crops they don't even want!
Even considering this, I still plan on experimenting with corn on my own farm this year. We're going to plant Painted Mountain corn and see how we do. I'm hoping that since this corn is so unique and colorful that we'll be able to tell if a "bad seed" gets in and discard any kernels that don't look right. Since corn is fertilized by the kernel and not by the ear, this may not be so easy, but it's an experiment we'll run this year and see how it turns out.
It's sad to think that one of America's native grains, corn, may soon be all but useless on the continents of it's birth, but we may soon be rapidly approaching that reality.
