On second check, GMOs are a concern

Until recently, I was GMO neutral. I took no part in 2491, and questioned all the fuss. Introducing a gene into a plant that wards off pests did not seem to compromise its nutritional value.

An earlier red flag was the GMO companies refusal to label their food. If a company builds a better mouse trap, they want consumers to know it and will spend large sums advertising their product. But the GMO companies want to conceal their product and have spent huge sums to defeat ballot measures to label their products in California, Washington and Oregon.

Monsanto lobbyists have kept GMO labeling out of North Dakota and in 2012 even threatened  to sue the state of Vermont should it pass a GMO labeling bill.

I realized there were serious problems with GMOs when Dow, DuPont, and Syngenta filed their lawsuit against Kauai, claiming that it was illegal for Kauai to protect our children from their pesticide spray. Then as I looked more into GMOs, I found that the problems went much deeper.

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, approved the patenting of life forms, in this case a bacterial gene. Subsequently, the courts declared that when a patented gene passes to the next generation, that the patent still holds. In the cases of genetically modified food crops, courts have ruled that if pollen from a GMO field contaminates a non-GMO field, even through wind, insects, or accident, and the farmer saves and plants his “contaminated” seed, Monsanto can and has demanded compensation from the non-GMO farmer. So Monsanto’s patents trump even an “act of God.”

In January 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld these rulings, and defined cross pollination as 1 percent or less. According to The Motley Fool, Monsanto has not lost a single case filed against them for reverse contamination.

For generations, farmers have selected and saved their seeds from one crop to the next. But when a farmer’s seed has been contaminated with GMO genes, he owes Monsanto a royalty. And if the suit of Syngenta, et al against Kauai appears lopsided, imagine the position of a family farmer who gets a letter from Monsanto’s legal staff demanding payment or face unending legal expenses.

So most of the farmers have capitulated, and are no longer saving their own seeds. Instead, they have been financially forced into contracts with the large seed companies. Each time a farmer capitulates, we lose some of our food diversity, since these farmers are now planting only homogenous seeds from the conglomerates. Furthermore, since the purchased seeds are fitted with “terminator” genes, and will not re-sprout, the farmer must buy new seeds each year from the increasingly expanding and monopolistic seed companies.

Anyone who understands financial investing understands the importance of diversification. Likewise, basic biology says diversification is essential to survival. But according to Healthline.com, Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta own more than 50 percent of the global seed market.

A traditional capitalist will try to build a better mousetrap and let the marketplace determine success. But the GMO companies, through patent law and financial intimidation, are using the courts, rather than the market, not to just better the competition, but to eliminate the competition. And the competition they are seeking to eliminate is our food diversity, which means our general health and well-being.

As they gain more and more control over our food supply, it will be their next quarter’s profit projections that will determine what varieties of food are planted, which are eliminated, and what type of food we will eat. They will tell you that with their ability to manipulate the genome they can outrace whatever challenge God, nature, or human foolishness can throw at them. God help us if they can’t because if they continue to monopolize our food production there won’t be anyone else to do so!

• John Patt is a resident of Koloa.