Reprint courtesy of Tom Theobald
By Tom Theobald
In 1959 the people of Boulder, Colorado approved the “Blue Line”, a city charter amendment that restricted city water service to altitudes below 5,750 feet. This was intended to protect the city’s foothills backdrop from development. Eight years later Boulder voters approved a sales tax dedicated to the purchase of open space land and it wasn’t long after that Boulder County voters did the same.
Through this and subsequent sales tax votes, thousands of acres of publicly owned open space land have been purchased by the County, of which about 20,000 acres are agricultural. The issue of how county agricultural land should be managed drew the public spotlight in 2009 when 6 farmers with leases on county land asked for the ok to plant Roundup Ready sugar beets.
This GMO Land Is YOUR Land???
Do you think public land should be used for GM crops?
As in much of the U.S., a large portion of Boulder County residents are concerned about the implications of some of the new agricultural technologies, primarily GMO’s, Genetically Modified Organisms, and the new systemic pesticides which support the genetically engineered crops. When the people spoke out and the issue came before the County Commissioners in the fall of 2009 and they elected to postpone any decision and directed the County Open Space Department to create a comprehensive plan for the management of County agricultural land.
For the past several months the issue of how that land should be managed – in the best interests of the land, the citizens and the farmers – has been the focus of a 9 member volunteer board, the Croplands Policy Advisory Group, or CPAG. Tomorrow night, August 10, they will discuss what is perhaps the most controversial element of all, genetically modified crops.
Are GMO’s The Way To Go?
These are momentous questions before us all, farmers and non-farmers alike, and there are no easy answers I fear. My personal opinion is that some of these new technologies are at the heart of what has been called Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD, but my concerns extend far beyond the bees, to farming and the wider environment, and the more I try to understand the evidence the more concerned I become.
American farming seems to have been led down a destructive path, it appears that, individually and collectively, some of these new technologies are impoverishing the land and the landscape, with a high toll of beneficial soil organisms, earthworms, a wide range of non-target insects, and a consequent decline in species dependent on those insects, most notably birds. These new systemic pesticides are persistent, cumulative, water soluble, and may linger in the soil for up to a century even after their use is stopped. Genetic modification of crops to withstand herbicides has created a whole new class of superweeds and more chemical drenching of the farmland, not less. The bees have been devastated.
Tom Theobald, Photo by Catherine Jaffee
But what about the farmers? Certainly they wouldn’t embrace these technologies if it weren’t to their benefit you would think – better production, more efficiency, lowered expenses, more money in their pocket at the end of the year. But what has been their experience? I was recently sent a link to a video that tries to answer some of those questions. Since most of you by now have access to the internet, I’ll include that link here and I encourage you to take 23 minutes and watch.
Farmer to Farmer: The Truth About GM Crops from Pete Speller on Vimeo.
The video, titled Farmer to Farmer, was done by a conventional livestock farmer from Cornwall, England, Michael Hart. Hart came to America to learn from the experience of American farmers because these new technologies are being pushed in the UK. What makes this short video most compelling is that Hart interviews real production farmers, farmers with thousands of acres who speak from practical experience, not gardeners or hobby farmers, tree huggers or dilettantes.
The video should carry some weight with conventional farmers, but I think it will be most enlightening for non-farmers, as it clearly shows the dilemma American farmers have unwittingly been drawn into, locked in a technology they may not support, but seem increasingly unable to escape, dependent upon an industry that has been vertically and horizontally integrated to ensnare them. Unable to buy traditional seed at reasonable prices, if at all, then often prohibited from saving their own seed, forced by the technology to liquidate their most valuable assets, the life force of their soil, the very thing so many of their ancestors sacrificed greatly to nurture, they are left with a virtually sterile medium that does little more than prop up the plants. And if they want to continue to grow something on that depleted land? Tennessee Ernie Ford and the song Sixteen Tons come to mind. Today’s farmers are more and more dependent on the modern version of the company store, for the seed, the herbicides, the pesticides, the fertilizer. They are farmers become miners.
I don’t have answers to these questions, but it seems we are travelling down the wrong road, one which is going to lead us into a destructive, pernicious, unsustainable form of agriculture. Tomorrow night’s meeting of CPAG may provide some of those answers. We all have a stake in finding them. We are all ensnared.
© Tom Theobald, 2011 PO Box 33, Niwot, CO 80544
People need to learn about the story of Percy Schmeiser. I heard his interview on your show yesterday. If he could lose everything what is this going to mean for organic farmers? The organic farmers won’t stand a chance and Monsanto knows it!
Just saw this on twitter. Guess we must be really broke to allow the corporations at our public land too. Gotta love that change!
This is a complicated issue. The one area I find very interesting is the whole monopoly on seeds. That seems to fall into anti-trust but I am sure there is some exception in place. As for GM crops I think the primary concern is the use of pesticides and other non organic methods. I am sure there is a happy medium here but time will surely tell. Good post.
I was surprised that only so many are aware about GMO’s and still the action to stop this disaster is so slow , Monsanto sent some seeds to India(cotton…) and caused so many problems one of them is that seeds is not reproductive, that means it is like a tissue paper for one use only, we get plants but without new seeds, what that means?!!! first to return back to Monsanto to buy more seed with whatever price then without doubt the end of certain kin of seed, it is giving me really a headache just to think and imagine it…
Dear JUNE, we should be tough enough before it will become too late to control it, I think still little chance if not in America to the other countries, here in Morocco we are based on all organic products and I will not accept neither any Moroccan like this such miserable thing will interfere the normal cycle of life as the almighty god created it; so generous an so wealthy for human and the humanity …
Thanks so much again for this great post!
Americans need to value life. We need to see what gm crops do to not only other humans but to all living creatures. This is a sad day that our land is goign to be used to make a corporation rich. Is there no hope for humanity?
Does Tom see this as faster extermination of the bees?
This ties into the bull$### farm bill that they passed. They want to control everything and they are going it. We are letting them. These corporate scumbags have destroyed this great country. Perhaps we should just get it over with and give it back to the damned Brittish.
Ahem, speaking as one of the ‘damned British’ can I point out that the British were not the original owners or occupiers of the land of America :)) So if you want to ‘give it back’ you will have to head for the First Nations territory. Secondly, the giant American corporations are not just doing this in America – they are imposing the entire systemic pesticides/ roundup-ready/ GM crops package on Europe, India, South America and the entire world. Britain has actually banned GM crops and roundup ready technology so far; to be more exact – the ‘little people’ of Britain have fought – often physically – to stop this vile technology being imposed on Shakespeare’s ‘green and sceptered isle’. However, our political elite are wrapped up tight in bed with the American pesticide and GMO corporations; our universities and scientists are bending over the lab bench saying ‘how far do you want me to bend over’ (leave the cash in the box) and the so-called ‘regulators’ are just sock-puppets for Monsanto. Syngenta and Bayer.
Which is all by way of saying – the villainous British are not the villains in this case; in fact we adn most of Europe are desperately fighting to get out from under the US Corporate Steamroller.
I live in the city but grew up in the Oregon countryside. My husband grew up on a farm in Montana. Here in the city, we had so few bees last year. This year we are swarming with them. In Montana, our family reports an increase in airplane crop sprayers. They worry at their personal exposure to pesticides. Even though they don’t use any on their own land, their air is ridden with them.
This is so wrong. If GMO’s are harming our DNA then are we then not killing ourselves? When I first began to learn about this it brought back memories of the movie ‘Erin Brockovitch’. http://www.brockovich.com/index.html Does she know about GMO’s?
You go, Tom! Love your passion! Thanks for sharing this with everyone.
Very interesting! Main stream media won’t touch this! Thanks so much for your post!
OMG! Why are they even growing the GM crops, when they know its ill effects!!! Money isn’t everything, this is affecting people’s lives, their health in the long term. Even using GMOs are affecting the different aspects of the ecosystem such as the bees and the earthworms you mentioned.
I’d once did a small study about these crops, they are not meant for our consumption, a reason why we don’t have health like our parents and grandparents did, its because we are fed with crops which have been absorbing pesticides, which have been modified by humans, the touch of nature with the natural health, well being & nutrition it brings has gone!
Its due to these practices that the quality of soil has drastically been depleting over time. And we are loosing more and more of fertile land.
All i do now is that pray to God, May He get more more and percentage of our farming practices to be organic and natural as they used to be.
Why has this been such a secret? I bet they would never get away with this in Europe!
Are they gonna grow their new sweet corn along the bridges and tunnels too?
Why did i not know of this site before! 🙁
Just found you on Twitter. Glad someone is telling it like it is!
Monsanto wants to own everything…the animals, the water, the air..hell, why not own the planet? Just rename it planet Monsanto? It is disturbing. Always interesting to see what they are gonna do next. Thanks! Keep up the good work!
Monsanto wants to own everything…the land, the animals, the air even the space you live in. They are always up to something. Thanks Keep up the good work!
We need to feed people. People will eat other people when they are hungry. Think about it!
It is perplexing that they can do this? Has this taken place already? What can we do? Many thanks for the post!
Love your show! I so do appreciate your work and will subscribe to your rss feed so I can read anytime. Wonderful information!
I guess the migrant workers will be conveniently available to harvest these gmo crops. It never ends!