Wednesday, January 19, 2011

GM Alfalfa-A National Disgrace

Mr. Obama,
A good, clean, and nutritious food supply is one of the most basic of all human rights. Agricultural commodity companies have turned into chemical companies so that you can’t walk into a supermarket and find real food anymore. Almost the only thing you can find is packaged goods made by chemists with a list of ingredients. Chemical companies, with government approval, now want to take the right and our right to choose natural foods away from us. I urge you to use any means at your disposal to disapprove genetically modified alfalfa to be sold or produced. If it is allowed to be sold then all animal products fed genetically modified organisms should be clearly labeled as such. I should have the right to decide whether I want to eat foods that are natural or not and not have my health be subject to decisions made by corporations that are acting to benefit short term profits for shareholders.

Every promise made by chemical companies that want to continue to exert their influence over our food supply has been broken. Monsanto promised their GM seeds would lower the need for pesticides. Instead pesticide use went up and weeds became more resistant to pesticides requiring even more chemical use. Now they want to introduce GM alfalfa making more promises that no one is sure that they can keep.There is no need to introduce so many genetically modified organisms into our environment. The rapid pace of introduction of so many genetically modified organisms that are different from the food stocks that we co-evolved with may have consequences that we don't yet understand. Our food supply is already almost completely controlled by chemical companies, so much so that even foods that meet the minimal technical designation of "organic" are little more than a chemists recipe far removed from the natural food that some of the ingredients started out as.

There should be a ten year moratorium on introducing any new genetically modified food stocks unless a compelling case can be made to show that not bringing a GM crop forward would hurt a national interest. There is a lot of research yet to be done before we understand how we interact with our food supply and what kind of effects that new rearrangements of chemicals in our environment might affect our health. Government policy has already played a leading role in making the people in this country sick and fat which has led to an epidemic of diabetes and heart disease. Don't keep on committing to the same types of mistakes by letting chemical companies continue to dictate to consumers what kinds of products are in our food supply.

Sincerely,
Thomas Gibson
Camas Permaculture

Farmers and consumers: Contact President Obama and let him know that the USDA’s approval of GE Alfalfa is dangerous and unacceptable.


Tell President Obama that you don’t want organic and conventional agriculture contaminated by GE Alfalfa, and that you have a right to eat meat, dairy, and eggs from livestock who consume non-genetically engineered crops.

President Barack Obama
Phone: (202) 456-1111
Fax: (202) 456-2461
E-Comments: www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

For a fact sheet with additional information on GE Alfalfa, click here.

The Cornucopia Institute P.O. Box 126 Cornucopia, WI 54827 http://www.cornucopia.org/