Coming soon to super markets and farmer’s markets near you! Say hello to Monsanto’s Sweet FrankenCorn! Plump, genetically injected and chemically processed ears of corn are guaranteed to have your mouth watering and your teeth rotting in no time, boys and girls! Never you mind that corn is nothing more than useless filler designed to stretch dog food and run cars; just slather some nice fake butter-like margarine oil on the FrankenCorn and dig in! Cheap, easy to prepare, nutrition-less stuck-in-your-teeth good times for the whole family from Toby the hamster to Marvin the dog right up to good ol’ Mom and Dad! What are you waiting for? Close your eyes and dig in…!
Monsanto, which already controls 60% of the U.S. corn market, is including traits in the new sweet corn that make it resistant to both Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and to insects (through the inclusion of Bt toxin, a trait that disrupts insect digestive systems and eventually kills them). As we have mentioned before, at least 21 weed species have become resistant to Roundup. And Bt toxin may have negative health effects–a recent study found the toxin in the maternal and fetal blood of pregnant women, though the implications of that aren’t known quite yet.
“There’s a concern with these GE crops that we eat with minimal processing [like sweet corn]…we’re exposed to a lot more of whatever is in it versus a processed corn product,” says Freese. This may be one of the rare cases where processed food is better for you than fresh food.
The market for sweet corn is smaller than the market for grain corn, and up until now GM sweet corn sales have been dominated by Syngenta, which also uses Bt toxin in its product. Now that Monsanto is entering the game, there will be even more room for cross-pollination with non-GM corn crops. “Corn is very promiscuous, meaning it’s easy for cross-pollination to occur,” says Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, senior scientist at the Pesticide Action Network North America. “Farmers won’t be able to access conventional seeds, and they may lose local varieties.” We emailed Monsanto to ask what its plans are for their GM corn, and are waiting to hear back.
Related articles
- Monsanto Plans To Sell Sweet Corn In Your Local Supermarket (fastcompany.com)
- Monsanto Nation: Taking Down Goliath (misbehavedwoman.wordpress.com)
- World’s Top Commercial Weed Killer Linked to Infertility (misbehavedwoman.wordpress.com)
- Monsanto BT Cotton ??? (2012patriot.wordpress.com)
