[permaculture] [Fwd: Nonchemical Way to Control Mosquitoes]

David david at h4c.org
Thu Dec 20 20:58:19 EST 2007


Lawrence,

Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
>> That's one of the scariest articles I've seen since the one about much 
>> of Mexico's 150 species of corn being wiped out by GMO corn pollen that 
>> rendered them all sterile.
>>     
>
> Thanks for your comments, Cecile.
>
> Did this really happen?
>   
This is not my area of expertise, and likely there are folks on-list who 
could give a better answer, including almost anyone who can type and 
chew gum, but the story as I understand it, based mostly on several 
viewings of "The Future of Food", is that GMO corn was shipped to Mexico 
for food, and some farmers grew it. It cross-pollinated with native 
species, producing a hybrid. The problem is that it takes a lab to tell 
whether the corn that is growing-- regardless of how it looks-- has GMO 
genes in it, so it has definitely "polluted" some otherwise genetically 
pristine corn growing in Mexico, and elsewhere.

Some GMO corn-- not all-- has also had a "suicide gene" inserted in it. 
That gene was put there to make the corn sterile or give it very poor 
germination, second generation, so that seed savers will be thwarted. 
Obviously if corn with this gene crosses with native species, or the 
gene hops across some other way (plasmids, viruses, ??) then the native 
corn can be rendered sterile.

To emphasize, however, not all native corns have been polluted with GMO 
of any stripe, and I have not heard of any instance of the suicide gene 
having crossed to native stock.


d.

-- 
David William House
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	"The Complete Biogas Handbook" www.completebiogas.com

	"Make no search for water.   But find thirst,
	And water from the very ground will burst."
	   (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in Delight of Hearts, p. 77)




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