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  • From: "The Foster Farm" <fostesky AT hughes.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Bt corn
  • Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:31:30 -0000

One of the big problems with Bt corn is the pollen drifting to other plants
and killing butterfly larvae. Monarchs are hit hard. How often do you see
milkweed, one of their primary caterpillar plants, growing at the edge of a
corn field? All the time. The pollen is blown onto the milkweed by the wind.
The larvae eat it and are done. Unintended, uncontrollable consequences. I
suppose Monsanto would call that expectable collateral damage. I think not.

Plus it blows into neighboring farms who might want to save their seed or
just plain old don't want that stuff around. While the Bt gene occurs
naturally it doesn't naturally occur in plants. It's natural to a little
organism called Bacillus thuringensis. It's genes got spliced into the
plant. It wasn't our constant selection that brought it about but rather
something we don't fully understand but are messing with anyway.

I like butterflies.

Sue

2008, at 7:50 PM, Robert Schuler wrote:

> Mark... I have been growing BT sweetcorn for the last 4 years with no
> synthetic pesticides applied and the BT gene is totally natural.
> Therefore if the corn was grown organically it should be organic.

The BT toxin is expressed continuously in every cell of the corn plant.
There is nothing natural about that. Corn does not naturally express
BT, and BT in a natural situation does not occur in such quantities.
The corn plant has been artificially turned into a pesticide.






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