Heirlooms, hybrids, Bt corn, and your blood stream

Column for the DeKalb County Times
by Karley

What are you putting in your mouth?

This is the season when many gardeners and farmers are buying their seeds. Some people prefer to grow tried and true varieties season after season, while some people revel in the new and unfamiliar. Some old varieties are finding new popularity, as public interest in heirloom varieties expands.

Seed companies are responding to the growing public interest, so heirloom varieties are becoming more widely available. “Heirloom” is sometimes used interchangeably with “open-pollinated” or the abbreviation OP. But what exactly is an heirloom variety?

There is no official designation on the descriptor “heirloom.” The term usually indicates a variety that has at least a 30 year established history and is always an open-pollinated variety. The variety may have been saved by someone's grandmother or may have been grown by Native Americans.

In order for a grower to save seed from season to season, the seed must be open-pollinated, or able to produce seed that is identical to the parent plant. Included under the open-pollinated category are crop plants like tomatoes and peppers, which have perfect flowers and self-pollinate. The home gardener can save seeds from any open-pollinated tomato or pepper and can expect that almost all of the seedlings will have the same traits as the parent plant. Other plants, like squash, corn, and cucumbers are pollinated by insects or wind. Since the pollen must be moved from flower to flower, these crops cross-pollinate with other varieties of the same species very easily.

However many plants available in nurseries and hardware stores are hybrid varieties, indicated by the F1 abbreviation. Seeds saved from hybrid plants will not “breed true”, that is produce plants with the same traits as the parent plants. This however does not indicate that the seed was produced using genetic engineering.

Hybridization is the breeding of two unrelated strains of a plant in order to develop some trait, like resistance in tomatoes to Tobacco Mosaic Virus or in melons to mildew. The act of hybridizing via controlled selective breeding is how the first farmers developed corn from wild grass. Because hybrids are developed by breeding unrelated varieties, the subsequent generation of seeds will display a mix of the genes in the grandparent generation.

Genetic engineering (GE) or genetic modification (GM), on the other hand, is the practice of inserting genes into an organism's genome using DNA technology developed since the 1970s. This results in what is commonly referred to as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). One form of genetic engineering is the biotechnology industry's Technology Protection System (TPS), known to people outside the industry as the terminator gene, or terminator technology.

Seeds developed using TPS produce sterile seeds and are produced at great expense to very large corporations. Since farmers growing TPS seeds cannot save seed for the next season, they must pay for seed season after season. And since the farmer can't save the seed, it protects the intellectual property of the corporation.

Other GE seeds contain genes that enable them to actually manufacture the pesticide Bt. Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis, which is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that can effectively be used to control crop damage by caterpillars. Bt has been used by growers since the 1920s. However, with consistent use, pest resistance can and has arisen, both with foliar Bt application and in GE plants that produce Bt.

Much of the research condoning the safety of human consumption of GE crops has been paid for by the industry itself. When Bt producing crops were first introduced, the biotechnology companies insisted that the Bt would be destroyed in the digestive tract of any animal consuming the crop, including humans. Much to the contrary, a 2011 study performed in Canada by several independent scientists found traces of the Bt toxin in 93% of pregnant women's blood and 80% of the umbilical cords in their sample population. As 70-90% of the processed food consumed in the United States contains at least one of the most common GE crops—corn, soy, and rapeseed, used make canola oil—it is almost certain similar findings would result from studies in this country.

Upwards of 90% of Americans say they want to see GE ingredients labeled, but neither the biotechnology companies nor the government seem to be heading the call. This administration has approved the unregulated release of both GE alfalfa and GE sugar beets, despite election season promises to mandate labeling. Lawyers and scientists that have worked for the big agribusiness companies rotate in and out of the regulatory bodies that oversee biotechnology regulations.

Since the people's voice is being ignored on this issue, it falls to the individual consumer to be educated about what they're eating. If you're buying seeds, pay attention to where the seeds are coming from and what all those abbreviations and letters beside the descriptions mean. If you don't grow your own food, then support your local growers and cultivate a relationship with the people who do. Ask them what they're growing and how they're growing it. Eaters and producers can educate and nourish one another.