I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Gardening is the marriage of agony and ecstasy. For every sweet tomato you slice into each summer, there are likely bitter failures that haunt you, whether it be beets that never came to be or an infestation of cabbage moths that dashed your sauerkraut dreams. On top of all the work and the worry, contemporary gardeners now face another challenge: Avoiding Monsanto. In a nutshell, Monsanto is the company that brought you Round Up, the herbicide that, in my opinion, is terribly dangerous and has given rise to a new breed of super weeds. (We use a flame weeder at our home, and it is vastly more effective and allows my husband to fulfill his Rambo fantasies.) Monsanto is also the monopoly behind genetically engineered seed.
Genetically engineered seed has its defenders, although I don’t personally know any of them. However, I do know scores of people who believe genetically engineered seed compromises our health. And, a small army of gardeners and farmers believe GMOs compromise biodiversity and are harmful to our fragile ecosystem. An excellent article on Organic Authority states, “Genetically modified organisms contaminate existing seeds with their altered material, passing on modified traits to non-target species.” To illustrate this point, the article notes, “Monarch butterflies have also died after their favorite food, milkweed, was cross-pollinated from Bt corn which rendered it toxic to the endangered species.” In other words, GMOs are fucking terrifying and threaten to eradicate everything that home growers are trying to accomplish.
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