USDA deregulates GMO corn to produce fuel

Mike Adams
NaturalNews.com
February 16, 2011

Right on the heels of the USDA’s decision to deregulate GM alfalfa (http://www.naturalnews.com/031196_G…), the U.S. Department of Agriculture has now decided to completely deregulate genetically engineered corn used for ethanol production. This is just the latest Frankenfood horror unleashed by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, who has firmly established himself as the regulatory puppet of Monsanto and other GMO giants.

The public spin on this decision is that it will allow the growing of corn engineered to produce more ethanol fuel, thereby improving the efficiency in the conversion of corn to fuel. This claim is, of course, scientifically invalid on so many levels that it’s difficult to know where to begin. But I’ll take a shot at it…

Remember when we used to actually EAT corn?

For starters, in a world where food prices are rapidly rising, where crops are failing due to radical weather events, and where food stockpiles are at their lowest levels in many decades, the idea of converting food to fuel is utterly ludicrous. Making matters even worse, there’s the simple fact that the ethanol advocates simply refuse to admit: Growing corn for fuel consumes more fuel than it produces!

The whole corn-for-ethanol debacle is simply another government-run agricultural cluster shuck involving the wasting of billions of taxpayer dollars which disappear into the black hole of subsidies handed out to corn growers. The whole thing smacks of economic insanity combined with an almost alien view of the natural world. To look upon an acre of corn and think that it’s supposed to be burned in combustion engines rather than consumed as nutrition represents a whole new level of mental illness — an illness which has infected the minds of regulators and lawmakers. (Is there a vaccine shot to prevent it yet?)

Beyond that, the claim that this corn-to-fuel effort is now the justification for unleashing genetically contaminated GE corn across North America is not just bad thinking; it’s dangerously bad thinking from people who should know better.

The end of agricultural genetic integrity

Because you know what happens next? With GE corn being planted everywhere, the wind will cross-contaminate regular corn crops, resulting in widespread genetic pollution of the corn grown in America. This, in turn, will result in America’s corn being refused for importation by other nations which don’t want to poison their people with genetically altered corn (unlike the U.S. government).

It will damage the entire U.S. corn industry, in other words, and further devastate U.S. farmers who are already squeezed by freak weather events.

“The USDA’s decision defies common sense,” said Margaret Mellon, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists Food and Environment Program. “There is no way to protect food corn crops from contamination by ethanol corn. Even with the most stringent precautions, the wind will blow and standards will slip. In this case, there are no required precautions.”

Over at the Center for Food Safety, science policy analyst Bill Freese wrote, “Syngenta’s biofuels corn will inevitably contaminate food-grade corn, and could well trigger substantial rejection in our corn export markets, hurting farmers.” (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/…)

An article at Truth-Out.org reveals some of the possible under-the-table financial links that may be behind this decision to deregulate GE corn: http://www.truth-out.org/big-win-bi…

The Alliance for Natural Health has also posted a very good summary on this situation. It’s a great read: http://www.anh-usa.org/now-usda-has…

Our corn supply is being stalked by Monsanto

So what does it all mean? It means that between the GE corn, GE sugar beets, GE alfalfa, cotton, soy and other ingredients, we are living in a grand, dangerous experiment of playing God with seeds.

I’ve said this before: It’s almost as if people like Tom Vilsack (and other Monsanto minions) are just begging Mother Nature to wipe out human civilization and start over. Here, everybody! Let’s turn our food crops into pesticide absorbers, then feed them to cows and people!

It’s all being done for corporate profits, of course. Because that’s all it takes to compromise the future of life on our planet: Just another buck on the bottom line.

That’s all it takes at the USDA, too: Just another promise of a sweet, cushy job in the corn industry after you’ve left the agency. Bend enough rules in favor of Big Ag, and you can name your salary a few years down the road. Because if there’s a kernel of truth to be found in any of this, it’s that corporations — and regulators — will operate with outrageous disregard for the integrity of the natural world.

By the way, this decision was made under the guise of “science.” All the lies now being repeated about the safety of genetically engineered crops are being bolstered by the laughable claim that they are “scientific” and that anyone who opposes GMOs is, by default, “unscientific.”

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