Why Do We Let Other Countries Dump Their Crap In America?

When I lived in Wisconsin, a big issue was Wisconsin's low "tipping fees." A tipping fee is the cost paid to dump a truck full of trash into a landfill. WI's tipping fees were low, which meant we were the lucky recipients of the entire region's trash. It's kind of like the off-shoring of jobs, except domestically, and with garbage.

The issue I'm pissed about now is similar - but this time it's not merely a domestic issue. You know how they call free trade a "race to the bottom" because whichever country has the lowest minimum wage, environmental standards, and labor regulations gets the manufacturing jobs? America loses on that one (thank goodness!) because the Republicans have not (yet) lowered our minimum wage to equal China's.

Well, here's one where we win: loose GMO regulation. Can't do your GMO experiment in your own country? Come to the USA! Pollute our crops' gene pools and kill our ecosystems! Everyone's welcome here!

Updated: As noted by Melody Townsel... in terms of dumping crap in other countries, America DOES take the cake. I wish I could say that this time we're just getting what we deserve and justice is served, but harming the environment in one country is good for NO countries.

Monsanto Says It's Safe... What's Wrong With It?
Safe in what sense? That's the question. Usually people claiming GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are safe mean something like: If you eat it you won't suffer a health problem in the relative short term. Fair enough. Most of the products on the market in the U.S. now contain GMOs and no one has dropped dead yet, that we know of.

Is it safe to eat GMOs for 50 years? No one's done that yet. We're the guinea pigs. I guess we'll know in a few decades. But that's not even what concerns me. There are far more immediate issues to worry about.

Marion Nestle makes the point in her book Safe Food that we should always weigh the risks involved against the potential benefits. Is it worth it to risk [whatever] so that Monsanto can make a buck or two? In my opinion, no. Is it worth the risk if GMO technology could cure cancer? Quite possibly yes - not that anyone's claiming that GMOs cure cancer.

The one humanitarian use GMOs have been put to - primarily as a PR stunt - is making rice with beta-carotene in it (named Golden Rice for its color). The problem? One would have to eat something like 20 lbs of this rice PER DAY in order to get enough vitamin A from it. They don't mention that part in the advertisements.

With that in mind, here is the biggest risk, which we are engaging in for the sole purpose of making a big biotech firm some money: Nature thrives on biodiversity and GMOs' work by squashing all biodiversity.

There are two ways most GMOs operate. First, in the case of BT corn, the plant itself contains something that kills pests. Second, in the case of Roundup Ready crops, the plant is resistant to Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, which kills pretty much anything green. In either case, the goal is monoculture.

With all bugs or plants other than the desired crop now dead, the effects travel up the food chain. The birds that ate the bugs or the animals that ate those plants have no food. They have two choices: go somewhere else or die. Same thing for whoever preyed on them, and so on, and so on. You've got a field of genetically identical plants and nothing else.

What happens then? Well, the soil isn't going to have the nutrients it needs in it, for one thing. Healthy soil is full of bacteria, protozoa, fungi, insects, and all sorts of other life. Those microorganisms cycle nutrients through from dead organic matter into new, growing plants. And everything in nature is interdependent. It's not all as simple as spraying them with nitrogen fertilizer.

Another problem with monoculture? The more biodiversity increases, the more each individual population stabilizes. For example:

Smith spends no energy or money on pest control – not even a few dollars a year on Bacillus thuringiensis or some other organic spray. Indeed, the University of Massechusetts sends agricultural students out every week in the summer to monitor the Colorado potato beetle population in his one-acre potato field. They use his unsprayed – and undamaged – potatoes as a benchmark for comparison to pest-ridden conventional plantings. (When Smith started potato growing, he lost half his crop to beetle damage, but the pests’ numbers have dropped every year, and the population of predatory insects has risen: "Our plot now has Heinz’s 57 variety of ladybug beetles."

Smith’s crops are also so healthy they resist pests. He puts great emphasis on soil fertility. With the help of his tractor, he spreads 25 tons of imported and composted chicken manure and wood shavings on each acre every year. He also rotates growing and fallow areas and sows cover crops of winter rye and hairy vetch or oats whenever possible. Smith even plants red clovers in among his growing corn...

You want major infestations of pests? Try monoculture.

OK, so then what's so wrong with it if individual idiot farmers want to wreck their own soil and grow sickly, genetically identical crops? Because of genetic contamination. Bees or wind can carry GMO pollen or seeds far away from their original location. You can't contain GMO crops. Plants have evolved for millennia to act like horny frat guys with their genetic material. They want to spread it far and wide!

Give Us Your Poor, Your Tired, Your Genetic Modification Experiments
Our laws are more lax than other countries for GMOs. If a company wants to take a risk on our soil that can't be corrected if it goes awry, great! If the only benefit we can possibly get from it is that company's profit, great! It's just like Wisconsin's tipping fees - we'll accept everyone's garbage here!

On Feb. 29, the chairman of Limagrain, Europe's largest seed cooperative, told Reuters that the company was moving its research tests on genetically modified organisms to the United States. Chairman Pierre Pagesse, reported Reuters, "said Biogemma, Limagrain's grain and oilseed research unit, would carry around 1,000 tests on GM crops this year in Illinois, in the U.S. corn belt." (Thanks to GMOPundit for the link.)

Pagesse cited two reasons for the decision. In early February the French Parliament, heeding the virulently anti-GM sentiments of French citizens, formally requested that the European Union allow it to ban the commercial use of MON 810, a genetically modified strain of corn made by Monsanto. Additionally, "the expatriation of the GM tests to the United States," reports Reuters, "was also prompted by the repetitive attacks carried out by anti-GM activists on Biogemma's test fields."

Europeans believe in the precautionary principle: "if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action." (that's Wikipedia's version of it)

What do we believe in? Profit first, safety later. Need more proof?

U.S. farmers are even eligible for crop insurance discounts, approved by the U.S. government, if they can prove they've planted enough biotech corn.