Scary Seeds

Off Mountain Road, in Loudoun County, Todd Morrison has a small farm and, when he first moved in, and they sprayed herbicide, everything turned brown in the field in front of his house except the soy; he got concerned.  We should all be concerned.

What was in the soy that remained unaffected by the herbicide spray?

The truth was the soy seeds had been genetically modified and that began Todd’s quest to understand what that meant, finishing up with his campaign against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and in favor of organic and community farming, not just on his place but throughout the Loudoun County area.

Todd learned that seeds have been modified with DNA from bacteria, viruses, other plants, even animals.  In other words, there is even a cross-species GMO hybrid created (plant with animal) with this genetic engineering.  There is also mounting evidence that GMOs bring with them health problems.

Worse yet, if you’re trying to avoid GMOs, Todd reported, that 80% of our processed food has GMOs.

The top 10 list of GMO foods to avoid leads with Corn and Soy, and they are number 1 and 2.

Soy was modified to resist herbicides – explaining what Todd saw that concerned him when herbicides were sprayed on soy and didn’t affect them at all.

Ironically, Monsanto has created the GMO corn and the GMO soy and the herbicide Roundup sprayed on the soy that Monsanto’s GMO soy resists.

Aspartame, found in many diet drinks, to keep us thin or thinner, is created with genetically modified bacteria, although few appreciate that fact.

Monsanto has sought to control the world’s seeds, with its GMO variants, because in that way they can control the world’s food.

Todd said, “Monsanto has sued farmers for seeds that have blown onto neighboring farms, claiming they are violating Monsanto’s patent” – because, after some court battles, Monsanto who lobbied for these bio-engineered patents, was upheld.

“That’s why some farmers call Monsanto the seed police,” Todd said.

Scott is a professional musician attached to the military band in Washington, DC but his farm opened new horizons for his family looking for sources of organic non-GMO food to eat and market.

“We encourage family based freedom farming,” Todd said, “we seek to encourage and cultivate freedom, to help families raise their own food, to facilitate farms, to encourage county cooperation around sustainable food”

Todd questions why we have GMOs when the people don’t want them in their food, when it’s banned in 26 foreign nation-states because they believe these seeds are unsafe, and 64 nation-states require that food with GMOs label the food so the consumer knows what they’re buying and consuming.  There was a 2012 Mellman Group Poll that concluded 91% of American consumers want labeling.  Todd asks, “Why does Monsanto resist labeling?”

“We don’t know what we’re doing when we break the species barrier with these seeds,” Todd said, “we don’t know what we’re doing when we splice in genetic traits that never existed before in a seed.”

That’s why Todd has been encouraging friends and neighbors to farm more themselves and to eat organic whether or not they farm themselves.

That’s why we can say these seeds are scary – because we don’t know the extent of harm they’re causing us.