by Stefan Gailans
DesMoinesRegister.com

I read Calestous Juma’s essay, “Technological Intolerance Threatens Global Food Security” (Feb. 20), with great interest. While discussing the “coexistence” of conventional agriculture that uses biotechnology with organic agriculture that eschews this technology, Juma states “the unintentional cross-pollination by GM plants, or the drift of a neighbor’s pesticide onto their fields, does not cause the crops to lose their organic certification.”

This could not be a more ignorant and false statement. Just about every organic farmer in Iowa could tell a story about losing organic certification for a particular year’s crop due to pesticide drift or cross-pollination; organic farmers’ crops are routinely tested for this to maintain their certification.

Currently, the onus is on the organic farmer, not the conventional farmer to prevent such contamination. The demand for organic food has steadily been climbing over the past decade; organic crops grown in Iowa go toward feeding organic livestock and processing organic cooking oils.

Contamination of organic crops by genetically modified crops threatens farmers’ ability to meet this rising demand.

– Stefan Gailans, Ames

Read the Full Article Here: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110310/OPINION04/103100328/Organic-agriculture-threatened-by-GMOs