The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food (8 page)

A variety of experiments have suggested caution is warranted on multiple fronts. For example, in spite of biotech’s arguments that genetic transfer from crops to humans is unlikely, a study at Newcastle University in Britain found that DNA from GM crops could be transferred to bacteria in the human gut. Other experiments have intimated connections between GM foods and significant medical conditions. In rats fed GM corn and potatoes, scientists observed abnormal white and red blood cell counts, inflammation of the liver, and unexplained growths in stomachs and small intestines. In 1998, a scientist at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, found that GM potatoes caused tumors and inflammation in the stomach lining of laboratory animals. The real world has even provided evidence of possible problems with GM foods. After Great Britain introduced GM soy, soy allergies rose 50 percent. Some Iowa farmers reported infertility (as much as 80 percent) in hogs fed GM corn.

In addition, the harmful effects of glyphosate (Roundup) are now rising in the American consciousness. Glyphosate kills weeds by shutting down their defense mechanisms, weakening them, and inviting infections by soil-borne pathogens; it is also linked to nutritional deficiencies in plants. It kills soil microbes, even the advantageous ones. Further, it does not break down quickly in the soil, taking anywhere from a few months to up to forty years. Clinical data implicates that glyphosate is, at “quite low levels,” according to Don Huber, plant pathologist and professor emeritus at Purdue University, “very toxic to liver cells, kidney cells, testicular cells, and the endocrine hormone system.” Additionally, the herbicide has been linked to miscarriages and premature births; it is implicated in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and even autism.

Once a friend said to us, “If you analyze food too much, you kill it.” My outspoken husband had a quick reply: “Yes, if you analyze food too much, you kill it, but if you don’t analyze it enough, it kills you.”

Not only is GM food probably unsound for the body, it leaves in its wake a host of other problems. The first is that insects and weeds evolve quickly to become superpests resistant to chemical controls. By 2006, eighty million acres were being planted with Roundup-Ready crops and being sprayed with Roundup. Then farmers began to notice that certain weeds were not killed by Roundup. Mare’s tail—a tall weed with 200,000 seeds per plant—was the first I heard of. It became resistant to Roundup in only eight years.

During the past few years I’ve watched pigweed become resistant. At first only a weed or two would be left standing after a spraying, then the entire field would be dotted with pigweed. The solution, of course, is to spray even-more-potent herbicides, rocketing the farmers as well as the eaters ever further along a destructive path.

A 2009 study by The Organic Center concluded that “the most striking finding is that GE [genetically engineered] crops have been responsible for an increase of 383 million pounds of herbicide use in the US over the first 13 years of commercial use of GE crops.”

Besides the increase of resistance to the herbicides, tolerance to herbicides may be transferred to weedy relatives of GM crops through cross-pollination. Canola is a brassica, a member of the mustard family. Many wild brassicas will cross with canola, even Roundup-
Ready canola; when they do, the wild brassica, like the Roundup-Ready
canola, will no longer be killed by Roundup. Again, more powerful herbicides will be used, turning most farms into greater and greater point-sources for pollution.

“Where bees can live, so can man.”

—Juliette de Biaracli Levy

The plight of our pollinators was outlined ingeniously by Stephen L. Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan in
The Forgotten Pollinators
. Farmer Frank Morton of Shoulder to Shoulder Farm in Philomath, Oregon, talks about the degree to which one attracts pollinators by seed saving. Morton’s approach is to return as many processes as possible to the wild, looking to the garden as an ecosystem. Bolting and flowering plants, for instance, furnish continuous nectar, pollen, shelter, and prey for beneficial species.

The USDA identifies certain nutrients as vital: protein, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, vitamins (A, B-6, B-12, C, D, and E), as well as amino acids and minerals (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper). If every citizen followed the USDA’s dietary guidelines, it promises, the United States would see a 20 percent decline in cancer, respiratory, and infectious diseases; 25 percent less heart and vascular diseases; and 50 percent less arthritis, infant death, and maternal death.

Corporate lackies will proclaim that a broccoli grown chemically (lifeless soil, drenched with cancer agents and endocrine disruptors) is essentially no different than one grown using organic practices (crop rotation, manures, legumes, compost, mineralization, microbialization). The studies beg to differ. Not only is there a difference, there’s a big difference—up to a 100 percent difference.

A 2004 study of forty-three garden crops conducted by Dr. Donald Davis of the University of Texas–Austin found during the past fifty years reliable declines in six nutrients: protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C. These drops ranged from 6 percent to as much as 38 percent (for riboflavin). Meanwhile, a review of USDA nutrient data on a dozen veggies by writer Alex Jack shows that since 1975 vitamin A has dropped 21.4 percent, calcium 26.5 percent, vitamin C 29.9 percent, and iron 36.5 percent. A study from Great Britain by Dr. Anne-Marie Mayer, looking at the concentrations of eight essential minerals in twenty fruits and vegetables, found consistent declines over the past fifty years—iron was down an average of 22 percent; calcium, 19 percent; and potassium, 14 percent.

Nutrients contained in a particular vegetable or fruit can be affected by many factors, including variety, maturity at harvest, and time from earth to table. A significant factor, however, turns out to be agricultural practices. New research is proving that food grown organically is more nutrient-dense.

High levels of nitrogen in chemical fertilizers stimulate quick growth and encourage a plant to take up more water. That results in higher yields, but less dry matter (the nonwater component of food) and consequently less nutrition and flavor per calorie consumed. Elevated levels of nitrogen reduce concentrations of vitamin C in vegetables like lettuce, endive, and kale, as well as in fruits like oranges and cantaloupe. Study results range from 6–100 percent increases in vitamin C in organic foods. Many inquiries demonstrate higher dry matter in organically grown crops, averaging 20 percent higher. In addition, analysis reveals higher mineral content in organic crops. Apparently compost delivers more nutrients than chemical fertilizers.

Bob Quinn, an organic wheat farmer from Montana, is growing kamut, the trademark (as well as ancient Egyptian) name of khorasan wheat, a variety supposedly found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. His kamut boasts a higher nutritional profile than chemically grown wheat, including antioxidants, vitamins, and essential amino acids. It is mineral-rich, especially in selenium, zinc, and magnesium. “We’ve made these huge changes to make food cheap with no regard to nutrition,” Quinn told
Acres USA
. “People say it’s a great advantage having cheap food in this country, but if we take into account the cost of medicine from poor health, which is a direct result of our inferior and often toxic diet, it’s not cheap at all.”

With the spike in popularity and sales of organic produce, many chemical farmers donned tie-dye and peasant skirts, obtained organic certification, and began to grow what they call organic food, using organic inputs but without true belief in the underlying principles of organic agriculture. I know a chemical guy who grew his hair long. Wolves in sheep’s clothing will be found out, however. As Eliot Coleman, farmer and author, said in a 2009 talk at Iowa’s Heritage Farm, “the large growers may have changed their agronomy, but they didn’t change their thinking, that their minds are still largely focused on how much they can produce rather than on how well it can nourish their customers.” An organic monoculture is still a monoculture; its mission is profit. Coleman pronounces that “small is more beautiful” and praises the manifesto of small, organic farmers—“quality first, rather than quantity first.”

In addition to organic agricultural practices, the role of
variety
in nutritional content cannot be denied. Breeding for size, color, and durability in shipping have contributed to the nutritional crash. “We’re breeding for things other than nutrition,” said Michael Pollan, citing a 30–40 percent decline in the nutrient value of American crops. “This is equivalent to us losing a whole serving of fruits and vegetables every day.” In the past half-century, increases in yield have been paramount in the minds of breeders. As Davis said, “Emerging evidence suggests that when you select for yield, crops grow bigger and faster, but they don’t necessarily have the ability to make or uptake nutrition at the same, faster rate.” Lab tests of ancestral beans collected from indigenous people, for example, showed them to have eight to ten times as many antioxidants as grocery-bought beans.

Thomas Jefferson said he didn’t think democracy was possible unless at least 20 percent of the population was self-supporting on small farms. These farmers would be independent enough to be able to tell an oppressive government to stuff it.

Instead, we are all increasingly helpless to provide food—not to mention good food—for ourselves. We are like infants needing to suckle at the bottle of corporations, which makes us dependent. And oppressed.

In principle, a democracy is one person, one vote, and every vote counts. Corporations want control, and under our capitalistic system, as Michael Moore pointed out in his documentary
Capitalism
, every dollar is a vote and the person with the most dollars wins. If corporations own our food supply, then they own us. The ability to feed ourselves ensures our freedom. As Eliot Coleman said, “Small farmers are a threat to the consolidation of absolute power.”

I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE
for taking you on a short rabbit chase here, but to talk about seeds without talking about agriculture is not possible. The reclamation of seeds is the reclamation of food, and how we grow that food is important.

Plenty of seed savers use chemicals. But why? Why save ancestral varieties if you are not going to also save the ancestral farming practices that brought those varieties into being? The majority of America’s vintage seeds were developed before the chemical era and grew fine without the use of synthetic inputs. So let’s get one thing clear here, and that’s terminology. You will never see me saying
conventional
agriculture when I mean
chemical
agriculture. Nothing about chemical usage is conventional, not if convention means what I think it means. The truly conventional, traditional, time-honored agriculture is the one that builds the soil.

One fall day in 2002, before he became a celebrity, I followed Joel “You Can Farm” Salatin around Craig and Debbie Hardin’s Iraloke Farms in Salem, Florida. By then Salatin had published four how-to books on farming. My husband Raven and I had read a couple of them, and we found Salatin even more hilarious and entertaining in person than in print. “Organic farmers?” Salatin said. “People think the men wear ponytails and the women don’t shave their legs and everybody runs naked through the woods on moonlit nights.”

Maybe that’s why he was looking perfectly conservative in his blue jeans and big white cowboy hat. There was nothing buttoned-down, however, about his doctrine. “The soil is the earth’s stomach,” he said. “In the soil, everything rots, rusts, and depreciates. The problem is that we treat soil like dirt and manure like waste.”

“What we want to do is use nature as the template,” he said. The farmer needs to mimic the symbiosis of nature. “We actually build forgiveness into the landscape with the checks and balances of biodiversity,” he said. Chemical farmers don’t do that. “The only tool in their box is technology. There can’t be a natural cure—it has to be a high-tech cure.”

He named the biological activity of
soil
as the key to tilth. “We’re really in the earthworm enhancement business,” he quipped and talked about one teaspoonful of healthy soil containing sixty million bacteria, three to five miles of fungal hyphae, a few protozoa and nematodes, and maybe a tiny insect or two. “That life supports healthy plants that support people’s health,” he said.

Industrial agriculture is responsible for the loss of two billion tons of topsoil a year. In the nineteenth century, just so you know, Iowa had fourteen to sixteen inches of topsoil. Today, it has just six to eight inches and more is being lost all the time.