Avant Gardening with Sturtz & Copeland

For all the uproar about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), it’s probably time to sort things out.  Since agriculture is at least 4,000 years old,  it’s safe to say that we have been tampering with the genetics of our plants and animals for a long time.  We’ve selected strains of plants that matured earlier, tasted better and lasted longer through selective breeding — that is, we saved the seeds from the plants that performed better and planted more of them every year.

Was this a form of genetic modification?  Absolutely.  But it enables us to live better lives and feed more people.   We tampered with but didn’t break the rules that were millions of years old.  With the advent of modern science we were able to break those rules and inject genes from different species into one another.  We were able to inject fish genes into tomatoes and strawberries.   We could make corn and wheat herbicide tolerant.   But what happens when those genes are set loose in the environment or in our stomachs?  The honest answer is … we don’t yet know.

So keep in mind that there is good genetic modification and , well, let’s just call it questionable genetic modification.  In the first case we know it’s good and what we’re getting.  The jury is still out on the latter.