Michael Pollan
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 Government figures from England tell a similar story: declines since the fifties of 10 percent or more in levels of iron, zinc, calcium, and selenium across a range of food crops. To put this in more concrete terms, you now have to eat three apples to get the same amount of iron as you would have gotten from a single 1940 apple, and you'd have to eat several more slices of bread to get your recommended daily allowance of zinc than you would have a century ago. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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 There are four major GM food crops currently in commercial production—soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton. All are used to make vegetable oil, and soy and corn derivatives are used in most processed foods. There are also GM zucchini, crookneck squash, papaya, and alfalfa. GM tomatoes and potatoes were introduced but taken off the market. Also, Quest cigarettes contain GM tobacco.
Although Ag biotech promotes its technology as a solution to feed the hungry world, grow crops in the desert and boost nutritional value, the current generation of GM traits is a far cry from that promise. |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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 Immunologists, meanwhile, are trying to ascertain what happens to the immune systems of lab mice when they expose them to organo-chlorine pesticides such as DDT and methoxychlor, the latter having been manufactured as a safer replacement for DDT and now being used widely on food crops, home gardens, and as flea and tick control on pets. They do not like what they see.
In a 2005 study, six researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville set out to discover whether mice exposed to organochlorine pesticides would be more prone to develop autoimmune disease. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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| Similar education efforts in the United States will likely do the same to GM food crops.
Shift away from GM food in the United States 2007
A coalition of food manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in the natural products industry, along with the Institute for Responsible Technology, launched an initiative in the spring of 2007 to remove GM ingredients from the entire natural food sector. Called the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, this comprehensive initiative will educate consumers about the health risks of GM foods and promote non-GMO brands through shopping guides. |
| It is unknown, however, how many crossings have been conducted on food crops and how many mutations persist. Furthermore, certain plant species are propagated vegetatively—they don't cross with other plants. These plants would retain the vast number of mutations created during the GM transformation process. The GM potato that was on the market years ago and the papaya currendy on the market are examples of GM crops that are propagated vegetatively and therefore pose greater risks as a result. |
Mark Lynas
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 It may also be immoral: because car-owning people are by definition among the world's rich elite, using food crops to replace petrol would create scarcity and drive up food prices on the commodity markets, leaving the poorest to starve. The reality is simple: you can use land to feed cars or to feed people, but not both.
A related question arises with the European Union's target of 5 per cent biofuels in its vehicle fleet by 2010. Much of this will come from biodiesel, and a major feedstock for this is palm oil grown on plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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| Mice fed GM Bt potatoes had intestinal damage
Regulators have allowed Bt food crops onto the market based on the assumption that the 5/-toxin will not survive digestion in the stomach. They further contend that even if some portion did survive, since "there are no receptors on the surface of mammalian intestinal cells for the [Bt] proteins,"25 the toxin would not react with mammals. The results of this mouse study illustrate that B/-toxin can survive digestion and can damage mammalian cells. |
Mark Lynas
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| Growing food in the greenhouse
All plants have a thermal tolerance threshold, and the world's major food crops are no exception. Grains are particularly vulnerable to heat during flowering and setting seed, and temperatures over 30°C cause an escalating pattern of damage. According to John Sheehy of the International Rice Research Institute in Manila: 'In rice, wheat and maize, grain yields are likely to decline by 10 per cent for every 1 degree C increase over 30 degrees.' Over 40°C, yields are reduced to zero. |
| With the tropics too hot to support most food crops and the subtropics out of production due to perennial drought, the region where large-scale human civilisation remains feasible - the 'belt of habitability' - contracts towards the poles. (It is worth remembering that this applies as much to the seas as to the land: the destruction of coral reefs and rapid warming of the oceans will likely wipe out most marine life within the same tropical and subtropical belt. |
Ben-Erik van Wyk
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 Famous food crops of the region include sugar cane, bananas, rice, taro, yam, coconut and numerous tropical fruits. One of the oldest agricultural sites is that of Spirit Cave in northwestern Thailand, inhabited since 10000 bc
Australia
There are very few domesticated food crops in Australia but the region is well known as the source of numerous species of gum trees (Eucalyptus) that are grown for timber and paper production all over the world. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 The very idea of allowing corporations to patent and "own" the DNA of seeds used to grow staple food crops is, in my view, a crime against nature that will only lead to disaster.
Because, you see, I don't think the future of human civilization will involve super athletic night creatures attacking the living and engaging in kick-ass action sequences fit for a feature film starring Will Smith. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Suppose the terminator gene crops somehow cross-pollinate staple food crops that now feed the world... what happens then? Imagine all the wheat grown in the United States suddenly self-destructing after a single growing season. Mass starvation would quickly ensue, followed by economic collapse, military action and quite possibly the collapse of the nation itself. And the same is true in Europe, Australia, Asia and South America, too.
This is what's at stake with terminator gene technology. |
David R. Montgomery
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 Erosion is only indirectly related to the destruction of the former extensive forests, but is directly related to the cultivation of the slope lands for the production of food crops."
Rather than the axe, the plow had shaped the region's fate, as Lowdermilk observed. "Man has no control over topography and little over the type of rainfall which descends on the land. He can, however, control the soil layer, and can, in mountainous areas, determine quite definitely what will become of it. |
| Tobacco strips more than ten times the nitrogen and more than thirty times the phosphorous from the soil than do typical food crops. After five years of tobacco cultivation the ground was too depleted in nutrients to grow much of anything. With plenty of fresh land to the west, tobacco farmers just kept on clearing new fields. Stripped bare of vegetation, what soil remained on the abandoned fields washed into gullies during intense summer rains. Virginia became a factory for turning topsoil into tobacco.
King James saw the tobacco business as an attractive way to raise revenue. |
David W. Grotto, RD, LDN
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 Hazelnut is one of the oldest agricultural food crops and is thought to have originated in Asia. Chinese manuscripts from 5,000 years ago refer to the hazelnut as a sacred food from heaven. The Romans and Greeks used hazelnuts for medicinal purposes.
Where Are Hazelnuts Grown?
The main producers of hazelnuts are Turkey, Italy, Spain, and France. In the United States they are mainly grown in Oregon and Washington.
Why Should I Eat Hazelnuts? |
Mark Lynas
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| This seems to hold more potential in terms of carbon displacement, as it could be far more efficient than producing ethanol from food crops. However, the techniques are still being developed, and would take years to scale up enough to make any serious dent in emissions. In addition, there are still problems - if straw is not ploughed back into the land, then biomass is being removed, lowering the humus content of the soil and its nourishment value for plants. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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| They do not require extensive evaluation of the mutations and therefore the extent of these in approved GM food crops has not been identified. The few studies that have been conducted revealed many significant problems. GM varieties contain truncated or multiple fragments of the inserted gene and extraneous or scrambled DNA. One GM corn variety (Bt 11) contained a fragment from a gene that was supposed to be inserted into a different GM variety (E 176). |
Mark Schapiro
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 In the United States, Vice President Quayle's declaration had provided an important government imprimatur: the new food crops were essentially the same as naturally evolved varieties, so no special attention to their ecological or health consequences was warranted. Europeans, however, were skeptical of a new technology that had barely been tested before being unleashed wholesale into the American food system. |
Dr. Steve Blake
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 Molybdenum is needed in the soil used for food crops. If plants do not get enough molybdenum they may contain more cancer-causing nitrosamines. With sufficient molybdenum, plants can convert nitrates to amino acids, lowering the nitrosamine levels.
Summary for Molybdenum
Main function: metabolism of sulfur-containing amino acids. RDA: adults, 45 meg. Toxicity: low toxicity.
Tolerable upper intake level has been set at 2 mg. Deficiency is rare.
Sources: beans, lentils, whole grains, and nuts. Forms in the body: found in the enzymes sulfite oxidase, xanthine oxidase, and aldehyde oxidase. |
Alex Steffen
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 At the University of California, Davis, for example, home gardeners aid agricultural specialists in assessing the decline of genetic diversity in major food crops. After crash efforts got under way to collect specimens of related species from their native sources—before precious variants vanished (rare varieties of potatoes from the Andes, for instance) — researchers realized that the ambitious undertaking could be made both easier and more thorough with the assistance of people who already studied and cultivated exotic plant species as a hobby. |
James F. Balch, M.D. and Mark Stengler, N.D.
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 Generally, food crops were grown on local land that was considered a valuable commodity. People took time to prepare their food and enjoy the intrinsic flavors and aromas. Today, the combination of technology and globalization has turned much of our food supply into semisynthetic, genetically engineered, nutrient-lacking packaged goods. Take a look at your local supermarket. Most of the food you see is stuffed into boxes or other packages. It contains preservatives that ensure a long shelf life. Many North Americans tend to be overfed yet simultaneously malnourished. What a paradox! |
Alex Steffen
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| One result might be "super-organic" food crops bred with green biotechnology. Each plant of today and yesterday contains the genetic potential to thrive on the soil-conserving, biodi-verse, prairielike farms of the future, as
The Benefits of Bioengineered Crops
¦Hi Transgenic genetically modified (GM) crops are a risky work in progress. The health effects of eating, for example, a tomato into which genetic material from a salmon has been introduced, are simply not known—the impact on the human body may be minimal, but we can't yet speculate. |
Gabriel Cousens, M.D.
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 Animals fed on the sea-solid-fertilized food crops were consistently more disease resistant than the control group. The sea-solid-nourished garden fruits and vegetables were superior in taste. In general, the produce grown on sea solids seemed to be bigger and tastier than that grown on typical soil.
The message is clear: A highly mineralized body is a more disease-resistant and anti-aging body. Plants grown to maturity that do not have the proper minerals have a propensity to compensate. When we take in less than healthy plants, we do not get the proper nutrition. |
Ben-Erik van Wyk
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| One of the oldest agricultural sites is that of Spirit Cave in northwestern Thailand, inhabited since 10000 bc
Australia
There are very few domesticated food crops in Australia but the region is well known as the source of numerous species of gum trees (Eucalyptus) that are grown for timber and paper production all over the world. Wild food plants played an important role in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the aboriginal people and some have been popularised in modern times (called bush-tucker in Australia). |
| Famous food crops originating in the region include mango, aubergine, cucumber, rice (shared with Indonesia), pigeon pea, tree cotton, ginger, cardamom and pepper. India is a secondary centre of diversity for several African and Middle Eastern crops, including Indian finger millet, cowpea, guar (cluster bean) and chickpea.
Spice market in Jerusalem Olive tree in
Central Asia
This area includes Iran, Afghanistan, the Himalayas, parts of western China, Uzbekistan and the adjoining regions of the former USSR. Agriculture probably reached here from the Near East around 5000 bc. |
David Wolfe
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 We cannot have healthy human beings without healthy food crops, and these depend entirely upon the healthy feeding of the soil."
"High yields depend on loading the soil with both a large surface area of available minerals and organic matter."
"Examine a stone, other than limestone, in the soil. Crack it open. Under a very drab demineralized exterior 'skin' you will see the minerals, That skin represents the depth which the microorganisms have been able to penetrate the crystal structure of the stone,"
When the rock is ground to dust, more "skin" is exposed to feed the soi microbes. |
Alex Steffen
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| We are starting to understand that on one small planet, keeping life-support systems in good working order isn't just another expense—it's an investment in survival, ew of major food crops) depend on pollination by insects in order to reproduce. Insects don't have to be hired for the job. Beetles, butterflies, and honeybees are part of coevolved "pollinator complexes" that make sure each flowering species gets exactly the attention it needs. Imagine having to hire human laborers to do this work with Q-tips, in the largest agricultural jobs program ever conceived. We would fail abysmally. |
Ben-Erik van Wyk
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| The first part of the book gives a brief historical overview of the geographical origin of various food crops. The main agricultural regions and the famous food plants associated with each of them are highlighted. This is followed by short chapters on the food value and characteristics of each of the main categories of food plants (cereals, nuts, fruits, vegetables, beverages, sugar and starch, culinary herbs and spices). |
Alex Steffen
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| Not only would the soil support food crops, but fast-growing, salt-absorbing hybrid shade trees could go in as windbreaks, helping to check erosion and desalinize the soil. as
Opposite, left: Plumpy'nut, which appeals to kids' taste buds more than traditional therapeutic foods do, helps malnutritioned children survive in refugee situations. Opposite, right: The United Nations' video game Food Force introduces kids to the challenges of running a large-scale refugee-relief operation. |
| This would not only reduce oil use and avoid taking land away from food crops, it would give farmers a much-needed source of additional income. Some chemists are even investigating bacterial digesters as a means to convert the cellulose, instead of heat and pressure-based refinement. This would make plant-based plastics even more of a neobiological solution, jjf & jm
Synthetic Biology mmmm Engineering life is hard. |
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