A troll of Annie:
AUTHOR Fussell, Betty Harper.
TITLE The story of corn / Betty Fussell.
IMPRINT New York : Knopf, 1992.
CALL NO. SB191.M2 F87 1992.
AUTHOR Warman, Arturo.
TITLE Historia de un bastardo.
TITLE Corn & capitalism : how a botanical bastard
grew to global dominance
IMPRINT Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2003.
CALL NO. SB191.M2 W34 2003.
AUTHOR Eubanks, Mary W., 1947-
TITLE Corn in clay : maize paleoethnobotany in pre-Columbian art
IMPRINT Gainesville : University Press of Florida, c1999.
CALL NO. E59.P8 E83 1999.
AUTHOR Hudson, John C.
TITLE Making the corn belt : a geographical history of
middle-western agriculture .
IMPRINT Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1994.
CALL NO. F351 .H858 1994.
AUTHOR Blake, Leonard W.
TITLE Plants from the past
IMPRINT Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c2001.
CALL NO. CC79.5.P5 B58 2001.
20 October
Genetically Modified Corn— Environmental Benefits and Risks
Virginia Gewin PLoS Biology Volume 1 | Issue 1 | October 2003
23 October
http://www.soyatech.com/bluebook/news/viewarticle.ldml?a=20031016?7
GM corn spreading in Mexico, study finds IPS News via NewsEdge Corporation : By Stephen Leahy BROOKLIN, Canada, Oct. 14 (IPS/GIN) ?? Contamination of Mexico's corn by genetically modified (GM) varieties, including the banned StarLink, is much more widespread than previously reported, according to a new study sponsored by a coalition of indigenous and farmer groups. "Now we see that the contamination has spread at least to the south, central and northern regions of the country," Ana de Ita of the Center for Studies on Rural Change in Mexico (CECCAM) said in a statement late last week. The study also found that some plants contained two, three and four different GM types, all patented by transnational biotechnology corporations. The first scientific proof that Mexico's traditional corn crop is contaminated with DNA from GM corn was released two years ago by U.S. scientists. Mexico prohibits planting of GM corn anywhere in the country in a bid to protect the plant that originated in the country, and which has become one of the world's most important food crops. The contamination is likely the result of farmers planting some of the five to six million tonnes of U.S. corn bought by Mexico or sent as food aid, according to Silvia Ribeiro of the environmental non?governmental organization (NGO) ETC Group, from her office in Cancun, Mexico. "It has been very dry in some areas of the country and farmers who don't have any of their own seed left use the U.S. corn," she told IPS in an interview. And because Asia and Europe refuse to take GM corn, 50 or 60 percent of the U.S. corn sent to Mexico is genetically modified, she added. The coalition used commercially available GM test kits on some 2,000 plants (in 411 groups of samples), from 138 farming and indigenous communities. Working with biologists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, they found the presence of transgenes in native corn in 33 communities (24 percent of the total samples) from nine states: Chihuahua, Morelos, Durango, Estado de Mexico, Puebla, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosi, Tlaxcala and Veracruz. In a second round of analysis, the results show contamination that ran from 1.5 percent to 33.3 percent of the corn samples. In those same nine states, some of the corn plants contained traces of the insecticidal toxin (Cry9c), the engineered trait found in a variety of the crop known as StarLink, which is prohibited for human consumption in the United States. Made by Aventis, the U.S. division of France's pharmaceutical conglomerate Aventis SA, StarLink uses a protein to produce toxins to kill insects known as European corn borers. It was approved in the United States in 1998 for use only in animal feed because of concerns the protein might set off allergies in humans. But traces of StarLink were found in U.S. food products in 2000, prompting Aventis to withdraw it from the market. While the presence of StarLink may surprise the Mexican government, officials do know that GM contamination is spreading in the country. Four government?sponsored studies have been done in the past two years to determine whether transgenes are present in native corn. Although none of them has been published, each study found varying levels of contamination in two or more states, says Ribeiro. "The government has done nothing to stop it. Meanwhile, more GM corn comes pouring in from the U.S." At the end of September an international conference to assess the impact of GM crops on biodiversity was held in Mexico City. Organized by the U.S.?based Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, academics and government officials confirmed "gene flow" ?? contamination ?? of GM traits into traditional corn. But that apparently worried few in attendance. According to ETC Group, a representative of the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture suggested that the ban against planting GM corn in Mexico be lifted. Many of the scientists that attended are now claiming ?? in the total absence of scientific proof ?? that gene flow poses no threat to biodiversity or to people, says Ribeiro. At a press conference in Mexico City last week, indigenous and farming communities demanded a halt to all corn imports. The heavily subsidized U.S. corn is sold below the local cost of production and is forcing farmers to stop planting native varieties. Baldemar Mendoza, an indigenous farmer from Oaxaca, told reporters that deformed plants with GM traits have been found in Oaxaca and other states. "We have seen many deformities in corn, but never like this. One deformed plant in Oaxaca that we saved tested positive for three different transgenes. The old people of the communities say they have never seen these kinds of deformities," Mendoza was quoted as saying. He also stated that government representatives visited his community and told him not to worry about contamination, because GM crops have been available in some countries for five or six years and there is no evidence they harm health. "But we have our own evidence," asserted Mendoza. "We have 10,000 years of evidence that our corn is good for our health. To contaminate it with genetically modified corn is a crime against all indigenous peoples and farming communities who have been cultivating and improving corn over millennia for the benefit of humankind."
14 November
Prehistoric GM Corn Nina V. Fedoroff, Science Volume 302, Number 5648, Issue of 14 Nov 2003, pp. 1158-1159.
1 February 2004
Hybrid seed corn first appeared in 1933, says John Fraser Hart, and he goes on to say:
In the old days farmers and plant breeders occasionally lucked out when a natural genetic mutation in the reproductive process produced a valuable new variety of a crop. Some of our best crop varieties are the results of such mutations. Today we no longer have to wait and hope. because biotechnology enables plant breeders to borrow a useful genetic code from one organism and transfer it to another. (2003:17)
From A Moment in Time Archives: Hybrid Seed Corn :
Prior to World War II, most of the varieties of corn grown were inbred, meaning they were single crossed or self-pollinated. The inbred corn is generally weaker with lower yields.The development of a higher yielding, heartier corn, called hybrid seed corn, was a long time coming. In 1812 Pennsylvania farmer John Lorain pioneered advanced corn breeding by crossing dent corn and flint corn. He discovered that such yielded a dramatic increase in bushels per acre. In 1876 Charles Darwin, best known for his theory of evolution, published his findings of how inbred lines of plants were often weak, but vigor could be restored through cross-breeding. By the early twentieth century, the stage was set for greatly increased corn yields through hybrids.
Hybrid corn, most of the corn grown in the United States today, is a first generation grown from seeds produced by crossing carefully selected unrelated parent stocks. The increase in yield of hybrid corn is twenty-five to thirty percent higher than the traditional method. Even though the hybrids are better yielding, better resistant to disease, and more vigorous, they do not pass this on to their offspring. Each generation must be bred anew. Through hybridization and improved agricultural practices, corn production in the United States tripled during the second half of the twentieth century.
The classic: Ryan, B. and Gross, N. 1943. The diffusion of hybrid seed corn in two Iowa communities. Rural Sociology, 8 (1): 15-24.