48 a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e saved down the generations for a reason, or for many, and in the case of vegetables one reason is always flavor Heirlooms are the tangiest or sweetest tomatoes, the most fragrant melons, the eggplants without a trace of bitterness Most standard vegetable varieties sold in stores have been bred for uniform appearance, mechanized harvest, convenience of packing (e.g square tomatoes), and a tolerance for hard travel None of these can be mistaken, in practice, for actual flavor Homegrown tomatoes are famously superior to their supermarket counterparts, but the disparity is just as great (in my experience) for melons, potatoes, asparagus, sweet corn, broccoli, carrots, certain onions, and the Japanese edible soybeans called edamame I have looked for something to cull from my must-grow list on the basis of its being reasonably similar to the supermarket version I have yet to find that vegetable How did supermarket vegetables lose their palatability, with so many people right there watching? The Case of the Murdered Flavor was a contract killing, as it turns out, and long-distance travel lies at the heart of the plot The odd notion of transporting fragile produce dates back to the early twentieth century when a few entrepreneurs tried shipping lettuce and artichokes, iced down in boxcars, from California eastward over the mountains as a midwinter novelty Some wealthy folks were charmed by the idea of serving out-of-season (and absurdly expensive) produce items to their dinner guests It remained little more than an expensive party trick until mid-century, when most fruits and vegetables consumed in North America were still being produced on nearby farms Then fashion and marketing got involved The interstate highway system became a heavily subsidized national priority, long-haul trucks were equipped with refrigeration, and the cost of gasoline was nominal The state of California aggressively marketed itself as an off-season food producer, and the American middle class opened its maw In just a few decades the out-of-season vegetable moved from novelty status to such an ordinary item, most North Americans now don’t know what out-of-season means While marketers worked out the logistics of moving every known vegetable from every corner of the planet to somewhere else, agribusiness s p r i n g i n g f o r wa r d 49 learned to breed varieties that held up in a boxcar, truck, or ship’s cargo hold Indestructible vegetables, that is to say: creations that still looked decent after a road trip Vegetable farmers had little choice but to grow what the market demanded In the latter half of the twentieth century they gradually dropped from their repertoire thousands of flavorful varieties traditionally grown for the table, concentrating instead on the handful of new varieties purchased by transporters, restaurant chains, and processed-food manufacturers Modern U.S consumers now get to taste less than percent of the vegetable varieties that were grown here a century ago Those old-timers now lurk only in backyard gardens and on farms that specialize in direct sales—if they survive at all Many heirlooms have been lost entirely The same trend holds in other countries, wherever the influence of industrial-scale agriculture holds sway In Peru, the original home of potatoes, Andean farmers once grew some four thousand potato varieties, each with its own name, flavor, and use, ranging in size from tiny to gigantic and covering the color spectrum from indigo-purple to red, orange, yellow, and white Now, even in the regions of Peru least affected by the modern market, only a few dozen potato varieties are widely grown Other indigenous crops elsewhere in the world have followed the same path, with the narrowing down of corn and amaranth varieties in Central America, squashes in North America, apples in Europe, and grains in the Middle East And it’s not just plant varieties but whole species that are being lost As recently as ten years ago farmers in India still grew countless indigenous oil crops, including sesame, linseed, and mustards; in 1998 all the small mills that processed these oils were ordered closed, the same year a ban on imported soy oil was lifted A million villages lost their mills, ten million farmers lost their living, and GM soy found a vast new market According to Indian crop ecologist Vandana Shiva, humans have eaten some 80,000 plant species in our history After recent precipitous changes, three-quarters of all human food now comes from just eight species, with the field quickly narrowing down to genetically modified corn, soy, and canola If woodpeckers and pandas enjoy celebrity status on the endangered-species list (dubious though such fame may be), food crops a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e 50 are the forgotten commoners We’re losing them as fast as we’re losing rain forests An enormous factor in this loss has been the new idea of plant varieties as patentable properties, rather than God’s gifts to humanity or whatever the arrangement was previously felt to be, for all of prior history God lost that one in 1970, with the Plant Variety Protection Act Anything owned by humans, of course, can be taken away from others; the removal of crop control from farmers to agribusiness has been power- The Strange Case of Percy Schmeiser In 1999, a quiet middle-aged farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan, was sued by the largest biotech seed producer in the world Monsanto Inc claimed that Percy Schmeiser had damaged them, to the tune of $145,000, by having their patented gene in some of the canola plants on his 1,030 acres The assertion was not that Percy had actually planted the seed, or even that he obtained the seed illegally Rather, the argument was that the plants on Percy’s land contained genes that belonged to Monsanto The gene, patented in Canada in the early 1990s, gives genetically modified (GM) canola plants the fortitude to withstand spraying by glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup, sold by Monsanto Canola, a cultivated variety of rapeseed, is one of over three thousand species in the mustard family Pollen from mustards is transferred either by insects, or by wind, up to one-third of a mile Does the patented gene travel in the pollen? Yes Are the seeds viable? Yes, and can remain dormant up to ten years If seeds remain in the soil from previous years, it’s illegal to harvest them Further, if any of the seeds from a field contain the patented genes, it is illegal to save them for use Percy had been saving his canola seeds for fifty years Monsanto was suing for possession of intellectual property that had drifted onto his plants The laws protect possession of the gene itself, irrespective of its conveyance Because of pollen drift and seed contamination, the Monsanto genes are ubiquitous in Canadian canola Percy lost his court battles: he was found guilty in the Federal Court of Canada, the conviction upheld in the court of appeals The Canadian Supreme Court narrowly upheld the decision (5–4), but with no compensation to Monsanto This stunning case has drawn substantial attention to the problems associated with letting GM genies out of their bottle Organic canola farmers in Saskatchewan have now sued Monsanto and another company, Aventis, for making it impossi- s p r i n g i n g f o r wa r d 51 ful and swift Six companies—Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Mitsui, Aventis, and Dow—now control 98 percent of the world’s seed sales These companies invest heavily in research whose purpose is to increase food production capacity only in ways that can be controlled strictly Terminator technology is only one (extreme) example The most common genetic modifications now contained in most U.S corn, soy, cotton, and canola one of two things: (1) put a bacterial gene into the plant that kills caterpillars, or (2) alter the crop’s physiology so it withstands the her- ble for Canadian farmers to grow organic canola The National Farmers Union of Canada has called for a moratorium on all GM foods The issue has spilled over the borders as well Fifteen countries have banned import of GM canola, and Australia has banned all Canadian canola due to the unavoidable contamination made obvious by Monsanto’s lawsuit Farmers are concerned about liability, and consumers are concerned about choice Twenty-four U.S states have proposed or passed various legislation to block or limit particular GM products, attach responsibility for GM drift to seed producers, defend a farmer’s right to save seeds, and require seed and food product labels to indicate GM ingredients (or allow “GM-free” labeling) The U.S federal government (corporate-friendly as ever) has stepped in to circumvent these proconsumer measures In 2006 Congress passed the National Uniformity for Food Act, which would eliminate more than two hundred state-initiated food safety and labeling laws that differ from federal ones Thus, the weakest consumer protections would prevail (but they’re uniformly weak!) Here’s a clue about who really benefits from this bill: it’s endorsed by the American Frozen Food Institute, ConAgra, Cargill, Dean Foods, Hormel, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association It’s opposed by the Consumers Union, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Center for Food Safety, and thirty-nine state attorney generals Keeping GM’s “intellectual” paws out of our bodies, and our fields, is up to consumers who demand full disclosure on what’s in our food For more information, visit www.biotech-info.net or www.organicconsumers org STEVEN L HOPP 52 a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e bicide Roundup, so that chemicals can be sprayed over the crop (The crop stays alive, the weeds die.) If you guessed Monsanto controls sales of both the resistant seed and the Roundup, give yourself a star If you think you’d never eat such stuff, you’re probably wrong GM plants are virtually everywhere in the U.S food chain, but don’t have to be labeled, and aren’t Industry lobbyists intend to keep it that way Monsanto sells many package deals of codependent seeds and chemicals, including so-called traitor technologies in which a crop’s disease resistance relies on many engineered genes resting in its tissues—genes that can only be turned on, as each disease arises, by the right chemical purchased from Monsanto It’s hardly possible to exaggerate the cynicism of this industry In internal reports, Monsanto notes “growers who save seed from one year to the next” as significant competitors, and allocates a $10 million budget for investigating and prosecuting seed savers Agribusinesses can patent plant varieties for the purpose of removing them from production (Seminis dropped 25 percent of its total product line in one recent year, as a “cost-cutting measure”), leaving farmers with fewer options each year The same is true for home gardeners, who rarely suspect when placing seed orders from Johnny’s, Territorial, Nichols, Stokes, and dozens of other catalogs that they’re likely buying from Monsanto In its 2005 annual report, Monsanto describes its creation of American Seeds Inc as a licensing channel that “allows us to marry our technology with the hightouch, local face of regional seed companies.” The marriage got a whopping dowry that year when Monsanto acquired Seminis, a company that already controlled about 40 percent of the U.S vegetable seed market Garden seed inventories show that while about 5,000 nonhybrid vegetable varieties were available from catalogs in 1981, the number in 1998 was down to 600 Jack Harlan, a twentieth-century plant geneticist and author of the classic Crops and Man, wrote about the loss of genetic diversity in no uncertain terms: “These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine The line between abundance and disaster is becoming thinner and thinner.” ... Union of Canada has called for a moratorium on all GM foods The issue has spilled over the borders as well Fifteen countries have banned import of GM canola, and Australia has banned all Canadian... world have followed the same path, with the narrowing down of corn and amaranth varieties in Central America, squashes in North America, apples in Europe, and grains in the Middle East And it’s... conveyance Because of pollen drift and seed contamination, the Monsanto genes are ubiquitous in Canadian canola Percy lost his court battles: he was found guilty in the Federal Court of Canada,