Pollen from GM soybeans threatens Mexico's honey sales

Tuesday, February 11, 2014 by: PF Louis
Tags: health news, Natural News, nutrition

(NaturalNews) A large part of Mexico's agricultural export is honey. They are ranked fifth worldwide for exporting the bees' food, but recently Germany rejected a batch of honey from Mexico. Pollen from genetically modified (GM) soybean plants was found in the honey being imported.

Bee keepers in the region and agricultural authorities of the Mexican state of Campeche, one of the states in the Yucatan Peninsula at the southeastern tip of Mexico, were mystified. So a research team familiar with bees and Mexico came in to determine what was going on with GMOs affecting bee colonies in Campeche.

Apparently, some locals thought that GMO contamination from crops considered safe for human consumption was okay in other nations. There is plenty of GM soy declared fit for human consumption in Mexico. Others didn't realize that the bees from local apiaries would be collecting pollen from nearby GM soybean plants. No matter, German buyers weren't buying.

David Roubik, senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and his colleagues found that six honey samples from nine hives in the Campeche region contained soy pollen in addition to pollen from many wild plant species. The pollen came from crops near the bee colonies in several small apiaries.

According to a quote by Roubik from a source article, "Bee colonies act as extremely sensitive environmental indicators. Bees from a single colony may gather nectar and pollen resources from flowers in a 200-square-kilometer area." [1]

So how would the USDA's four-mile buffer between GMO and non-GMO fields work if that's true?

Meanwhile, back in the USA

The rural area of Jackson County in Oregon has been a controversial hot spot of food war activity with local non-GMO farmers raising their fists to battle Syngenta's GM intrusions that have already contaminated some of their organic or standard commercial crops and seeds.

Syngenta is not allowed to seed their GM creations on open fields in Switzerland, where they have their headquarters, because GMO cultivation is banned there.

So they seek other regions where the land is fertile and the climate's right and rent plots to try out their GM crop seeds and see how well they resist herbicides like Roundup or whatever else they think should be tested agriculturally. Safety and contamination testing isn't part of their agenda.

Jackson County has been invaded by Syngenta, and their experimental GM crops have violated the four-mile buffer zone mandated by the USDA for beet and chard seed plots. Syngenta had fields within one mile of three organic farming operations, and further investigation has discovered that Syngenta had been in Jackson County operating undercover in unmarked rented fields since 2009. [2]

This area is big on cultivating organic beet and chard seeds and other organic crops. Sugar beets and chard are of the same species, Beta vulgaris. So Syngenta's GM beets threaten both non-GMO and organic beets and chard, and their seeds. Since agricultural authorities are not listening to these local farmers, they formed their own movement called "GMO Free Jackson County."

The created a petition to bring the whole matter of banning GMO seeds and cultivation to Jackson County. After obtaining over 6,700 signatures, Measure 15-119 to completely ban GMO seeds and farming will be on the ballot May 20, 2014. [3]

In Canada, non-GM alfalfa farmers are resisting Health Canada's green light to start planting GM alfalfa in eastern Canadian provinces, which are not as involved in exporting alfalfa and alfalfa seeds to nations that reject GMOs. Western and Central provinces need that market. So they are putting up the most resistance without much support.

Canada has already had major agricultural losses with non-GM flax and flax seed contamination from GM flax, as well as large scale issues with organic canola. In Washington State (USA) during the summer of 2013, an alfalfa farmer's hay was rejected from export because of GMO contamination. [4]

There is no possibility of non-GMO and GMO co-existence without contamination, despite GMO industry and corrupt agricultural agency reassurances. Pushing for consumer labeling implies that co-existence is okay. It is not! Label laws won't matter when all organic or non-GM crop foods are contaminated from GM seeds and crops.

There needs to be a cooperative effort between consumers and non-GMO farmers to resist biotech industry's takeover of the food supply by banning its cultivation in as many local areas as possible. Retail labeling will do nothing to stop these GMO monsters, especially here in a fast-food nation where most don't really care what's in their food.

Sources for this article include:

[1] http://esciencenews.com

[2] http://www.usobserver.com

[3] http://www.gmofreejacksoncounty.org

[4] http://www.thestar.com

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