31 May 2011GMO: Blessings and dangers of designing food
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
On a 7-acre farm tucked away in a Northern New Mexico village, organic farmer Loretta Sandoval kneels down every foot and digs a little hole with her work-callused hands. She drops the same number of chile seeds into each hole, then deftly slides soil on top.
"These are landrace chiles, grown here by the Herrera family for more than 160 years," said Sandoval, 51, a chemist, biologist and horticulturist. A landrace is a variety of a plant species developed largely by natural processes and adapted over time to a particular place.
Sandoval has been growing these particular landrace peppers and saving seeds for four years. Now she's conducting field studies under a grant from Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education.
She is among the certified organic farmers who see genetically modified seeds - ones created in a laboratory and patented by the producer - as a threat to her farm and the chiles she's studying.
http://greenbio.checkbiotech.org/news/gmo_blessings_and_dangers_designing_food
