2017-12-24 | permalink

Violating the Sacred: GMO Chestnuts for the Holidays?

VIOLATING THE SACRED: GMO CHESTNUTS FOR THE HOLIDAYS?
GENETIC ENGINEERING IS NO GIFT TO FUTURE GENERATIONS
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Deregulation of the GE American Chestnut
William Powell, lead American chestnut scientist at SUNY/ESF recently announced his team is almost ready to apply for Federal deregulation to allow them to distribute their GE trees, free of charge, in hopes they will be planted in great numbers. Some of these GE trees, modified with a wheat gene, will be planted near surviving disease resistant non-GMO American chestnut trees. The goal is for the GE tree to cross pollinate with the others and create the next generations of disease-resistant offspring.
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Powell and his team, along with researchers from North Carolina State University, have spent considerable time with stakeholders from the Oneida Nation in New York State. They, along with their brother nations of the Haudenasaunee, hold vast swaths of eastern woodland areas where a majority of the wheat-altered GE chestnuts could be planted. Support for this plan has been mixed. Traditional elders remind us that communication with these natural entities is a key element in medicinal efficacy. By changing its genetic makeup it is a totally different and foreign organism. Tom Goldtooth, an elder and executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network has said that GE trees have no soul. Others, however, are cautiously optimistic and are taking a wait and see approach.

• intercontinentalcry.org: Violating the Sacred: GMO Chestnuts for the Holidays?