GMO-Free LA

We're working to create a "GMO-Free Zone" in Los Angeles!
Why we're doing this:  el maíz
GMO pollution in heirloom blue corn.
Photo from Seed Savers Exchange.

A "GMO-Free Zone" is an area where genetically modified seeds and plants cannot be grown.  Pollen from genetically engineered plants (for example, corn and beets, which are common GE plants) can drift on the wind and cross with heirloom plants, even when growers fully intended to grow GE-Free.  Setting aside a "GMO-Free Zone" creates a space -- in this case, 502.7 square miles, the city footprint -- where heirloom seeds can be safely saved.

Creating a GMO-Free Zone is a parallel and necessary motion to the "Labeling" initiatives that other groups are pursuing.  Think about this:  In order to have clean food to label, you have to grow it somewhere.  You need GE-free seeds, and you have to get those seeds somewhere.  A GMO-free Zone creates a clean physical space where we can grow Safe Seeds and grow clean food without threat of pollution from genetic engineering.

Genetic engineering has not lived up to its promises; the purported benefits of this technology have been proven to be false advertising.  What is more, serious health concerns are now coming to light.  The biotech industry is going to great lengths to hide those concerns, and to snow concerns under with mudslinging campaigns, and massive outpourings of political financing. (For citations on these statements, see "Learn more" below).

Heirloom seed savers are now realizing that our cities may be some of the best spaces we have for saving and preserving the important diversity of food plant varieties that were entrusted to us by our ancestors.  Preserving this diversity is critical to humanity's survival in a climate-changed future.

We're starting with our city.  If you live in a different city, and wish to piggyback on our efforts, hop over to our "For Campaign Organizers" page and feel free to use the resources that we have collected.

Learn more:

Summary post:  "A Dearth of Life-Long Animal Studies," by Belinda Martineau.  Once a genetic scientist, now a skeptic of GE technology, Marteneau summarizes those few independent scientific studies that do exist, and what a proper and consciencious scientific response should have been.

Article: "The Big GMO Cover-Up," text by Jeffrey Smith, includes specifics about scientists who were hushed.

Post:  "Crop Engineering is a Mutagenic Process," Belinda Martineau.  A genetic scientists explains how the process of gene insertion itself, creates unpredictable and potentially dangerous results.

Post: "Saving Heirloom Corn from GMO contamination," by Arianne Pfoutz.  Very visual explanation of why physical space is necessary in order to preserve corn.

Report "Urban Agriculture in Los Angeles County: A Survey and Assessment," (pdf) from Antioch University, Spring 2012.

Study:  the first LONG-TERM study, 2012 French study by Gilles-Eric Séralini et al.  It links GMOs to tumors, cancer, shortened livespan.  YouTube by the research team (not for the faint-hearted), and text (pdf) of published study

Summary page: Union of Concerned Scientists page on Genetic Engineering includes topics such as "Promise vs. Performance," "Why Genetic Engineering is not solving agriculture's drought problem"

Massive funding by corporate agribusiness to buy elections in California (infographic) ; Oregon (infographic)

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