Question
having read one of your previous answers, what exactly does this mean regarding use of corn gluten as a pre emergent?  Is it safe?  Does it all consist of genetically modified corn?  Does that put those insecticides in your soil?  What if you plant a garden?  How does it affect dogs who love to eat grass?  Weren't there problems with corn gluten in dog food?  What else is there that is important to know that I didn't know enough to ask?

Answer
Great points, Carol.  I figure that for every question I get, maybe 100 people in the world will wonder the same thing.  These are questions that should be addressed.  Let's get started.

First, let's get that Corn Gluten contamination problem out of the way.  I'd like to begin by stating that I would never buy food made in China.  Period.  They simply do not have what it takes to do even the half-$##ed job that we do in this country of protecting the American consumer.

But I don't see Corn Gluten in China as a problem for gardeners, organic or otherwise.  It is my understanding that the Corn Gluten there was melamine-contaminated -- a way of boosting the protein content on the label and making the stuff in the can appear healthier than it was (obviously this was a very unhealthy decision).  Putting melamine into organic weedkiller is a worthless expense; the protein content of the CGM is not relevant from what I can tell.  Do you agree?  No motive, no crime.

As for GMO, the issue of American gene-fiddling is very close to home.  Media here seriously minimize the risk and potential danger of genetically modified crops in this country.  You can bet that with 2 out of 3 foods being GM, it's a part of everyday life -- in the soy sauce you use for your Chinese food; the tofu you eat at the health food store; the popcorn you had at the movies.  Long term testing is NOT required in the United States for Genetically Modified food to be sold to the public.

Now we're looking at GM MEAT?

In January, in a parting gift from the Bush administration, outgoing FDA officials announced there would be NO labeling requirements for GM Meat or Fish.

Europeans hate the stuff.  They take every opportunity to keep it off the Continent.  Sure, technically, you are supposed to label some food that is genetically modified -- but who's enforcing this?  And those rules don't apply to everything, not even to all products intended for human consumption.  And not for compost or weed-killing or the seeds for your little vegetable patch every Summer.  All kinds of side effects go with this -- from vitamin deficiencies in children who eat GM vegetables to fertility problems in mice given GM food.

Americans grow and export more Corn than any other country, so I don't think we have to worry about melamine getting into the soil when we use Corn Meal Gluten.  The most common GMO foods are Corn, Soy, Canola and Cottonseed Oil.  But what about the Corn we grow in the back yard, fertilized with pollen from a nearby farm or yard where they ARE growing GM Corn?  That puts GM Corn on the plate of Americans who don't want it.  And no one knows.

Back to the Corn Meal Gluten.  Yes, we are not eating the Corn Meal Gluten.  But we can't know for certain whether GM Corn Meal Gluten is hazardous to our health.  The risk of re-arranging genes does not vanish once the cells are degraded -- because the cells may NOT degrade normally.  They're designed to behave completely differently from natural Corn.  You don't really know what's going on at the cellular level when you grow these, eat these, compost these, or feed them to the family cow.

What else is important?  I think this is pretty bad, don't you?  I'll bet there's more, but why bother?

Much is wrong with our gardens, our water, our soil, our seed.  But we're a country where money talks.  Want to fix it?  Show me the money.  Don't buy ANYTHING that's GM, non-Organic, or un-Green.  Very hard to live that.  Very expensive.  And very lonely.  Because the U.S. public simply does not want to hear about it.  The media won't tell you about it -- newspapers especially can't afford to give up the precious advertising dollars of Monsanto and Scotts.  Fox News will joke about it all.

Best opportunity of all is that little vegetable patch planned for the White House.  Grow it like they do at Buckingham Palace.  Do it organically -- up and down, seed to feed.  Did you hear the fuss at the agricultural chemicals lobbyist group, Mid America CropLife Association -- MACA -- over the proposal that this would be an ORGANIC garden, without pesticides?  Here's one of my favorite bloggers reporting on it at his 'Blazing Indiscretions website a few months ago:

'MACA, a group which represents and is comprised of former executives from Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and DuPont Crop Protection, sent the White House a letter (which can be viewed in its entirety here) expressing their disappointment that she had not 搑ecognize[d] the role conventional agriculture plays in the US.? But that抯 not all. The group went on to provide a dose of propaganda educational information, including little known fact that 搕echnology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.? Drawing a clear line between technology, undefined, and sustainability does not, in the strictest terms, suggest the group抯 total disapproval of organic farming methods...'

Worth reading:

blazingindiscretions.blogspot.com/2009/04/pesticide-lobby-bugged-by-white-house.html

I could go on.  But why bother.

Yes, you're absolutely right.  But the dangers of chemical pesticides and weedkillers are also very real.  Just choose your poison.

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER