Monsanto’s kitchen: All the advantages of genetic modification without the Frankenfood ick factor

Changing the agricultural game is what Monsanto does.

The company whose name is synonymous with Big Ag has revolutionized the way we grow food—for better or worse. Activists revile it for such mustache-twirling practices as suing farmers who regrow licensed seeds or filling the world with Roundup-resistant super­weeds. Then there’s Monsanto’s reputation—scorned by some, celebrated by others—as the foremost purveyor of genetically modified commodity crops like corn and soybeans with DNA edited in from elsewhere, designed to have qualities nature didn’t quite think of.

So it’s not particularly surprising that the company is introducing novel strains of familiar food crops, invented at Monsanto and endowed by their creators with powers and abilities far beyond what you usually see in the produce section.

Monsanto created several new  veggies using good old-fashioned crossbreeding, the same tech­nology that farmers have been using to optimize crops for millennia. That doesn’t mean they are low tech, exactly. Monsanto has accumulated scientific know-how to create vegetables that have all the advantages of genetically modified organisms without any of the Frankenfoods ick factor.

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Read the full, original article: What Happens When Monsanto, the Master of Genetic Modification, Decides to Take Nature’s Path?

Additional Resources:

• Frankenfoods? Debunking 13 Myths Behind GMOs, BuzzFeed
• View from an Iowa farm: In choosing seeds, ‘I’m no pawn of Monsanto’, Genetic Literacy Project
• Monsanto once supported GMO food labeling in Europe, Off the Grid News