The GMO Fight

ETA:

It appears that we should add an update at the beginning of this post as some comments we receive ask about corn, soy & GMOs in our animal's diets. As stated in other areas of our website we currently do not feed them corn or soy and their feed is GMO free. This post was written in 2011 and since 2013 we have been able to find alternatives to use, including our sprouting greenhouses.

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Today Shayn made a trip to Spanish Fork to pick up some feed for our pigs and chickens. We purchase our grains from a local company, Leeland Milling, and have loved working with them. While there, Shayn spoke with one of the owners and they discussed GMOs in the feed.

I am assuming that most of our customers are aware of GMOs and know what they are. For those of you not familiar with GMOs, or genetially modified organisms, you can find an explanation here.

The feed we have purchased from Leeland Milling has always been free of GMOs. Unfortunately, that has now changed. Leeland is now unable to find corn or soybean that is not free of GMOs. They claim that 90% of those crops are now modified which makes is almost impossible to find "clean" corn or soybean. 

Monsanto also approached them about selling their new GMO alfalfa seed. (Thank you again, USDA.) Leeland refused. (Yea Leeland!)

Shayn talked to the owner about the possibility of growing our own corn. With enough land we could, but aside from locating the space, the problem arises in finding enough seed that isn't modified.

We welcome your suggestions as we try to find an alternate source of feed for our animals. Any tips on where to find non-GMO grains? What would you like us to do? Continue to raise chickens and pigs on the feed we've been buying? The majority of the grains included in the feed are locally grown.

Please educate your family and friends about this topic. It's scary how much control a handful of companies are allowed to have over all of our food. (And should I expect a lawsuit now that I've disagreed with Monsanto? ;)