A bowl of corn grown by our friend Mike over in the North Fork. His small truck farming operation is where we get most of our produce during the summer, and this is one of his latest ventures to try evening out his income stream a little. He raises chickens for meat too, which are wonderful.
He grows about two acres of this native corn annually now, organically of course, a process he began about four years ago with a single short row of corn from barely a handful of seed given to him by friends in Northern New Mexico. Those seeds were descended from crops planted by the inhabitants of the region for hundreds of years.
This is the way it looks, startlingly beautiful, with no two cobs exactly alike. Ever.
This stuff needs no pesticides, having fully evolved to the region, and of course he holds back some as seed for next year’s crop. Farmers who grow these heirloom varieties have to be a long way from any industrial farming operations supplied by the likes of Monsanto, otherwise they will be sued into penury for “polluting” their sterile, and patented, hybrids via cross-pollination.
In fact if you were to say the word “monsanto” out loud at Mike’s place, he’d probably shoot you. You’d deserve it. (He’s getting about 20% higher yields per acre with this corn than the industrial boys are getting with the hybrids, and they have to buy new seed every year and treat the depleted soils with chemicals to make it work at all.)
He stacks the corn, on the cob like you see it here, dries it on racks in his barn over the winter, then strips the kernels off the cob in the late spring and grinds it into cornmeal which he sells in 1 lb bags. It’s beginning to get a reputation, and deservedly so.
It’s wonderful stuff, makes delicious corn bread, amazing tortillas, and is a tasty ingredient in sourdough bread too, that I can promise you.
Gorgeous crop. These cobs looks like pure art. Beautiful!
My favorite cob is the second one from the right.
Neat picture. What in the environment causes the colors? Minerals? Sugar/starch balance? Sun? Time of harvest?
If that is true Dave then there is a serious problem. How can you sue someone for doing something legal on their own property? – unless you have entered into a prior agreement with them not to.
Expat, it’s the wind. Can’t you believe you’re not aware of what Monsanto does to farmers who end up with Monsanto’s precious seed through no fault of their own. On top of losing their organic certification, they get sued by Monsanto.
It’s Bill Monroe weekend. Are you tuned into The Point?
Sorry, strike that extraneous “you”; it blew in just like Monsanto’s seed.
OK – So Monsanto is suing farmers for using their seeds if the pollen from them blows on to their farm and cross pollenates with what the farmer is growing. Now I understand.
Have they been successful? If I was on a jury given that argument I would throw it out immediately.
Looks like organic farmers are counter suing Monsanto for similarly contaminating their crop.
Monsanto cornered the market in evil;
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/ Just one example.
I believe corn needs to be slaked with lime to be nutritious. Otherwise if you use it for your main carbo, you might end up with pellagra. Native Americans figured that out, but until whites got over sneering at anything different, they got ill from eating corn.
In Iraq, at the point of “Mission Accomplished”, Iraqis were then obliged to stop using their grain and adopt Monsantos’ product. Iraq was one big money laundering exercise.
They look cool. Foods like this are fun. But are they still not, through selective agricultural practices over 400 hundred years of European occupation, far removed from the corn grown by the Indians in the pre-Columbian era? I believe corn cobs when first observed by the Spanish were only a few inches long.
Mike – is that true about Iraq?
That was was nothing more than a new frontier for making alot of money for those in the Bush/Cheney circle.
On the public’s dime.
Beautiful, beautiful photograph, gunny. Yesterday we attended an event at an old historic house near here. They had a beautiful autumn display -indian corn, pumpkins, bales of hay. Trouble is the chystanthemums took a hit with the early snow last weekend.
Over here we can buy packets of ‘ornamental’ Indian Maize seed, which looks like your illustration. I think it’s the same thing. Never tried it though. I might give it a go in my garden next year.
I know over here it takes years of testing his land before a farmer can be registered chemical free and sell his products as organic.
Have the tables ever been turned on Monsantos where a farmer has sued them for contamination?
Except I don’t think they are.
Expat, a few years ago there were several reports on NPR about farmers being sued because Monsanto seed had blown onto their land and germinated, and they hadn’t paid Monsanto for the seed, which they didn’t want on their land in the first place. Did you go to Mike’s link? It has cost farmers a great deal of money to defend against these suits, even if they win.
I did. And to ones giving the other side of the same story.
Expat, I assume, since you don’t provide any information, that you are referring to cases where farmers with purchase agreements with Monsanto have violated those agreements by saving seed. That is a completely different issue.
If not, color me shocked, shocked that you would automatically side with Corporate Monsanto against the struggling working man. That’s never happened before.
Robbie – If Monsanto are going after farmers where seeds have blown or otherwise found their way naturally into their fields then Monsanto deserve to be laughed out of court. I certainly wouldn’t support them in that. Also it makes no business sense.
Expat, of course it deserves to be laughed out of court. Of course it makes no business sense. But unless NPR and the New York Times and other places that have reported on these cases are outright lying and creating fictitious farmer defendants, this is what Monsanto was doing. It was their policy, in order to “protect” “their property.” One hopes they have discovered it is laughable and makes no business sense and have now ceased and desisted that practice.
Why is it that because something is laughable and nonsensical, you prefer to believe it can’t happen, despite the evidence of it happening?
There is an awful lot of really stupid stuff that goes on in this world. You can’t make it not have happened just because it’s stupid.
Madame – At the risk of heresy here is a link to Monsanto’s position on the case Mike linked to.
True – but people also believe a lot of implausible stuff because it fits their beliefs and prejudices. I guess we all do it to some extent so it’s good to keep a skeptical eye.
Linkitis – it’s buried in there somewhere
Expat – I’ve been reading the Schmeiser court case (but not from your link), which was purely about patent infringement, wherein it does appear (and the court decided so) that Schmeiser took advantage of the accidental spread of the seed in his field to then intentionally plant it the following year. I found this bit particularly interesting:
It doesn’t mention those farmers who are unaware of contamination, or are aware and certainly don’t want to tolerate it.
The cases of intimidation, harassment, and threats to sue by Monsanto that were later reported were of farmers (and one, as I recall, was an organic farmer in Vermont) who were found by Monsanto investigators to have spots of Roundup Ready crops in their fields. I wonder if the Schmeiser “open question” emboldened Monsanto to go after anyone who accidentally had a few plants from wind-blown seeds just in case they might try to follow Schmeiser’s example.
Farmers would see strangers snooping on their land and then get threatening letters from Monsanto, and NPR reported on organic farmers whose entire crops were contaminated by Monsanto seed who were then threatened with lawsuits by Monsanto, when it was Monsanto’s product that had caused harm.
To be honest Robbie I’ve only started reading about the subject. If it is as reported and Monsanto are aggressively going after farmers whose fields have become contaminated through no fault of their own then that is bad. Very bad. Monsanto claim however that they only pursue those who flagrantly attempt to avoid their patent.
It’s part of a bigger debate on the place of GM crops, industrial agriculture and the patenting life forms all of which continue to challenge centuries if not millennia of custom and practice. If Monsanto behaved like Mother Teresa they still couldn’t win that debate in some quarters.
Well, of course not, if they behaved like Mother Teresa. If you’ve really read my book, then you know that Mother Teresa is not someone to emulate!
(As for GM foods, I’ll confess to being a heretic. I am at best ambiguous, and at worst don’t believe they are quite the evil they’re made out to be “in some quarters.” As long as they don’t mess with chocolate, the only food group that is vital to survival.)
I couldn’t think of a secular “saint”.
Is there even a word for it that doesn’t have religious connotations?
Is “Mary Poppins” an eponym? Practically perfect in every way…
“Saint,” as I’m sure you know, is not synonymous with “good.” That’s why it doesn’t matter if they saintify––or whatever the word is––Mother Teresa. It doesn’t mean she was a good person, just that she was holy and pious, and that she certainly was, to the detriment of millions.