Wikileaks: GMO conspiracy reaches highest levels of US Government

typically associated with information leaks related to U.S. war strategy, and foreign policy, which has led some people to conclude that leaked information of this nature is a possible threat to national security.
But in this case, Wikileaks cables leaked information regarding global food policy as it relates to U.S. officials — in the highest levels of government — that involves a conspiracy with Monsanto to force the global sale and use of genetically-modified foods.
In 2007, then-U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton conspired to retaliate against European countries for their anti-biotech policies. U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration formulated battle plans to extract revenge against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds.
In the leaked cable, Stapleton writes: “Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission…Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice.”
Ambassador Stapleton goes on to write: “Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory,” he wrote.
Jeffrey Smith, Author of Seeds of Deception
In an interview with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology notes how he’s been saying for years that the United States government is joined at the hip with Monsanto, pushing GMOs as part of Monsanto’s agenda on the rest of the world.
“This lays bare,” notes Smith, “the mechanics of that effort. We have Craig Stapleton, the former ambassador to France, specifically asking the U.S. government to retaliate and cause some harm throughout the European Union. And then, two years later, in 2009, we have a cable from the ambassador to Spain from the United States asking for intervention there, asking the government to help formulate a biotech strategy and support the government—members of the government in Spain that want to promote GMOs, as well. And here, they specifically indicate that they sat with the director of Monsanto for the region and got briefed by him about the politics of the region and created strategies with him to promote the GMO agenda.”
Although GM corn was the first seed that was approved for widespread planting in the European Union — specifically (GM) maize (NK 603, MON 810, MON 863) — individual countries stepped forward to ban these seeds. And so, in 2007, Smith claims Monsanto and the boitech industry, with the help of the U.S. Government, formulated a strategy to force these countries to accept the first of the genetically modified seeds.
Since then, there’s been more evidence — which we reported on in January of 2010 — showing that this genetically modified corn damages mice and rats, and can cause reductions of fertility, smaller litter sizes, smaller offspring, and immune responses. As Smith observes, these concerns have been ignored by both the European Food Safety Authority and the United States FDA.

Study Concludes Three Monsanto GM Corn Varieties Toxic to Mammals
The Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering participated in a study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences which demonstrates the toxicity in mammals of three genetically modified corn varieties from Monsanto.
Researchers concluded that these three GMOs (GM maize NK 603, MON 810, and MON 863) are not safe enough to be distributed commercially because the kidneys and liver in rats displayed toxicity levels when exposed to all three GM corn varieties. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system.
Smith adds that with MON 810 corn, “they found that there was a gene that is normally silent that is switched on and now creates an allergen in corn. They found 43 different genes that were significantly up-regulated or down-regulated, meaning that there’s massive changes in these crops and they’re not being evaluated by the U.S.—by the FDA or any other regulatory authority around the world before being put onto the market.”
The Telegraph reports that in other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.

US Embassy Lobbied Pope to Approve GM Crops
John Vidal, environment editor for the Telegraph writes: Cables from the US embassy in the Vatican show that the US believes the pope is broadly supportive of the crops after sustained lobbying of senior Holy See advisers…The US state department special adviser on biotechnology as well as government biotech advisers based in Kenya lobbied Vatican insiders to persuade the pope to declare his backing.
“A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath – to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach,” says the cable.
Cables Show US Diplomats Working Directly for Monsanto
Wikileaks cable reads: “In response to recent urgent requests by (Spanish rural affairs ministry) state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain’s science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention….”
As Smith points out, they’ve been — meaning US GOVT officials, Monsanto, and the biotech industry — working around the world to try and influence policy on every single continent.
Spain and the US have worked closely together to persuade the EU not to strengthen biotechnology laws. In one cable, the embassy in Madrid writes:
“Spain was the first EU country to grow genetically modified (GM) corn and now cultivates nearly 75 percent of the EU’s MON810 corn crop – nearly 200,000 acres. During a May 13 meeting with Monsanto’s Director for Biotechnology for Spain and Portugal, Embassy officials were told that Spain is increasingly becoming a target of anti-biotechnology forces within Europe and that Spain’s cultivation of MON810 corn was under serious threat. The sentiment echoed by supporters of agricultural biotechnology regarding a ban on MON810 cultivation in Spain is that “If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow.”
As The Telegraph notes, the cables show that not only did the Spanish government ask the US to keep pressure on Brussels but that the US knew in advance how Spain would vote, even before the Spanish biotech commission had reported.

Blackwater’s Black Ops For Monsanto
In a must read article written by Jeremy Scahill for The Nation, Scahill claims Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the “intel arm” of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.
Scahill is an American investigative journalist and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Scahill says the coordinator of Blackwater’s covert CIA business, former CIA paramilitary officer Enrique “Ric” Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their “deniability” as a “big plus” for potential Blackwater customers, according to company documents.
Our U.S. Food Safety Czar is a Former Monsanto Executive
If after reading these incriminating Wikileaks cables conforming that US government officials at the highest levels are working directly with Monsanto, and the biotech industry to control the world’s food supply with genetically modified foods, ask yourself why our current Food Safety Czar, Michael Taylor, is the former Monsanto executive who crafted the FDA’s GMO friendly policy while serving as the FDA’s Deputy commissioner for policy.
Taylor also wrote the FDA’s guidelines on recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), banning dairies from labeling their milk “rBGH Free“.
Additionally, as Jeremy Smith points out in his interview with Amy Goodman, the person who was in charge of FDA policy in 1992, Monsanto’s former attorney, Michael Taylor, allowed GMOs on the market without any safety studies and without labeling, and the policy claimed that the agency was not aware of any information showing that GMOs were significantly different.
Seven years later, says Smith, because of a lawsuit, 44,000 secret internal FDA memos revealed that that policy was a lie. “Not only were the scientists at the FDA aware that GMOs were different, they had warned repeatedly that they might create allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. But they were ignored, and their warnings were even denied, and the policy went forth allowing the deployment GMOs into the food supply with virtually no safety studies.”

Genetically Manipulated Crops: The GMO Catastrophe in the USA. A Lesson for the World

by F. William Engdahl

Recently the unelected potentates of the EU Commission in Brussels have sought to override what has repeatedly been shown to be the overwhelming opposition of the European Union population to the spread of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in EU agriculture. EU Commission President now has a Maltese accountant as health and enviromnent Commissioner to rubber stamp the adoption of GMO. The former EU Environment Commissioner from Greece was a ferocious GMO opponent. As well, the Chinese government has indicated it may approve a variety of GMO rice. Before things get too far along, they would do well to take a closer look at the world GMO test lab, the USA. There GMO crops are anything but beneficial. Just the opposite.

What is carefully kept out of the Monsanto and other agribusiness propaganda in promoting genetically manipulated crops as an alternative to conventional is the fact that in the entire world until the present, all GMO crops have been manipulated and patented for only two things—to be resistant or “tolerant” to the patented highly toxic herbicide glyphosate chemicals that Monsanto and the others force farmers to buy as condition for buying their patented GMO seeds. The second trait is GMO seeds that have been engineered genetically to resist specific insects. Contrary to public relations myths promoted by the agribusiness giants in their own self-interest, there exists not oné single GMO seed that provides a greater harvest yield than conventional, nor one that requires less toxic chemical herbicides. That is for the simple reason there is no profit to be made in such. 

Giant super-weeds plague

As prominent GMO opponent and biologist, Dr Mae-Wan Ho of the  Institute of Science in  London has noted, companies such as Monsanto build into their seeds herbicide-tolerance (HT) due to glyphosate-insensitive form of the gene coding for the enzyme targeted by the herbicide. The enzyme is derived from soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Insect-resistance is due to one or more toxin genes derived from the soil bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis). The United States began large scale commercial planting of GMO plants, mainly soybeans and corn and cotton around 1997. By now, GM crops have taken over between 85 percent to 91 percent of the areas planted with the three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton in the US, on nearly 171 million acres.

The ecological time-bomb that came with the GMO according to Ho, is about to explode. Over several years of constant application of patented glyphosate herbicides such as Monsanto’s famous and highly Roundup, new herbicide-resistant “super-weeds” have evolved, nature’s response to man-made attempts to violate it. The super-weeds require significantly more not less herbicide to control.

ABC Television, a major US national network, made a recent documentary about the super-weeds under the rubric, “super weeds that can’t be killed.”[1]

They interviewed farmers and scientists across Arkansas who described fields overrun with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate as farmers are able to spray. They interviewed one farmer who spent almost €400000 in only three months in a failed attempt to kill the new super-weeds.

The new super-weeds are so robust that harvester combines are unable to harvest the fields and hand tools break trying to cut them down. At least 400000 hectares of soybean and cotton in Arkansas alone have become invested with this new mutant biological plague. Detailed data on other agricultural regions is not available but believed similar. The pro-GMO and pro-agribusiness US Department of Agriculture has been reported lying about the true state of US crop harvest partly to hide the grim reality and to prevent an explosive revolt against GMO in the world’s largest GMO market.

Superweed

One variety of super-weed, palmer pigweed can grow up to 2.4 meters high, withstands severe heat and prolonged droughts, and produces thousands of seeds with a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it takes over an entire field in a year. Some farmers have been forced to abandon their land. To date palmer pigweed infestation in GMO crop regions has been identified in addition to Arkansas, also in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Mexico, Mississippi and most recently, Alabama and Missouri.

Weed scientists at the University of Georgia estimate that just two palmer pigweed plants in every 6 meter length of cotton row can reduce yield by at least 23 percent. A single weed plant can produce 450 000 seeds. [2]

Roundup toxic danger being covered-up

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the US and the world at large. Patented and sold by Monsanto since the 1970s under the trade name Roundup, it is a mandatory component of buying GMO seeds from Monsanto. Just go to your local garden store and ask for it and read the label carefully.  

As I detail in my book, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, GMO crops and patented seeds were developed in the 1970’s with significant financial support from the pro-eugenics Rockefeller Foundation, by what were essentially chemical companies—Monsanto Chemicals, DuPont and Dow Chemicals. All three were involved in the scandal of the highly toxic Agent Orange used in Vietnam, as well as Dioxin in the 1970’s, and lied to cover up the true damage to its own employees as well as to civilian and military populations exposed.

Their patented GMO seeds were seen as a clever way to force increased purchase of their agricultural chemicals such as Roundup. Farmers must sign a legal contract with Monsanto in which it stipulates that only Monsanto Roundup pesticide may be used. Farmers are thus trapped both in buying new seeds from Monsanto each harvest and buying the toxic glyphosate.

France’s University of Caen, in a team led by molecular biologist, Gilles-Eric Seralini, did a study that showed Roundup contained one specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA. Seralini’s team demonstrated that POEA in Roundup was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than even the glyphosate itself. Monsanto refuses to release details of the contents of its Roundup other than glyphosate, calling it “proprietary.” [3]

The Seralini study found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns! The French team studied multiple concentrations of Roundup, from the typical agricultural or lawn dose down to concentrations 100,000 times more dilute than the products sold on shelves. The researchers saw cell damage at all concentrations.

Glyphosate and Roundup are advertised as “less toxic to us than table salt” in a pamphlet from the Biotechnology Institute promoting GMO crops as ‘Weed Warrior.’ Thirteen years of GMO crops in the USA has increased overall pesticide use by 318 million pounds, not decreased as promised by the Four Horsemen of the GMO Apocalypse. The extra disease burden on the nation from that alone is considerable.

Nonetheless after introduction of Monsanto GMO seeds commercially in the USA, use of glyphosate has risen more than 1500% between 1994 and 2005. In the USA some 100 million pounds of glyphosate are used on lawns and farms every year, and over the last 13 years, it has been applied to more than a billion acres. When questioned, Monsanto’s technical development manager, Rick Cole, reportedly said the problems were “manageable.” He advised farmers to alternate crops and use different makes of herbicides produced by Monsanto. Monsanto is encouraging farmers to mix glyphosate with its older herbicides such as 2,4-D, banned in Sweden, Denmark and Norway for links to cancer and reproductive and neurological damage. 2,4-D is a component of Agent Orange, produced by Monsanto for use in Vietnam in the 1960s.

US Farmers turn to organics

Farmers across the United States are reported to be going back to conventional non-GMO crops instead. According to a new report from the US Department of Agriculture, retail sales of organic food went up to $21.1 billion in 2008 from $3.6 billion in 1997.[4] The market is so active that organic farms have struggled at times to produce sufficient supply to keep up with the rapid growth in consumer demand, leading to periodic shortages of organic products.

The new UK Conservative-Liberal coalition government is strongly backing lifting a de facto ban on GMO in that country. UK Chief Scientific Adviser, Prof. John Beddington, recently wrote an article in which he misleadingly claimed “The next decade will see the development of combinations of desirable traits and the introduction of new traits such as drought tolerance. By mid-century much more radical options involving highly polygenic traits may be feasible.” He went on to promise “cloned animals with engineered innate immunity to diseases” and more. I think we can pass that one up, thank you.

A recent study by Iowa State University and the US Department of Agriculture assessing the performance of farms during the three-year transition it takes to switch from conventional to certified organic production showed notable advantages of organic farming over GMO or even conventional non-GMO crops. In an experiment lasting four years—three years transition and first year organic—the study showed that although yields dropped initially, they equalized in the third year, and by the fourth year, the organic yields were ahead of the conventional for both soybean and corn.

As well, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) has recently been published, the result of three-year deliberation by 400 participating scientists and non-government representatives from 110 countries around the world. It came to the conclusion that small scale organic agriculture is the way ahead for coping with hunger, social inequities and environmental disasters. [5] As Dr Ho argues, a fundamental shift in farming practice is needed urgently, before the agricultural catastrophe spreads further across Germany and the EU to the rest of the world.[6]

Endnotes:

[1] Super weed can’t be killed, abc news, 6 October 2009. See also,Jeff Hampton,  N.C. farmers battle herbicide-resistant weeds, The Virginian-Pilot, 19 July 2009, http://hamptonroads.com/2009/07/nc-farmers-battle-herbicideresistant-weeds

[2] Clea Caulcutt, ‘Superweed’ explosion threatens Monsanto heartlands, Clea Caulcutt, 19 April 2009, http://www.france24.com/en/20090418-superweed-explosion-threatens-monsanto-heartlands-genetically-modified-US-crops

[3] N. Benachour and G-E. Seralini, Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells, Chem. Res. Toxicol., Article DOI: 10.1021/tx800218n

Publication Date (Web): December 23, 2008.

[4] Carolyn Dimitri and Lydia Oberholtzer, Marketing U.S. organic foods: recent trends from farms to consumers, USDA Economic Research Service, September 2009, http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB58/

[5] International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, IAASTD, 2008, http://www.agassessment.org/index.cfm?Page=Press_Materials&ItemID=11

[6] Ho MW.UK Food Standards Agency study proves organic food is better. Science in Society 44, 32-33, 2009.

F. William Engdahl  is the author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation 

Russia says genetically modified foods are harmful

Vegetables. © Flickr.com/marcusjroberts/CC-BY-NC

Russia has started the annual Days of Defence against Environmental Hazards from the 15th of April to the 5th of June with the announcement of sensational results of an independent work of research. Scientists have proved that Genetically Modified Organisms are harmful for mammals. The researchers discovered that animals that eat GM foodstuffs lose their ability to reproduce. Campbell hamsters that have a fast reproduction rate were fed for two years with ordinary soya beans, which are widely used in agriculture and those contain different percentages of GM organisms. Another group of hamsters, the control group, was fed with pure soya, which was found with great difficulty in Serbia because 95 percent of soya in the world is transgenic. 
Concerning the experiment carried out jointly by the National Association for Gene Security and the Institute of Ecological and Evolutional Problems, Dr. Alexei Surov has this to say. “We selected several groups of hamsters, kept them in pairs in cells and gave them ordinary food as always,” says Alexei Surov. “We did not add anything for one group but the other was fed with soya that contained no GM components, while the third group with some content of Genetically Modified Organisms and the fourth one with increased amount of GMO. We monitored their behavior and how they gain weight and when they give birth to their cubs. Originally, everything went smoothly. However, we noticed quite a serious effect when we selected new pairs from their cubs and continued to feed them as before. These pairs’ growth rate was slower and reached their sexual maturity slowly. When we got some of their cubs we formed the new pairs of the third generation. We failed to get cubs from these pairs, which were fed with GM foodstuffs. It was proved that these pairs lost their ability to give birth to their cubs,” Dr. Alexei Surov said. 
Another surprise was discovered by scientists in hamsters of the third generation. Hair grew in the mouth of the animals that took part in the experiment. It’s unclear why this happened. The researchers cannot understand why a programme of destruction is launched when animals take GMO foodstuffs. They say that this can be neutralized only by stopping to eat these foods. Consequently, scientists suggest imposing a ban on the use of GM foods until they are tested for their bio-security. The results of Russian scientists coincide with those of their colleagues from France and Austria. For one, when scientist proved that GM maize was harmful for mammals, France banned immediately its production and sale. The scientists who carried out the experiment say that it’s too early to make far-reaching conclusions about the health hazards of the GMO. They insist that there is a need to carry out comprehensive research. They suggest implementing the project, “Safety Gene Technology” at the innovation centre, “Skolkovo” which is being set up near Moscow. 
Source: Maria Domnitskaya 
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/04/16/6524765.html 

Monsanto's GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals

In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto's GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.
According to the study, which was summarized by Rady Ananda at Food Freedom, "Three varieties of Monsanto's GM corn - Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 - were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities."
Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however.
In the conclusion of the IJBS study, researchers wrote:

"Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity....These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown."

Monsanto has immediately responded to the study, stating that the research is "based on faulty analytical methods and reasoning and do not call into question the safety findings for these products."
The IJBS study's author Gilles-Eric Séralini responded to the Monsanto statement on the blog, Food Freedom, "Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data."

Sauce: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/monsantos-gmo-corn-linked_n_420365.html

Ginger Anybody?

Weird Fruits

IMAGE: Mutatoes by Uli Westphal.
Since 2006, artist Uli Westphal has been collecting, documenting, and eating Berlin’s Mutatoes—the non-standard fruits, roots, and vegetables that can be found at the city’s farmers’ markets. His photographs form an archive of “these last survivors of agricultural diversity,” revealing an incredible variety of colours, curves, and contours.

IMAGE: Mutatoes by Uli Westphal.
For Westphal, these Mutatoes bear witness to “the suppression of mutation and polymorphism in our industrial food system.”

The complete absence of botanical anomalies in our supermarkets has caused us to regard the consistency of produce presented there as natural. Produce has become a highly designed, monotonous product. We have forgotten, and in many cases never experienced, the way fruits, roots, and vegetables can actually look (and taste).

I first came across Westphal’s photographs thanks to a reader comment on “The Fruit Standard,” a post I wrote on the one-year anniversary of the partial repeal of the European Union’s fruit and vegetable standards.
The European Economic Community (the EU’s precursor) was set up in 1958 to create a common market, and one of the first issues to be addressed was the need for shared produce grading standards, to facilitate cross-border trade and guarantee consumer quality. Twenty-six fruits and vegetables were subject to “uniform standardisation parameters,” which prescribed that, to be recognised as such, “cucumbers must not bend at a gradient of more than 1/10, an onion could ‘only be sold if two thirds is covered in skin,’ and the white part of the leek had to ‘represent at least one-third of the total length or half the sheathed part.’”


IMAGE: Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88, laying down quality standards for cucumbers, from Journeys, ed. Giovanna Borasi.
As I wrote in 2009, the rules, however well-intentioned, were a disaster in practice, resulting in one-fifth of fruit and vegetables harvested in the EU being discarded and destroyed, unable even to be given away. Nonetheless, national marketing standards provide a charming illustration of the methodological assumptions and absurdities of classification.
In their own way, the EU standards are a masterpiece of natural history writing: an extended initiative by Europe’s finest legal minds to define, through its range of permissible deviation, the ur-cucumber. What better way to know a strawberry than by the moments at which it becomes not a strawberry?

IMAGE: Mutatoes by Uli Westphal.
The other interesting thing, of course, is that EU bureaucrats and USDA officials alike measure whether cucumbers are cucumbers based purely on visual qualities — appearance and form — rather than taste.
This raises a larger question about how we perceive food. Although human taste and smell evolved to evaluate our edible environment, our sensory cognition and attendant quantification and classification systems are largely dominated by sight.
In fact, various studies have demonstrated the ways in which taste perception can be distorted by visual cues, with professional wine critics led astray by drops of Mega Purple in a Chardonnay and diners sickened when their steak was revealed to be dyed blue. No matter how deformed Westphal’s tomatoes are, cut up in a salad, they would undoubtedly taste as much (or more) like a tomato as their spherical supermarket peers. But, if served whole, would their irregular shapes, colours, and textures affect our perception of their taste?

IMAGE: Mutatoes by Uli Westphal.
Meanwhile, Westphal’s use of a visual medium, photography, and an identical, clinical white backdrop to present each strawberry or potato as an equal and individual example of its genre forces us to reconsider the very idea of evaluating fruits and vegetables. How should we define and grade food? And what do the standards we consciously or unconsciously impose on produce tell us about ourselves, particularly given the fact that today’s fruit and vegetables are a human-designed artifact, the result of centuries of domestication and breeding.
Today, only those varieties capable of providing high yields, consistent symmetry, and the resilience to emerge relatively unscathed after traveling through global supply chains are grown commercially. Even Westphal’s most deviant cucumbers are all from the same eight modern varieties bred to reduce bitterness and increase size:

At a certain point I started to realize that it is not only the natural occurrence of morphological irregularities in the growth of single plant varieties that is being suppressed and filtered out by the industrial food system. In fact, only a tiny fraction of high yielding, good looking varieties are being grown and distributed today, even though there are literally thousands of varieties of any domesticated fruit or vegetable.
Since the green revolution agriculture has experienced a mass extinction. A vast majority of plant varieties that humans have bred over the past 10,000 years has vanished within the last 50 years. The ever increasing amount of processed foods and food imports also contributed to the illusion that the diversity of our food supply was increasing, not declining.

The qualities by which we assess our fruits and vegetables, whether encoded in EU standards or simply in the purchasing choices of supermarkets, thus serve as an implicit guide to the landscape of industrial food, with its agricultural intensification, monocultural cultivation, and extended supply chains.
But the perfect, regular fruit and vegetables in our supermarkets also tell us as much about our shared aesthetic ideals as, for example, an art museum or beauty pageant. In his book, Mutants, Armand Marie Leroi writes about the diverse spectrum of human form (we are each, on average, born with three hundred genetic “mutations”) and our species preference for symmetry, and concludes that, perhaps, “the true meaning of beauty is the relative absence of genetic error.”

IMAGE: Mutatoes by Uli Westphal.
That may be, but I can’t help but hope that Westphal’s photos will help us extend our appreciation for the formal inventiveness of fallible plant life.
[NOTE:Thanks to Ramona Ranchera for the introduction to Uli Westphal's work, and PSFK for the reminder. For more on similar subjects, check out these earlier posts: "The Fruit Standard" and "The Opposite of a Vegetable".]

Source : http://www.ediblegeography.com/the-mutato-archive/