Genetically Modified Crops Threaten Gluten Free Sorghum

Sorghum Threat

Sorghum is a staple food crop that feeds millions of people in Africa and Asia. It is a popular breakfast cereal grain in most countries, except the United States. Sorghum is a gluten free grain that allows people with celiac disease or a gluten intolerance to eat it without getting sick. Sorghum flour can be used to make foods like breads and cereals that are similar to products made with wheat and other grains that contain gluten, a protein that is causes an autoimmune response in people with a sensitivity. Sorghum is even used to make gluten free beer and other alcoholic beverages, making it extremely important to people who eat gluten free.
Despite the already widespread production of sorghum and its importance to many impoverished areas of the world as a source of energy, vitamins, minerals and protein, companies like Monsanto are genetically modifying sorghum to supposedly increase its nutritional value or make it more soil friendly. These companies are not taking into account how their actions could affect the millions of people who consume sorghum in its various forms. Genetically modified crops put natural crops at risk. Sorghum that is genetically modified poses a serious environmental danger in that it could cross breed with wild sorghum, potentially causing the extinction of natural sorghum that people have been growing successfully for 5,000 years.

What is Sorghum

Sorghum is a genus of many species of grass. Sorghum has a similar mineral composition to corn, but is higher in protein and has less fat. It contains approximately the same amounts of vitamins as white corn.

Sorghum is used to make grain, fodder, biofuel and alcoholic beverages. Grain sorghum is one of the most important cereal grains for human consumption. It feeds millions of people in Africa where is it said to have originated. It made its way to Europe and eventually to the United States as early as the 1850s.

The areas that rely on sorghum the most include Africa, South Asia and Central America. Although sorghum is no longer seen much in U.S. grocery stores, sorghum syrup is a common sweetener used in health foods.

Sorghum Foods

There are four main types of sorghum, including grain sorghum, sweet sorghum, grass sorghum and broom corn sorghum. Not all types are used for food, but the majority of sorghum is grown to feed people and animals.

Sorghum is used to make sorghum flour for baking goods and grain products. Grain sorghum goes by other names, including Egyptian corn, African millet, kafir and Black Indian millet. This type of sorghum is also used as forage for livestock.

Sweet sorghum is a type cultivated for the sweet juice in its stalks. Manufactures boil the juice to make sorghum syrup, which is a natural sweetener.

Grass sorghums, such as tunis grass, are grown for pasture. They are used mainly for hay and cattle feed. Broom corn sorghum is primarily used to make whisk brooms.

People use sorghum around the world to make flat breaks, pancakes, crackers, porridge and both alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, such as gluten free beer and wines. Traditional foods such as a flat bread called roti made in India and tortillas made in Central America are made with sorghum. In Ethiopia, people make a well-known fermented bread called injera out of sorghum.

Benefits and Uses

A huge benefit of sorghum is that it is naturally gluten free. Many people have celiac disease, a condition characterized by a gluten allergy that causes a range of symptoms from upset stomach to fatigue. Many more people have a gluten intolerance. The intestines of people with celiac disease become damaged when they eat gluten because their bodies think gluten is an invading substance and attack it with antibodies as they would attack bacteria. This leads to absorption difficulties that could cause malnutrition and other serious complications. The only treatment is a gluten free diet. Few grains in the U.S. are gluten free, but sorghum is one of them.

Sorghum is an excellent source of energy because it comprises around 70 percent starch, plus protein. The specific amino acids found in sorghum vary depending on the soil it grows in, but the grain typically contains high amounts of tryptophan and lysine. Amino acids are the substances that make up the structure of proteins.

Sorghum provides the body with important vitamins and minerals. It is a rich source of B-complex vitamins and may also contain vitamins D, E and K, as well as beta-carotene that the body converts into vitamin A. Milled sorghum flours contain iron, zinc, copper and phosphorus. The germ and seed-coat have the highest levels of these minerals.

Reasons For Genetically Modified Sorghum

Scientists claim various reasons for producing genetically modified crops, from creating resistance to pesticides to enhancing flavor. In terms of sorghum modification, the main reason seems to be making it more nutritious even though it already contains many nutrients. Scientists have also been motivated by a desire to protect other crops and to increase sorghum production.

In 2010, researchers identified a gene sequence in sorghum that causes the secretion of a compound called sorgoleone. This compound is an enzyme that acts as a natural way for sorghum to combat weeds. Farmers complain that some other crops have a difficult time growing in soil that once grew sorghum because of the weed-fighting compound. Researchers published findings in “The Plant Cell’ journal, claiming that they could suppress the production of sorgoleone by genetically modifying the plant to stop two gene sequences associated with sorgoleone secretion.

Scientists from Cornell University also found a reason to modify sorghum. They sought to create sorghum that is aluminum-tolerant. Some soil is acidic and contains enough aluminum to damage cells at the tip of sorghum roots. This damage interferes with absorption of important nutrients, particularly calcium. Aluminum toxicity affects up to 50 percent of the world’s arable land. Scientists suggest that by making sorghum resistant to aluminum they can increase the food supply and potentially revive barren land.

The most recent plot involving genetically modified sorghum is to increase its nutritive value and digestibility. People can only digest around 33 to 48 percent of sorghum when it is unprocessed. It also lacks many essential nutrients. Many people in impoverished regions rely on sorghum as a main food source, yet they may develop nutritional deficiencies because of the low levels of some essential nutrients in sorghum. These deficiencies are linked to blindness, stunted growth and poor immune system function, among other concerns, including the continual spreading of non-communicable diseases in Africa due to malnutrition.

In an effort to combat these deficiencies, scientists have modified sorghum to contain more nutrients and be easier to digest. However, there are already methods to increase digestibility, such as pressure-cooking, steaming, puffing and flaking sorghum. Also, many other foods contain the nutrients that impoverished people are missing. Helping poor and starving people to get a well-balanced diet would make them healthier than simply stuffing one grain with more vitamins and minerals. If there was a better distribution of wealth, more emphasis placed on growing sustainable crops and if more land that is currently used to raise livestock was instead used for growing grains there would be more than enough food for everyone. This food would be natural, and not a potential environmental danger or health risk.

Risks of Genetically Modified Crops Like Sorghum

Scientists do not know the ramifications of genetic modification. Genetic changes can affect wild sorghum. If wild sorghum cross breeds with sorghum modified to no longer secrete the weed-fighting enzyme, the wild sorghum could then be unable to protect itself from weeds. Scientists do not know every purpose for this enzyme. It may be necessary for the health of sorghum in unforeseen ways.

Scientists claim that by identifying the gene sequence that causes the secretion of the weed-fighting enzyme, they can create sorghum with greater weed fighting power; yet sorghum has evolved naturally over 5,000 years, creating the correct balance for secreting the weed-fighting enzyme without going overboard. Increasing production of the enzyme may damage the sorghum itself or render the soil hostile even to sorghum crops. Scientists say that they have found similar sequences in rice and hope to make more genetically modified crops with higher weed repelling effects despite having no idea what that will do to the environment.

Genetically modified variations never stay in one place. They threaten natural and wild species of the same crop. Africa is the main target of the sorghum genetically modified to include more nutrients. Companies were originally prohibited from planting and experimenting with these crops in Africa, but were then given permission.

Haidee Swanby of the African Center for Biosafety said, “Sorghum is a key staple crop for over 500 million people on the continent. The risks posed by GM sorghum to wild and weedy relatives cannot be tolerated at all and the granting of this permit is tantamount to a license to taint Africa’s heritage.” The organization calls the plan to introduce genetically modified crops to Africa under the guise of better nutrition a trojan horse.

Other organizations like GRAIN also oppose the genetically modified crops because of the threat to heritage sorghum and wild species that are related to sorghum.

Fear of cross-pollination contaminating natural sorghum is completely justified. The first genetically modified plant known to have traveled into the wild was a genetically modified creeping bentgrass, which was discovered miles away from test beds in Oregon. In 2006, unapproved genetically modified corn was discovered mixed in with natural rice that was being sold for human consumption.

There are many instances of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) showing up where they are not supposed to, and those are just the occasions when the GMOs were detected and reported. Farmers have grown sorghum for thousands of years without help from scientists and can continue to do so if sorghum is not threatened by GMOs.

Even Monsanto is putting out their own Video seen below. Lets hope they can keep their pesticides and GMO out of this one, very doubtful but wishful.

Source: Genetically Modified Crops Threaten Gluten Free Sorghum – Urban Organic News|Urban Organic News.