On Monday, May 20th, we visited Corteva in Johnston, Iowa. Corteva, originally Pioneer, was founded by Henry Wallace who saw value in distributing hybrid corn out to farmers. Corteva is also a science-based company that uses two paths, traditional breeding and biotechnology to create GMOs.

There is no doubting that GMOs have revolutionized our food supply. We can now create crops that are resistant to disease, produce more per acre and exhibit the traits we want to see. However, they are hardly “pure”. As we talked with Kevin Diehl, the term “purity” to describe Corteva’s hybrid seed was used. Only a seed with high purity will produce well. Purity in genetically modified seeds decreases in each generation, therefore, saving seeds to plant from genetically modified plants will not yield the same quantity and quality as the original. I couldn’t help but marvel at the paradox. In my opinion, purity implies something that is unaltered and in its original form. However, GMOs do not fit this definition as they have other DNA spliced into their own.