When we first started researching about changing our livestock feed to nonGMO we came up with a lot of road blocks. Our inquiries with the feed company came to a dead end. The feed company nutritionists refused to return our calls. We couldn’t get ingredient lists from the feed company for the livestock feed that we were using. It wasn’t until we formulated our own feed mix and ordered it in bulk that the feed company actually called us back, to tell us we couldn’t do that.
Certified Organic and GMO-free
First they told us that feed was scientifically formulated and you couldn’t feed the same feed to all your livestock, no matter what the species. This isn’t so. Then they told us that the feed stocks were contaminated with GMO ingredients and it would be impossible, even with Certified Organic Feed to guarantee that it was GMO-free. What? This was a new angle. This is what we learned:
While Certified Organic farmers do not knowingly plant GMO crops, there can be cross-contamination through pollination in the field, through residue at the storage facility and through residue in the trucks that transport seed to the mills or to the farm. But if a farmer is certified organic, this contamination will never be tested for. The cost of finding out the truth can be very great indeed. So no tests are ever done. Certified organic crops are not guaranteed to be GMO-free.
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