Moreover, it is becoming increasingly common in organic agriculture to inject LIVE Bt bacteria INTO the plants to control the same pests. In sweet corn, this involves injecting Bt bacteria suspended in oil into the developing ear. No doubt, eaters of fresh sweet corn will be exposed to Bt.
Here is a PDF file at Johnny’s Selected Seeds that explains the practice.
Indeed, organic researchers are trying to put live Bt bacteria in more crops than just sweet corn. I attended an organic ag lunch discussion where a researcher was talking about injecting Bt bacteria into the stems of squash plants, to get them living inside the vascular tissue of the plants to protect them from insect pests. They complained that it is difficult to inject all the plants individually. So I suggested, “why not fill a shotgun shell with tiny beads coated with live bacteria and shoot all the plants at once?” They laughed, but loved the idea. I missed the opportunity for the perfect followup: “Wait, why not coat the beads with just the Bt gene so the plants produce it themselves?” (Because that would be genetic engineering!) It is simply amazing that two processes could be so alike, yet so mutually exclusive.
Two grain crops and pasture forage all from the same acre! Actually the potential is almost unlimited for GE technology IMHO. But as I have stated before, those kinds of GMOs have yet to be created. It's easy to understand why. A perennial that doesn't need agrochemicals means you get 1 sale of seed. Far different than 1 or more sales of seed each year combined with locking in a chemical herbicide sale on top of that. It's the business model that determines the need for the GMO, not the farmer's needs or the public's needs.
