The Dow Chemical Co., along with E.I. Du Pont de Nemours, e under fire from the Adrian Dominicans and the Sisters of Charity due to panies’ production of genetically modified organisms.

No, the sisters aren’t mounting the barricades outside the two corporations to protest what they might term “Frankenfoods,” but they have submitted proxy shareholder resolutions to demand, among other things, panies review and report by November 2013 on:

Adequacy of plans for removing GE [genetically engineered] seed from the ecosystem should circumstances require;Possible impact on all Dow seed product integrity;Effectiveness of established risk management processes for different environments and agricultural systems.

According to the As You Sow 2013 Proxy Preview, Harrington Investments – described in the preview as “religious investors” – are pressing Monsanto to provide even more detailed reports by July 2013.

AYS, for its part, is taking on Abbott Laboratories with a resolution seeking pany remove all GMOs from pany’s Similac Isomil infant formula “with an interim step of [requiring] labeling” that Isomil includes GMOs. The resolution reads, in part, that Abbott:

Adopt a policy of removing genetically engineered crops, organisms, or products thereof from all nutritional products sold or manufactured by pany, whenever feasible, until long-term safety testing has shown that they are not harmful to humans, animals, and the environment….

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be mentioned from the get-go that your writer resides in Midland, Michigan, right in the backyard of Dow Chemical headquarters, and his father was a union-shop steward and pipefitter there for decades. Dad also ran a small 80-acre farm with livestock, cash crops, a vegetable garden and fruit orchard when he wasn’t juggling home life alongside a grueling swing-shift schedule.

Having dispensed with the above disclosure, one wonders if AYS, Harrington, the Adrian Dominicans and the Sisters of Charity would do the same and divulge the real rationalization behind their proxy resolutions. More than likely, these resolutions reflect little of the doctrines of their respective faith and more to do with leftist ideology.

It should go without saying that feeding the world’s hungry is among the highest orders of human endeavor, closely followed by environmental stewardship. As noted by Acton’s Jordan Ballor: “Increasing crop yields through technological advances like genetic modification appear to be will within the boundaries of God’s ordained freedom for human stewardship.

“A chastened view of stewardship recognizes that we are only caretakers, called to an important task, but nevertheless dependent on the power of God to make the new heavens and the new earth. While growing more food for the earth’s inhabitants will not eradicate hunger this side of Christ’s return, we can understand our own efforts here as reflections, however blurry and indistinct, of the new creation.”