The Future of Food

At Pun Pun, we watched a video entitled "The Future of Food." While incredibly depressing (ignorance is bliss!), it had some extremely important information.

Here is an unorganized list of some of the important points.
-Technology (used against enemy) from WWI was tweeked after war initiating the use of Nitrogen fertilizers, and nerve gas (also used against enemy) from WWII and again from the Vietnam War (remember Agent Orange?) was modified for insecticides. How healthy are these REALLY for us, our children and our environment? Food for thought.

-The Fifties brought about the systemetizing of agriculture and monocropping to "increase efficiency"
-It has also led to increased food vulnerability to insects and disease (Potato Famine) and loss of dependence for farmers who used to do subsistance farming.
-Excuse has often been that this will "help with food shortages." Most countries facing large hunger problems used to be all subsistance farmers that had to switch to monocropping exports to pay back World Bank loans. Monocropping has stripped much of their former land making it no longer farmable.

-Gene Revolution
-Then came genetic changes to make crops "round up" ready. Round Up kills anything green (it is in similar vein of Agent Orange.)
-Terminator Technology
-Seeds have been genetically altered to, after one season, "commit suicide" so that the seeds cannot be reused and must be rebought (profit for seed industry, and profit is number one priority!) What happens when these seeds cross pollinate with other non-genetically modified seeds (as has already happened)? What happens when they reach the third world?

-Patents
-Article 1 of the Constitution says that you cannot patent life and was upheld until a Supreme Court case voted in favor of a man who had tried to patent an oil fighting microbe that he had "invented" through genetic engineering.
-This case opened the door for an entire industry of patenting plants, animals, seeds, etc.
--This video focuses on agriculture, but this is a huge problem elsewhere.
A company has patented a gene that causes breast cancer, haulting any labs from using the cell to search for cures without a huge fee. So this company's profit is above finding a cure for cancer.
-Companies began going into seed banks and patenting any seed that did not already have a patent, giving them the rights to that seed and royalty from its use.
-Seventy-five percent of the world's farmers save and use their own seed.
-Now seed industry monopoly Mon Santo (who appropriately owns Round Up) owns patents for most seeds. If you are a farmer who saves your own seeds and those seeds become cross pollinated with a Mon Santo seed, even unknowingly, you are at fault and they own all of your crop (based on numerous court decisions.) You either owe them for your earnings or you burn the seed that your family has cultivated to perfection for generations.
-As if this isn't all heartless enough, many of these large companies are pressuring to unify patent laws around the world so that they can take and patent seeds out of the other countries. Thus, the third world agriculturalists will be paying the first world seed owners who have never seen, grown, nor would even have the climate to grow those seed.

--80% of our beef products are processed by four companies, and the majority of agriculture is also monopolized by a very few.
--Today food in our supermarkets travels an average of 15,000 miles before it reaches our shopping carts! Most of our apples are from...can you guess where? Washington (which is already a huge trek to reach us in the East)? No. Answer is: China!!

All of this can be summarized as followed: buy locally and buy organically!

(I will one day return and better organize this...when I am not paying for a slow computer.)