The Future of Food is the name of our most recently watched documentary that has us leaning even further toward neo-hippyism (I just love making up words).

Apparently for the last 30 years, a multi-billion dollar company named Monsanto has been genetically modifying crops, developing a insecticide-resistant plant that is genetically part corn, part pig-virus. (Sounds delicious, eh?) This is good in the sense that it has allowed many people groups from worrying about plagues of locusts or other pests destroying whole crops - and has supposedly brought some out of poverty situations.

But it has also come with a price. Just like any multi-billion dollar company, they are out for a buck, anyway they can find it. These new crops are called genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and are patented (humans are patenting life now?) by Monstanto and local farmers (in America and abroad) are forced to pay for a liscense to grow their product.

This is problematic, because Monsanto sends out inspectors into fields all over the world, checking for their patented crop. If they find any (even if the farmer is unaware that some Monsanto-seed has blown onto their field) the farmers are penalized with outrageous fees and usually puts the farmers out of business or in debt to Monsanto forever. In truth, no one is getting out of poverty; they are simply getting into debt with Monsanto. Think of this as your typical comic-book global domination strategy.

Not only this, but insects and crops are growing resistant to the insecticides sprayed on these crops, so farmers are now having to use chemicals which are very similar to Agent Orange (insert YIKES! here) just to keep the bugs and weeds away, making the food we eat very dangerous.

——-

All of this makes me think - there’s got to be something spiritual going on here. We may be avoiding famines, but are we really eating food? Allergies, infant deaths, obesity, emotional disorders, and crime are on the rise. Pick out which of these you think might just be related to GMO’s. I’d be inclined to say that they are at least indirectly related to ALL and more.

What sort of company patents life? Right now they have patents on corn and have homogenized the species. 150 years ago, America grew over 200 types of corn, now we have 4, and most are GMO. Where will patenting stop? The US constitution originally stated that no one could patent a living organism, on moral grounds. Now Monsanto is pushing to patent most everything you can buy in the produce section; can human life be far behind?

Call me crazy, but I believe in good fresh soil growing good fresh produce. It seems that we have tried to industrialize the earth, and it is refusing to cooperate. Carson’s Silent Spring still speaks to us, and Jesus’ words about the sower, his seed and the soil speaks too.

Last 5 posts by Mark

• God is Wholly - October 2nd, 2008
• The Great Moderation - September 30th, 2008

This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Environment, Social Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.