Why, one often asks, do I focus so intently on the subject of food? The question dumbfounds me, no matter how often I encounter it. Every day you wake up and eat. It defines the chemical balance in your body. It is the main source of fuel by which the very cellular structure of your body is built, as individual cells die, over time, and are hastily reproduced. The question is akin to asking something as inane as "Why do you care about what you breathe?" The way most Americans eat today is to that first question what breathing in the fumes from an exhaust pipe is to the second.
Though I often discuss the nature of cooked food, I need not even go to that extreme to expose the horror show that modern men, and their "civilization," have wrought upon mankind. Begin here:
This trailer, pieced together from the longer expose, is enough to at least make one consider the past and future of what is on mankind's plate. The "green revolution" was indeed an overthrow of the old agricultural order, essentially "solving" (we will return to this semantic ludicrousness later) the problem that humanity has always had with agriculture: famine. The video explains that the reduction of crop biodiversity that was exacerbated by the introduction of petrol-chemicals into the fertilization and pesticide-use system was the beginning of the problem. What the trailer neglects mentioning is what conditions were like prior to this. For thousands of years, man grew crops in such a manner that provided said foliage with "natural" insecticide. That is to say that certain crops were grown side by side that had properties beneficial to one another. For example, one crop might attract a type of beetle that liked to eat its leaves, but another, grown next to it, attracted a different insect that competed with the beetle for one or more shared resources. In this way, the two species would keep each other in check and prevent plagues. Moreover, an expansive biodiversity in crop types, such as the hundreds of varieties of apples mentioned in the film, ensured that if a disease wiped out one apple species (oh, please not the Gala - if you haven't had one, you haven't really eaten an apple), there would still be many other types to survive it. Apples wouldn't go extinct because, like the many black/white/hispanic/asian/etc. human beings, there are too many varieties, too many biological niches, for one disease to blanket. When modern farming techniques and chemicals came along, man suddenly found that he could grow much larger plots of crop and take care of the maintenance himself rather that rely on a more diverse, more difficult to harvest field that, frankly, was more prone to some plant causalities than the chemically doused one was. Wanting all for himself, man would not give even the slightest quarter to nature, forcing such nefarious and threatening food competitors as caterpillars and snails out of the biological cycle, in his ignorance never once realizing the symbiotic design of all things.
Billions of dollars in space program spending later, popular images such as this began to help humanity move beyond its own ignorance and start to see the many things as what they really are: one thing.
"We went to explore the Moon, and in fact discovered the Earth." -Eugene Cernan
However, this movement away from natural manners of farming was only the tip of the iceberg. As the clip further explains, the introduction of genetically modified foods (GMO's) has brought a whole new level of threat to humanity. Beyond merely reducing biodiversity to, say, 20 types of apple, GMO's offer us a bright future of ONE. As companies such as Monsanto collect food patents, a culture is created in which a symbolic man-with-a-gun tells farmers what they have a right to grow, and what they do not. Additionally, the crops that have been created through millions of years of evolution and thousands of years of human selection (itself a questionable process) are now replaced with laboratory-made versions, such as "BT corn," made by Monsanto, that contains, within the corn itself, the insecticide that kills parasites. As history has long shown, governments and corporations, these "leadership" bodies of mankind, have no idea what the long term effects of poisons are. DDT was once considered a boon, though it is now known to be cancer causing. The same is true for "Agent Orange" (un-coincidentally, produced by Monsanto), both in its promotion as safe for humans and the eventual discovery that it was cancer causing. The difference now is that poison is not sprayed on, its GROWN on.
As damning as things already are, the issue does not rest merely with health. There is more at stake. As the video also points out, when you buy a GM seed from Monsanto, you must also buy the proper herbicide to apply to it. When the season is over, you cannot plant from your own seeds. Instead, you must buy, again, from Monsanto, in order to have another harvest. And you must buy more herbicide, as well. What choice does one have when the only type of seed available for a crop is the one that Monsanto sells? If all of one crop variety is patented, then only by buying from the patenter can one grow that crop. If that crop, now genetically modified, requires specific herbicides that only the same company sells, the reliance on that company increases and their pocketbooks grow in relation to the speed at which those of the farmers', and the produce buyers', empty.
This is how slaves are made. With society beholden to the dollar, no chains nor whips are necessary. He who controls the currency is the master. This sort of monopolization is just a hint of what is to come, as has already been proven in countless, continually consolidating industries across the globe. It is called "globalization," and you are led to adore it like it is the golden calf, lost in the orgiastic haze of inexpensive goods that flood its benefactors. However, as the video recalls the lament of the farmer (who, by using pesticides became reliant on them), we must ask ourselves if a similar fate is not written for us. Once the global noose is tightened enough, will it not also squeeze upon our own necks?
The greatest tragedy of all is the ignorance with which even the wise tackle topics such as these. As important as the commentary made in this video is, it still falls short of identifying the problem at hand. Despite its horrific nature, the industrialization and genetic manipulation of the agriculture industry is not the real issue. It is agriculture, itself, that must be questioned. Though the video does not mention much about agriculture before the green revolution, it appears to hold it up as a grail, suggesting that ridding the world of industrialized and chemical-filled farming will be beneficial to mankind. This suggestion belies an ignorance of the real dilemma, which is not that industrialized farming causes famine and slavery, but rather that agriculture itself is the harbinger of those states.
The problem with agriculture is, as mentioned earlier, famine. Agriculture, in its most basic form, is the intentional growing of plants for consumption. Growing fields of food in this way allows for a greater yield of crop than simply gathering sporadic instances of the crop would. This, in turn, allows for population growth. The equation is simple: more food equals more people. The issue, however, as the video points out, is that plots of crops, even when "naturally" defended through "permaculture" techniques, are susceptible to disease, plagues, and severe acts of nature. This means that every once in a while a harvest will be destroyed. The equation remains simple: loss of food equals loss of people. Famine. Dependant on neat rows of produce that do not naturally occur (and as such, must break down in less than ideal conditions), mankind is also enthralled to the losses that must occur when nature reasserts herself and attempts to restore the order of things. I speak of her as one would of a god, and with good reason, for she wields power as one, but her actions are purely scientific: plots of land that are grown with a low biodiversity of plants are more susceptible to parasitic creatures and events than heavily biodiversified ones.
The enemy is neither pesticide nor genetic modification, but rather the institution that fuels them both. Man is both hunter and gatherer, but no cells in his body have evolved to favor him as a farmer, nor have any of Gaia-earth's for her to be farmed upon. From this logic must stem, for the thinking individual, any number of questions about human society, the mother of them all pleadingly asking what would be lost if agriculture was forsaken. Our population would taper away, our great cities collapse, our very civilization would crumble!
I, for one, cannot think in such circles. I will flip the coin. What will be gained? For thousands of years man has gazed upon the moon and been inspired. He has been driven to art, literature, music, and wild thought. Always he has stared to the heavens and derived happiness, both intellectual and emotional, and yet, for all that, none of it required him to fly through the dark and step on the moon. Nixon called this pinnacle achievement, this "immense feat," "one priceless moment in the whole history of man," seemingly forgetting that centuries of agriculturally, and thus monetarily, driven society had, in fact, engendered this price-filled moment. In truth, it is only my wild thoughts, and yours, that remain priceless, having been won without cost. Perhaps it is enough of a first step to cultivate them instead and ask if what the civilized world offers is, indeed, good for you.
"When you try to change any single thing, you find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
-John Muir
No comments:
Post a Comment