by Catherine Haug, August 29, 2010
One of the most prevalent arguments used by the biotech companies and mainstream agriculture to justify the use of GMO seeds, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers is that such use is the only way to feed the world. They argue that organic methods cannot even come close. However, if GMO crops were safe, and they really want to feed the world, why have they made the seeds of GMO crops sterile, requiring farmers to buy more seeds for every crop?
On the other side of the debate are the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), and similar voices, who argue that the use of Organic methods is the only way to ensure the health of the soil and water through the generations, and can more than feed the world.
It is my understanding that we already have more than enough food to feed all people around the world. If this is true, and I believe it is, then why do so many go hungry?
For the answer to this conundrum, one has to go back in history, to the beginnings of colonization of primitive peoples by powerful, civilized Europe.
Why was Europe so powerful?
Because the majority of the people, called peasants (or serfs), worked for the wealthy and powerful few. These peasants lived on the land but gave the bulk of their production to the landowners, leaving scarcely enough to feed their own families, and hunger was a problem. The accumulated wealth of the landowners allowed them to build armies to defend their landholdings, and navies to conquer and colonize other lands.
We’ve seen western empires come and go: Egypt, Babylonian, Persia, Alexander the Great’s empire, Byzantine empire, Roman empire, Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman empire, and even the changing of borders in more recent history of the 1800-1900s. All of these empires involved subjugation of the many by the few. All of them required the contrast of wealth and starvation, as the means of sustaining the powerful.
It is no different today, as the Western Powers colonize and subjugate the Third World. Big Ag reaps the financial benefit as we, the powerful, force the conquered to adopt the methods of genetic engineering and chemical agriculture.
In the future, we will likely see emerging cultures like China and India, once again asserting themselves over the western civilization, and we will become the subjugated many. We will find ourselves starving, our population diminishing, as the power shifts away from our hands. That is, if peak oil and a warming planet don’t end civilization as we know it before that can happen.
The Organic Revolution
I firmly believe that the only solution, the only strategy, to avoid such a catastrophe, is to get back to the earth. Protect the health and life of our planet and ALL its peoples.
Cultivate and nurture our soils using the ancient methods of Organic agriculture and the learnings of permaculture; each family, neighborhood or community around the globe responsible for producing the majority of its own food. Not by the use of technologies like GMO and farm chemicals, but rather by good old human effort. Such a shift is our only hope to ensure the future of human life on this planet.
See also Jeffrey Smith’s SeedsOfDeception.com. Mr. Smith is the world’s leading consumer advocate promoting healthier, non-GMO choices.