Corn Patents and Stereo

At dinner this evening we watched the future of food
The film goes through the agricultural industry with a focus on patents.

Monsanto and other mega corporations have developed genetically modified foods, esp corn, cotton, soybeans. After centuries of upholding the 1st amendment specification that the right to patent does not apply to life, they are able to patent GM and non GM crops to where they have total control of what crops are produced. They can even sue any farmer who have the patented genetically modified strains mixed into the crops, whether it got there carried by the wind or birds.

Now Monsanto (which includes on its boards members of the EPA and others like Donald Rumsfeld) and others, who already control an increasingly large portion of American agriculture are working to release on the world a single yield seed, necessitating all farmers to buy new seed annually. Farmers internationally are no longer able to always grow their own food as the financial aid extended requires them to set up inefficient export farming to pay back the loans. Now imagine this new seed cross pollinating and taking over (totally legitimate) and we could see the end of world food supplies. Apparently 97% of commonly available food varieties from 100 years ago are already essentially extinct.

Farmers markets are going a long way toward reclaiming local food, an essential step in securing stable food sourcing. As oil moves toward peak prices and with the average 1500 miles food travels to get to us, I like the idea of sharing. It may have been hard to learn back in Kindergarden, but I think it is a lesson worth revisiting.

Which brings me to my hosts and how this can play out. Not only was I fed a fantastic meal, but I mentioned that my 1993 boombox stereo was dead... it turns out they had an old stereo system they wanted to get rid of. So I now have music back in my home and a greater sense of how community can start to overcome even corporate consolidation and the possible end of family farming.