[THS] Artificial Foods and Corporate Crops: Can We Escape?

[Peter Webster]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/83301/?page=entire

Artificial Foods and Corporate Crops: Can We Escape the 'Frankenstate'?

By Claire Hope Cummings, Beacon Press. Posted May 2, 2008.

Taking a technological approach to agriculture has put the future of the
world's food supply in jeopardy.


The following excerpt is reprinted from Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering
and the Future of Seeds by Claire Hope Cummings. Copyright © 2008 by
Claire Hope Cummings. By permission of Beacon Press.

On a frozen island near the North Pole, a huge hole has been blasted out of
the side of an Arctic mountain, and a tunnel has been drilled deep into the
rock. When the facility under construction here is completed, it will be lined
with one-meter-thick concrete, fitted with two high-security blast-proof
airlock doors, and built to withstand nuclear war, global warming, terrorism,
and the collapse of the earth's energy supplies.

It's known as the "Doomsday Vault," and in it will be stored millions of seeds
and mankind's hope for the future of the world's food supply. The idea is
that in the event of massive ecological destruction, those seeds could be
used to reconstruct the planet's agricultural systems. Exactly who might
remain to begin replanting the earth after such a catastrophe is only one of
the questions this astounding project raises. The more immediate question
is, are seeds in peril?

The answer is yes, especially the seeds that provide us with food, fiber, and
fuel. Both the diversity and the integrity of seeds are threatened, in the wild
and on our farms. They are being put at risk by agricultural technologies,
patents and corporate ownership, and the overall degradation of the
environment. The plight of seeds is one of the most important
environmental stories of our time. Until now, however, this critical issue has
not received the attention it deserves.

Seeds are as critical to our survival as air, water, and soil. And yet despite
the everyday miracles that they perform, we tend to take them for granted.
Seeds sustain the beauty and vitality of the earth. Seeds are essential to the
regenerative capacity of the planet. We will need their natural resilience
and adaptability even more as temperatures rise.

Biologically, each seed has a unique way of fulfilling its promise. Taken
together, the world's seeds maintain the plant systems that keep the planet
breathing. Every breath we take has been exhaled by a plant which turned
it into oxygen for us. Seeds have always been our silent partners in
maintaining life on earth.

People and plants coevolved through the ages, and that relationship has
been mutually beneficial. Seed plants dependably meet our needs,
producing the corn and rice we eat, the flax and cotton we weave, and the
oak and pine we use for shelter. Eighty percent of the people in the world
still rely on plants as their primary source of medicine. The remains of long-
dead plants provide all of us with our fossil fuels. As metaphors, seeds are a
rich source of inspiration in art, literature, and religion. We cannot afford to
lose any more of this generosity, this beauty, this abundance.

We find ourselves at a dramatic turning point for life on earth. Population
and consumption are rapidly expanding. Industrial food production is
exhausting the planet's basic biological support systems, making them even
more vulnerable to the effects of global warming. The natural world is
experiencing catastrophic losses of biodiversity, fresh water, and fertile soil.
All of these trends are threatening seeds and forcing us to take a careful
look at how we will feed ourselves in the future. It comes down to this:
Whoever controls the future of seeds controls the future of life on earth.

Is industrial agriculture, with its focus on chemical and genetic
technologies, the best choice for ensuring a healthy future? Genetic
engineering is a commercial technology controlled by private corporations,
who use it to dominate agricultural production from seed to stomach and to
profit from every bite. Given the enormous environmental stress the planet
is under right now and increasing demands on our natural resources from
all forms of human activity, can this one technology provide for our food
and environmental security? The answer is, unequivocally, no.

There are five solid reasons that genetic engineering is not right for
agriculture. One: It's bad science. It was developed on the basis of flawed
assumptions which have since been discredited by the scientific community.

Two: It's bad biology. It was deployed without regard for its potential for
genetic contamination and its risks to human health.

Three: It's bad social policy. It puts control over seeds and the
fundamentals of our food and farms into the hands of a few corporations
who have their own, not our, best interests in mind.

Four: It's bad economics. After billions of dollars and thirty years, only a few
products have been commercialized, and they offer nothing new. No one
asked for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and given a choice,
consumers would reject them.

Five: It's bad farming. GMOs don't address the real issues plaguing
agriculture; they're designed to substitute for or increase the use of
proprietary weed and pest control chemicals. Patented and genetically
altered seeds perpetuate the very worst problems of the industrial food
system, and they are undermining the autonomy of the farmers who use
them.

According to the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the organization that is
building the Doomsday Vault, there are more than 50,000 edible plants in
the world. About 150 of them have been commercialized, and only 40 of
those are cultivated regularly. Only three of them -- rice, corn, and wheat --
provide most of humanity with its mainstay foods. Three others -- soy,
cotton, and canola -- get more than their fair share of attention because of
their industrial uses.

Other plants are important sources of sustenance for many people in the
world, especially potatoes, cassava, and taro, as well as barley and
sorghum. That's the short list of plants that we rely on for our basic needs,
and all of them, as well as tobacco, sugar, coffee, sunflowers, and most
fruits and vegetables, have been patented or genetically modified. Seeds
are the common heritage of all humanity, and yet they are being stolen
right from underneath our noses. If someone came into your kitchen and
took all the food off the shelves and out of the refrigerator, you'd notice. If
someone came onto your farm and stole the seeds you were about to plant,
you'd notice. But the theft of the world's genetic heritage has not been so
overt. It's been done by changing the biological and legal character of
plants, so that while the food and seeds remain where they were,
ownership of them has shifted.

While all this has been going on, there have been plenty of welcome
countertrends. A dynamic new food and farming movement is rising up all
over the world, bringing local food and farming back to life and restoring
agriculture to its ecological roots. This is where the hope lies. It can be
found in the natural world, in the promise of the seed, and in the hands of
the farmers and the native planters who tend the earth with the wealth of
nature in mind.

Organic farmers, chefs, urban and rural youth, artists, and activists are all
working in their own ways, and sometimes together, to change the way we
produce and consume food. New sustainable strategies and green
technologies are being created. There are many proven ways to produce
food and energy that protect both human health and the life of our soil and
water while providing for our prosperity. These new agrarians are restoring
respect for the skills of the human hand and the ingenuity of the natural
world. They're putting the culture back into agriculture.

The story of agriculture is often told as the story of humans' domination of
nature. Now a new story is being told. The new story of agriculture
combines the guidance of the old creation myths with the insights of
science. We are learning the language of generosity from nature and of
tolerance from our experiences in returning to local economies. As we go
about searching for ways to return meaning and morality to our lives, and
possibly, dare I hope, to the political system, the decisions we make now,
and the wisdom that we choose to guide us, will make all the difference.
What's at stake is nothing less than the nature of the future.

The Doomsday Vault is only one way of preparing for an uncertain future.
Someday we may be glad it was built. My hope is that we will create a
future for ourselves in which it will never be needed. Right now we can let
others decide our fate and continue living in a fundamentalist
"Frankenstate" where the corporate gene giants feed us artificial food and
drugs produced with their genetically modified patented plants and lull us
into complacency with their choice of electronic conveniences and
entertainment. Or we can summon the courage to resist the worst of all
that and begin restoring ourselves to our rightful places, as members of
both human and biological communities and caretakers of our
commonwealth.

We are facing a planetary emergency, as Al Gore says, but our "collective
nervous system" still has trouble recognizing the threats to our survival. As
an environmental journalist, I see this all the time. I often feel it myself. I
wrote this book because I love seeds and because I have found that telling
the stories of the people and places behind these issues can help us face
them and the complex challenges they present.

Industry spends millions telling its story and defending its products, and it
stands poised to convert our upcoming ecological crisis into a commercial
opportunity. I'm not offering a prescription for the future, just an invitation
to consider our options carefully. The answers we need will come when we
begin the conversation that starts with telling and listening to each other's
stories.

I have brought all my life experiences, as a mother, a farmer, an
environmental lawyer, an advocate for traditional native land rights, and a
journalist, to weave together a meaningful context for the subject of genetic
engineering and the future of seeds. All of my work has been guided by
one central value: respect for the integrity of the natural world. This is what
I have learned: if we can, even for a moment, pause and stop looking at
the world through the lens of technology, then suddenly the beauty and
wonder of nature reappear. Then we remember who we are and where we
are, and the healing begins.


Claire Hope Cummings is an environmental journalist specializing in stories
about the environmental, health, and political implications of how we eat.
She was an environmental lawyer for 20 years, including four years with the
United States Department of Agriculture, then practiced environmental and
cultural preservation public interest law.