GMO Agriculture: Answer to Current Food Issues Here?

Borrowed from: http://www.feastnl.ca/goutweed-free-family-gardening/

Although I have been very guilty of jumping on bandwagons (organics and sustainable farming practices) and attacking anything that isn’t organically grown and naturally sustainable, I try to stop and read/watch/understand the reasons those practices were developed and understand how they fit in with life on this planet. Not that I believe I know and understand the sciences involved in these practices either. I know that am not an expert.

My beliefs are driven by my faith that a Creator created this creation and His rules and design are more sound than anything we can develop. We are just posers and bad imitations of something that we are only trying to begin to truly understand. So, I try to respect life and biological processes that are present and work with nature, not against it. For example, if a caterpillar wants to eat part of my cucumber, I appreciate that something living likes my vegetable, and that means it is pretty healthy for me. My acceptance of this insect intruder is because I don’t understand life and all the many layers of living organisms that keep me alive, and I don’t mind sharing.

With that being said, GMO agricultural products may be a short term answer to a devastating problem or impending problem. BUT, it doesn’t fit in a system where lack of gratitude and waste are the norms. Basically, the people I live around and see demand more than they need and waste most of it. We are capable of living on much less food of higher quality than we live on now. I teach in a public school where daily I watch this play out.

Here, our kids don’t know hunger, but they read about it, and I want them to read about something and think about it deeply enough to affect their habits. I am sickened, for example, each winter and spring when I see kids throw perfectly good oranges in the trash after stabbing them with plastic forks to entertain their friends. Is food so widely available in their homes that wasting food is fun? How rich are these kids? How might their habits change if food were to be less available?

Borrowed from this blog: http://myzerowaste.com/2011/05/as-long-as-its-free-well-throw-it-away/

With that being said, I don’t want kids in areas of the world where food is scarce to continue starving. By all means, GMO crops have a role their countries; however, in ours, we need to clean up our act and teach our children gratitude and stop buying food we throw away so kids don’t think that tossing perfectly good food in the trash is funny.

I believe in sound, tried and true farming practices which include rotation of crops, diversity of crop strains, care for the soil, and reduction in use of unsafe poisons and non-organic based fertilizers. When the grocery store consumer will only buy fruits and vegetables that are giant and perfect out of their seasons, then we create what we have now as big agriculture interests responding to consumer demand to grow and ship food all over the US. Costs for food soar and waste is rampant. Grow your own food and buy locally. That is what will encourage sustainable practices for our future and spread food sources around locally. That way, we aren’t vulnerable to catastrophic crop failures and local market instability. Support small farmers everywhere. Big Agra companies should be solving big problems–“What’s for dinner?” for most Americans is not a big problem. Starving children in Asia and Africa is.

Watch this video. It presents a bit of both sides.

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