This evening I must tell you about me and my husbands' new passion. We watched a documentary the other evening on the future of food. And did you know that U.S. companies are getting patents on food, or rather on seeds that they have genetically engineered! This is a huge problem! I hope all realize this.
First of all, no one should be able to get a patent on a living organism. Especially a seed. There is no way to keep it isolated. A seed grows into a plant, the plant produces seeds (the patented seeds), and those seeds are carried away to be embedded into another plot of soil and grow and produce, yep, more GE seeds. These seeds could go anywhere and then anyone can get charged with infringing on the "patent".
And this is exactly what happens to so many good family farms. Families that have been farming since the beginning of the century, that have been using only their own seed. And then their seed gets mixed up with some patented seed - whether a bird drops it on their land, the trucks carrying the seed loose some on the road near their land, the wind blows the seed on the land, the list goes on and on for the ways this could happen - and the farmer is sued for having a patented seed that they never even intended on having. (read this article for more information) |
| What do GMO's have to do with World Hunger? |
Secondly, these GE seeds are made using e-coli and other various elements to infect the seed - infect our food with whatever extra DNA strand a company wants. And this isn't something to make the food better for us. It is for the company to make more money. It is complete Greed. For instance, Monsanto is a company that first made a pesticide called Round-Up. Well, they have patented seeds like canola seeds to be able to resist Round-Up. And then they try and sell it off to the public as good thing by saying if you buy our Round-Up Ready seeds you are helping world hunger. This is completely untrue. It is hurting world hunger. It is causing more small family farms around the world to pack up and leave their homes, because they either can't afford the patent seeds/are getting sued, or they can't make a living as a result of the amount of plants coming from big commercial farms.
Please tell me everyone sees my point in this and that America just hasn't rolled over and let this happen, rather it happened to us without us noticing.....
We must start noticing at any rate and actually pay attention to what we eat ( as well as what gets passed in legislature - but that is an entirely 'nother topic). Some organic foods are not needed, but others are quite useful. It is labeled organic on an American grocery shelf, that means that absolutely no GMO foods were used in making the product. Otherwise, it is very probable that they were used if it is a food that is already a widely sold GMO seed (i.e. corn, soybeans, ____). Please keep in mind sometimes organic is just a way to up the sale.
Remember the Song 'EverGreen, EverBlue' ......It is so simple.....This world is ours to take care of.
God gave us these bodies to take care of, and this Earth to take care of. I don't believe that these foods are good for use nutritionally and so I don't believe they are good for the Earth either.
As a result of learning about this our family has decided to do more of our own growing of food, buying produce from small family farms, and eating more organically. We are also trying to figure out how we can help the local family farms, especially those growing organic crops. Maybe designing seed packets for them and helping them to also sell their seed. Or setting up a delivery service. Or maybe the most we can do is buy from them.
If you feel lead, what are your ideas on what you could do?
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