monsanto.

While I'm on this soapbox, why not mention a horrific act of pure evil that most people don't know about at all?

So farmers grow corn. We know this, right? Corn is in EVERYTHING. If it's not corn, it's corn syrup. There are huge swatches of land that are deforested every year just to grow corn (and, by the way, monocropping is a big fat no-no when it comes to environmental health - but that's for another post). Farmers, for the most part, do the best they can - you don't make millions farming and it's really, really hard work. When bugs or other plants infest your crop, you could lose your livelihood for that year - a scary concept for anyone.

So a "biotechnology" company called Monsanto decided it would be dandy to develop an herbicide called Roundup. We all know this herbicide because Monsanto is full of aggressive lobbyists and this product is all over the place. What you don't know is that Monsanto has genetically engineered a type of corn that is Roundup-resistant, meaning that you can spray this toxic herbicide to your heart's content and it won't hurt your corn one bit. 

This doesn't sound so bad for people who aren't into organics, but the problem is really that Monsanto has patented this corn and the government let them. What's the problem with that, you ask? Ethically, if someone 'owns' a type of food, they are able to monopolize access to that food and charge whatever price they want. They are also able to sue anyone else who gets it without permission. 

A startling documentary called "The Future of Food" revealed that when Monsanto representatives discovered their corn growing in a farmer's field (without his knowledge - he was just going about his business) - they sued him for just about all he was worth. And they were allowed to. Now, this farmer didn't plant Monsanto's corn, who knows how it got there (wouldn't surprise me if Monsanto planted it there themselves) - but they were able to sue him because he didn't have permission to grow their patented corn. See where this is going? If we lose the ability to share food and share seeds, we are setting the world up for mass starvation.

The controversy against genetically-modified products is raging right now. Again, there are no federal standards that make it necessary for companies to label whether or not their products contain genetically-modified products. I'm not talking "hybrids" here, which many farmers use - I'm talking plants that have things in them that shouldn't be there, like the genes of a virus or the genes of a fish, for example. And yes, the virus part is a reality. Many companies (usually in places like Whole Foods) are kind enough to put on the label "genetically-modified free corn/soy/whatever" so the public knows. But again, the government isn't doing shit about this food problem.

I highly recommend the documentary. The More You Know.