I am scared. That is the main feeling I have after reading the book “All Over Creation” by Ruth Ozeki and watching “The Future of Food” by Deborah Koons. It is simply mindblowing that we eat all these foods and aren’t even aware of the fact that many of them are genetically modified. Actually it’s not the modifications that frighten me, but the fact that, as is shown in The Future of Food, canola seeds are genetically modified to not be damaged by a herbicide product like RoundUp that is intended to kill off unwanted vegetation. From a business perspective this, of course, is brilliant! Not only can you sell RoundUp to the public and be extremely successful, you can now also sell modified canola seeds to the public that are made for the use in conjuction with RoundUp! Talk about an excellent way to make a lot of money really fast! And look at some other ways that corporations make money at the expense of the consumer; as The Future of Food and All Over Creation mention, the Terminator, for example. The Terminator only allows for crops to be grown from seeds just once. After these crops are harvested, the seeds essentially commit suicide, forcing the growers thereby to buy new seeds. This is another way the corporations make a lot of money, but is it fair? The farming business is not a very profitable business as it is, and farmers are even subsidized (through the taxes we pay)because these actually lose money otherwise. Given that our livelyhood depends on food, why are corporations and governments making it so difficult for farmers?
After just reading the book I thought that maybe the topics that were brought up were fictional. The documentary made me realize that it’s real and very serious. It worries me in what will happen in the future. What if big corporations keep patenting foods, making it thereby impossible for small(er) farms to compete? What if we all were dependent on those large corporations for our food? Personally I don’t like the idea of consuming foods that are genetically modified, and that are sprayed with all sorts of pesticides. It doesn’t seem healthy.
I guess many people agree with me if you look at the increase in sales of organic foods, something The Future of Food also points out. It’s kind of a way of counterterrorism if you’d like to call it that. Perhaps the rise in popularity of organic foods will force the large corporations to take a step back. In the meantime, it’s good that we at least have a choice in what we consume. It’s up to us to allow for genetically modified foods to take over the food and farming industry.
