The Future of Food

During my senior year at Albion, I took a course that started floating around in my thoughts as I watched The Future of Food--Great Issues in Science (which is the lame title that all Honors science classes got). The film is a documentary on the relationship between agriculture and big business, and much of the focus is on genetically modified foods. In Great Issues in Science, one of the many philosophical discussions our professor forced upon us (primarily so that he could also force his opinions upon us and browbeat any who disagreed) surrounded the proliferation of these genetically engineered foodstuffs as potential savior of humanity in our fight against hunger versus any and all detrimental effects these GE products could have on the people consuming them or the environment in which they were grown. I remember that class period being one that I left feeling very angry and disgusted because I seemed to be the lone voice of concern over the unknown effects of genetic engineering.

And that feeling came back to me tenfold during this movie.

I know that I shouldn't be surprised any longer by the way the government is so heavily influenced not by the people of the country but by the corporations of it, but I am consistently astonished at the level of that influence and the general lack of concern that is focussed on the citizens of this country.

The film gives some of the history of basic agriculture (farmers cultivating seeds from their crops and sharing them with neighbors in addition to using them for the coming season's crops) and the more recent history of genetic engineering of agricultural products (creating seeds which would grow into plants that would survive the onslaught of harsh herbicides), and then it went into a discussion of the introduction of these engineered seeds into the world of patents. Until a few decades ago, there had never been a patent on a living organism, and now, patents exist for a huge variety of seeds.

What is troubling about this is that since these seeds were patented, their proprietary company (Monsanto, in this case), has filed numerous lawsuits against farmers whose fields were contaminated with GMO seeds claiming that the farmers were in violation of the company's patents, regardless of the method by which these seeds arrived in the fields. And Monsanto won several cases or reached settlements with the farmers. Additionally, any plant that is found on any piece of land which hails from a genetically modified seed, regardless of how it arrived there, now belongs to Monsanto.

Monsanto and other companies holding these patents are trying to gain patents internationally that will allow them proprietary rights to ANY PLANT ANYWHERE, which could have serious consequences on farmers in third world countries.

While this is horrifying (nothing like sitting around watching the wolf devour a sheep), I am even more disturbed by the fact that the US government is so insistent on not labelling products which contain genetically modified food. Food that was bred by splicing plant genes with fish genes and e.coli genes and only they know what other genes. When I was in Ireland, EVERYTHING with GM ingredients was labelled because people in the EU insisted on their right to know what they were consuming. People who otherwise have no allergies to food are having toxic reactions to genetically modified corn.

Equally dispicable to me (I actually stopped the movie to look this up and make sure it was real because I couldn't even fathom that someone would allow this to happen) is the fact that Myriad Genetics has patented one of the genes that cause breast cancer. They have patented portions of the bodies of people in our own country--Myriad Genetics OWNS part of you if you contain that particular gene. Think I'm making this up? Think again.

Basically, they want to make money off the tests that they have developed to detect this gene. But in the process, they're creating this really questionable area of where proprietary ownership ends. Researchers who were trying to find a cure for breast cancer who were using this gene prior to the patent are no longer able to research the cure using that gene. And that means that one company controls any hope of a cure for breast cancer related to that gene. In whose interest is finding a cure now?

In the end, the film offered the options of organics and eating locally produced food as things we can do to help fight the good fight, but once again, I'm compelled to wonder what effect that will have on anything. How can the American people, who are by and large ignorant of the effects of genetically modified food, compete with multi-billion dollar international corporations?

If the government won't listen to our concerns about the war in Iraq or the exchange of our civil liberties for 'national security,' how can we expect them to hear that we want to know what we're eating? Oversimplification, I realize, but it's exactly how I feel at the moment. Utterly without recourse.

That said, I think that this is a worthwhile documentary to watch. Honestly, I want to invite everyone I know over to view it. It made me think, and it made me angry, and it made me want to do something about the issue.