Dr. Mercola July 18 2001 1,500 views
By Frances Moore Lappe
Biotechnology companies and even some scientists argue that we need genetically modified seeds to feed the world and to protect the Earth from chemicals. Their arguments feel eerily familiar.
Thirty years ago, I wrote "Diet for a Small Planet" for one reason. As a researcher buried in the UC Berkeley agricultural library, I was stunned to learn that the experts -- equivalent to the biotech proponents of today -- were wrong. They were telling us we'd reached the Earth's limits to feed ourselves, but in fact there was more than enough food for us all.
Hunger, I learned, is the result of economic "givens" we ourselves have created, assumptions and structures that actively generate scarcity from plenty. Today this is more, not less, true.
Throughout history, ruminants had served humans by turning grasses and other "inedibles" into high-grade protein.
They were our four-legged protein factories. But once we began feeding livestock from cropland that could grow edible food, we began to convert ruminants into our protein disposals.
Only a small fraction of the nutrients fed to animals return to us in meat; the rest animals use largely for energy or they excrete. Thirty years ago, one-third of the world's grain was going to livestock; today it is closer to one-half. And now we're mastering the same disappearing trick with the world's fish supply. By feeding fish to fish, again, we're reducing the potential supply.
We're shrinking the world's food supply for one reason: The hundreds of millions of people who go hungry cannot create a sufficient "market demand" for the fruits of the Earth.
So more and more of it flows into the mouths of livestock, which convert it into what the better-off can afford.
Corn becomes filet mignon. Sardines become salmon.
Enter biotechnology. While its supporters claim that seed biotechnology methods are "safe" and "precise," other scientists strongly refute that, as they do claims that biotech crops have actually reduced pesticide use.
But this very debate is in some ways part of the problem.
It is a tragic distraction our planet cannot afford.
We're still asking the wrong question. Not only is there already enough food in the world, but as long as we are only talking about food -- how best to produce it -- we'll never end hunger or create the communities and food safety we want.
We must ask instead: How do we build communities in tune with nature's wisdom in which no one, anywhere, has to worry about putting food -- safe, healthy food -- on the table? Asking this question takes us far beyond food. It takes us to the heart of democracy itself, to whose voices are heard in matters of land, seeds, credit, employment, trade and food safety.
The problem is, this question cannot be addressed by scientists or by any private entity, including even the most high-minded corporation. Only citizens can answer it, through public debate and the resulting accountable institutions that come from our engagement.
Where are the channels for public discussion and where are the accountable polities?
Increasingly, public discussion about food and hunger is framed by advertising by multinational corporations that control not only food processing and distribution but farm inputs and seed patents.
Two years ago, the seven leading biotech companies, including Monsanto, teamed up under the neutral-sounding Council for Biotechnology Information and are spending millions to, for example, blanket us with full-page newspaper ads about biotech's virtues.
Government institutions are becoming ever more beholden to these corporations than to their citizens. Nowhere is this more obvious than in decisions regarding biotechnology -- whether it's the approval or patenting of biotech seeds and foods without public input or the rejection of mandatory labeling of biotech foods despite broad public demand for it.
The absence of genuine democratic dialogue and accountable government is a prime reason most people remain blind to the many breakthroughs in the last 30 years that demonstrate we can grow abundant, healthy food and also protect the Earth.
Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but by a scarcity of democracy. Thus it can never be solved by new technologies, even if they were to be proved "safe." It can only be solved as citizens build democracies in which government is accountable to them, not private corporate entities.
The Los Angeles Times June 27, 2001
I am sure there are others of you out there that have read Frances book Diet for a Small Planet. I remember clearly reading it thirty years ago and I am delighted that she is still promoting sound food policies.
She hits two of my major recent passions.
The first is Grass Fed Beef, which will not only help feed us well, but serve to help reverse the incredible food factory system that has developed in this country and contributes to the poor quality food that we now have available and also the demise of the small family farmer.
I am delighted to announce that we will actually start selling our Grass Fed Beef this weekend.
The other area she and I both recognize as a massive problem is the genetically engineered food issue.
Well then, let's start a democratic dialogue that holds our government accountable. Who's with me? Also, I would love to take the information from Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" along with Dr. Mercola's information about our future of food and make it into an exciting video. Do it in a format like the "The Secret" video, with interviews from Michael Pollan, Dr. Mercola, food scientists, farmers, etc.
When Diet for a Small Planet was initially published, I thought it was a fantastic breakthrough. Through the years it has never left my mind when thinking about nutrition and the added benefit combining complementary foods can yield. To my taste, food combining actually improves the flavor of many foods. Additionally, it offers a means of increasing the amount of available food on a global level, but we now know that hunger and starvation is most often due to political and sociological problems, rather than famine or other natural disasters.
World hunger is an unsolvable problem, but local hunger can be addressed. Not only food production, but food distribution, food prices, and finally food choices and preparation all factor into the quality of each individual’s diet. Food must start with the individual and work out from there. It is close to impossible to try to solve this for someone half way around the world who has a different genetic type, different climate, different socio-economic and political resources (and how about different religious beliefs?). Even with the US’s current level of technology, prosperity and science, food is a challenging issue on a variety of levels. In many instances you can lead a horse to water, but you will not be able to make him drink.
Global warming is an important problem, especially if it happens rapidly. Most of it is probably from clearing trees and plants from the soil anyway. This could be mitigated by planting tree crops and shade trees along highways. However an answer to a question we have not been asking is; "We should not be using our carbon fuels for so trivial a purpose as to merely generate heat and therefore electricity or non aviation transportation in a world where every week the sun beams down enough energy on the state of Arizona alone to supply the whole world with non transportation energy during that time". Those fuels should be devoted to chemical stock and aviation. Burning carbon is akin to burning furniture to keep warm. Oil will probably run out in another hundred years or so and practical coal probably in another two or three hundred or so. What do we have planned for the remaining million years this nation is scheduled to survive? Our constant drum beat about not being dependent on foreign oil is 180 degrees off. If we were really greedy we would use foreign oil as much as possible. If a major war should loom after our oil runs out we will be left high and dry, and maybe defeated.
If our oil policy seems foolish, our atomic fuel policy must seem like insanity by comparison. The carbon will still be on the surface of the earth, extremely expensive to turn into chemicals, but not impossible. Uranium once burned will be gone forever. Our progeny will curse us if they come across a very valuable use for uranium and it is gone. If that purpose were to be the only practical way to get rid of a meteor scheduled to destroy the earth, for instance, they will be cursing us with their dying breath. They will look back on our problems with those jerks in Afghanistan with fond nostalgia.
It is often said that we can not tap the sun’s energy without further expensive research. This is not so. We already know how to make photovoltaic devices and heat engines.