The Future of Our Food

The Corner Store hosted a movie night and the starring attraction was the movie The Future of Our Food. We sat down with our root beer floats and our popcorn and gathered round the television in the dining area of the store. It was a great movie and made me even stronger in my commitment to produce organic vegetables and save our own seeds from our crops. The movie showcased the consolidation of seed companies by chemical companies like Monsanto and the bioengineering of our crop plants. These transformed plants are called genetically modified organisms. They have transformed plant genetics with virus, bacteria, and other organisms incorporated into the plant genome to create new species of life. This is to create a better agribusiness organism with better economic returns to the farmer and the chemical/seed companies. They however are running roughshod over the genetics of plants and are not being forthcoming on the impacts to the environment and other life forms including what the GMO's are doing to people eating those products. The movie highlighted a Canadian farmer who was saving his seed for a generation of farming and some of Monsanto's GMO Roundup Ready canola patented genes got into the genetics of this farmers seeds. He was sued by Monsanto and after a court battle to the Canadian Supreme Court lost to the biotech company. The court ruled that this farmer had infringed on the plant patent. And yet there was no explanation by Monsanto how their genetics got into his plant seeds and the court didn't care about this seemingly trivial fact. The future of our food supply looks bleak if corporate greed will be controlling our seeds and genetics of our crop plants. I think as Americans we should require labeling of GMO food inputs into our food supply. We should ask Congress to pass legislation that will change how GMO products become ingredients into our food supply. It should say on the packaging ingredients whether or not that products we buy contain GMO ingredients. We should also hold responsible companies that make GMO crops and make them pay for cleaning up the environment when their genetic patents escape the intended plants and are found elsewhere. If you get the chance please watch this movie, discuss, and then act!