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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Sustainable agricultural methods vs. unsustainable/chemical/gmo-based agriculture (if you can even call it agriculture)

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Sustainable agricultural methods vs. unsustainable/chemical/gmo-based agriculture (if you can even call it agriculture)
  • Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:33:24 -0400


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Bushels of Corn
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:06:15 -0700
From: Nikki Rose <nikkirose@COOKINGINCRETE.COM>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

I'm not a farmer but I work with sustainable organic farmers to support their initiatives. It's unfortunate that people must still compare-justify conventional ag production (quantity without quality or environmental respect or safety) to sustainable organic farming on any level. There's a big wall to break down between the media and these important issues.

Who (person or Big Ag PR firm) coined the phrase "feed the world?" Since no one has accomplished that thus far, quite the contrary in most cases, one must wonder whether western approaches to these issues -- the top-down quick fix or trade influences have ever worked in the past or will ever work in the future.

A visit to regions of the world, including the USA, where multinational corporations have monopolized agricultural production, indicates that anyone claiming to feed the world has usually done the opposite. And they also left a toxic trail behind for local people to attempt to exist in -- their land, air and water can never be "cleaned up." And thus far, communities cannot prevent this persistent influence on their culture and their health.

Once local farmers give up their land to multinationals, by choice or by force, their time-honored traditions-local knowledge of their own sustainable farming practices are lost.

So, sure, a foreign expert "aid" aka Big Ag representative can drop in and teach local people how to
produce more crops with toxins, when all they may have needed or wanted was enough good land for their community -- to grow food for themselves as they always did, without risking their livelihood at the whim of their government's corporate alliances. Outside of the US and other industrialized nations, this is the reality that continues to be threatened.

The best way to "feed the world" is
to keep Big Ag away from it.

Nikki Rose
Crete's Culinary Sanctuaries
Eco-Agritourism Network






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