"Americans fear one thing, inconvenience." This was a statement made by a college roommate of one of the speakers in the documentary, Fresh. In the documentary, there were a lot of great topics discussed, in detail, and even more touched on. One of my favorite parts was about the emphasis on Conventional Farming Practices. Coming from a family where everyone as many generations as they can go back have been farmers, this was an important topic to me. Michael Pollan, of the narrarators, and author of numerous books on the food dilemma in America, talks about the problems with farming as it is today. As it is, most farming by volume in America, has high risk involved, is too common, and is full of monocultures. I believe Michael has a point that people need to return emphasis on the small farms, where they are more diverse, healthier, and has less of an impact on the environment. The only weakness I saw was in the approach to how to address existing cities, where receiving fresh produce can be next to impossible.
My research was the USDA’s alfalfa endemic, where a new product has the ability to potentially eliminate all organic alfalfa. It is based on the genetically modified product from Mostanto. This is a problem because since not enough people want organic alfalfa anymore, the USDA says it may stop being produced by all industrial farmers, on top of the fact that it will not matter, because alfalfa pollinates, and there for the GMO would spread to any other strand of alfalfa that it comes into contact with.
http://www.freshthemovie.com/2010/02/03/usda_alfalfa/
I was vaguely familiar with the problems with alfalfa. I used to feed it to my guinea pigs when i was younger. As you pointed out, the pollen that it produces is highly problematic from both a farming standpoint and with regards to allergies too.
ReplyDeleteI think that the quote you used is a powerful one, fearing inconvenience is a great way to describe what the food industry has become. This does make me want to see change but it will the industry be able to change. I also agree with your statement that we need to return to smaller farms. I think that this would be a good way to fix the industry.
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