"Since a field planted in monoculture is more susceptible to devastation by pests and blight, the risks rise exponentially when much of the entire planet’s arable land is planted in virtually identical strains. In 1970, for example, 80 per cent of the corn planted in the US shared a common genetic heritage. When a maze blight struck, it quickly destroyed more than 10 million acres of corn."
This is specious. GM crops are called "GM" because they have been engineered to resist diseases that have wiped out entire crops across a region, and populations that eat them right with them. In fact, crop blights happened in the past, and carried morbid consequences. How many millions died during the potato famine? Crop blights also afflicted our predecessors far more detrimentally than they could now due to the globalization of agribusiness. If a corn blight wiped out the U.S.' corn stocks, we'd be well-fed off soya, wheat, etc domestically, and if not, we could import food from other indistrialized economies. And the fact that there hasn't been a famine in this country since the rise of agribusiness is something the author should consider. I'm extremely skeptical of this. If you want to feed people, you have to have a way to do it, and "traditional" agriculture could not.
As for this small point, I should qualify it as "this number of people." There's 300 million people in this country. That's a lot of mouths to feed. I'm curious to know why you are so confident that my statement isn't true.
I don't have a reference handy, but I recall seeing convincing information that traditional localized agriculture could easily feed today's populations.
I can't really comment on the rest of your ideas. Your criticism makes some sense, though I would argue that the ongoing public health and environmental devastation wrought by our food system has been something of a severe plague of its own.
I, too, have issues with modern agribusiness, as you know, but I suppose not necessarily of the same type. Overall, I think the business side of it needs to be guided more by information than money. I'm guessing you'd probably agree. Though we'd probably disagree that that's possible.
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"Since a field planted in monoculture is more susceptible to devastation by pests and blight, the risks rise exponentially when much of the entire planet’s arable land is planted in virtually identical strains. In 1970, for example, 80 per cent of the corn planted in the US shared a common genetic heritage. When a maze blight struck, it quickly destroyed more than 10 million acres of corn."
This is specious. GM crops are called "GM" because they have been engineered to resist diseases that have wiped out entire crops across a region, and populations that eat them right with them. In fact, crop blights happened in the past, and carried morbid consequences. How many millions died during the potato famine? Crop blights also afflicted our predecessors far more detrimentally than they could now due to the globalization of agribusiness. If a corn blight wiped out the U.S.' corn stocks, we'd be well-fed off soya, wheat, etc domestically, and if not, we could import food from other indistrialized economies. And the fact that there hasn't been a famine in this country since the rise of agribusiness is something the author should consider. I'm extremely skeptical of this. If you want to feed people, you have to have a way to do it, and "traditional" agriculture could not.
"If you want to feed people, you have to have a way to do it, and "traditional" agriculture could not."
This isn't true at all. It could, it just wouldn't be profitable for huge corporations.
Then I'll assume the rest of my argument holds.
As for this small point, I should qualify it as "this number of people." There's 300 million people in this country. That's a lot of mouths to feed. I'm curious to know why you are so confident that my statement isn't true.
I don't have a reference handy, but I recall seeing convincing information that traditional localized agriculture could easily feed today's populations.
I can't really comment on the rest of your ideas. Your criticism makes some sense, though I would argue that the ongoing public health and environmental devastation wrought by our food system has been something of a severe plague of its own.
I, too, have issues with modern agribusiness, as you know, but I suppose not necessarily of the same type. Overall, I think the business side of it needs to be guided more by information than money. I'm guessing you'd probably agree. Though we'd probably disagree that that's possible.
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