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*Taking Japanese standards of diet and agriculture, food could be provided for ninety billion people. LIFE Nature Library – The Earth page one hundred sixty eight (1384) The doomsayers love to tell us that we’re all going to starve because mother earth is mad at us. I personally don’t believe this large hunk of rock we live on has ever generated a cognizant thought in all of history. But I do think that modern farming practices are poisoning, sterilizing, and depleting the soil. Because of this, many Americans and eating a worse-than-worthless diet. But cheer up, many Americans farmers are switching back to organic farms to supply the Americans who wisely switched back to organic foods. In P. J. O’Rourke’s book All the Trouble in the World (1994) he talks about all the troubles in the world. I highly recommend this book. It’s very enlightening and Mr. O’Rourke is better at satire than anyone since Twain. One of the troubles he talks about is famine. Is Mother Earth really incapable of feeding all her children? Here’s a quote from his book: *There has never been a famine in any country that’s been a democracy with a relatively free press. (2754) (Professor Amartya Sen) In Hunger in History, Organization, Information, and Entitlement in the Emerging Global Food System says, “If food were distributed equitably, current supplies would be more than adequate to provide an ample diet to all.” Americans should remember that we toss enough good food in the garbage (100,000,000,000 lbs.) each year, to feed more than the entire nation of Canada. And yet many of us are still incredibly fat (65% overweight, 30% obese). Ambulances are now being made to accommodate people who weigh up to half a ton. These extra-big ambulances have ramps, extra-wide heavy-duty gurneys, and a winch to get the people on board. Back to P. J. O’Rourke’s book: *Modern famine is either the result of deliberate political policies (the Ukraine in the 1930s, Sudan right now) or of terrible economic ideas ( Ireland in the 1840s, China in the late 1950s). (2755) (P. J. O’Rourke) Benjamin Franklin said something like, “What better gift can a person give to his country than a new species of plant?” Indeed, a country that has a biodiverse food-culture is much better able to withstand droughts, floods, and pestilence. God knew this when he created our biosphere. He gave us many different kinds of every plant-food. The reason there are so many different kinds of one species is because some are able to withstand drought better than others, some are able to withstand too much water, or even salt water better than others, some are better able to withstand more sun than others, and some are better able to withstand insects and blights better than others. A good example of this is the Irish Potato Famine of the1840s. The entire island of Ireland was planted with only a couple kinds of potatoes. When blight struck, it wiped out the entire food supply. Millions died or fled to America. If Ireland’s farmers knew about biodiversity, this wouldn’t have happened. In America, our government wisely built a giant “seed bank” in Colorado to house the world’s different kinds of food species. Its purpose is (or was) to protect Americans from a food catastrophe brought on by drought or blight. Ex-President Clinton, in all his wisdom, declared our seed bank to be a “dinosaur” and slashed the funding it needs to keep operating. When seed become too old, they tend to die. Since Clinton slashed its budget, there are no longer enough people (about ½ dozen) working there to plant, raise, and harvest more than a quarter-million different plants for fresh seeds. Consequently America is loosing its ability to have a biodiverse food culture. Clinton is either incredibly ignorant of history, or he had something else up his sleeve. One interesting coincidence to all this is the Clinton’s close ties to the bio-engineering folks. These are the people who invent new plant species in laboratories and then copyright them. Many of these plants even have genes put in them that make the seeds sterile, so that you have to but new seeds every year, instead of harvesting seeds from this year’s crop. This concept is based on greed and control. And it’s working. The majority of the food in our supermarkets is genetically engineered. And biodiversity is out the window. Americans are limited to only a couple different kinds of genetically engineered foods. We are forcing our descendents into a food-culture that is ripe for an Irish Potato Famine-style disaster. Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance mentions that if we allow the tropical rain forests to be destroyed, “the world will lose the richest storehouse of genetic information on the planet.” (pg. 119) That’s most likely true. But if he was aware of the danger of losing species of plants, why didn’t he raise a huge alarm when his boss almost closed down our own storehouse of genetic information? |