Tag Archives: agri-business

Gardening and Seed Saving to Become Illegal

A place where gardening, eating the fruit of your labours, and saving your seeds is illegal is some kind of bad, B-rated, Orwellian science fiction movie. Right?

Wrong! It’s being proposed in the United States (for real) and (you guessed it) agri-business is behind it. The industrialization of food isn’t just a bad 1950’s experiment that we can easily amend. Big, powerful and heavy handed corporations have sunk their teeth into the profits to be made by monopolizing supply. And they are not going to let go easily, consequences be damned.

If I hadn’t seen this news television clip, I’d be certain someone was pulling my leg with the whole idea.

I don’t like to think of myself as a conspiracy theory kind of wingnut, but what do you say when it starts looking like maybe the wingnuts have got it right? It’s pretty hard to dismiss the video footage as conjecture or fear mongering.

I’m stunned, frankly. The impact of this kind of legislation on individuals’ right to access quality food, and food security in general, is breathtaking. In the bad way.

Learn more about Survive and Thrive, as featured in the clip, and if you have a US vote, you may want to send it over to the Stop S 510 Campaign.

Not convinced that your ready access to quality food is under threat? How about a guns drawn police raid at your local organic grocer? Good grief, what is the planet coming to? Can’t win the War on Drugs? Then switch to a War on Cheese!

Organic Eggs and Factory Farming

Most of us believe that if we’re buying organic eggs, they are automatically going to be better. Better for us because the chickens are given good quality feed and not dosed up on hormones and drugs. And better for the chickens because they are treated more humanely. After all, that’s what “organic” stands for, right?

Sadly, not always. Yet again, making the choice for artisan farming over industrialized farming means making the better quality choice.

The Cornucopia Institute has just released it’s organic egg report and scorecard, Scrambled Eggs: Separating Factory Farm Egg Production From Authentic Organic Agriculture. It’s an eye-opening revelation for those of us who thought we could avoid the downsides of corporate agri-business — a.k.a. industrialized or factory farming — by choosing food based on an organic label alone.

There truly is no substitute for knowing the farmer you buy from.