yes, the taste and durability of the products of the 90s in Turkey are not the same as they are today. they cannot be compared to the ancestral seeds we grow in our garden.
Canola oil, even the grains are of poor nutritional value. I can taste it in any breads not made at home. Even the yeast is no longer as good quality. Vegetables, especially potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes all taste watery, have a poor quality unless they're from people who grow on regenerative agriculture. Blueberries are pale in comparison to the wild species. Bayer/Monsanto, Cargill, JBS, and a few others are determining what is available in the food markets. Quinoa, now it's "fashionable" but the original people who depend on it no longer can sell it for a decent price. Our dietary diversity is abysmal, I choose to grow open pollination seeds, the hybrids are not much more than money makers. They're designed, literally, for monoculture farming.
@@person2194 There are seed banks, local people exchange seeds. I will now produce my own food. Actually, we used to do the same, but when we moved to the big city, we sold our farm. We pay a lot of money for something that has no taste, such as GMOs, chemicals, etc. in turkey. Compared to the food products I used to consume, I am not satisfied at all, even the most expensive is tasteless.
I grew up in Sri Lanka and remember the Ginger I had. It was delicate and full of flavour that can be used in teas to give it an excellent taste. Then it got replaced by a big fat verity which tasted horrible but has a high yield making farmers happy. I've been the Japan and Australia and it is the same fat verity you get in supermarkets. I hope the same won't happen to curry leaves and other spices that people take for granted because the curry leaves I get in Australia have almost no flavour. I have also heard stories about how a local verity of orange was wiped out from the island by a rich multinational company by introducing a pest.
Same to corn in my country. The plants are also prone to pests and diseases. You need to constantly rely on these companies products to make them thrive. Such a nuisance
Yeah, sure, I'm all for it, we'll be watching them until we're blue in the face, right?, then what?, until our politicians start caring and are made accountable, until good (no loopholes) rules and regulations have teeth, (plus some other things) we can do next to zero about it, big fat ZERO... I know, it's sad...
European agricultural is a very dirty game and German government is the biggest player in it. DW, as their own propaganda tool, would never make a video about Germany gouvernements role in big agriculture.
I think the problem is the algorithm I only discovered these videos because I watched lots of documentaries about climate change. These don't show up on most people's feed. What shows up are like rich vloggers or gaming content
My grandmother once told me that the rice they ate 50-60 years ago were mere much more fragrance. The same village could produce different varieties of rice. Now every rice farmer plant the same variety.
old people smellers (nose) doesn't work the way it did when they were young. Neither do taste buds. The simplest explanation is granny don't smell good no more.
@@TheShootistI'm in my thirties. And i have the same thing with the same food when I eat it fresh from the plants at home, or from the supermarket. Same for homegrown herbs, fruits etc and what comes from the supermarket. The produce is picked to sell, not flavour.
Thank you for making this. I recently stayed in Bhutan for a few months and everything there had so much flavour. Even uncooked rice had a wonderful aroma. The rice and veggies tasted very much like what it tasted for me growing up in India. I had forgotten how flavourful food used to be. We need to start growing and preserving these varieties as much as we can and bring them back. As the climate changes and monsoons become more erratic, it is all the more important to keep the diversity alive and not rely on a handful of crops that are so dependent on pesticides and fertilizers
The reason foods lost their flavor is because they were engineered specifically for a much longer shelf life and to endure long distance shipping. In the old days, people ate fresh produce grown by local small farmers and whatever was in season. Out-of-season foods were typically canned or preserved some other way. When Big Ag took over, they focused on appearance, shelf life, and shipping. They didn't care about loss of taste and nutrients. The climate has always changed. For over 100 years, the very wealthy have been using this topic to dupe all the gullible. They've changed the name many times. They've been using this scheme to transfer wealth and control from the 99%'ers to the top 1%'ers. One of their major goals is to cull our species and to make everything unaffordable for those allowed to live except for them. Only the very wealthy will have the means to do anything enjoyable. They've been setting up the world how THEY want not what's beneficial for the 99%'ers who they want gone.
@@chronos401 the 1% rely on the 99% or masses in order to have a surplus population called the reserve army of labor which is made up of unemployed workers and their dependents and landless peasants which they can readily exploit to generate wealth from. It is this that allows them to keep decreasing wages because it makes you replaceable. For this reason, culling the population would be quite problematic as the remaining workers would now be in a position to use collective bargaining, and letting people die off is not exactly a great way to remain in power Certainly the climate has always changed, that is not up for debate, what sets this century apart is how fast it is changing and how disrupted weather patterns are becoming as a result, but most of all, how these erratic shifts affect ecologies which have been besieged for far longer than we've been burning oil. Deforestation has been going on for centuries, overfishing has been going for centuries, and GHGs aside, we have drastically changed our physical environment in numerous ways that most don't appreciate because it's very hard to grasp such monumental shifts, we now are indoors 80% of the time, and are short lived and are unacquainted with grasping the cumulative changes we've made to critical systems, most notably soil and hydrology. There are hardly any parts of the land that humans have not had a hand in shaping, most just don't know what to look for and are impoverished in their historical knowledge. In New England, our forests are all young and are full of stone walls where people were grazing sheep 200 years ago. In my state, we have 12 less days of snow a year than we did in 2000. This is incredibly rapid change. Just ask any farmer and they'll say that the weather has gone totally wacky the last few decades. We used to be able to read the skies, now even with all the tools we have, it's completely unpredictable.
@@chronos401 climate change is real and is caused by humans. You must be either blind or very young to not have experienced climate change in your own backyard.
Here on the Canadian prairies we have a tree that produces a berry called Saskatoons. The Saskatchewan city of Saskatoon is named after the berry tree. Its like mix of a blueberry, Haskap and a raspberry for flavour. The outer skin is blue and the inside is white. Its very high in antioxidants.
I grew up in the foothills, went every summer hunting and picking wild Saskatoon berries. I remembered to leave 2/3 for the animals, birds. So delicious! Oddly enough, very few berries actually made it through the door. 😉
Around that 7 minute mark the video states that the seed makers get to choose what the farmers plant and how. I cannot comment how it is outside the US, but as one who works in agriculture within the US, I can tell you this statement is mostly untrue. The biggest determining factor in the US of what a farmer plants is MARKETS. Farmers are independent and are proud producers. They choose the farming technology level they wish that works for them, their farming practice AND allows them to be profitable. In the US we do have an organic market, a sustainable market, a certified nonGMO food grade market and a conventional market. Biggest limiting factor on market is distance from the farm to the receiving station. If farmers can find a local receiving station for certified nonGMO corn that pays a premium for it, there will be those farmers who find a way to make their production practices change to meet the requirements of the market, and if the opportunity, there will be seed companies who work to provide seed to meet that demand. In areas where there are grain facilities to buy that particular crop there is more diversity. For example, farmers in North Dakota plant crops like flax, pinto beans, durum and larger commodity crops like corn, soybeans and hard red spring wheat (most wheat is nonGMO just an FYI) and they are big producers of oil sunflowers, but it is because they have facilities there to buy these crops. Someone in central Montana might have to truck their soybeans or sunflowers nearly 800 miles one way to be able to market their soybeans or sunflowers, but they could haul their spring wheat to the local elevator in their nearest town. These planting decisions have nothing to do with the seed companies, but rather grain merchandisers, processors and available rail lines and the cost of trucking. Guys in Florida might raise watermelons and peanuts and corn but they have a local market for those things. Eliminate markets and producers change what they produce. Some companies do specify particular varieties or hybrids in various crops for grain contracts, but these are not generally seed companies but rather food processing companies. Examples are Cargill, ADM, General Mills, CHS and Anheuser-Busch. Some of these companies do have their own seed breeding programs but many do not. Major companies are not the only entities that develop and patent plant genetics. Land grant universities, funded by taxpayer dollars and supported by private industry partnerships, also develop genetics in crops like wheat, barley, spelt, soybeans, flax, oats, durum, and different pulses and patent them. Seed must flow through the certified and registered seed processes, and farmers who save, clean and replant seed of plant protected varieties (particularly if they share or sell the seed to another farmer) can and have been sued by the land grant universities for violating plant protection patents. If consumers want to see more diversity in their food, particularly in the US, they must be willing to pay more for food raised in smaller quantities in markets that lack the efficiencies of large markets. By creating more demand for a product, they will help companies be motivated to invest in processing facilities and methods for more minor crops which will drive market prices up for producers which will generate interest in them raising these different crops.
In Lancaster, PA, the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum runs the Heirloom Seed Project, which has gathered seeds from Pennsylvania German farmers around PA, especially Lancaster County. What started as a way to help with historical interpretation has evolved into an important mission in genetic preservation. For example, one lady learned that the museum cultivates a pumpkin variety developed by her family many years ago. She reached out to the museum and now she grows this to feed to her family at Thanksgiving.
My city is in the middle of setting up a community garden two blocks down the street from me. I’m super interested to see if it ends up thriving or not. Personally, I’d love to see at least one planter box sized garden per family become the norm again. Take some of the stress off of our industrial farming system and supply chain.
Herbs, those can be grown indoors. I agree, food in local communities is far better for everyone. Flowers are frequently seen as wasted effort, but if people grow flowers that are native to their local area, or seeds that have an attraction to the wildlife, we all benefit. Berry bushes, some can grow quite well in pots. SOIL must be rich, it's what makes our food and trees healthy.
@@paranoah1925 in the LA area. Sorry but that’s as specific as I like to get on YT since I may one day have loads of subscribers hahaha. I’m really hopeful that we can get to a point where it’s normal to see community gardens every couple of blocks in suburban neighborhoods
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet I understand. I was just wondering what part of the world. Anyway i wouldn't recognise the names of towns more specific than that
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet I agree with you but I also think space in cities should mostly be dedicated to higher-value land use because of increased property values. In the suburbs it makes sense because land is cheaper, but in a big city, housing or office/industrial space makes more sense economically. Nothing wrong with community gardens, I actually would love to see one in my community, but in a big city it's not going to be productive enough to feed more than a few dozen families with a sizeable amount of land.
South Africa is ahead of this in the private sector. Obviously most commercial farms work in the same way, with GMO seeds and particular pesticides. But my small town has more than 3 aquaponics centeres. Food needs to be hyper local and vertical.
I got tired of not having the variate of root veggies for making tasty stews so started to grow my own but using seeds from the Digger’s club as they were heritage seeds so far I have been really pleased with them, I never knew there were so many different colours of carrots now I grow the purple dragon carrots and they taste soo sweet. Same with beetroot there are so many different colours and flavours. So many of the veggies I grow now supply not just one veggie but two. Root veggies also let’s me use their leafy greens as well all the while I’m waiting for the roots to be ready to harvest I can use their tops sparingly and when I harvest one of the roots I get to use both root and tops for the same meal. I stopped using weed killers 12 years ago specially as I learned that many weeds only grow when the soil is lacking something that the weeds can provide. Now when I weed I don’t remove the weeds from the veggie boxes but rather pull and drop them where they are so they can compost back into the soil. My veggies have increased their size since doing this. I got into growing my own veggies because of the lack of variate found in the shops but since growing my own veggies I found they taste so much better than shop bought veggies.
I got a bean variety from an apocalypse gardening kit and it's my favorite variety to grow. It's highly productive and produces delicious tender greenbeans all season. I dont know its name and have never seen it anywhere else. The massive tube of them I got originally has gone bad, so now I'm preserving the line by drying my own seeds. And since I've started with the beans, I've also started keeping other seeds from the other crops I grow (mostly lettuce, squash, and herbs). Im pretty sure all of these count as commercialized seeds, but it's the start of my seed bank and seed keeping journey. My friends and I want to build a farming community one day and knowing how to collect and grow our own seeds will save a lot of money and give us access to a variety of crops.
Fortunately in India there few farmers preserving some old varieties of rice, wheat and other grains. Some farmers have saved more than 100 varieties of different grains.
People who are commenting, that we should not be demonizing mass agriculture and just be grateful for food... The truth is, that now, this agriculture is not sustainable. Not only because of GM seeds, but because of SOIL LOSS. Massive tilling, spraying, erosion, and so on destroys the soil. We use fossil fuels to farm. For now, mainstream agriculture uses 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food. There are countless examples, where people teach sustainable agriculture, which builds soil and produces a lot of food and can reverse these numbers. In that case, the commercial model has to be different, more people and more community have to be involved. And people want to! :)
The soil is EVERYTHING..once u kill the soil it's so hard to bring it back. Mega farming is not sustainable. I would like to burn monsanto and all their ceo's or better yet spray them with their " safe " chemicals!
There were far fewer of our ancestors. You can't feed 7 billion people without high yield crops and pesticides. I follow a farmer on YT who last year lost 3/4 of his crop to a beetle that was not previously a problem because he used to be able to buy seed coated in pesticide. Replicate that worldwide and you'll have mass famine.
Well WEF should be targeting Monsanto rather than the farmers about all those nitrogen increase. Farmers are the users, Monsanto is the root of the problem.
Can I suggest watching Living Web Farms. They are doing great work in leading a new kind of farming. They focus on improving soil health which leads to healthier food.
Everyone who plant home Garden and farmers should keep the original seeds and replant them each year. This would preserve the original seeds and help us save by not have to buy seeds or plants each year.
This is the problem with GMOs. Not that they're necessarily dangerous in and of themselves, but they are a product of an unsustainable, polluting, monopolised agricultural system with very little resilience to climate change events. Not to mention the patents, and targeting of peasant farmers for crosses with seeds they didn't even want!
That’s not true, GMOs are the only way we’ll be able to reduce our land use and feed more people. There are simply far too many people in the world to be supported by existing methods without hurting the planet
Today food is sold by the kilo, and has to travel far to reach the consumer. Traits like "will it travel well", "can I sell it for more because it's heavy" and "how long can I keep it in storage" have been prioritised over the last few decades. "Does it taste good" is no longer important.
This was very interesting. It’s a shame that so much of what we eat is determined by big business. We need to, as a planet, get back to diversity & be healthier for it.
Country living is the solution, where you'll have to preserve your seeds and feed them organically during sow time. Already some original seeds are going extinct in my area.
yeah not gonna happen until the production is controlled by the producers themselves, rather than private individuals (who themselves don´t produce anything)
Great piece, I have just begun to build my permaculture gardens and seed is exactly what I want to start saving and exchanging. I had no idea that it was that bad a situation. I'll also have to think long and hard where I get seeds from.✌🏽❤️
Hi Umar, thanks for your comment! Have you watched our report on permaculture yet? 📺 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I0rQNYMwzfY.html Let us know what you think in the comments! ✌
In the future I hope you avoid framing things like Bezos funding seed vaults less positively given that allowing capitalists ownership of critical food production technology is how we got here in the first place
@@gorillaguy9902 As long as a capitalist is doing their fiduciary duty, they will never work for the public benefit. Even charity has been turned into a way to buy influence and dodge taxation. If we could trust capitalists to simply be people and do the right thing we wouldn't need to be worrying about how Beyer owns half the crops we eat or about whether or not their chemicals are killing the people they're selling to. Unfortunately that isn't the world we live in and so I personally would prefer that DW make that clear.
@@DragonwolfoftheSands I agree but sometimes sometimes it benefits them to do the right thing of course using less plastic is to save money but it’s also good for the environment. That is what I mean
That is one of the problems in our current society, lazy people being in rapture of actors and so called influencers. People need to learn how to think for themselves again.
If you want better, nutrient rich food you need to grow it yourself in soil that is alive with the organisms that benefit the plants instead of killing them with plowing, pesticides, and herbicides.
You might like our video, "Permaculture: Producing food without destroying the planet": ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I0rQNYMwzfY.html Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments! 🙃
Monsanto is responsible for giving GMOs a bad reputation but the bad effects were the chemicals. Now solutions with GMOs have unnecessary obstacles for approval and customer acceptance
I think cost should not be of such high importance about food. I also think few should not have so much power/influence on something so important as our food.
Look at the size of the US corn belt. Once fertilizers were introduced back in the 1930s corn production measured in bushels of corn per acre has risen 1000%. Before that it was constant. It would be impossible to go backwards and feed the world.
I am from India's country side and my father owns a retail shop of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. Let me tell you, almost everyone is hooked on the hybrid seeds (read Genetically Engineered Seeds) due to their promise of high yield, they know of only one weedicide and and ask for Glyphosate - which has been proved to be cancer causing agent. The dependency of these crops on very harmful insecticides and pesticides as well as on fertilisers is growing day by day. Guess who's products are we selling? It's BSF, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta - basically all the products from big giants of America and Europe, in the most remote villages of India.
I use only stable (non hybrid) seed varieties that have no patents on it in my garden... often I take my own seeds... I plant approximately 30 different crops each year on my 400m² alotment garden plot... and I do it with the no dig method
hybrid seeds are unstable meaning they don´t produce offspring in the second generation or produce weaker offspring or the breed very quickly degradates. It´s a scam to make producers buy seeds every year from monopolies
thankfully Indian agriculture has not been taken over by corporates. Here in the west, there is one type of cucumber, just one type of banana. the options are limited and boring. My mom was shocked and in utter dismay when she was at the super market. Please visit any vegetable market in India and you'll surprised at the varieties and options.
Bro here in india there was thousand of rice seeds of which most of them got destoryed due to stupid congress govement introducing hybrid rice seeds. Now only a few remain. Also the vaerity in vegetables survided due to india people used to cultivating a few vegetables in the garden for hundreds of years we have had Banana , mango, coconut tree in every house backyard and few types of vegetables and curry leaves as well.
Hm... Gardening is one of my hobbies and I own farm land, so I watch a lot of documentaries/videos on farming in different regions... From my understanding, majority of the Indian farmers are under corporate control too... Lots of Indian farmers in debt, lots of Indian farmers sick with cancer from pesticide, dwindling water resources and so on... I mean there was even a major farmers protest in India not so long ago... But I agree with the lack of variants. Friends are always shocked with how different my food can look and taste from the stuff in store.
The thing abt india is every single inch of land in india is arable. The same cant be said abt other countries. The problem is much more complex than just big bad companies.
Monsanto killed my father with their agent orange. Surely there is a special place in hell for those villains. People United would never allow them to remain in business 😒
I’ve replaced my front lawn with a veggie garden! Barely buying any produce right now at the height of the summer and freezing and preserving food weekly! Grow a garden if you can people!
Someone should do a sugar challenge: Find a non-alcoholic beverage in a supermarket that isn't water and has less than 5 grams of sugar per 100 ml. Cola Zero and that's about it. Don't be fooled by those "healty" fruit juices they pour sugar in it as well.
I heard a kid in a grocery store ask their mom why people drink “no added sugar” juice. I wanted to say, because you can actually taste the juice that way…
Upon serious eden research I've discovered the species that can be summarised as paradise plants. Here is the list folks: Pears Oranges Cucumbers Artichoke Mizuna Salads (leafy greens) Cruciferous vegetables Cucumbers Nasturtiums Sesame Chicory Traveler Ginseng Pomegranate Broccoli Zucchini ;) This is my life work so enjoy
so one thing that is important to remember, without the mass industrialization of food you wouldnt see as much food as is out there [so higher costs, less food overall and less people in less areas]. We see the mass chaos that a small increase in food prices in areas like Lebanon can cause, now imagine how bad things could be if food prices jump 2-3x or more. It sucks for sure, but big agriculture has helped billions of people, so its a balancing act.
I just finished taking a 400 level college class (environmental science colloquium part two) that was all about big agricultural. What I learned was truly terrifying, especially about concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
@@YourCapyBruv_do_u_rmbr_3Dpipes How could changing the laws fix the problem? There is 0% chance you could pass a law like that. However if people did what I said above, and there were cheap alternatives, then everyone would be a lot more open to such a change.
@@YourCapyBruv_do_u_rmbr_3Dpipes Look back into alcohol prohibition. Something that popular cannot be prohibited unless the public supports those laws.
Another example of how Govts organizations & Govt investment always seem to invest & create the tech that is so good for us way before it is profitable, Big Corporations just care about profits they can make soon, even if it harms us.
post-monsanto: patenting the seed? hold my water post-post-monsanto: patenting the water? hold my air post-post-post-monsanto: patenting the air? hold my universe post-post-post-post-monsanto: patenting the universe? hold my joystick
Great program. This should be series. Fx. An episode about Allan Savory or How are small farmers using hi-tech databases and AI to scale up? We are being poisoned by our food, go into detail with statistics.
it’s corn a big lump with knobs it has the juice i can’t imagine a more beautiful thing it’s corn i can tell you all about it i mean look at this thing but when i tried it with butter everything changed
You need to keep most of those seeds in the seedbank until the soil is clean again which won't be for a very long time. Monsanto and Bayer have dumped such a massive amount of toxins on the land, it's being rained down on us everywhere.
fantastic video, is there any website that can show all of these different variations link, (similar to a tree of life diagram) as well so we can see the diversity of edible food
Why is this not in the mainstream news? I hate that this does not get addressed. They are posioning our food and land and we let them. I only eat organic and it’s a blessing but we need to go back to our roots (pun intended). We constantly let these big corporations give us health problems and destroy the earth and they just get away with it cuz they can.
How was Monsanto allowed to put a defective product into production, a product that could not be properly used and only used in the designated area(farm lands, etc of the Monsanto product purchaser)? How did the U.S. Patent office allow for a biological product to be issued a patent when this product failed to be controllable in real-world farm productions? It spread to other farmer's land and infected and/or contaminated their fields without them using the product. On what basis did F.D.A. not make Monsanto pull the product from the store shelves since it was uncontrollable and defective, in plain words 'faulty' as a product. We as the public, consumer, and/or purchaser of the Monsanto product are exposed to this defective product from it being a product being planted, grown, harvested, paid for at the grocery store, and injested/consumed into our bodies when we eat it ever since this Monsanto product was made available to everyone. More so, as for seeds being used from one growing season to the next with Monsanto's seeds, someone please tell me how this rationale doesn't legally fit, especially in favor of the farmers or seed purchaser...once you buy a product, any by-product produced by that product may be the property of the purchaser of the product and fall under the responsibility of the purchaser of the product to do with as they please.
In the US we allow plant varietal patents, not only in food crops but also in the horticultural industry. Plant varietal patents can be applied for and paid for by nursery men, plant breeders, land grant universities, genetics companies, etc. Once a hybrid or variety is under a plant varietal patent, no one can reproduce seed, cuttings or any type of product for sale. It can take several years or more to develop a new hybrid, variety or cultivar, which is why some choose to apply for these patents. It is the plant protection patents that protect the genetics of the seed. Traits like glyphosate tolerance have a separate patent, so a glyphosate tolerant soybean may actually be covered by two different patents at the same time.
@@msseedlady2587 Ma'am, if the farmers or product purchaser does not want to sell the product, but use the by-product or seed, cuttings or any type of product from the original product purchase themselves individually on their own property, fields, etc, how does the law and plant varietal patent apply to those individuals in that type of situation?
Agriculture would become astronomically more corporatized. Currently, 98% of farms in the US are family farms, and they account for 89% of the product produced. That would not be the case if vertical farms were adopted in large scale. The costs of entry for a large building are astronomical, meaning that only corporations would be able to enter the market. Not to mention the fact that vertical farms are quite honestly a massive grift but that’s a whole different story.
As a Canadian farmer, I must disagree with your conclusion that seed companies profit at everyone else’s expense. Everyone watching this video enjoys cheaper, readily available food because of these companies produce excellent products for farmers to use. Anyone who would like to attempt to feed themselves (and others, for that matter) for a whole year using undeveloped seed strains and organic methods can take a note from 1800’s farming: it consumes your whole life and breaks your body. Society has transitioned from the agrarian lifestyle for good reason, and I don’t think videos such as this one let people know how grateful they should be that they are not responsible for growing enough food to survive. However, I appreciate DW for getting people thinking about where food actually comes from, and I hope people can balance their concerns with my feedback.
People don’t realize how difficult it is to grow food until they try it themselves. Everything is out to get your crops. Weather, bugs, weeds, fungi, animals, etc.
@@magesalmanac6424 It is certainly true that not all food products today are of excellent quality, but what I meant by "excellent" (I should have been more specific) was along the lines of products that are consistently available, affordable and palatable. Looking at the population growth of the past 50 years, I would contend that food available today must be at least somewhat nutritious if it is able to support such a massive increase of population.
@@stephenbeard9882 An accurate observation! Growing (and storing) large quantities of food is a difficult and risky endeavour, and many of the products that videos such as this one are prone to criticise (such as trademarked seeds) are the only things that making feeding the world population feasible.
Painful irony that seeds kept in “banks” have the greatest value because of their genetic diversity acquired over long periods of adaptation or ‘natural investment’. These same seeds, because they are naturally derived, and not patented as legal ‘property’ have no exchange value. Yet artificial seeds, which are owned by a corporation, have value because of their property rights and the dependence that fosters, and so their use derive economic surplus, the means by which we allocate rewards, to their owners. The question is, which model indicates value? Obviously the market not only gets value wrong, it does so by destroying and displacing real value of genetic diversity. It also measures and rewards that value in monetary units, which is intrinsically worthless. Natural seeds reward in food, and in new genetic varieties.That is inherently valuable. It gets tired repeating that capitalism is not working and needs to go away.
If people would have the freedom to get land to farm and not big agriculture stealing land from farmers and keeping it for themselves. Also access to cattle for people, like cows, mules, donkies, horses... So that people could live closer to nature and animals would have more natural land instead of all this suburban and urban and industrial (no-lands). People could have healthy food to eat from their own crops, their own trees, their own vineyards and from their own animals. People would have access to heirloom varieties of seeds, heirloom varieties of cattle and fowl and so on and so on....
Unfortunately a very one-sided documentary. I do agree that the big seed companys have done bad things in the past aswell as now, but a few things in this documentary are far from the truth, or put things in a negative light that actually are much more complicated. 1. "Farmers become dependent on Roundup due to resistances of weeds" -Wrong, if you wanted to kill resistant weeds you wouldn't use the same chemical in higher quantities but different chemicals in combination. 2. "Licensed seeds=bad" -The only way we can feed the whole population right now is due to advances in plant breeding. New varieties do not simply pop up, they have to be bred over a long period of time. It might take 10 years to create a new variety or population. GMOs are just a part of this, but many many seed companies do not genetically engineer in their breeding program. If these companies don't license their varieties they do not earn any money. Without these companies we would not be able to support as many people on this earth. 3. "The seed companies decide what crop you grow" -Very twisted way of looking at things. It all comes down to the demand created by the consumer which crops pay enough for the farmer. They also do not decide what you eat. You do. Most people just really do not ever try anything new. 4. "Old varieties are more resistant to drought, disease and pests" -Most old varieties are much less tolerant to all of the above, I've been to government fundet institutions that have tested varieties against each other and the old ones, pretty much always, suck. Sometimes they do have desireable traits though, those are noticed and bred into newer genetics." 5. "Loss of flavour" -I have to agree, to an extent. Of course the focus today is on yield, often at the cost of taste. But this is not always the case. Right now there are many niche crops being selected for taste. There are for example now hops varieties that have a much more complex flavour than there ever was. Don't be easily fooled people.
I have grown heritage vs f1 hybrids and you're right. the heritage varieties are often weaker. however they do taste better almost always. the entire farming industry is in trouble though as we have depleted our soils, we also have unhappy animals in a by cases to eat. we do need to look to less mono culture and more soil health, incorporating more nature. we do need to shift attitudes to accept veggies with the odd mark or hole, rather than a chemical perfection, as it is more healthy long term. after many years of research into nutrition of animals, it's clear that processed foods and high chemical input I to animals and their food, is making them sicker. this does need to change. but the consumer is at fault for demanding foods like this. modern farming can be better
The response could be we all grow our own food. I do not want to grow my own food. I spent nearly 50 years in and around farming of all sorts on six continents. I trust the US food system. The biggest food related challenge in the US is obesity. Tells me there is plenty to eat we just make poor choices. Consumers demand convenience and low-cost. That's what they get. Farmers will grow anything that makes profits. Thank you.
