»The Future of Food

How does one eliminate seed that becomes genetically-intertwined with one's own crops? Can multinational conglomerates push the world's 1.2+ billion subsistence farmers out of their traditional farming roles, and into poverty at the edge of ever-growing urban areas?

Deborah Koons Garcia's documentary The Future of Food addresses these issues, through a history of humanity's interaction with farming, and a thorough dressing-down of the large companies that are privatizing genes. And in protecting their patents, they are suing family farmers whose seed has become polluted with patented (and sometimes) experimental stock from these corporations, whose tactics are shamelessly profit-oriented ("buy the herbicide that kills everything! then buy the plant that is genetically resistant to the herbicide! and oh yes, we own the herbicide. And we own the seeds."); when subsequent generations of their patented corps mutate and are no longer uniformly pesticide- and herbicide-resistant, farmers end up using increasingly toxic sprays on their crops.

Nosireebob. One of many reasons I'm glad that farmer's markets are enjoying a resurgence in popularity, that markets and retailers are labelling foods (well, at least in the EU) ... but what about countries outside of the "First World"?

The film did not touch on many of the public-health problems raised by genetically-engineered foods: what of the addictive properties of corn syrup?

Sara invited me to the San Francisco premiere of the film. Hooray! Hearing her dulcet tones in the narration was a pleasant surprise.