We regularly trawl second-hand bookshops for bargains and recently we picked up this gem of a book: Fatal Harvest - The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. It is quite a tome, but a very interesting and alarming read. I'm slowly making my way through it, dipping in to it now and then, but it will probably take a few months to complete. The book details the destruction of eco-systems and biodiversity by the global industrial farming complex and also presents a new vision for 21st century food systems. The contributing authors include a healthy dose of journalists, professors, legal experts, directors of NGO's and food activists, Vandana Shiva amongst them. Here are some pearls of wisdom from a section called Corporate Lies: Busting the Myths of Industrial Agriculture.
Myth One: Industrial Agriculture Will Feed the World
World hunger is not created by a lack of food but by poverty and landlessness, which deny people access to food. Industrial agriculture actually increases hunger by raising the cost of farming, by forcing tens of millions of farmers off the land, and by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops.
Myth Two: Industrial Food is Safe, Healthy, Nutritious
Industial agriculture contaminates our vegetables and fruit with pesticides, slips dangerous bacteria into our lettuce, and puts genetically engineered growth hormones into our milk. It is not surprising that cancer, food-borne illnesses, and obesity are at an all-time high.
Myth Three: Industrial Food is Cheap
If you added the real cost of industrial food - it's health, environmental, and social costs - to the current supermarket price, not even our wealthiest citizens could afford to buy it.
Myth Four: Industrial Agriculture is Efficient
Small farms produce more agricultural output per area than large farms. Moreover, larger, less diverse farms require far more mechanical and chemical inputs. These ever increasing inputs are devastating to the environment and make these farms far less efficient than smaller, more sustainable farms.
Myth Five: Industrial Food Offers More Choice
What the consumer actually gets in the supermarket is an illusion of choice. Food labelling does not even tell us what pesticides are on our food or what products have been genetically engineered. Most importantly, the myth of choice masks the tragic loss of tens of thousands of crop varieties caused by industrial agriculture.
Myth Six: Industrial Agriculture Benefits the Environment and Wildlife
Industrial agriculture is the largest single threat to the earth's biodiversity. Fence-to-fence ploughing, planting and harvesting techniques decimate wildlife habitats, while massive chemical use poisons the soil and water, and kills off countless plant and animal communities.
Myth Seven: Biotechnology Will Solve the Problems of Industrial Agriculture
New biotech crops will not solve industrial agriculture's problems, but will compound them and consolidate control of the world's food supply in the hands of a few large corporations. Biotechnology will destroy biodiversity and food security, and drive self-sufficient farmers off their land.
You can take a closer look at Fatal Harvest at Amazon.com or on the official website.
