Wednesday, November 16, 2011

end of the road Round Up

An interesting video from GM Crops: Farmer to Farmer (ht: NC) that discusses the various problems that farmers are having with Round Up  (glyphosate).

Michael Hart, a conventional livestock family farmer, has been farming in Cornwall for nearly thirty years and has actively campaigned on behalf of family farmers for over fifteen years, travelling extensively in Europe, India, Canada and the USA.

In this short documentary he investigates the reality of farming genetically modified crops in the USA ten years after their introduction. He travels across the US interviewing farmers and other specialists about their experiences of growing GM

video link.

One of the points made frequently is that there is a very limited availability of alternative methods because the potential profits of the Round Up method squeezed out the research and development on the older methods.  The public Land Grant Universities have pretty much captured by big Ag and work for them.

The monopolistic practises are about what you have come to expect from a crony-capitalist systems that does its best to give as many advantages as possible to the large politically connected corporations.  You don't get much bigger than the agri-business corporations.

3 comments:

Anne said...

If only the masses would stop a moment and understand the profound impact of this Big Agri-quagmire.

Sadly, most will not look around until their plates are empty or they face the battle of diet induced disease.

Anne said...

Love the video btw.. I hope you don't mind if I write a post regarding it.

russell1200 said...

Anne - no I don't mind at all.

Although I thought it overstated the specific case, the book Methland featured arguements related to Big-Ag and the decline of rural America.

Around here we just have Conagra blowing up their Slim Jim plants and then leaving town to rebuild elsewhere.