I got a letter in the post the other day from my Dad, with a newspaper article attached. The article is about
Monsanto, the monster company that, as my father put it, “ using GM seeds to establish a type of feudal system across the world…” According to the Montreal Gazette article, 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds – so not only does the world lose biodiversity, but the farmers have to BUY new seeds each year. Further in the article, a Canadian farmer being sued by Monsanto says he never bought their seed, which costs C$80 per acre compared to C$20 per acre for conventional seed. How nice for Monsanto. Perhaps that has something to do with the “thousands of debt-ridden farmers [who] have committed suicide” in India.
Monsanto has lied before to maintain its profitability, according to a film called “The World According to Monsanto.” Apparently Monsanto execs refused to be interviewed for the film, and spokesperson Trish Jordan dismissed it as a “rehash” of old issues long put to rest. She says the “concept that Monsanto wants to take over the world is just folklore.” Tell that to the bankrupt farmers and the innocent farmers sued for “patent infringement” when really Monsanto should have been sued for corrupting seed supplies.
Back to our own little lives: When my husband read my Dad’s cover letter, he said, “So has your Dad changed his behaviour yet?” I laughed. I doubt it – but I’ll work on him over the summer when I visit with the kids. “He’ll find,” continued Tom, “that it’s not easy.” Hear hear.
The process is like this: you go to the supermarket with your new level of awareness. You start reading labels. You are in a state of disbelief at first: how can EVERYTHING contain all this rubbish that you’ve recently found out is BAD for me?? Eventually you begin to accept that if you’re going to change your behaviour, you’ll have to just plain old buy “organic” stuff to avoid the chemicals.
Then things happen to throw you off that track. Maybe you read that not all “organic” is really so; cheaters jump on the bandwagon along with the true organic folk, and they’re hard to tell apart. Or maybe your cash flow takes a dip and “organic” suddenly seems an expensive luxury – even a sucker-punch – compared to to what everybody around you is doing: grabbing the cheap veg, the standard milk, the 79 cent loaf, the paraben-stuffed shampoo.
But journalists – not just the ones with “Organic” or “Natural” glossies, but The Economist, National Geographic, Time Magazine, or the long-standing Ecologist, keep telling you: farmers are being financially destroyed. Crop biodiversity is being suffocated. Land is being poisoned. Crops are being genetically manipulated beyond what we can control (for example the unexpected (?!) contamination of Round-up Ready seeds into adjacent farmers’ fields). Climate is changing because of our consumption patterns. We are fucking up nature!! “We” keep forgetting we ARE nature: a mammal, with basic survival needs that include FOOD and CLEAN WATER.
So you sigh and go to the grocery store and… buy less. Because it all seems so unnecessary now. You don’t need some extra-smelly shampoo. You don’t need the latest shade of mascara. You don’t even need to colour your hair (finally, even hairdressers are admitting they know how poisonous hair dye is, so now they don’t let it touch your scalp. How helpful. But it still goes down the drain to become your future drinking and bathing water, or at least irrigation for the food you’ll eat. Hello! Stop pretending the chemicals disappear like magic! You have to not use them in the first place.) You realize you’d rather save your pennies for a hybrid car. Your children look gorgeous in 2nd hand clothes, and when you do buy them a new pair of jeans, you wonder – and maybe even research – the brand to know where it’s manufactured and under what conditions.
Yes, you have become a conscientious consumer. Imperfect, not always convinced or energetic enough to keep your standards super-high, but another drop in the tide of people realising you need less, and what you need shouldn’t harm others – neither your beloved children, nor the stranger halfway across the globe.
Ah, it’ll be a busy summer, changing our consumption behaviour. Get ready, Dad!
Read the full article here: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/saturdayextra/story.html?id=d450ef65-c3ad-4678-8978-c5ca305ca630
