Food Security & GMOs
Genetically modified organisms, GMOs have become hot button issues in more and more communities. GMOs are plants with altered DNA. Its proponents, large corporations like Monsanto, hail the technology as a revolutionary solution to feeding the world’s growing population. However, concerns are mounting about the risks posed by GMOs, both to human health and the environment. For example, they may produce new allergens and toxins, and spread harmful traits to non-GMO crops. The long-term impacts of GMOs are unknown, and once released into the environment cannot be recalled. Industry response is, Don’t worry. Eat to your heart’s content. But can we? Do we have a right to know what is in the food we eat? Are we preparing meals of Frankenfood or nutritious, safe, and healthy ones? Are corporations playing with Nature as if she were a Lego set?
Speaker
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is an internationally renowned voice for sustainable development and social justice. She’s a physicist, scholar and social activist. She is a founder of Navdanya and Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi. She said, “I started Navdanya, nine seeds, as a political act so that farmers would have free seeds in their hands. Using that free seed, they would be able to resist the kind of control system that corporations were trying to establish in India. Through those seeds, they can establish sustainable organic agriculture again.” She is the recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize and the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. She is the author of many books, including Water Wars, Earth Democracy, Soil Not Oil, Oneness vs the 1%, and Terra Viva.
Valerie Rose –
Excellent talk – informative, infuriating, inspiring.