Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

[RBHam]

reviewed by Eileen E. Schell
Eileen is an Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University. She is currently writing a book called The Rhetoric of the Farm Crisis; Globalization and the Future of the Family Farm.

Food is our most basic need, the very stuff of life. –Vandana Shiva

Vandana Shiva’s Stolen Harvest (South End Press, 2000) addresses the consequences of industrial, corporatized agriculture and its creation of food totalitarianism, a system “in which a handful of corporations control the entire food chain and destroy alternatives so that people do not have access to diverse, safe, foods produced ecologically.” Shiva, an internationally renowned environmental activist from India who has a Ph.D. in physics, uses the word “theft” to describe how agricultural corporations have systematically plundered and destroyed local, sustainable forms of agriculture in the name of growth and profit. Hiding beneath maxims about efficiency and productivity and slick advertising campaigns about feeding the world’s growing population, global corporations like Cargill and Monsanto have used trade agreements, property laws, and new technologies to gain dominion over local agriculture. Older, more sustainable and diverse forms of agriculture have been replaced by monocultural agriculture, a system of food production focused on producing one type of food through industrialized agriculture. This, coupled with “free” trade (or “forced trade”) agreements is increasingly wiping out whole systems of sustainable agriculture and decimating small farms and agriculturally rich communities across the globe.

more...

http://www.peacecouncil.net/pnl/03/726/726StolenHarvest.htm

[david_vincent]

1. This is a critically important issue

And it's also the reason why, if I lived in India or Mexico, I'd be literally up in arms against Americans. Does anyone imagine that there's
no connection between the actions of Monsanto, for instance, and the reactions among the world's people who are being made more dependent, rather than less, by food technology? Not to even mention the cultural engineering taking place. Does anyone remember when the Russian market was first opening up, and the CEO of Kellogg's was quoted as saying that his company was "going to change the way Russians eat breakfast"? What if it had been some Asian company vowing to change the way Americans eat breakfast - wouldn't there have been a lot of resentment? So why shouldn't the Russians resent Americans? And that's just for starters.
Genetic engineering, cultural engineering, manipulation of laws and trade policies: control of the world's ability to eat is the prize in a war that is taking place NOW, to little or no comment from any quarter.

[zonmoy]

2. This is a critically important issue

More because this is part of a plan by the elite cabals to kill off most of the human species by starvation. http://dieoff.com/

[Karenina]

3. This is a critically important issue

Because if folks don't wake up REAL FARKIN' QUICK it's dirt nap time for BILLIONS.

[cprise]

4. Here is an audio link

The Human Impact of Globalization

http://www.evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=607