Long
ago, all people gathered or grew their own
food. But
gradually most people specialised into
other lines of business, exchanging the time
they worked for tokens which you call money.
With that money, they could buy food. Today
in the rich countries, hardly anyone grows
their own food any more. Hardly anyone knows how
to. So growing and selling food has become
a big business.
This
involves several giant corporations which
increasingly own all rights to vital seeds
and also make the chemicals farmers have to
use to make them grow into plants ready to
harvest. Fertilisers get
made in vast quantities, upsetting natural
cycles and using equally vast amounts of fossil
fuels.
Machines harvest the food (in most cases)
which then has to be stored in silos or refrigerated
buildings. Trucks and airplanes then transport
the food around the world and it ends up, after
processing, on supermarket shelves… where
you buy it. This system is very new, it makes
lots of money for those who run it and it is
very good at producing lots of food. But
there are hidden
costs … and
I’m not talking about money. I’m
talking about damage to people’s livelihoods damage
to the environment (land, sea, rivers, air,
forests) and damage to people’s health.
Let Moophius (a
bovine sleuth!) take you and Leo,
a rather-simple-minded pig, on an animated
tour of industrial farming.
It’s
not all gloom though.
Take a look at the video (below) of a farm that produces food in a way that works with
nature, not against it. It could be a game-changer!
For
the times they are a-changin'.
People are beginning to see that money isn’t
everything if making it damages the planet
so badly that the future is bleak. So
many farmers are beginning to convert their
farms to sustainable farming (which is what
they were anyway before industrial farming
took over).
This was the title of one of the best-known songs by one of the best-known folk singers, Bob Dylan. He was right; they are!
But
gradually most people specialised
into
other lines of business, exchanging the time
they worked for tokens which you call money.
With that money, they could buy food. Today
in the rich countries, hardly anyone grows
their own food any more. Hardly anyone knows how
to. So growing and selling food has become
a big business.
So
many farmers are beginning to convert their
farms to sustainable farming (which is what
they were anyway before industrial farming
took over).
This was the title of one of the best-known songs by one of the best-known folk singers, Bob Dylan. He was right; they are!
