TWG: Interesting mention of 'rust' in wheat crops....

[Curt]

"Guardian 3/20/11"

I know similar past threads have mentioned this, but today's article in the Guardian, struck a little closer. Mostly about food shortages and how we are bringing this on ourselves by not pushing further down the path of genetically modified foods, but having just finished The Windup Girljust seeing the report of 'rust' in wheat crops was a bit concerning. Are we setting ourselves up? There were a lot of themes in the books, but the final battle between government regulation and the trans-national companies over both access to fresh genetic materials and distribution of disease resistant GM crops seems t be the natural outcome of our current direction.

[Micah]

Have you watched the documentary "Food Inc" yet? Check it out if you haven't. It makes very interesting points in my opinion. Talking about how some corporations were trying to genetically modify their seeds so they could not reproduce, and the farmers would be forced to buy new ones every season. I think we are headed down that path for sure. Our government culture of corpratism (a made up word I know) over capitalism is leading us down a bad path. In my opinion.

[Sean]

Corporatism is a real word, and is in fact the central tenant of Fascism as articulated by Mussolini, however it doesn't mean corporate cronyism (though that was another key aspect of Fascism, particularly in Germany).

[Curt]

The themes I noted really did not hit home, at least for me, until I read the article. Instead of Corporatism I prefer to use "Transnationalism" with the corporate part implied. Kim Stanley Robinson used this a lot in "Red Mars". Also, I have Food Inc in my Netflix queue, will have to watch it now.