Food Shortages & the Rise of Frankenfood

Food riots are occuring all over the world. In Egypt, Bangladesh, Haiti and the Ivory Coast among other places, desperation has already driven people into the streets. The price of rice has doubled in the last three months. Wheat supplies are at record lows. Bananas are on the way to extinction. The bees are dying.

Simply put, the world's food supply is endangered.

Did this have to happen? Certainly biofuels may have some contributory effect on the problem. The logic goes that the corn supply is being used for fuel and therefore more wheat and rice are consumed. As a result, all are in short supply.

Unfortunately, the genetically modified (GM) food industry is seeing its chance. The world, with the notable exception of the U.S., has largely rejected GM food, as indicated by burning of fields in India, bans throughout Europe and attacks on plantations in South America. But the multi-national corporate criminals of the world see nothing but the glow of gold. Seizing the opportunity to force feed us GM foods, the emerging world tragedy is nothing but an excuse to increase profits.

Mono-culture and globalization must bear at least some part of the blame for the current food shortages. It seems beyond the pale then to count on more of the same as the solution. Of course, transnational corporations are not interested in solutions, they are only interested in profits.

But you cannot eat money. The solutions to our current problems lie in a committed effort to improve the health of the ecosystem of the planet. It is not just global warming, it is also habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, pollution choking the oceans or industrial chemicals showing up in the bloodstreams of every individual on earth, it is also the lack of political will to seriously address the malfeasance of the corporate world.

The people of the world owe nothing to the transnational conglomerates. We must not accept that we must eat inferior, altered food in order to survive. Save your seeds, trade them with friends, keep the world's biodiversity alive in more places than a vault in Antarctica. Grow your own, buy local, buy bulk and buy organic. You are what you eat. As for the corporate profiteers waiting for us to starve so we'll eat their crap, let them eat cake. Worse yet, let them eat their own food.

Ray Bawarchi

If you're after getting the honey, don't go killing all the bees. - Joe Strummer