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Moyers and Company: Vandana Shiva on the Problem with Genetically-Modified Seeds

Dandelion Salad

http://billmoyers.com/
July 13, 2012

Attack of the Killer GMO corn!

Image by DawnOne via Flickr

Bill talks to scientist and philosopher Vandana Shiva, who’s become a rock star in the global battle over genetically modified seeds. These seeds — considered “intellectual property” by the big companies who own the patents — are globally marketed to monopolize food production and profits. Opponents challenge the safety of genetically modified seeds, claiming they also harm the environment, are more costly, and leave local farmers deep in debt as well as dependent on suppliers.

Shiva, who founded a movement in India to promote native seeds, links genetic tinkering to problems in our ecology, economy, and humanity, and sees this as the latest battleground in the war on Planet Earth.

Moyers and Company: Vandana Shiva on the Problem with

see

Bernie Sanders Calls for Labeling Genetically Engineered Food

Monsanto, a half-century of health scandals by Soren Seelow, Translated by Siv O’Neall

Jim Gerritsen at #OWS: Taking on Monsanto

The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see (video)

20 thoughts on “Moyers and Company: Vandana Shiva on the Problem with Genetically-Modified Seeds”

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  15. Nature is wiser than man.Why mess around with the way nature have worked for millions of years.Men are destroying what took million of years.Stop the madness.

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  17. In the recent book that was also endorsed by Vandana Shiva, “Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment” (www.technofix.org), a very strong case is made that all technological developments, from GMO crops and industrial agriculture to high-tech medical care, are directed by the imperative of profit maximization, with average people having very little, if any input. GMOs and industrialized food production are just one symptom of the pervasive disease found in all industrialized societies where almost everything is done to maximize profits for the top 1% with little regard for people (99%) or the environment. At the same time, we are told we live in a democracy. What a joke. Neither the development of modern technologies that affect us profoundly in everyday life (i.e., GMOs, food supply, medical care, transportation, communication, and so on) nor our work environment, which is tightly controlled by a top down corporate dictatorship called “management” is democratic. Many of our environmental problems, such as GMOs, are a failure of democracy and can only be solved by people taking back the power that was stolen from them by corporations and their owners. What can an individual do regarding GMOs: Just eat organic food and starve out Monsanto.

    • Thanks for your comment. Very well stated.

      We need to do more than eat organic food. We need to grow it ourselves (at least some of it) and form communities within our own towns/cities.

      It is also time for Socialism: the workers owning and running their own companies.

      • I totally agree. It is high time for deep green action, positive empowerment through community self-governance & proportionate self-sufficiency. Bravo Bill Moyers! Vandana is so coherent and precise, what an extraordinary woman. Not only is she supremely intelligent, but she is also supremely courageous. It takes real courage to challenge hegemonies of ignorance. Frances Moore Lappe makes an enormously helpful and insightful point, that is entirely consistent with this narrative of sustainability and ecological provisioning: the concept of “limits to growth” has been so hijacked and distorted it enables Monsanto and their ilk to promote the fatuous notion that Nature is “inadequate” and must be “improved upon” in order to “feed our world” ~ itself a core expression of the most patronising and feudal arrogance now perpetuated as elite corporate dogma, peddled by their political agents of “control.” It is sheer nonsense. “Gardens for all!” should be the slogan we ought to be hearing, not the lunatic & pretentious Gates doctrine that “feeding the world needs biotechnology…” this degree of complicit idiocy is just plain and simple “bad magick” ~ let’s exorcise this hoodoo once and for all, be genuine stewards of the future, our future and our future generations’ futures…!!! Bravo Lo.

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