If Carlsberg Did Fashion

80% say children must learn about agritech

Eight out of ten Londoners believe it’s important that children leave schoo; with a good understanding of the role odf technology in producing food according to a poll.

Only 43% of people feelthat they have a good understanding of how science is used in farming.

the future of food

GENESIS: Future of Food.htm

The Future of Food

Control food, control
water, control you!

Homes without kitchens, houses without gardens, grocery shopping over
the Internet. Every day we become further removed from our food and more
dependent upon transnational corporations to provide this basic
requirement. Do we know the people that provide our food? Have we been
inside a food processing plant to see what happens? Australian Freedom
& Survival Guide reports on…

Food Security verses Food Self Sufficiency –
Transnational food titans, governments and the Organisations of Concern
(OOC) are spearheading the drive for food security. This means even more
highly centralised control, production and distribution of our food with
standards set by the organs of global governance. International treaties
for food security will affect the quality and availability of food. The
standards set in the treaties come down in favour of transnational
corporations who want us to eat their genetically modified and
irradiated food. The Food and Agriculture Organisation, the WTO (through
its Treaty on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) and the proposed
International Food Security Treaty will harmonise food policy. The noble
aim is to eliminate hunger, but in reality, it means dumping polluted
food products in the third world and declining food standards in the
developed world. Indigenous and traditional food preparation techniques
are becoming subsumed by the western fast food culture. Fast foods of
poor quality have largely supplanted regional and domestic control.

Food Irradiation – The use of very large doses of
ionising radiation to produce some desired change in food, typically to
prolong shelf life or kill bacteria and insects which infest food. Food
is irradiated by exposing it to radioactive cobalt 60 or cesium 137,
both are toxic and deadly by-products of the nuclear power industry. The
World Health Organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency and
the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation are behind the push to
irradiate our food. Under the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on
Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, nation – states will be unable to
deny the entry of irradiated foods.

Genetic Engineering – Companies once considered
chemical giants, have become gene giants with a new focus on
controlling, patenting and profiting from life. Their market dominance,
combined with monopoly patents gives them unprecedented control over
commercial farming, food and health. Chemical companies such as
Monsanto, Bayer, Aventis Group, Zeneca/Astra, DuPont and Novartis are
acquiring seed and biotech firms. Acquisition of these enterprises will
eventually prove irresistible to the food and beverage giants Nestle,
Philip Morris, Unilever, ConAgra, PepsiCo Inc, Coca-Cola, and Mars Inc.
Companies such as Du Pont, Kellogs and ConAgra are rushing to engineer
foods that claim to enhance health and wellbeing. These so-called
functional foods are already driving some of the world’s largest
companies to seek alliances with pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Food Additives – What’s in a number? What is an anti
caking agent? How do additives 390, 339, 221 and 545 affect us? Would
you eat Butylated Hydroxytolulene? What about some tasty propylene
glycol? Or a sprinkling of sodium aluminosilicate. Australian Freedom
& Survival Guide keeps you up to date on the latest research into
food additives. Many are toxic wastes, derived from the petrochemical
industry. Others are simply added to achieve desired cosmetic effects.

Did you know?

* In the USA, it is legal to dye the peel of citrus fruits with
Citrus Red Number 2. The process is known as a ‘colour add’ and is
applied to mature fruits, not intended for processing.

*In Australia, the Australia New Zealand Food Authority is currently
considering an application to allow the use of Neotame, Monsanto’s
aspartame-like artificial sweetener, which is reportedly 8000 times
sweeter than sugar.

* Some common ingredients in the cheaper commercial icecreams are:
Benzyl acetate – used to give ice-cream its strawberry flavour, also
used as a nitrate solvent. Amyl acetate – gives ice-cream a banana
flavour and is commercially used as an oil paint solvent. Diethyl Glucol
– the cheap chemical emulsifier used as a substitute for eggs is
identical to the chemical used in anti freeze and in paint remover.
Butyralheyde gives ice cream a nut like flavour and is one of the common
ingredients of rubber cement. Piperohal used as a substitute for vanilla
in ice-cream is also used by exterminators as a chemical to kill lice.

Chemicals and pesticides – Our food is treated at
every stage with toxic chemicals. When it’s grown, when it’s harvested,
when it’s processed and when it’s stored. The overall nutritional
quality of our food is declining dramatically. Artificial growth
hormones and antibiotics are used to fatten beef, lamb, and chicken.
Antibiotics are incorporated into animal feed. Even in the post harvest
environment, fresh fruit and vegetables receive commodity treatments to
prolong shelf life. Controlled ripening, controlled degreening, the use
of mould inhibitors, waxes, sprouting inhibitors and disinfestation
procedures contribute to chemical overload. Transnational seed
corporations such as Monsanto have engineered seeds to become resistant
to the herbicide round-up (Glyphosate). The traitor and terminator gene
technologies mean an increased use of chemicals.

Ghost Acres – Modern day farmers have fed the world
by converting barrels into bushels, but they cannot indefinitely expand
their use of oil. Agricultural production peaked on a world basis in
1961 and world oil production peaked in the year 2000. Soils are being
rapidly depleted and salted due to monoculture cropping, export
cropping, overproduction of subsidised food staples, refined and fast
foods. On average, farmers use the equivalent of one barrel of oil to
produce a ton of grain. Each year, producing a ton of grain requires
more and more oil. See the article
Beyond
Petroleum – the end of Hydrocarbon Man for more details about oil
dependence, genetic engineering and agriculture.

Commodification of Water Nestle and Unilever, the
world’s first and third largest food titans respectively, are leading
the drive to commodify the world’s water supplies. The World Water
commission for the 21st Century has developed a "Water Vision"
for the year 2025 which was presented at the Second World Water Forum
and Ministerial Conference held at The Hague, the Netherlands in March
2000.

A CEO panel, including representatives from Nestle, Unilever,
Heineken, IT&T and the water corporations Azurix, CH2M and DHV
presented their vision for our future.

Panel leader and Chair of Unilever, Anthony Burgmans presented the
CEO statement, which said in part:
Water is an economic good and its economic value should be recognised
in the allocation of scarce water resources to competing uses. While
this should not prevent people from meeting their basic needs for water
services at affordable prices, the price for water must be set at a
level that encourages conservation and wise use. The private sector has
a growing role to play in the supply and management of water resources.

The commodification of water is strongly linked to developments in
biotechnology. Because water will become an expensive commodity, farmers
will be looking for ways to reduce water consumption. Transnational seed
companies are engineering seeds to produce higher yields with less
water. The corporations will benefit twofold – firstly by commidifying
and profiting from water. Secondly by selling their less thirsty and
drought resistant seeds.

Taken from: http://www.squirrel.com.au/~sbryce/futureoffood.html