Review of Documentary: Future of Food

Future of Food: Documentary
"Fighting for the Future of Food - Deborah Koons Garcia's film documents how genetically engineered foods slipped into our supply" - San Francisco Chronicle

History:
The film starts out with a little history of chemicals relevant to the topic of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and Genetically Modified Foods (GMF).

Nitrogen-based chemicals started changing the face of the industry, when in:
WWI, Nitrogen Bomb inspired DDT.
WWII, Insecticides were the hero’s of this generation.
Vietnam Era’s had the infamous Agent Orange; this is where Monsanto first comes in the picture, as it’s main producer. Monsanto is a main player in this documentary.

How we reached the point of modifying life:
By the middle of the 20th century the “Green Revolution” started to take shape. The idea was to systemize agriculture to solve world hunger. Mechanizing agriculture led to the growth of monocultures, where only one crop is grown on extensive plots of land. This can be really dangerous as seen in the 1800’s when European farmers went with one type of potato. Then one type of insect wiped out there entire crops and many people died due to the fact that they had no potatoes, which were a staple food at the time. Today, 90 percent of crops grown in the 19th century are no longer grown. In the 1970s, Monsanto created Roundup. Roundup is a pesticide that usually kills anything that is green. So for crops to grow where Roundup is used, they need to be resistant to it. Unfortunately, the health risks of glyphosate, Roundup's active ingredient, are poorly understood, even though they may be significant. Some studies have linked glyphosate exposure to cancer, though others say the connection is tenuous. Glyphosate's been linked it to organ damage in animals; it could affect human reproduction and fetal development. In 1978, came the first Supreme Court decision allowing patenting of life — a microbe that had been genetically engineered to eat oil, which never really hit the market but opened the door for patenting life. Before this happened, patenting a part of nature was unthinkable. But after the 1980 decision for A.M. Chakrabarty, the only requirement to owning a part of nature required getting the patent before someone else, so the race was on. Monsanto is now the owner of more than 90% of all genetically engineered seed in the U.S. as well as some 11,000-plus genetically engineered seed patents across the globe. By 1995 the big pesticide companies bought and owned most all the seed companies.

Did you Know?
Only Between 1-2% of the US population are farmers! That means that there are more people locked up in prisons in the U.S. than there are farmers.

Lawsuits & Not Respecting the Farmer:
In the 1990s, Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser who had been saving and developing his own seeds for 40 years. In 1997, he sprayed some of Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide at the edge of his canola fields around the power lines. He found that some canola grew anyway and when Monsanto found out they claimed Mr. Schmeiser infringed on its patent rights. Monsanto also sued Rodney Nelson, a North Dakota farmer for patent infringement. Neither Nelson, nor Schmeiser had purposely planting Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) seeds. The seeds had naturally drifted to their land with the power of wind, blowing off trucks that were driving by the farms. But Monsanto sued them and did the same by sending out 9,000 other letters. “They want to scare farmers into never saving their own seed again,” says Nelson. Schmeiser took the challenge and went to court: “People ask me why I didn’t settle. I said I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.” In the end the judge ruled that it did not matter how Monsanto’s seed got to Schmeiser’s land. Even though he did not want Monsanto’s canola growing on his property, his plants became Monsanto’s property and by the rule of law, he had violated Monsanto’s patent rights. This was interesting testimonial and makes it easy to be mad at Monsanto after hearing how they abused the farmers in the movie.

One part of the film that was interesting and leads to part of the reason GMF’s are controversial is when scientists show what it takes to insert a genetically engineered gene into a regular plant gene. It takes the likes of E.Coli bacteria and the cauliflower mosaic virus to break up the regular plant gene to make it possible to insert the genetically engineered cell into it. This was very interesting because scientists really have to play the part of a harmful virus to be able to infiltrate these genes. And this leads to the question of whether or not GMF’s are healthy or harmful.

"As we move on into this so-called biotech revolution and we start producing more and more transgenic manipulations, we'll start seeing pieces of DNA interacting with each other in ways that are totally unpredictable...

I think this is probably the largest biological experiment humanity has ever entered into."
- Ignacio Chapela
ecologist at the University of California at Berkeley



The Politics of it:
Big companies like Monsanto are playing both sides of the fence in the genetically engineered (GE) seed/food debate. When it comes to regulation and safety questions, they claim these products are considered safe because they are not substantially different than regular food items. Yet, when it comes to seeking patents, they claim their products are unique and should only be owned by them.

The next part of the film really opened my eyes when they show a number of government officials who have been going through a revolving door – working for Monsanto, then working for the government. FDA’s Michael Taylor, EPA’s Linda Fisher and former Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman are only a few of the names. Some have gone back and forth more than once!!

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has been trying to pass a bill that will require label’s on GE Food’s but, it has yet to pass as of the film. Without labeling, there is no way to trace the health effects of these foods on human beings. That’s because, a long list of government officials, starting with Dan Quayle in 1992, have been calling for no regulations on these foods. The European Union has required the labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Even though the U.S. government saw no harm in GE foods, in 1998 Mexico banned GE corn to protect its corn heritage. In 2001, Berkeley ecologist Ignacio Chapela tells the story of how he found traces of GE corn in the wild Mexican maize after the ’98 ban. Chapela also found out that many Mexican farmers are buying American seed because it is so much cheaper, the reason for this is that the US subsidizes the farming industry to the price tag of $20 billion. Chapela wrote a peer-reviewed article about his findings in the journal Nature, but the magazine story got retracted shortly after. Not only did this happen to the highly credible Chapela but he also had his name dragged through the mud for challenging the industry. The film also brings out the story of Dr. Arpad Puzstai’s, who was put on leave after his critical work about the genetic engineering industry. Director Deborah Koons Garcia has interviewed highly credible sources such as Chuck Benbrook, the former agriculture board director for the National Academy of Sciences, and Fred Kirshenman, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

The Future:
Four companies produce Eighty percent of all beef. Four companies own Ninety percent of all seed. Soon, only six retail firms will control the distribution of the majority of food items, of which only one will be American based, that company is Wal-Mart. This will everyone less opportunity to choose what they want to eat as their will be less variety. The new thing is Terminator Technology seeds – Monsanto has at least 15 patents to those. They are the ones that a farmer can only grow for one year, because the seeds go sterile after that, which requires a small farmer to buy seed every year, instead of being able to save their own. There are also seeds that won’t germinate until they are sprayed. They also mentioned that these companies are also engineering fish, chicken, livestock, trees and also insects. We’ll have to wait to see what happens with all this new technology.

This is where we the consumer comes in and as we briefly talked about in class every consumer votes with his or her dollar every time we shop. The good news is that more and more shoppers are making educated decisions. Consumers are starting to spend their dollars away from the genetically engineered foods and giving them to organic food companies, local farmer’s markets and Community Supported Agriculture programs.

Some thoughts:
If this is all true and it looks pretty apparent that it is, I will try to boycott buying anything from Monsanto. They seem to have a total disregard for rights of farmers, or for that matter anybody. Only to make as much money as they can with no responsibility. I still don’t really know why they are able to own life. Also, any industry that is self-regulated, ya right, what’s up with that, carte blanche to do what they want. The whole industry seems a bit shady to me. It all seems like something you might see on TV when the bad guy wants to take over the world HA HA HA!!
—–

Directed by Deborah Koons Garcia
2004 Lily Films


Terms:
Maize: (IPA: /ˈmeɪz/) (Zea mays L. ssp. mays), known as corn in some countries, is a cereal grain domesticated in Mesoamerica and subsequently spread throughout the American continents. After European contact with the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th century, maize spread to the rest of the world.

Cauliflower Mosaic Virus: (CaMV) is the type member of the caulimoviruses, one of the six genera in the Caulimoviridae family, pararetroviruses that infect plants (Pringle, 1999). Pararetroviruses replicate through reverse transcription just like retroviruses, but the viral particles contain DNA instead of RNA

E.Coli: Escherichia coli; pronounced, is a Gram negative bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals. Most E. coli strains are harmless, but some, such as serotype O157:H7, can cause serious food poisoning in humans, and are occasionally responsible for costly product recalls.^[1][2] The harmless strains are part of the normal flora of the gut, and can benefit their hosts by producing vitamin K₂, or by preventing the establishment of pathogenic bacteria within the intestine.

Glyphosate: (N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine) is a non-selective systemic herbicide, absorbed through the leaves, injected into the trunk, or applied to the stump of a tree, used to kill weeds, especially perennials and broadcast or used in the cut-stump treatment as a forestry herbicide. Some crops have been genetically engineered to be resistant to it. Initially, Glyphosate was sold only by Monsanto under the Monsanto tradename Roundup, but is no longer under patent. It is now also available in other formulations, e.g. Resolva 24H, which contains glyphosate and diquat.

DDT: (from its trivial name, Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) is one of the best known synthetic pesticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history.

Agent Orange: is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, an estimated 21,136,000 gal. (80 000 m³) of Agent Orange was sprayed across South Vietnam.

Additional Resource:
Monsanto

Reflections: Weeks 5 & 6

Week 5
A had a couple learning experiences in week 5 one was learning about Chapter 15: Feeding the World, which focused on the environment, population and the food supply. They wrote about four stages 1.traditional society 2.the developing stage 3.the-developed society and 4.the mature society. We also did another Eye Opener called CSIP; in my case I chose to go to the Eating Green Calculator which is a website that calculates the effect of your diet on your health and the environment. We also watched a film, "Diet for a New America." This film hit me right between the eyes, as I had no Idea about two problems; one that there was an excess of manure which can contaminate our drinking water with too many nitrates, secondly a majority of our crops go into feeding livestock so we can have our delicious steaks. This film really has made me take a look at my meat intake.


Week 6
This week we had an Eye Opener of an individually assigned reading my reading was on Chapter 19: the lingering effects from acid rain. The effect that acid rain is having on our environment is that although we have done a pretty good job of cutting down on acid rain, which still can be improved on, the soil has been contaminated and the soil doesn't let go of it's contamination all that quickly. This in turn affects the whole circle of life. We spent the next two class periods watching the film "Future of Food", of which I had to write my first review. The movie talks about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s) of which they talk a lot about the big company Monsanto. Read my review to get more information.

Learned a lot this past two weeks, granted that all the information we are taking in is true. Either way these topics are making me more aware of things that I really haven’t thought about before.

Eye Opener: Summary of Reading 19: Long-Term Data Show Lingering Effects from Acid Rain

photo from www.visualparadox.com

Long-Term Data Show Lingering Effects from Acid Rain
by Kevin Krajick in Science, April 13, 2001

The Numbers
The main ingredient in acid rain is sulfur dioxide (SO2). Progressively tougher pollution rules over the past 3 decades have reduced U.S. emissions of SO2, by about 40% from its 1973 peak of 28.8 metric tons a year. By 2010, SO2 emissions should be less than half of 1973 levels. But in the March issue of BioScience, 10 leading acid rain researchers say victory toasts are premature. They say power plants, the main contributor, must cut SO2 emissions 80% more than the current mandate in order to undo past violations to sensitive soils and waters in the northeastern US and, elsewhere. These reductions, would amount to an overall 44% cut in sulfur emissions, may bring only partial recovery to fish and trees by 2050. At the same time, acidifying emissions of nitrogen oxides NOx--are still relatively less regulated--and are measuring at level or even growing numbers, causing collateral damage.

Bad Soil
The Catskills in upper New York state, where nearly all nutrients have disappeared in places, right down to the glacial till and bedrock. One of the nutrients being lost is calcium, and as it turns out the smokestack scrubbers installed to reduce particles were also removing soot, which is rich in calcium that had been replacing some of the nutrients the acids were leaching. Work by Gregory Lawrence and others showed that once nutrients are depleted, excess acids mobilize the soils' abundant aluminum; usually held in harmless organic form, aluminum is poisonous when is dissolves. In Pennsylvania sugar maples appear to be malnourished; at some sites aluminum is attaching to rootlets and blocking whatever little nutrients are left in the soil.

Waterways
Effects on aquatic life have been known since early 1990s. Some 15% of lakes in New England
and 41% in New York's Adirondack Mountains are chronically or episodically acid, says one report, and many such lakes have few or no fish. Excess acids in the soil are dissolving the cations into drainage waters much faster than weathering bedrock below could replenish them.

Trees
Christopher Cronan a biologist from the University of Maine had a good quote about trees, he said: "Instead of Killing directly, acid rain usually leaves trees susceptible to drought or insects, which finish the job." This is what he calls death by a thousand cuts. Some spruces have lost their ability to cope with winter freezing, while weakened conifers in southern Appalachia are being defoliated in large numbers by an exotic parasitic insect. These problems are being caused by acid fog and rain, along with snow run-off.

Moving West
The article also notes that in the southwest acid rain is just currently becoming evident as it wasn't 20 years ago, which is when it first became prevalent in the northeast. One reason for this is the soil in the southwest part of the country is more dense and therefore can sponge up more acid before it leaks into the surrounding environment. Another reason for this is that the west has been less populated. In recent years the regions cattle feedlots are booming, as is the human population. The cattle churn out lots of manure and the big vehicles humans drive both produce acid causing NOx. Trees downwind of populous areas are showing high levels of nitrogen and low ratios of magnesium in their needles.

My Take
The real problem that is laid out in this chapter as I understand it. Is that although we have done a pretty good job of cutting down on acid rain, which still can be improved on, the soil has been contaminated and the soil doesn't let go of it's contamination all that quickly. The soil is what feeds the trees so some trees are having a hard time surviving. This is a problem because the trees affects all the creatures that use the trees to survive. The rain water going into the streams isn't being filtered as effectively by the contaminated soil, which in turn has a negative affect on whatever is living in the water. It's a chain of events in which the small things end up affecting the big things. The environment is all connected.

Different Viewpoints
Dan Riedinger a spokesperson for the power industry's Edison Electric Institute says his industry doesn't want the EPA to set standards. One of our concerns is that EPA appears to be rushing full steam ahead with a revised standard before we have a chance to evaluate the benefits from the current standards. He's trying to say that EPA shouldn't set more standard until the full effect of the current standards are fully understood. The more standard the the EPA sets makes it harder or more expensive for his industry to do business.

President George Bush's administration- a rule issued in the final days of President George W. Bush's presidency that would have let some industrial facilities avoid having to install pollution controls when they expand. New President Obama's administration is delaying the rule for 90 days so the EPA can look further into the rule.

Question for discussion: Has anyone seen first hand the effects of acid rain? Could be statue river, trees?

Share and Voice: Rising Temps

PictureDescription: They call this a sunset in winter, only problem is we have no snow, heck we have mild temps pushing 60. Taken by Johnstownwildfire on Jan.1, 2009 in Johnstown, PA USA

This beautiful picture got me thinking why is there not snow in Johnstown, PA. That's not normal, especially the fact that they also have close to 60 degree temps. So I did a google search on rising temperatures. I then just went from website to website to see what the jist was. Here's my sequence: first I stopped at Scientists Link Extinctions, Rising Temperatures. Then I went on to World Temperatures Keep Rising With a Hot 2005

This graph is a couple years old but still relevant, according this graph it appears to me that the overall temp really started to work it's way up starting around 1940. The next website I visited was NPR: Rising Temperatures, which shows how the coastlines in different parts of the world would change if the polar ice caps melted. From there I went to Rising temperatures threaten West's forests which talks about trees dying at a faster rate due to the rising temperatures.

The point of this Share and Voice is that there is just so much info out there and the information is pretty easy to find. We all just have to pay attention and make a difference not only as individuals but as a group and a society.

Eye Opener: CSPI

I went to the Eating Green Calculator which is a website that calculates the effect of your diet on your health and the environment. The environmental burden from the animals I eat in a year are .7 acres of grain and grass needed for animal feed. Oh, thats not all, I also required farmers to use .2 pounds of pesticide for use to grow animal feed, and there is more. How about the 25.3 pounds of fertilizer needed to grow animal feed. Lastly but not forgotten, how about the 4869 pounds of manure (pee-ewww) created by the animals I eat. This calculation doesn't really indicate to me whether or not these are acceptable numbers or not. From this part of my diet, I take in 314 cal which is only 19% of my Estimated Daily Values, my other daily values were 0% fiber, 34% fat, 50% saturated fats, and 63% of my cholesterol intake. These numbers are all below 100% which means that I'm not getting all the proper nutrition that I need, this would indicate that I have a whole in my diet. That being said this website doesn't take into account my whole diet, just that pertaining to animals. This website assumes that when you change your diet to make it more eco-friendly that you are replacing the animal based food with a nuritious plant based food. I was able to reduce my environmental burden by .3 acres, 7.3 lbs. of fertilizer, o on pesticides, and 1777 lbs. of manure. The Eating Green Calculator is able to do this with use of data from the Nutrient Data Laboratory which is the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. I elected not to take the pledge, I have recently made some changes to my diet and I am not ready to make further changes.

REFLECTION: Weeks 3 & 4

Week 3: We had 2 readings from the book and groups 1 and 2 posted report's on. The first reading was from chapter 1. It touched on topics such as population & health, food, climate & energy , along with biodiversity. The second reading was on chapter 27 which dealt with environmental films and how some are educational with a powerful message while other films show the environment the way the film maker thinks we want to see it. Visually seeing what is going on out in the environment has a huge impact or effect on how people view the planet. Many people are upset when they find out that some of the videos or TV shows that are on the air are enhanced and edited to make them more exciting. It is not always an accurate medium to get the whole picture of what is happening in our world. This is another situation in our society that you can't believe everything you see. In todays world it seems that you always have to think critically and look deeper into the issue to get the whole picture.

Week 4: We all did an Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint assignment which was a summary of a quiz about how we live. The quiz produces a score at the end, which in my case calculated how I live, and if everyone lived the way I do, it would take over 6 Earths to support us! It was a good example of how much each of us is wasting in our daily life. The Ecological Footprint website, after your quiz will also give you some tips on how to lessen your footprint. This week we also started watching a video called the Inconvenient Truth put together by Al Gore who ended up winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his effort. The film is very powerful it goes into detail about what global warming is and how it is effecting our climate along with so many other changes to our environment. I liked Mr. Gores analogy about the two canaries in the coal mine, referring to the polar ice caps we need so desperately. This film/video is a real eye opener for me, I had never seen it before as I wasn't sure if it was a movie like Michael Moore had produced. I was one of the people that was not positive that global warming was happening, I'm definitely on board now.

I'm impressed by many of the cool blogs in the class and have learned quite a bit from browsing through them, and looking at so many interesting links.

Eye Opener: CSPI

In the Score Your Diet questionnaire I recieved a 29 which was in the good category! Last semester I did a few different tests like this for my nutrition class which has helped myself eat healthier. My Pyramid is a site where you can enter your diet for a certain period of time and it will calculate for you what your calories are and if you are eating the correct amounts from the different food groups.

Have a Great Day!

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

6.67 planets, that was my Ecological Footprint. The second time I found my Ecological Footprint on a different website, I received a 4.6 planet rating, which for those of you that haven't done a quiz yet means that it would take 6.67 planets or 4.6 planets to live on if everyone lived like I do!! The quiz's don't like the fact that I drive a full size pick-up. The other factor that I found to be over the average for American's was my house. This is despite the fact that we use fluorescent light bulbs where possible, it needs to be said that our house is fairly new. I say that because we have a very high r-value when it comes to our insulation including our doors and windows. We were sure to use low flow faucets and shower heads, we have in-floor heat, energy star washer and dryer, dishwasher and refrigerator's. We haven't had a chance to landscape yet, that will come in the spring. We recycle, but we don't compost, I will have to make a place to do that too when spring comes around. Maybe I should do that now, I'll get on that when I get a break from blogging:) I feel guilty right now seeing that my Ecological Footprint is so big.

Share & Voice: Photo Challenge/Gardening

This is my picture entry in to Steve's photo challenge!

I took this picture back in June 2005, while vacationing in Wisconsin. When I took this picture I wasn't so much thinking about our environment, but more about how funny it was to see a couple goats (one on the other side of roof) on the roof of someone's store. Having a grass roof is a good way to help our environment, and keep their air conditioning costs down.

Here is a website called Science Daily and it writes about how to garden effectively, depending on where you live.