GMOs and Big-Ag: Stop Being Scared, Start Getting Your Hands Dirty

August 17, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Urban farmer Curtis Stone who runs a successful urban agriculture business as well as workshops and free online videos to help others join the urban agriculture revolution, has recently put out a very positive message regarding GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in the context of big-agricultural monopolies and what we can do about it.

His underling message is to stop being paralyzed by fear and to start making a real difference by simply getting out from behind our computers, getting our hands dirty, and making with our own two hands the sort of world we want to live in.

He says so as part of a tangible movement producing alternatives to big-ag and big-retail that have turned the tide against monopolies and have given people a chance at building their own value for themselves and their communities.

While his message was specifically about GMOs and the agricultural sector, his wisdom easily carries over to virtually all other aspects of modern socioeconomic activity.

Break the Wheel 

It is a positive message that has been gaining traction as more and more people become frustrated with circular political debates, endless protests, and paralyzing fearmongering, all while the same handful of powerful interests benefit - far removed from the chaos they sow below.

Abusive monopolies are so, simply because they have the wealth and influence to be abusive. This wealth is gained by millions of people in the United States and around the world paying them for their goods and services month-to-month. This concentration of wealth was not accomplished overnight, and it will not be undone in an election, with the passage of a bill, or anything less than its undoing through decentralization and localization.

Reducing the wealth and influence of monopolies - regardless of industry - thus reducing their ability to abuse, requires directing our monthly income away from them and toward local alternatives.

Money channeled to local farmers around the world instead of a handful of ag-giants and retailers, means the wealth these current monopolies use to lobby, manipulate public perception, bribe, and otherwise coerce public policy with, no longer exists. It is wealth through local entrepreneurship that can be used as local people see fit.

Local alternatives create a decentralized version of the centralized monopoly they seek to replace, meaning that no single business has in its own hands the sort of wealth and influence existing monopolies currently enjoy. This creates a better balance of power and deters the sort of abuses excessive disparity invites.

Curtis Stone and others encourage people to create value and wealth for themselves instead of obsessing over political discourse, ideology, and fear. And the more people who choose self-empowerment over circular conflict, the more actual leverage we will have individually and collectively when actors such as agricultural monopolies, tech giants, or the defense industry attempt to coerce a people, a nation, or even a world into action that benefits none but a handful of monopolies. 

Big Agri's GMO "Super Bananas for Brown People"

Perhaps the most racists, disgusting public relations stunt yet to sell genetically modified poison to the masses and monopolize the world's food supply.

June 21, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Much of the starvation and malnutrition across the so-called "developing" or "third" world, is due to the unmitigated, global campaign of human exploitation driven by globalization. The Walmarts and Tescos of the world line their shelves with goods cultivated, manufactured, and otherwise sourced from millions of people living under unhealthy, inhumane conditions up to and including literal slavery across the third world. This system of global interdependency, lorded over by Wall Street and London corporate-financier monopolies, doesn't just coincidentally allow such conditions to exist, but is built on this perpetual and ever expanding socioeconomic disparity.

Clearly the solution to solving destitution that leads to malnutrition and starvation is addressing the socioeconomic disparity that created it in the first place, but the monopolies that benefit from this disparity the most are in no way about to do so. Instead, their proposal is to feed the third world with genetically modified gruel to make up for the fact that poor populations cannot access a normal, balanced diet. This "GMO gruel" not only allows big-agricultural monopolies to expand their markets under the guise of "charity," but allows them to monopolize a greater portion of the world's food supply. By hooking the third world on "GMO gruel" that will be patented, centrally controlled, and beyond the means of local populations to reproduce independently, the very perpetrators of global disparity will only tighten their grip on humanity tighter still.

From "Golden Rice" to "Super Bananas," this GMO gruel represents the very worst of a long history of inhuman, racist imperialism. It is essentially corporate-financiers handing out "Super Bananas for Brown People."

The same propaganda networks focused on keeping consumers globally ignorant about what is in their food through anti-GMO labeling campaigns, are pushing poisoned, monopolizing GMO schemes like "Golden Rice" and "Super Bananas," disguised as "socially conscious" biotech "charity." But GMO gruel for the most destitute of society is not an answer. At best, it is a cheap publicity stunt designed to push GMO into new markets while painting opponents of big-agri multinationals as "promoting starvation." At worst it is a sovereignty usurping assault on a global, national, local, and even personal level. Either way, it should be wholly condemned and rejected.

The Real Solution 
The real and most obvious solution is not peddling GMO gruel to the impoverished to make up for the fact that they don't have access to a normal diet, but to give them access to a normal diet in the first place. This is done with first stabilizing the geopolitical chaos that creates and perpetuates socioeconomic injustice. This must be done by exposing and foiling the West's various hegemonic geopolitical campaigns in Africa, South America, Asia, and even Eastern Europe.

Next, education and localizing agriculture through training and assistance could be done in the short term, providing a long term, self-sustaining solution. Organic farms producing a variety of crops for local consumption, rather than devastating, debt-incurring monoculture pursued by farmers worldwide in a self-defeating cycle of debt and dependency on big-agri, could begin solving deficiencies in local diets - not to mention a whole host of other socioeconomic challenges.

Modern Organic Farming in Thailand

January 31, 2014 (LocalOrg) - Rice farming and agriculture in general is an integral part of Thai history, culture, and Thailand's economy both past and present. Today, however, big-business and global markets have pushed farmers here in directions that may ultimately be self-defeating. Trapped in what can be called a "chemical loop," and with multinational big-agri hovering nearby waiting to corrupt, capitalize, and monopolize Thailand's agricultural-genetic heritage, solutions need to be found.

Image: From Asia City Online's interview with organic farmer and owner of Ploen Khao Baan which promotes organic farming in Thailand. 

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One such solution is helping farmers return to a more natural, self-reliant, and higher quality of farming - organic farming. In an Asia City Online interview with Nattawan Kamklai, owner of Ploen Khao Baan which promotes organic farming in Suphan Buri, province - some of these solutions are explored.

It was health issues that spurred Nattawan to begin eating healthier, and flooding in Bangkok that disrupted urban infrastructure that made her think about the difference between self-sufficiency and precarious dependency on others. She deduced that despite all the luxuries urbanites surround themselves with, there are four basic requisites: food, home, medicine and clothes.

Indeed, and developing local solutions to address all of these, independently and out from under big-business monopolies has been the focus of many who realize real power comes from exercising it yourself through technical and pragmatic means, not empowering others to do it for you at the ballot box. Leveraging technology so one individual can do more and do it better, than previously done by large corporations or governments, is truly the best way to redistribute wealth and empowerment across society.

In Nattawan's case, she decided to focus on agriculture and in particular organic farming. In Thailand, there already exists organizations that specialize in imparting knowledge of organic farming to both farmers who wish to make the change, and urbanites who wish to get their hands dirty for the first time.

One of these is the Khao Kwan Foundation - located about 2 hours north of Bangkok. Nattawan would begin her journey here, learning the basics, before starting her own pro-organic organization - Ploen Khao Baan. Research, field work, and a sense of mission turned her personal ideals into tangible and pragmatic solutions that not only solved her own problems - allowing her to both eat healthier and reclaim a degree of freedom and independence she previous lacked, but now helps others do the same through Ploen Khao Baan - which offers free training to farmers seeking to escape the "chemical loop."

Nattawan serves as an example that the best and quickest way to solve a problem is to do it yourself, locally, through technical and pragmatic means. Nattawan's parting advice in the interview would be:

Farmers know how to live on their own, finding and growing food independently, not like city folk who need money for food. Urban people forget what’s natural. They think they can control everything with money. They never think of self-reliance, which is a basic fact of healthy living.

We should stop going crazy about how things look, then farmers won’t feel pressured to use chemicals for perfect-looking produce. Remember that nature isn’t perfect. As end users, we’re the most important in this cycle. If we request organic food, then farmers will produce more.

Indeed - it is the decisions we make everyday, in how we invest our time, money, and attention, that determines the true shape of society, not "elections." Elected representatives will always serve those interests who pay best - so in order for the average person who is unable to pay anything at all, true change will have to be the result of our own two hands. And for those that are unable to begin farming now - simply eating better, and supporting farmers who have made the choice to do better for themselves and others - it is a small but important step in the right direction.