The Food of the Future

The Future of Food, a movie that was made in 2004 by Deborah Koons addresses the issue of GMO’s and patented crops. The green revolution has made way to the “gene” revolution therefore allowing science to create new forms of insect and bacteria resistance within the plants themselves. This is the 21st century DDT. Just as DDT was originally welcomed and praised and then later found to be the cause of health ailments, so to is this new science. Since packaged food does not have to state wether it has been genetically modified, the health issues that are presumed to be linked cannot be traced to the GMO’s. Even though a large percent of the public population wants to know what is in the food they’re eating. It is scary to increasingly not know what it is that you are putting in your body. Even scarier, is that time and time again people have contested against GMO’s with proof of health issues that are direct results to mishaps that happened in the lab. Nothing has been done to the GMO’s for their mistakes even though it is at the risk of people’s livelihoods. There have been constant requests for involvement from upper government officials, yet everyone they go to for help turns a blind eye because, naturally, they are somehow connected to those GMO’s. The public and the farmers are continuously being pushed aside and screwed over. The movie interviewed one farmer whose farm had been taken over by a GMO company because their genetically altered crops had blown off a truck that was passing by and landed on his private land. Because those genetically modified crops had been patented, the corporation now owned all those crops even though they were on his private land. Since those plants had no doubt been cross-pollinated, the farmer had to throw out his life’s work. This was not a one-time occurrence. The notion of patenting living things is a scary one. Who knows if in future year’s animals and possibly even humans could be owned?