Sanet Post, Ignacio Villa, November 17, 1996
Michele, and those involved in the genetic engineering discussion:
First, I would like to contrast cleverness and wisdom. Overall, we may be better off depending on the wisdom of nature rather than the cleverness of the gene splicers.
My second point is that we are all in the business of agriculture to generate wealth--the question is who gets to keep the wealth.
Finally, some of the wealth generated in agriculture is mined wealth, that is non renewable, and some of the wealth is solar, which is renewable, at least within a human timeframe.
The clever gene splicers would have us believe that it is their cleverness that will feed the world. Yet we need to understand that these are euphemisms that allow them to go on with their agenda of amassing greater control over wealth. What becomes more sinister is that their strategies for gaining control through clever gene splicing, and creating dependence on these products, may actually endanger other ways of generating wealth that use wiser natural processes available to all, and less controllable by the clever few.
Nat Bacon's intelligent and model farmer may well be making money withPosilac. But he is also making money for Monsanto shareholders. That is fine. However, if this farmer used his intelligence and management ability and said, I will put even less stress on the cows, I will try to generate only solar wealth, and I will try to keep as large a proportion of the wealth generated on the farm, he probably would stop using posilac, and make a few other management changes.
I am not necessarily knocking this farmer. He is a product of a system that has encouraged that kind of cooperation with corporate interests. This kind of farmer is good for wall street. He helps keep many businesses churning dollars. Real wealth? Lots of it is cheap oil, I would argue--mined wealth.
The main point I want to make, is that the issue of economic power is a big one, and we must not loose sight of it while we decide whether a "cleverly" produced tomato is any better for us than a "wisely" produced one. My understanding is that it is not the quantity of food, but access to it that defines the problem of hunger in the World, and that wisdom and justice are more likely to feed everyone than cleverness and concnetration of wealth.
Ignacio Villa
9697 State Route 534
Middlefield OH 44062
email 75557.3256@compuserve.com
216/693-4090
