Read Omnivores Dilemma that is enough to get anyone thinking about what they are putting on their table and where it comes from or watch Food Inc. I recently graduated college, a small conservative agricultural college and both of these were required in several of the Ag classes.
Here are my thoughts, people are to disconnected from their food source. I grew up on an organic cattle dairy and have exhibited livestock my entire life. Do you have any idea how many times I was asked if the brown cows made chocolate milk? For the most part many people do not know where their food comes from. My boyfriends mom is a teacher and we sent her fiber so her class could make a project of processing it. Most of the students had no idea where wool came from; they didnt even realize that it was off a sheep.
Currently I am managing a small farm that practiced sustainable farming and is direct to market, no GMO, no pesticide. While not organic most of our practices are organic based. While I personally do not favor GMOs and would prefer not to eat them I can see the benefits behind them. Here I go committing treason
! The worlds population is ever growing and much of the world is starving, GMOs can produce higher yields with less inputs and can feed more people as such. Large conventional farms can turn a better profit growing these crops as they get more output with less input and the bottom line drives agribusiness. So long as consumers buy it they will produce it.
Truly I can see both sides of this coin. I believe that GMOs need to be extensively tested before being released on the market and I would prefer to see more heritage crops being produced by small local farms. If you care about what you are putting in your body then buy local. Buying local keeps your money local, promotes sustainability and offers the consumer a safer product (direct accountability). The up side is that the local food movement is picking up steam and the Tester Amendment on the New Food Safety Bill was a major step in keeping this movement going.
Really this is just such a broad subject its hard to do it justice in a single post. Entire books have been written on the topic.
