In the News

I was glad to see a judge revoke the use of Monsanto's Sugar Beets seeds until:

"regulators complete a more thorough review of how the scientifically engineered crops affect other food".

About time.

Then there was a very annoying Op Ed in the Times called: Math Lessons for Locavores

The author makes all these statements, but never backs them up with any facts, like:

"For instance, it is sinful in New York City to buy a tomato grown in a California field because of the energy spent to truck it across the country; it is virtuous to buy one grown in a lavishly heated greenhouse in, say, the Hudson Valley".

Really? Sinful to who? I never buy greenhouse tomatoes, to me one of the points in being a locavore is eating seasonally. Not that I have anything against greenhouses and a lot of farmers now are making plastic covers for there plants that don't require heating, so no fuel is used. Besides on a very basic level one of the other things about eating locally is that you help support the local economy instead of the desertification of California which is now in it's what 4th year of drought. Just where abouts are they getting all the water for all those crops?

It seems to me that if you are going to talk about 'locavores' you need to define the term, not make generalizations based on what best suits your argument.

As for math I'd like to know how energy efficient it is to be dedicating so much land to mono cultures that are destroying our topsoil and creating a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico (from agricultural chemical run off), doesn't exactly seem like a good use of resources to me. He actually doesn't bother to look at the type of agriculture at all or the varied kinds of costs this kind of corporate imported farming incur. Like the cost of planting GMO seeds and dumping a billion pounds of pesticides on our soil yearly. I guess you could call them inconvenient costs as they don't factor into this essay.

If you read it let me know what you think I'd love to hear your comments.

Oh and can I just say how much I HATE PC's on my Mac I could have provided a nice picture for you but on this computer you can't click and drag so I have no idea how to get a sugar beet picture to upload into this posting. So instead here is a link to an article about gmo sugar.

Sorry to be so grumpy.