Interconnected Life

The other day I was in the market, and I ran into a friend. She started talking about how people don't know where their food comes from. She is a librarian and she said young children in particular think that cows grow milk, food just appears in the stores, etc.

I grew up on a farm, so I know better. She grew up that way, too. But I can see how, if you grow up in a suburb with no garden, you might be clueless about foods and where they come from.

The conversation then took a different turn. If something happens so that the grocery stores are no longer stocked, people would starve, she said. They don't know how to take care of themselves.

She is right about that. Even I, farm girl that I am, am lulled by the convenience of the market, even if it is 10 miles down the road. If the trucks were to stop running so that the markets stood empty, I would be hard-pressed, especially in winter, to make do with what I could find out in the field. We would not starve, of course - I can eat a squirrel or a deer - but we might find hunger to be a fast friend. Our variety of diet would certainly decline.

Then in spring, things might be better - except we generally purchase seed every year. We do not recycle and harvest the seeds from generation to generation. I have a basic understanding of how to do it but I don't. It's so much easier to go to the feed supply store and buy seed.

That's what worries me about modified food sources. If their seeds don't regenerate, then one day we will all face a very hard winter. If I had to depend on what grew wild out of the compost pile, I'd be up a creek with nary a paddle. Maybe not even the canoe.

This comes to mind with the news that DuPont and Monsanto have settled some issue they had about licensing. The deal involves billions of dollars.

And earlier this week, Congress approved something that basically places Monsanto above the law.

But where do you think the consumer is in all of this?

Nowhere, that's where.