Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Seeds of Doubt vs The End of Food
In the passages, "Seeds of Doubt" and "The End of Food" we are able to see two very opposing arguments on the same thing which is how we should consume food in the future. In the first passage Seeds of Doubt you are able to see Vandana Shiva's crusade against genetically modified crops and her firm opposition to the "globalization and to the use of genetically modified crops". She argues that the current model of industrial agriculture which is heavily reliant on "chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and fossil fuels" are an ever growing burden on the Earth one that is not going last forever. Her main proposition is to have more diversity in crops, greater care for the soil, and more support for people who work the land every day. Also, she has contempt for farmers who only grow one type of crop for they are ruining the soil and thus "destroying this beautiful world". However, in the next passage "The End of Food" we see an argument from the other side of the spectrum and his name is Rob Rhinehart who is a tech entrepreneur who studied engineering at Georgia Tech. His argument is that food was an inefficient way of getting what we needed to survive for "fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins and minerals, but they're mostly water". Through very intense research he was able to come up with the 35 essential nutrients required for survival and ordered them in powder form which when combined with water become soylent. His invention of Soylent snowballed into something that had massive funding and popularity from all over the country. It was even heralded as "the end of food". Rhinehart believes farms are "very inefficient factories" and that it should become more industrialized not less and it should be automated. By comparing these very two different minded individuals I have come to the conclusion that food should be more organic. If food is organically grown we can enjoy the foods we eat and the taste and flavor that comes with them. In addition, food is not only about eating its a cultural thing too, it brings families closer together. If food is only in powder form then we miss out on many things such as the culture part and what we enjoy today. Also, there would be economical consequences too such as powder form would be cutting out the farmers and the agricultural jobs that are out there.
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I completely agree on the issue that farmers who only grow one type of crop are actually ruining the soil which later makes them to use chemical fertilizer to utilize the soil which has lost a lot of its natural minerals.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, GM foods and GM crops would help to fight back food shortage (in extreme cases hunger) in less developed countries (Africa..) and the countries which are not agriculturally developed (Japan..) due to geographic locations.
I agree that farmers should not be growing one crop over and over destroying the land. Farmers work the land to often and the soil cant take it. GM crops could fix this problem. In countries that lack food, this way of producing crops could completely change world hunger and nearly abolish it. Farmers should try to produce GM crops as well as give the soil a break from time to time so they don't destroy it for good.
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