If you haven’t seen The Future of Food you can now watch the whole film at Hulu.com – it has a commercial every 15 minutes but otherwise it’s the best quality view online. The movie homesite is here.
The story tells of the Monsanto corporation in its incredibly ruthless drive to create a monopoly of seed and insecticide through genetic patents. Hear how framers in Canda were successfully sued for growing Monsanto’s genetically modified grain after the seed had blown into their fields. No word of trespass by the Monsanto seed, or how genetic modification is entering the food supply chain in this unregulated way.
At root in this story is the landmark decision to allow companies to take out patents on the elements of living things. This has gone beyond plantlife, as the movie shows us, and now extends into the human gene system. In Mexico, says the film, three attempts had already been made to patent tortillas – a funny joke until we consider how the courts are upholding lawsuits and allowing the jackboot of patent infringement to step on the neck of traditional life.
It will be an alarming story you watch unfold in this film, but you must watch it to know what farmers are up against. You must watch it to understand why the food chain is poisoned, and to see how the courts are helpless in the face of corporate influence over the law.
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Thank you Hulu.com (and Ross for turning us on to the link)! Allan and I watched “The Future Of Food” online this morning. Very powerful and very well done. I love getting more validation for staying away from processed and genetically modified foods.
I wasn’t a fan of Monsanto before, but haven’t really read much about them. I have noticed that there are lots of blog posts and videos about Monsanto, not about anything good of course. In fact, I found this interesting video entitled “Monsanto – Evil Personified” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcfrSQFp8Uo
I don’t think there is anything good about Monsanto that can be found. And really, evil is the only word that comes to mind about them.
Institutions have founding cultures that persist and magnify over the generations, and this company’s origin would be an interesting story to know.
I hadn’t seen this story, thanks for this clip, it’s my next post.