ESSAY OF THE WEEK

Left in the Dust?

Monsanto’s propaganda machine churns out a steady stream of lies and misinformation. One of its most dishonest—but unfortunately, effective—talking points is that the world will go hungry if we stop growing GMO crops, which oh-by-the-way can’t be grown without massive amounts of poisonous chemicals.

Fact is, here in the U.S. alone, 13.1 million children under 18 don’t have consistent access to enough food, according to the U.S. (USDA). That number will soar, right along with soaring temperatures, if we don’t stop degrading and poisoning our soil and water, some scientists warn.

A recent article on Mercola.com cites research by bio-ethicisit George Dvorsky. Dvorsky warns that modern industrial agriculture puts us at risk of a 1930s Great Depression-style dust bowl:

Researchers Michael Glotter, Ph.D. and Joshua Elliot, Ph.D., from the University of Chicago, ran computer simulations to predict the effects of a Dust Bowl-like drought on today’s maize, soy and wheat crops.

“We expected to find the system much more resilient because 30 percent of production is now irrigated in the United States, and because we’ve abandoned corn production in more severely drought-stricken places such as Oklahoma and west Texas,” noted Elliott in a press release. “But we found the opposite: The system was just as sensitive to drought and heat as it was in the 1930s,” Dvorsky writes.

Our best way out of this mess? Shift to regenerative practices that stop depleting our soil and fresh water supplies, and start drawing down and sequestering carbon in the soil. Countries that commit to making this transition—for example, France, Germany and Morocco— will be better prepared to deal with global warming.

Those that don’t will be left in the dust.

Read Mercola’s ‘Industrial Farming Threatens Food Security in the U.S.’