Modern Agriculture and Health

There appears to be an unholy alliance between ‘Big Ag and Big Pharma’ that ensures they grow their profits at the expense of public health. Our agriculture has become dependent on monoculture and chemical treatments resulting in depleted nutrition and weakened human immune systems. In particular the expanded use of herbicides such as Roundup is leading to a rapid expansion of ‘leaky-gut’ syndrome and autoimmune diseases. The newly confirmed ‘Brexit’ raises a potential threat to Irish agriculture through the introduction of GMO foods into Northern Ireland. The ‘Roundup Ready’ varieties are often sprayed with herbicides many more times during production leaving extremely high residues at harvest, which then enter the food chain. Other variants produce toxins in every cell that kill off any insects that attempt to eat them. What makes it safe for humans to eat anything that causes insects to die? What effects do these GMO foods have on our building of our own DNA? ’You are what you eat’ after all. The Pharmaceutical industry seeks to mask the symptoms of disease without addressing the causes of the problem. It is not in their interests to lose a customer by curing her. With a pill for every ill approach to medicine, patients inevitably suffer unwanted side effects from multiple assaults for which the usual ‘solution’ is to add another pill to the patient’s medication list. This is a grossly immoral self-sustaining death spiral. Let us now acknowledge the bankruptcy of this approach and instead engage in regenerative methods that aim to heal the soil, enhance nutrition and restore public health. Initially this may look like a rejection of all that is progressive and good about modern agriculture but it is actually a systemic vision of a sustainable approach that aims for the highest quality food production. Do not be gulled by those who would tell you that only chemically driven or GMO methods can provide the volume of food needed for the planet’s 7.5 billion inhabitants. It is not, and never was, true. The problems of hunger are due to poor distribution, not poor production. Throughout the ages famine has been used as an act of suppression or war. Even today the scourge of hunger could be eliminated if sufficient efforts were made to distribute food fairly. During the second world war America produced some 40% of its food in home gardens. In Europe the rate was 50% or higher. The nutritive quality of the food was high and endowed the population with strength and longevity. The sparsity of food also allowed human GI tracts to rest so that the liver could concentrate on ‘housekeeping duties’ like enzyme production and toxin elimination. The narrative of industrial agriculture is largely false and is maintained by a monetary system that commoditises food rather than relating to it with reverence and appreciation. On this Christmas Day may we allow light to shine away the darkness that would enslave us to the status quo. Let us share freely in the abundance of nature and now set about its restoration so that we can all enjoy this Garden of Eden.