In this 4-part video series, we feature journalist, environmentalist, and author of
Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds, Claire Hope Cummings. She speaks out on behalf of the natural world, and for a new approach to solving the social environmental, and philosophical problems inherent in our present food system.
In agriculture, this mentality of scarcity takes many forms, including that of major seed companies restricting the uses (through utility patents) of their GMO seeds (non-GMO seeds can not be granted an utility patent); thus, by restricting supply, drive up their monetary value.
Formerly, what may have been freely available to reuse for future harvests, or for breeding research by farmers, or public institutions, may no longer be available for such purposes. For some, this is how capitalism, at its finest,operates.
But, we are not talking here about industrial widgets, we are talking about the control of seeds. Cummings, warns in her book, "whoever controls the future of seeds controls the future of life on earth." Should any private entity be granted the right to control the future food supply?
