Institute For The Future

UN: GMOs and Monocrops Can't Save Us

The UN has come out and said it—small-scale, diversified, organic farming is the only way to sustainably feed the world. Forget about GMOs. Forget about industrialized monocrops.

So now the question remains, will we be able to reverse the trend? The only glimmer of hope I can find in this space is the fact that farming structures (monocrop or polycrop) and land ownerships can be reversed, though not easily. I have no clue if we will reach a point where we can’t come back from GMOs, though.

Yesterday I watched an incredibly depressing documentary about farmland grabs in rural Mali called Land Rush (watch for free, 58min). Although it’s actually illegal in the Malian constitution, vast plots of already owned land are being sold to foreign investors to build massive industrial monocrop farms. Many of the communities that are losing their land have been in existence since long before Mali even became a technical state, long before a government had the ability to sell land that doesn't actually belong to them.

I’ve been following land grabs for a while, but it’s rare to find footage that illustrates how these changes are affecting individuals. In Land Rush you learn how some families are having their burial grounds dug up to make way for large foreign farms. And these business don't even wait for the families to be there, they just dig up the dead and drop them on the ground, out of the way of their industrial improvements.

Land Rush follows the journey of an American sugar farmer as he sets out to build the largest industrial farm in Africa. He may think he's doing good for the community, change can be good after all. But the dollar signs attached to the project completely obscure his ability to think critically about his work, and the long-term consequences. 

And so it goes.

Our next World War will be over land and resources in the global south. The anger, frustration, and desperation are already palpable.

The UN said it!! GMOs and monoculture will not save us. In the end, they may actually bring us wide-scale war.