Andrew Kimbrell is one of five attorneys who form the Center for Food Safety. Kimbrell, a bioethicist and author, was named one of the 100 leading visionaries by Utne Reader and his work focuses on legal battles to keep our food safe. His speech at the Organicology Conference last February outlined the development of chemical and genetic weapons used to defeat and control nature, and, in the process, provide us with dangerous foods.
The picture he painted spanned decades, with corporations like Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow, and Bayer playing both sides of the battle by not only producing the herbicides but also engineering the seeds for crops that will withstand massive applications of those herbicides. Those companies are now in the process of designing and getting USDA approval for a new generation of crops that will be able to survive even more lethal chemicals.
Even though the chemical model of agriculture has been deemed an outmoded concept by the United Nations and the World Bank, these profit-oriented giant corporations pour their resources into ever more terrible manipulations of nature.
In addition to the genetic-chemical duet, these companies have consolidated ownership of 49% of the world’s seeds. Kimbrell is on the front of the fight to keep ever more dangerous chemicals and unnatural genetic combinations out of our food, and to keep ownership of seeds in the hands of farmers and gardeners.
To learn more about how you can support this work, check out Center for Food Safety http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/.
About Susan W. Clark
Susan W. Clark is a freelance writer and photographer focusing on sustainability. She lives on an organic farm near Canby, Oregon. Her blog, publication list, and clips are available here.