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A couple of news snippets during the week caused me to be very concerned at the lack of comprehension in the world about some of the issues I try to cover in this journal. First up the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Buchwald here us-monsanto-lawsuit
She turned down an application for a ruling to ensure Monsanto could not sue organic farmers whose crops became contaminated with patented Monsanto 'product'. She said the plaintiffs were creating a controversy where none existed. Which is complete balderdash as anyone perusing even briefly the literature would be able to identify.
Monsanto of course claim they wouldn't sue anyone accidentally infringing their patent rights by intended presence of protected material in their fields. That is worth nothing, it is a statement of intent that has no legal or practical standing. Notwithstanding which Monsanto have bought 144 patent infringement lawsuits against farmers between 1997 and April 2010. Some organic farmers have felt compelled to change their growing methods and crops, at significant costs to themselves to ensure they avoid possible lawsuits from Monsanto. As too often happens in legal systems, the system protects the rights of big aggressors against those of small victims. What more could one expect in a country where the presidency is, in effect, for hire to the team that can raise the biggest (corporate) campaign funds, regards it seems of policy or merit.
And one other point arising form that price, and the statement given by Monsanto that will send shivers down the spine of organic growers and consumers. The company did not refute that contamination occurs, indeed it is implicit in the statement they would not sue for unintended presence of protected material. That protected material in most cases is genetically modified material.
A second item that really annoyed not just me , but a number of other organic producers and consumers locally, was an article in the Gallery magazine. I cannot tell if the author was deliberately mocking organic or is simply crassly ill -informed and prejudiced. The article treats organic as some fadish affected adopted veneer, suitable for replacement with next season's latest must have pretentions for the vacant brained. The article contains neither fact not value, even opt the point of talking about pronouncing organic with a French accent. In an island where French is still an official language you would have thought they might just have checked out the distinction between organique and biologique in this context. In short this article was synthetic inaccurate short term - the epitome of everything organic is not.
Finally I want to comment on something that was on radio 4 Farming Today. The excellent professor Tim Lang professor-tim-lang was making some superb observations about the state of horticulture (as opposed to agriculture) in the UK, with he describes as a disgrace.
Number one priority he says is growing plants - they are the foundations of human health and the food economy. Now there nowhere in the UK you can study commercial horticulture.Reading closed it horticulture degree a couple of years ago because of lack of students, yet bizarrely the same University only a year ago had a new professor of global food security. See reading.ac.uk. How can you have food security if you don't train , educate or value the people to do the critical element of that? It is horticulture that supplies the critical wide range mineral,s vitamins and trace elements - the ones the government always encourages us to consume with the likes of the 5-a-day campaign.
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