Food, Fuel, Famine

Tax dollars for Monsanto, GMO food for you, courtesy of the Bush-ites.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, who travels to a world food security conference in Rome next week, laid out the Bush administration’s strategy today for meeting the current worldwide crisis of rising food costs and shortages.

[snip]

Some aid groups have argued that, worldwide, the increased production of biofuels has contributed to increasing crop demand and food prices.

Higher food prices have made it difficult for those living on the edge of poverty to afford food. The UN estimates that more than 850 million people worldwide face daily food emergencies.

The Bush administration has tailored its food aid to include the use of genetically modified organisms, or GMO, crops, which are made by a number of U.S. companies. The White House argues that development aid that emphasizes GMO crops will help countries feed their own populations. It contends that those crops are more resistant to drought and pests, and will work well in countries where farming is difficult.

The organic farming community opposes the use of such crops, which they argue require sophisticated and expensive fertilizers and other pesticides.

[snip]

The use of GMO crops, though, will probably meet with opposition from European countries at the conference. Many won’t allow GMO seed, or the import of foods made from GMO crops. They argue that the health effects of such crops are not clear.

That ban even caused several African nations in 2002 to consider forgoing U.S. aid that included GMO crops because they feared important European export markets would be lost. Eventually the U.S. grain aid was crushed into flour to prevent its use as seed.

[From The Swamp: Food, Fuel, Famine]

Once Monsanto and ADM control the patents on all seeds, the Rapture will soon follow (or so Bush seems to believe).