The following is a bit different from my usual postings, but one that concerns me very much and should be of concern to all of us.
Have you been paying attention to the news......?
By Sonia R. Martinez
Not the news from Entertainment Tonight about the latest escapade in Hollywood or about Health Care or about the latest DC scandal, or the latest communication gadget or the latest computerized gizmo to play with......
I'm talking about the news about the water supply being cut off from a California farm valley that grows a large percentage of the nation's food supply, to save the smelt, a tiny little fish similar to a sardine.....
The farmers in the valley will go bankrupt, our food supply will diminish, but never fear.....the US government will save the smelt.
I'm talking also about the problem that even though it has been known for at least a couple of years that bees are disappearing, and thus will affect our food supply, the news media, except for a few who are aware, are not making a bigger stink over it.....but they can talk about Michael Jackson's life and death ad nauseum 24/7.
Americans, as a majority are not paying attention to the food situation in our country. Believe me, they will when it hits them that store shelves are filling up more and more with imports from Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica and China......and less and less from California and the wheat and corn belt.... or maybe as long as there is food, regardless of where it comes from, mainstream America does not care, never mind we're bankrupting our own country, as long as they can buy the food....
We better wake up, people!
I'm not trying to be 'chicken little', but if we're not seeing the writing on the wall, we better get new glasses!
Big agribusiness companies don't want Joe and Jane Doe to be able to feed themselves....so the seeds from much of the vegetables and fruits we buy today are sterile - 'terminator seeds' as they are being called - through genetic engineering.
Regardless on how we stand on the GMOs (Genetically Modified foods) the end result is that ALL of us will be impacted in one way or another.
The long and short of it is that we've been playing with Mother Nature and we will find out the consequences to our detriment in the long run....and that long run is not so far in the horizon.
Here is a novel idea.....Let's start planting small edible gardens in our yards and stop pouring money on useless lawns......Gosh, why didn't we think of that before?
Let's start saving viable seeds. We will need them....and if the seeds we bought to plant our own edible gardens are not viable....here is a place where we can get some that will.
Join Slow Food , find a convivium (Slow Food's Latin terminology for group) in your area and learn more about helping small farmers and how to feed yourselves
Remember this, it is VERY important.....and keep saying it as a mantra:
