This article will be published in three parts, covering the impact of genetically modified organisms and the meat industry on our environment.
“In 1987, my dream was that I would not let Monsantos monopolize seeds. They can’t pretend that they invented seeds, they can’t pretend that they are a machine. This kind of fantasy abuses the creativity of the earth too much. I decided to protect seeds because I do not accept that seeds are in the hands of a few people only for profit and monopoly. I cannot accept the false fact that seeds are patented. For me, saving seeds and exchanging seeds can maintain the continuity of agriculture, nature and social life.” Environmentalists , Said the author and advocate of food sovereignty, Dr. Vandana Shiva (Vandana Shiva).
Dr. Shiva continued: “Monsanto and Bayer have a long history. They used shared technology to create explosives and deadly toxic gases, and sold them to both sides in the two world wars…Industrial agriculture was only the beginning of Hitler concentration camps. The subsidy for the ongoing war. In the process, we destroyed the land, destroyed the biodiversity, destroyed the insects, butterflies, pollinators, and we also destroyed the farmers.” She commented, “The whole world has declared to A small virus starts a war, because humans have lost all wars with microbes. This is not feasible. They become smarter…In the age of artificial intelligence, the garden will become our savior.”
If it has attracted people’s attention, then a virus that has locked the world and taken away millions of livelihoods has now sent a message to mankind that we are only a part of the biology of the earth. The pandemic is not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster. If we do not respect the rights of other species or humans, our planet will continue to develop even without us.
Noubar Afeyan, Chairman of Moderna, said of the first day of the company’s clinical trial results: “This is a bad day for the virus.” “We may never have a pandemic again.”
Although tempting, I found the argument of Dr. Michael Greger’s book How to Survive the Pandemic is more realistic. “When I was growing up, there was no such thing as HIV/AIDS. Where did this virus come from?” he asked in the preface of the book. The current coronavirus pandemic may be just a dress rehearsal for the coming plague. He believes that we are moving in the direction of a more deadly pandemic, one hundred times more severe than COVID-19, which will threaten our civilization.
While he explored the root causes of many epidemics to industrialize animal husbandry, he also mourned the deforestation of more than half of the earth’s tropical forests due to the expansion of livestock production. This “hamburgerization” of the rainforest has laid a lot of foundations for the occurrence and spread of diseases. As Africa’s rainforest was cut down for logging operations, gorillas and chimpanzees were shot and sold as food. He wrote that the root of HIV was traced to the consumption of forest prey: “Chimpanzees were slaughtered decades ago, and now 30 million people have died.” The cause of the human outbreak of Ebola is contact with preyed gorillas. Corpse.
Dr. Greg said: “Over the past few decades, global consumer demand for animal products has continued to increase, leading to a global explosive growth of large-scale animal farming activities, which has been in the third era of new human diseases. Played a key role.” His details about factory farming methods opened eyes to meat consumers: “The pressure associated with conventional meat cutting has caused farm animals to be cast, branded, dehorned, and toed without anesthesia. Intensive production of teeth cutting, beak trimming and tail docking coupled to intensive production requires metabolism, such as artificially increasing fecundity, lactation, early weaning and accelerating growth rate, making animals extremely susceptible to disease.”
Dr. Greg also lists the environmental impact of factory farms in this book. He quoted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. describing the pig farm in North Carolina: “Next, the aluminum culvert collects and directs the rotten waste into the 10-acre open-pit mine. The depth of these three stories Very deep, the diffuse vapor suffocated surrounding communities and tens of millions of gallons of gasoline. Pig manure infiltrated the rivers of North Carolina.” What about the outbreak of Salmonella and E. coli in alfalfa sprouts and green vegetables? With the intensification of factory farming, the level of infection in animal manure has increased, allowing bacteria in chicken and cow manure to enter the sprouts.
“There is shit in the meat,” Eric Schlosser said in his book “Fast Food People.” The author Nicols Fox talked about the process of processing chicken on a factory farm in her book “Spoiled”, saying: “The final product is no different from putting it in the toilet and eating it.” When Dr. Greg talked about the sordid conditions of the factory farm, he believed that it might be easier to blame foreign cultures, such as wet markets and eating forest game, than looking at our own plates in the mirror. The first hybrid swine flu virus was discovered in North America. “Because of the large number of farm animals to be mutated, these new swine flu viruses appear to be on a fast track of evolution in North America, jumping and rearranging between species at an unprecedented rate.”
In his outspoken account of animal cruelty, Dr. Grieg wrote: “The hen needs 291 square inches of space to flap its wings, 197 square inches of space to turn around, and 72 square inches of space to stand freely. Commercial battery facilities in the United States usually allow an average of 64 square inches per bird. On average, laying hen warehouses can house more than 100,000 chickens per shed.” According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), one gram of feces from infected chickens may contain “Virus enough to infect one million birds.”
These animals are sick. In the 1950s, the industry could grow a 5-pound chicken in less than three months. Now it takes an average of 45 days. Fast-growing broilers are more susceptible to infectious diseases under physiological and immune pressures. Dr. Greg said that H5N1 should be a wake-up call for industry breeders. The myopia breeding program prioritizes growth rather than health issues, threatening the continued viability of its industry. Unfortunately, “The information does not appear to have been resolved.”
Dr. Greger pointed out that COVID-19 is not our only pandemic: “Since the mid-1960s, avian influenza virus has been detected in the United States every year. In the past five years, there have been more than 200 cases of highly pathogenic poultry in the United States. Influenza viruses, including H5N1, H5N8, H7N8 and H7H9, have caused the deaths of more than 50 million chickens and turkeys.” He explained that avian influenza viruses have infected an evolutionary dilemma by adapting to chickens. Moreover, by adapting to chickens, these viruses may be adapting to humans-another virus that holds billions of hosts.
Dr. Greger also reported on the meat industry’s decades of efforts to cover up information about disease outbreaks. Industry attempts at poultry vaccines have resulted in virus mutations and vaccine-resistant strains. He quoted industry insiders as saying that they really need informed consumers is the last thing they need: “If most meat eaters in cities want to visit industrial broiler houses to see how birds are raised, and You can see that the birds are “harvested” and then “processed”… Maybe many of them will swear to eat chicken and all meat.” His book tells the story from New Jersey to Oklahoma Many stories of outbreaks on factory farms, as well as stories covered by company producers and veterinarians.
Considering the role of funding in the meat industry, Dr. Gregg mentioned that the World Bank, which provides funding for large-scale livestock projects in developing countries, has acknowledged that “there is a huge danger that the poor will be overwhelmed by the environment. Large factories Farms are threatened, and global food safety and security are threatened.” Although only considering the profitability of production, critics believe that human and animal health and welfare, soil health, biodiversity, climate change, social justice, equity, good governance and environmental management have been completely ignored.
Throughout the book, Dr. Greg explained in detail that Lure’s animal farming practices have caused endless human diseases. The root cause behind the third era of human diseases is “man-made”, which is caused by man-made. “With climate change and the destruction of ecosystems, pathogens will be everywhere, constantly mixing and mutating to find new animal hosts and new ways of infection.” Speaking of pandemic influenza, Nobel Prize winner scientist appointment book Ya Lederberg said: “Some people think I am hysterical, but there will be disasters in the future. We live in an evolutionary competition with bacteria (bacteria) and viruses. There is no guarantee that we will be survivors.”
Is it possible to prevent future pandemics? “It is difficult to imagine a virus that is more harmful than the H5N1 virus, but intensive poultry production worldwide is a relatively new phenomenon. As the consumption of poultry in developing countries continues to soar, there is no biological cause that prevents avian influenza. Evolve and mutate into a more deadly niche…Even if H5N1 never developed into pandemic capability, it may only be a matter of time before Dr. Grieg said: “The world’s new poultry factories have bred the deadliest combination. He suspended the factory farm as one of the solutions: “If the development of animal agriculture marks the beginning of the “zoon era”, then the reduction in animal agriculture production may end at an accelerated pace. ”
“We may have to stay away from the next HIV bushmeat meal, away from the next killer coronavirus pangolin meal, and away from the next deadly flu, away from a factory farm… Sadly, here In this case, a virus like H5N1 or H7N9 may be needed to carry out a pandemic. Dr. Greg declared in summarizing his extraordinary work: “The world is aware of the true cost of cheap chicken. ”
In an interview with Senator Cory Booker, food revolutionist and food revolutionist John Robbins said that the bill reformed the agricultural system. Food revolutionist John Robbins said that 80% of antibiotics used for various purposes in the United States are not used as drugs to treat bacteria. Infections are intended for human use, but they are used as feed additives in factory farms and centralized animal husbandry operations (CAFO). If this situation continues, then when there are no antibiotics available for human infections, we will enter the ranks of super bacteria. Senator Booker said that his bill is “a real leverage point for reviewing the American food system and taking measures to correct this injustice.” In the bill, 90% of our agricultural subsidies using taxpayer funds will be invested in Four single crops. “A large part of the money is used to feed livestock… the rest is used to make us sicker things, such as corn syrup. That’s why my kids in Newark can find Twinkie products that are cheaper than Apple These powerful interests protect it, but this is not suitable for small independent family farmers. This is for large multinational companies that have received billions of dollars from our subsidies.” Just as some people think that change can begin with one Like people, Senator Booker quoted an old saying that change does not come from Washington, but Washington. He called on citizens to redouble their enthusiasm and find ways to demand change by cooperating with local lawmakers, members of the House of Representatives and senators on these issues.
As for Dr. Shiva, she drew inspiration from Gandhi’s spinning wheel-which is related to the Satanic factory in England that colonized the world and created slavery-and began to preserve seeds to counter the US pesticide company Monsanto’s toughness on seeds. Control and cooperate tirelessly with small farmers since then. Her organization Navdanya has established 150 community seed banks in different regions of India. Navdanya means “nine seeds” (symbolizing the protection of biological and cultural diversity), and it is also a “new gift” (based on the preservation and sharing rights of seeds, as ordinary seeds). Indebted. Because the seeds are cultivated for chemicals or genetic engineering seeds, farmers need to bear debts to obtain seeds and chemicals for chemical drugs. This is the main reason for the debt of about 70%… First of all, they say that without chemicals, you will not be able to grow food. Then they said that food cannot be grown without genetically modified organisms. Now they say that without digital agriculture, it is impossible to grow food…The coronal crisis has forced mankind to shake the myth of certainty and predictability. The ideal assumption of the entire machinery industry is complete control, complete prediction, and put us into trouble, and the assumption that separation is that we are not part of nature, but masters. Dr. Shiva declared that uncertainty and separation from nature are how the world weaves.
Paulomi Shah hopes to live in a world where animals that feed on animals will not be killed, so that there are many healthier foods, and hope that all food in this world can be grown organically.
This article will be published in three parts, covering the impact of genetically modified organisms and the meat industry on our environment. Read part 1 here! Dr. Vandana Shiva argued
India Currents, in collaboration with bioGraphic and the California Academy of Sciences, will publish a series of articles on the famous endangered stork in two parts
My mother lives in Zhexuepu, India. I live in San Jose, California. In the past many years, my brothers and sisters and I have traveled to Jamshedpur many times a year