Food supply nightmare scenario

modern survivalWe’re not saying this absolutely HAS happened but with the explosion of genetically modified crops (GMO), get ready for tomorrow’s headline – “GMO Crops Out of Control in American Food Supply.” Here’s how it could happen. Let’s postulate a company seriously into selling herbicides puts their top notch scientists to work creating a strain of rice that is resistant to their herbicide – not far-fetched. In a controlled lab environment, this sort of science has gone on for eternity. Break the system to make it stronger.

But what if this herbicidal monolith planted this strain of freak rice, unapproved for human consumption, in a field adjacent to a regular rice farming field? It wouldn’t even have to be right next door. Many plants are spread by pollen and wind. Before long you’ve got the farmer wondering how the freak rice got into his field and what’s the deal with it resisting all known forms of herbicide?

From here, you have two options, each appalling to one party or the other. The first is that this herbicide resistant rice becomes infested with all kinds of bugs and dies, leaving the farmer bankrupt. The second scenario has it flourishing and the farmer unwittingly sells unapproved GMO product on the open market and everybody eats it, causing…who knows what?

Everybody knows you can’t cram the genie of invention back into the box, and maybe you think this little game is too far fetched, that it could never happen. At Holistic Survival, we’d be willing to bet it already has.

The Holistic Survival Team

Flickr / ranma tim