When Mother Nature and Profit Collide

HS - Jason Hartman Income Property Investing (2)Author and businesswoman, Elaine Smitha joins Jason Hartman to talk about her book, Screwing Mother Nature for Profit: How Corporations Betray Our Trust – And Why the New Biology Offers an Ethical and Sustainable Future. Elaine shares her experience with the natives in Papua, New Guinea, that are affected by pollution from mining companies, which led to the writing of her book. She turned to Mother Nature herself to find solutions for sustainable growth and cleaner air and water. Elaine feels that the start to solving these problems begins with individual consciousness, awareness, and restoring a sense of community. Elaine Smitha is a Drake University graduate and mother of four. In 1969, to expand the influence of art in the community, she created, organized and chaired the first Fine Arts Week in West Des Moines, Iowa, which today is still celebrated. She received the Iowa Arts Commendation for having the Finest Art Craft Department in the State of Iowa. Smitha is included in Who’s Who in American Art and the World Who’s Who in Women.

A world traveler with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, Smitha focused on underdeveloped countries to experience the natives’ environment before becoming commercialized entities. Forty countries include the UK, Middle East, North Africa, Far East and South America, tracing the evolution of humanity 10,000 years from Papua New Guinea to China. As author of the self-healing handbook, If You Make the Rules, How Come You’re Not Boss? Minding Your Body’s Business (Hampton Roads, 2003), with foreword by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., Smitha offers the biological imperative to sustain life on Planet Earth is the same for sustainable growth in business and personal performance. Internationally recognized as a “rare media personality”, Elaine Smitha, creator/producer/host of Evolving Ideas© TV, reached a million households weekly in syndicated television markets, including PAX TV. Since 2005 Smitha’s weekly interviews are heard on Dr. Gary Null’s Progressive Radio Network on the Internet. Richard Bach, Bruce Lipton, Deepak Chopra, Larry Dossey, Fred Alan Wolf, Amit Goswami, Ervin Laszlo and Jack Canfield are among the guests who have appeared on her shows.
Elaine Smitha is a multitalented professional speaker for businesses, universities, colleges and prestigious organizations around the country including World Future Society, Creative Problem Solving Institute and the International Conference on Global Security Safety and Sustainability held at the University of East London.

Narrator: Welcome to the Holistic Survival Show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary for you to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival Show is your family’s insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst case scenario, you’ll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

Jason Hartman: Welcome to the Holistic Survival Show. This is your host Jason Hartman, where we talk about protecting the people places and profits you care about in these uncertain times. We have a great interview for you today. And we will be back with that in less than 60 seconds on the Holistic Survival Show. And by the way, be sure to visit our website at HolisticSurvival.com. You can subscribe to our blog, which is totally free, has loads of great information, and there’s just a lot of good content for you on the site, so make sure you take advantage of that at HolisticSurvival.com. We’ll be right back.

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Start of Interview with Elaine Smitha

Jason Hartman: My pleasure to welcome Elaine Smitha. She is the author of Screwing Mother Nature for Profit. And she has another book as well and we’re going to learn all about them. Elaine welcome, how are you?

Elaine Smitha: Oh awesome; thank you very much for having me on your show.

Jason Hartman: My pleasure. Now you’re coming to us from Olympia, Washington today, right?

Elaine Smitha: That’s true.

Jason Hartman: Fantastic. Well tell us a little bit about you book and what inspired it.

Elaine Smitha: Well, Screwing Mother Nature for Profit is my second book and I just kind of looked around and thinking about Mother Nature and how we survive because of her. Because if we don’t take care of mother nature, then we’re going to be in big trouble because we depend upon mother nature for our food, for our lifestyle and farming, all these kinds of things that we really need mother nature for. And so when I found that some companies were not behaving as I felt that they should in being in business, that we needed to write about it. So that’s what I did.

Jason Hartman: So give us some examples.

Elaine Smitha: Well, Papua New Guinea is the lead into the book. And I’ve been to Papua New Guinea some years ago and the natives of course live off the land there. They’re quite frugal in their usage of things because they have respect for Mother Nature. Well then, along comes this mining company and they are mining over with total irresponsible behavior. And the sludge is going down the mountain side and the water is being polluted in the area because the natives often, they allow the natives to live on the side of the water when the water lake would come in. There’s a lot of water there. And they live on the banks so when all this debris was going down the river and coming into their little village; this is where the people get their water to drink, they bathe in it, the source for them is water. So with all this drudging going down the hillside into the valleys where these natives live, they were actually polluting the environment.

The natives actually got very upset about it and being primitive as they are, not certainly like we are here in the United States, and what they did, they marched on the mining companies offices there and broke windows, they broke all kinds of things trying to get even. Letting them know, this is not the thing you’re supposed to be doing. And they did this several times, because the mining company continues to do it. So the people wanted to let them know this isn’t working. They broke computers, they threw things around, and they tried to destroy them so they’d stop it. But the consciousness of some of these businesses, like this particular endeavor, is not really in Mother Nature’s favor. And the exploitation for the money that can be gained is the driving force. And that was the thing that really got me ignited to write the book.

Jason Hartman: So what are they mining?

Elaine Smitha: They’re mining for gold and silver.

Jason Hartman: And so gold and silver, certainly people have been mining for that for 5 thousand years probably. What is the solution that you propose in the book? And I want to hear some more examples like this, but I just wanted to kind of jump to solutions if we could first, or are there not solutions proposed in just exposing the problem?

Elaine Smitha: Well it’s just coming from a biological point of view as sustainable. Like our bodies are very smart, and the skin of our body is the interface between the outside and the inside. And so that’s why when you touch someone, you touch something, you feel it, and you know it’s there. Well I take this model and I apply it to business. Seeing that business needs to be more conscious about their behavior and that their actions are affecting everyone inside, like our body would be.

And so I use that as a comparison because it’s a viable one and it’s accurate. And so I’m hoping that the corporations would wake up and be more conscionable about their behavior and what they’re doing to Mother Nature’s environment. We only have one planet to live on. We have not found another planet yet to move to. So we have to take care of our planet here and Mother Nature is our gift for food and everything that we have, fresh air, all of this, Mother Nature is in charge of all of this. So I would like for these businesses to be more responsible and to take that under consideration when they’re doing things.

Jason Hartman: And how do we get them to be more responsible?

Elaine Smitha: Well it means that they have to wake up. They have to become aware that they are, and I’m sure that many people in the corporate world are aware that they are not behaving in the right way, but I’m sure it’s because that’s their livelihood and that’s where their money comes from. But I think you have to get the corporate consciousness itself to change the way they do their business.

Jason Hartman: But what I’m saying Elaine, is what is going to cause them to do that? If you were in the mining business, you know what you’re doing; I mean you know you’re business if that’s what you do. Or in any business, everybody knows kind of, it’s pretty clear and obvious I’m sure. It’s not an accident for example, right? That they know what’s going on with their business and what effects it has and so forth. How do we get them to change their behavior?

Elaine Smitha: I’m not sure how you’d get them to change their behavior, except trying to… I think the natives certainly have tried to do that over there to get them to be at least more conscious about what they’re doing. Maybe have a drainage ditch someplace else where it doesn’t have to go down into the villages. That could be a way that they could solve that problem without having to…

Jason Hartman: But even if they did that, it’s still going somewhere, right?

Elaine Smitha: Well the water would be, yes. It rains a great deal.

Jason Hartman: When you say, you’re talking about the polluted water right? The byproduct of the mining.

Elaine Smitha: Exactly, exactly.

Jason Hartman: So I mean, that polluted water has to go somewhere. Water doesn’t just disappear. It can’t be condensed or anything. So I mean, what do they do with it? Do you suggest they stop mining, do you suggest they just store the water in some big reservoir that’s self-contained?

Elaine Smitha: Well they might be able to filter it so that the natives are not having to have this polluted water in their areas. I mean, that’s one thing they could do.

Jason Hartman: Fair enough. They could filter it. And then when business does this, and I want to talk about some other examples because this is a great discussion, but when they do this it creates higher cost for the business and of course that’s why they don’t want to do it because they want to keep their costs low, and then that ultimately creates a higher cost for the consumer, right?

Elaine Smitha: Well probably but gold and silver are pretty malleable in terms of pricing. Businesses can do that quite easily.

Jason Hartman: Well gold and silver are commodities, so they’re traded on exchanged and the price is pretty set and clear. So certainly if it’s more expensive to mine the gold and silver, the gold and silver is going to be more expensive to the end buyer of it, whether it be someone using it in electronic devices, or belt buckles or jewelry, or just buying it for investment purposes. So we understand that. So this was the New Guinea example. Were there other examples in New Guinea or were you looking at other countries as well?

Elaine Smitha: No, I just primarily kept with New Guinea because that was one that I had the experience with, having been there. But I’m sure that there’s others that may also have that.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, there’s a lot of talk nowadays about China, of course, America has outsourced so much of its manufacturing overseas, especially to China, that one of the issues they say is that a lot of the companies are going over there because it’s cheaper to do business there because there are fewer regulations. So there goes the American jobs, right? But what do you think about that? What are your thoughts on that?

Elaine Smitha: Look, businesses are all over the world, and they each have their own peculiarity in terms of their actions and how they are behaving and all I’m asking is for them to be conscious of the effects of their decisions so that people can do the right thing. Well, I think one really good example is say, Ford Motor Company. They have their truck assembly plant. They have the parking area grated so that the water will flow into a pond, into a river, wherever they have their location there.

But what they’ve also done is they have put on the roof of their buildings, they have put drainage up there as well so that it drains down and goes under the drive way out to this draining area. And in fact, the top of their truck assembly structures there, they’ve even made that like a natural environment, so they even have deer up there. So they’re growing plants on top, so that’s helping to keep the environment clean, the air that they’re breathing clean, and using the water in a really constructive way that goes out where it can be flowing into the community and I think that’s very responsible.

Jason Hartman: Right, and you think that really the US, like this whole thing I just said about China, these companies are doing a lot of this in third world developing countries because they can get away with it, right?

Elaine Smitha: Yes.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, and they can’t in the US. What are your thoughts about that?

Elaine Smitha: About countries being responsible?

Jason Hartman: No, about the fact that this is where the companies are going because they’re going where they can get away with it. Whether it be China, or New Guinea or whatever because the regulations in the US are so stiff in terms of this.

Elaine Smitha: Right. Well, they’re always going to go where they have the most rewards for their efforts. That’s the way it’s been. They’re using cheap labor in some of these countries, especially some of the third world countries. And the women a lot of times are raped by the men and they live in a house all together. I mean it’s just so abusive in that regard. They’ll work these workers, especially in China. I’ve been to China, I’ve seen their factories, I’ve been in them and yeah they really do work them. They work them long hours.

Jason Hartman: So the question there…I’ve always had a real struggle in terms of how I think about this. A very good documentary that you would really like is entitled Life and Debt. It’s about Jamaica and about how the World Bank went into Jamaica and the documentary really takes the position that they really screwed the country over basically. And how they have these zones and these factories where people are working incredibly long hours, poor conditions, etcetera.

But what I keep struggling with is this, Elaine, and I just don’t know how to come to terms with it, maybe you can help me. It’s that before that, they didn’t have any real economic development in their country and they didn’t have any jobs at all. So the people aren’t being forced to work there, no one’s holding a gun to their head. They could live I guess the old way they used to live as very primitive peoples, like they probably did in New Guinea before this mine came along. So I just struggle with that. What is the right way to think about that? They keep saying that the conditions caused by big globalist industry and capitalism are bad and they’re just not good enough and it’s not fair and they’re just doing all these bad things. But no one’s forcing those people to work there. The question is not how bad is it to say, the US. The question is how bad is it compared to what they had before. I think that might be the right question. Is it improvement on what life used to be? Or is it worse?

Elaine Smitha: Oh I think so. I can remember being in China many years ago and the villages, they have limited housing there and they were cooking outside, had their fire and that’s how they were cooking their food, and even a pot of tea. And yes, and so they were living in very primitive environment. And even, gosh, I was there as I say, many, many years ago even in Shanghai and the big cities, Beijing, there were no cars on the road. People walked if they were outside at all. It was just amazing. Of course now, it’s flourishing.

Jason Hartman: And it’s a lot more polluted because of all those cars, right? So were you there in the 80s, for example?

Elaine Smitha: Yes, late 70s I think. As soon as it opened up.

Jason Hartman: Totally different world nowadays, no question.

Elaine Smitha: Oh very much. I was in China last year, so very big difference.

Jason Hartman: That’s a great contrast for you. A friend of mine, he was there in the 80s and he saw it the old way just as it was kind of starting; it was just the beginning of the real changes. Of course, it was ten years after Nixon sort of opened China, if you will. But what are your thoughts? I mean looking back and seeing that contrast of how China has changed, would you say that you’re pro-globalization, pro-development or anti-globalization and development because certainly it wasn’t as polluted as it is now. But then again a lot of the perks of progress weren’t there either.

Elaine Smitha: It’s a very interesting question because when I think about how shopping centers now are all over, you know? We didn’t use to have shopping centers. And now in China they have big shopping centers. And that’s very different from what it was before. And people have, I’m sure they have adopted the western ways because when you see the pictures of there now it’s pretty much westernized. And we went to look at a school, to visit a school and the children were there presenting a little performance for us to sort of give us a clue as to how the education system was. But we had educators in our group so they were particularly interested in that. But look, we’re going to have progress; the thing is no longer in your hip pocket now. It’s all over.

Jason Hartman: The thing. What’s the thing? What do you mean?

Elaine Smitha: Well the modernization, the movement of corporate, the world is now our oyster. So just think, we are now traveling all over the world, where years ago, if people traveled at all it was pretty much to see their relatives in the state in which they lived. The whole system has changed now. We’re opened up. We’re smarter. We have computers; we never had computers before. It’s evolution. Evolution of humanity and civilization, and how it works out is we hope will be for the betterment of humanity and Mother Nature, the animals, the trees. But you see they’re going in and they’re cutting down these trees. If we don’t have trees we don’t have clean air.

Jason Hartman: Right, but Elaine. That’s my question. How do you reconcile that? On one hand you’re saying this progress is good, the fact that we can travel everywhere and people do much more than they used to. And that’s a huge carbon footprint. And people have computers but in the manufacturing of computers, all sorts of environmental sins are occurring.

Elaine Smitha: That’s true and a lot of them are done in China too.

Jason Hartman: So what do you do? What’s the solution?

Elaine Smitha: I don’t have a solution. All I can do is say that if each person has a consciousness in how they behave and how they treat Mother Nature on their own instead of cutting down all the trees, which is happening in South America.

Jason Hartman: And what are they cutting the trees down for?

Elaine Smitha: They’re cutting the trees down because they want these natives to learn how to build houses and stuff like that. And they’re going in also, the natives have been living off the herbs and the native remedies there. That’s how they’ve been able to stay well. They know what these remedies will do. And Papua New Guinea has also done that too. And the natives learn how to take care of themselves by the plants that they have around them. So what the corporations are doing, they’re going in, they’re cutting down all these things, they’re building houses, making that country and those people look like they belong in America.

Jason Hartman: Right, right. But there’s the question. Do the natives like living in a house better, built with those trees they cut down? Or how did they used to live? In a tent or a hut, or what?

Elaine Smitha: Well they would build huts. They would have huts for themselves and that’s what they had in Papua New Guinea. Although in Papua, they could build them out of straw and so forth that they had available to them. They would put planks on the floor so that they could be inside and lay down. They sleep on the boards. That’s the way they sleep over there. It’s not like you have a soft bed with a mattress that’s so cozy to be into. No, they slept on a slab of wood. So see my travels have been all focused on under developed countries because I always felt that the western ways were flooding the market and it’s not going to be long before everything is going to be homogenized and you will miss this element of humanity and the evolution of humanity. So that’s why all my travels have been in direct alignment with the underdeveloped countries.

Jason Hartman: Right. Okay, so that’s interesting because you got to see it before it totally changes and becomes, like you say, homogenized. But the question is this: the natives in South America that you gave the example of, do they like living in a house better? Or do they like living in the old way better? Are they resisting the progress? Are you saying it’s being forced upon them?

Elaine Smitha: I think yes. I think it’s being forced on them. Yes, because now they’re building over there in Papua New Guinea and it’s just different. It’s not like the tribal environment where everybody works together, plays together, live together, cook together, eat together, that cohesiveness that you have from a community. Now we go into our houses; we have to leave our houses to go find a community.

Jason Hartman: Right? In most cases I agree with you. You’re right, especially in suburban cases, no question. But are the people in New Guinea or the people, I assume you were talking about Brazil when you talked about the trees but it could be anywhere, are those people not liking that? Or do they like it more?

Elaine Smitha: Well I think that, you mean the people moving into these new houses?

Jason Hartman: Well yeah.

Elaine Smitha: They’re looking for a place to live. We have an overabundance of population. So they have to find some place to live.

Jason Hartman: So couldn’t they just still live in the straw hut?

Elaine Smitha: In New Guinea? Yes they could.

Jason Hartman: What I’m getting at, Elaine, are they forced to live this western way, or could they still live…

Elaine Smitha: Oh they’re not forced.

Jason Hartman: So what do you do? Not offer them a choice?

Elaine Smitha: It’s all around them. Papua New Guinea has changed. It’s changing even as we’re speaking. And so, companies are going in there and they’re changing the whole system. Maybe in some Hinterlands there they still are able to live like they did before. But they grow their own food and they raise animals. Like one, they had a pig and they fed that pig so it’d get really fat and then when they slaughtered it, everybody had pork. They had a meal out of that pig. But they take care of that pig from a little tiny thing. They put a little rope on one of their hooves and one of their legs there and they parade him around. They have him on a leash as like you do our dogs here. And so when it gets big, they slaughter him and then the families all get together and they have a feast.

So the community, I think basically you have more community spirit because they are so interlinked. And our society today is everybody has their own home or place to live, apartment or whatever. And many times we don’t live with our families anymore; we don’t even have them near us. So we have to find other friends of like mind so we have somebody to talk to and to share life with. So I think the whole thing is we’re so westernized here in the United States but it wasn’t that way I the early days. In the early days families all stayed together. But now we’re spread out all over the world, so things are not the way they were before and I think the Papua New Guinea will be emerging in a way that probably will emulate the rest of the world eventually.

Jason Hartman: So is that good or bad?

Elaine Smitha: Well, I like to see the native environment myself. But I tell you what, they get 110 inches of rain a year, so having some place where they don’t get so drenched, it would be helpful.

Jason Hartman: See, and I get what you’re saying about the sense of community and stuff. I mean, I completely get it. I really do. I think that the richer and more prosperous a culture becomes and the more westernized it becomes, those two are pretty synonymous most of the time, the more isolated and detached it becomes. There’s no question about it. But the fact is that even though you personally are interested in that and you like visiting those places and you sort of are nostalgic about that…I mean you don’t live like that. You could live like that in the US or in New Guinea I assume if you wanted to, right? It seems like for someone like yourself, it’s good that you’ve noticed these things, but I don’t know that you’re ready to give up your car, your computer, and your conveniences to go live in a straw hut.

Elaine Smitha: Well no, but that’s not the idea. The idea is that those people have come from that. They’ve not entered that world like we live in today. They’re very primitive. Although a lot of them now are getting jobs in the city and so they will be merging in a different way as well as they mature in that environment. We are already, we’re not a native environment anymore here in the United States. We have conveniences, electricity, we have gas, we have all these advantages. But it didn’t start off that way. One little step at a time, one little step at a time.

Jason Hartman: Right, but I can’t help but think there might have been someone 150 years ago like yourself, who was thinking the same thing, maybe 200 years ago, about as America was sort of being built, thinking gosh now we’ve got to cut down some trees to build some houses and that whole sense of community, the concept of the pilgrims getting together for thanksgiving dinner. That’s an obvious image in everybody’s mind. That hasn’t happened, and then gosh, that Henry Ford came along and invented or at least perfected the assembly line. Now people are much more mobile and the stupid Wright Brothers and then people could travel. I’ve got to give you a little bit of a hard time about that because I think the sense that you’re coming from is this anti-progress viewpoint almost.

I get the being nostalgic about it, I really do. I’m nostalgic about a lot of times in the past during which I didn’t even live. I wasn’t even alive, but I see them depicted in television shows and movies, and read about them and it seems nostalgic to me too, so I understand that. Let me take a brief pause. We’ll be back in just a minute.

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Elaine Smitha: So, let’s talk a little bit about Monsanto and Syngenta.

Jason Hartman: Oh, Monsanto. They’re really evil. The hybrid seeds, that one’s just got my goat. Tell me about it, sure.

Elaine Smitha: Well, Monsanto and Syngenta, they are two different companies. And they are genetically altering the plant genes so the farmers must always forever purchase their seeds to survive. Mother Nature makes the seeds for us so we are guaranteed the harvest for next season. But these companies want to control the seed acquisition, so they’re altering the genes so they cannot reproduce which forces people to have to buy seeds. That’s not the way Mother Nature intended it.

Jason Hartman: I couldn’t agree more. I have big issues with corporations patenting things like the genome and seeds and all of this type of stuff. However, just to play Devil’s advocate on that for a moment, it used to be years ago before companies like Monsanto came along and did this, that the crops were not as resistant to doubt, they weren’t as resistant to pests as they are now. And so they’re much more hearty, these genetically modified crops and seeds. So Monsanto spent a lot of money to figure out how to do that and to engineer the genome of the seeds. They had to somehow be incentivized to do that.

Elaine Smitha: Well it’s all about money. They want to control the food supply. That’s why what they created are terminator seeds.

Jason Hartman: Right. Those are hybrid seeds.

Elaine Smitha: They cannot replicate themselves.

Jason Hartman: I know what they are. They’re hybrid seeds instead of non-hybrid seeds. They terminate themselves, they don’t regrow. So they build themselves an annuity of new buyers of the seeds. But you’ll remember it wasn’t very long ago back in the 70s when the big concern then was all about what? It was all about famine. And the food supply wasn’t hearty enough. There wasn’t enough to go around. And now, food is plentiful. So did Monsanto make a contribution to that?

Elaine Smitha: I don’t think so. Not when they’re wanting to control who lives or dies, who feeds or not. I don’t think that’s ethical.

Jason Hartman: Like I said, I agree with you on that, that I have issues with companies patenting natural things like that.

Elaine Smitha: Well a lot of these farmers killed themselves because the seeds wouldn’t grow. And it’s forced the farmers to have to buy seeds every year instead of saving the seeds, which is the normal, Godly way that Mother Nature created it.

Jason Hartman: Right. However, the other side of that argument is, and that’s what I’m trying to debate with you here, the other side of that argument is that farmers used to be destitute because the crops weren’t hearty enough. Because if they had a drought they wouldn’t last through it. They’re much more hearty now because of these innovations.

Elaine Smitha: That may be true in some instances but the seeds don’t always grow. These Monsanto Syngenta seeds do not always grow and so a farmer could plant those seeds and have no harvest.

Jason Hartman: I don’t know if they don’t always grow, but natural seeds don’t always grow.

Elaine Smitha: They have not been producing if those seeds are manipulated. There was a big farmer who, the seeds had blown over into his field, into his farm field there, and when we found that these manipulated seeds were there, he actually sued them.

Jason Hartman: No you mean Monsanto sued the farmer?

Elaine Smitha: No. he sued Monsanto.

Jason Hartman: Oh he sued Monsanto because he didn’t want the seeds in his farm.

Elaine Smitha: No, because they blew over into his farm, and he wasn’t planting those seeds. They blew over into his field, so the farmer did not plant those seeds, you see? So they blew over into his field and he sued them and won.

Jason Hartman: And what was the basis of his lawsuit?

Elaine Smitha: Because they weren’t his seeds. They weren’t the seeds that he had planted, they were the genetically modified seeds that blew over into his farm.

Jason Hartman: So was he claiming that he was damaged because he couldn’t regrow his crop the next year?

Elaine Smitha: Yes.

Jason Hartman: Okay, fair enough. But the side benefit is he probably got a heartier crop out of those genetically modified seeds, right?

Elaine Smitha: Not necessarily, no. They don’t really grow as well as the regular seeds do.

Jason Hartman: Oh they don’t? Because I thought the whole reason that farmers liked them was they’re heartier and they grow better.

Elaine Smitha: I don’t know that farmers really like them.

Jason Hartman: Well I don’t think they like the concept of having to rebuy them every time. I’ll agree with you there, for sure.

Elaine Smitha: No and the harvest is not nearly as hearty as it would be otherwise.

Jason Hartman: Well, I beg to differ with you there. The claim is…

Elaine Smitha: How come these farmers were killing themselves because the seeds wouldn’t grow?

Jason Hartman: I don’t know about an individual thing like that. But all I do know, and I hate to defend them, by the way, I just want you to know that I hate to defend Monsanto, because I think patenting natural things, I just fundamentally have problems with that. But all I’m saying is that, the crops of old, the natural crops that came from God, they had problems. They weren’t drought resistant like the crops are nowadays. They weren’t as hearty as the genetically modified crops. And that’s the whole point. That’s why people like them. That’s why we don’t have the fear of famine now that we used to.

That wasn’t long ago now, Elaine. It was in the 70s. As a little kid I remember hearing this stuff. Look at all the movies that came out of the 70s like Soylent Green and all these movies about the world ending, and famine, and people starving to death and how the world can’t support more than 3 billion population, when we topped that number I think in the 60s. This innovation has solved a lot of that problem. There is a side to that. And the farmers saying that they don’t like it, they don’t like the fact that this is now monopolized by Monsanto, and I don’t like it either just so you know, but there are benefits. They’ve got benefits and somehow a company like Monsanto had to be rewarded with a patent in this case, to pay for the cost of all that research and development to figure out how to make drought resistant products.

Elaine Smitha: How to control the food supply.

Jason Hartman: No, it’s not just about control it’s how to have the food supply yield more food.

Elaine Smitha: Because the farmer who really farms and he uses the natural seeds, the seeds that he gets from that last crop, he can plant the next year free.

Jason Hartman: That’s right, but you’re not listening. That’s not the whole story.

Elaine Smitha: I hear what you’re saying. You’re saying it’s an undependable crop harvest, I got that. But that’s not always the case. It could be in one particular area. Maybe it’s the soil that’s not rich enough.

Jason Hartman: Well I’m sure there are many factors.

Elaine Smitha: Farmers for years dealt with this and I think it’s just a monopoly and that someone is controlling our food supply.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, I don’t like it. This is why I’m upset with the Obama administration for these various laws that they’ve passed. The former CEO of Monsanto is now Obama’s head of agriculture.

Elaine Smitha: Oh I saw that. Outrageous.

Jason Hartman: He’s totally in bed with the corporations and people act like he’s some fighter for the little guy and nothing could be further from the truth. But that’s why people should be able to locally grow foods and to have farmers markets. And the government has attacked that.

Elaine Smitha: And you have to have open pollinated seeds to do that.

Jason Hartman: Well, you can get those seeds. It’s not like they don’t exist.

Elaine Smitha: Yes, you can get open pollinated seeds. Yes you can.

Jason Hartman: Yeah they’re out there. They’re just not as hearty as the Monsanto modified version.

Elaine Smitha: Exactly.

Jason Hartman: That’s the benefit. Well this is an interesting debate. I’m just trying to get you to see the other side of it, which I don’t even always agree with. That’s all I’m trying to do Elaine. But tell people where they can get the book, or well two books. What’s your other book called?

Elaine Smitha: My first book is If You Make The Rules, How Come You’re Not Boss?: Minding your body’s business. And it’s about self-healing. And I’m sure that the book stores have it. They may have to order it, but they do have it. And the second book is Screwing Mother Nature for Profit.

Jason Hartman: Okay and where can people get it? Give out your website.

Elaine Smitha: Oh my website is ElaineSmitha.com, but they can get it on Amazon, they can get it in any bookstore. It’s available.

Jason Hartman: And have you published it on Kindle by the way? Are yours available on Kindle?

Elaine Smitha: Yes they’ve been on Kindle. I have Watkins Publishing out of London published the book and they’re owned by Barnes&Noble.

Jason Hartman: Okay fantastic because I didn’t want you to be cutting down any extra trees, okay? To make all that paper for your books, alright? But there’s a lot of environmental sins involved in making Kindles, too I’m sure. I have no doubt about that. So it’s an ongoing problem, it really is. But Elaine Smitha, thank you so much for joining us today. Anything in closing you’d like to say?

Elaine Smitha: Oh no, I’d just like people to be awake and aware and pay attention. Be kind to Mother Nature, be kind to themselves and give themselves a great big hug. Put your arms around yourself, and give yourself a hug.

Jason Hartman: Good stuff. Well thank you so much, Elaine, appreciate you joining us today.

Elaine Smitha: Okay, thanks so much. It was great talking with you.

Jason Hartman: Likewise.

Narrator: Thank you for joining us today for the Holistic Survival Show. Protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our Creating Wealth Show, which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today’s economy. Learn more at www.JasonHartman.com or search Jason Hartman on iTunes.

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company, offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own, and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional. Information deemed reliable, but not guaranteed. (Image: Flickr | sludgegulper)

Transcribed by Ralph

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