Trusting Corporations to Feed the World

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It's really sad that we have become so dependent upon Big Ag - and all the associated "safe" chemicals - to feed us. Trusting large corporations to do the right thing for customers is really a bit silly when you think about it. Because corporations are profit driven and by law must always make decisions based on how they will affect shareholders - not the customer.

Since I've tended to shun the news over the last year or so, I'm not up to date on many goings on in the world. However, I stumbled upon a 2012 article in The Guardian that reinforces my belief that corporations are not to be trusted with our food, especially when they use the latest-greatest-technology. To paraphrase the great Humphrey Bogart, "I'm shocked, shocked, to learn that there was poisoning going on."

Scott's Micracle-Gro plead guilty to knowingly selling bird seed treated with pesticides to prevent insect damage during long-term storage.  This bird seed killed wild birds. Did you get that? Knowingly poisoned the birds. Apparently, employees alerted the company to the problem as early as 2007 and yet nothing was done.  

Management chose to ignore warnings from its scientists.  It would affect profits, after all. 73 million packages of poison bird seed was sold - and only 2 million were recalled. That's a lot of money riding on doing the right thing - destroying the poisoned food - or turning a blind eye and making profits for the shareholders. How many wild birds (and probably other creatures) were needlessly killed for corporate profit? Dare we trust this company (or any other) to make products that we put in gardens where we grow our food and on lawns where our children play? (And here's another earlier "oops" by Scotts Miracle-Gro just to show they're not very good about following rules.)

If corporations will poison birds for profit (and lie about it when caught), it really should make us pause to consider what they will do (and are doing) to food for human consumption. Let's start a revolution; let's start feeding ourselves organically, depending on home gardens, community gardens, and local farmers to put food on our table. Not corporations that knowingly poison the planet.