Big Agriculture: conspiracy or blessing? I don't know enough to say

 

I honestly don't know what to think about this report in Off-Guardian, claiming - in so many words - that there's a "Big Agriculture" conspiracy to change humanity's food sources and eating habits into a "Brave New World" sort of mish-mash.  The implication is that this somehow ties into the "Great Reset" sought by the World Economic Forum.  The report provides plenty of supporting "evidence", but that evidence may or may not be paper-thin.  I don't know enough about the subject to be sure, but I find many of the article's comments to be uncomfortably close to neo-environmental activism and anti-corporate and anti-technology campaigns.  Some of them appear to be at least borderline anti-Semitic.  Some of the "experts" cited are known to hold "fringe" views:  some of the latter seem to be downright kooky.

Nevertheless, the report raises sufficient questions that I think we'd all be better off knowing the answers, one way or the other.  I'd be grateful if readers who know more about agriculture than I do would comment on this article, to give us all more information.

Briefly, the report argues that modern "Big Agriculture" is nothing more or less than a conspiracy to impose a new "Food Agenda" on the world, with sinister implications.  Here are a few excerpts, but they only scratch the surface.  You'll need to read the entire article to grasp the big picture.

Shortly after World World Two, The Rockefeller Foundation set forth on a quest to bring about a transformation of world agriculture.

They did this, in part, by “socially engineering” the scientific culture to not only accept but promote the use of GMO foods and dangerous biotechnologies.

And now, they are at it again.

This new attempted policy change is outlined in a document titled “The True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the US Food System”.

In the report, mention is made of both the Covid-19 crisis and the climate crisis, claiming that now is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to effect “transformative change” in food production.

The report is the result of a collaboration between the Rockefeller Foundation, various academics from leading universities, the World Wildlife Fund and the True Price Foundation.

. . .

The intended goal of the report is to uncover the “true cost” of food in the US, which is claimed to be at least $3.2 trillion per year, three times more than than $1.1 trillion that Americans spend annually on food.

Included in this “cost analysis” are things like diet-related diseases, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and reduced biodiversity – all reasonable concerns. However, to understand the true agenda at play, one must read past the flowery language and popular buzzwords.

As noted by author and researcher, William Engdahl:

“The message is that the current American food production is to blame and that radical and costly changes are urgently needed. The difficulty in reading the report is that the language is deliberately vague and deceptive. For example one of the most damaging components of American agriculture since the 1990s has been the wholesale introduction of GMO crops—especially soybeans, corn and cotton and the highly carcinogenic Monsanto-Bayer Roundup with glyphosate. The Rockefeller report omits their direct role in fostering that devastation by their creating and promoting Monsanto and GMO for decades, knowing it was destructive.”

As Engdahl makes clear, such a report detracts attention away from the fact that most of the “costs” associated with the food industry can be traced directly to the Rockefellers themselves and their role in creating the current industrialized food chain that has not only wrought destruction on global agriculture but contributed to the explosion of chronic disease.

. . .

According to the Rockefeller report, the way to construct a more resilient food supply chain is by increasing corporate involvement through a focus on industrialization and technological innovation. However, these are the very same measures that caused many of the issues being outlined.

For example, the report makes mention of “soil health” as a primary concern. However, it is precisely the widespread implementation of modern farming techniques (which involve the use of artificial fertilizers and the spraying of pesticides) – advocated for by the Rockefellers – that has depleted the soil of its nutrients in the first place.

Unsurprisingly the report makes no mention of agroecology or other regenerative methods of natural farming that seek to harness, maintain and enhance biological and ecological processes in agricultural production.

. . .

... a quick search through the scientific literature indicates that the use of molecular manufacturing in food production goes far beyond alleviating “scarcity” and may have more to do with altering the structure and function of the body itself. For example, a 2015 review paper states that (emphasis added):

“The potential benefits of utilizing nanomaterials in food are improved bioavailability, antimicrobial effects, enhanced sensory acceptance and targeted delivery of bioactive compounds.”

Another review published in the American Journal of Food Technology makes mention of “nanotechnology-based biosensors” for the detection of food-borne pathogens. Shades of the DARPA/NIH brainchild, Profusa, and their research into developing an injectable biosensor that can “detect future pandemics”.

Once again, “public acceptance” is cited as a major hurdle to the introduction of food created using nanotechnology, and therefore one can reasonably predict to see further regulatory frameworks created specifically for such products.

There's much more at the link.

So, is this Kooks United at work, or is there serious science involved?  Are we looking at an "agricultural conspiracy" leagued with the whole COVID-19 brouhaha, or is this a conspiracy theory run amok?  I simply don't know enough to say, but I hope some of my readers can enlighten us.  If you can, please provide more information in Comments, backing it up with links to sources if possible.

Peter