Having missed the opportunity to discuss issues amongst my family members over break, the preparation of the group presentation that I will be apart of later this evening has placed the systematic monoculture nature of our agricultural sector to the forefront of my brain. This debate came to a head 2 days ago, as one of my roommates, who happens to have family members with a 3000+ acre farm outside of Fort Wayne, became the target of this assignment. I would consider myself to be a leftist, while my roommate is more likely a middle-of-the-road political supporter. However, to start our debate I through out a line that I knew would resonate, "the mono-culture nature of our agricultural sector is based off of economic factors and greed more so than wise agricultural practices." Immediately we got into a debate pertaining to which practice was more responsible and a rationale way to approach growing crops. As one would expect and an idea that is typical of political debates, if one is not entirely knowledgeable about a topic they can always rely on their knowledge and stance on economic issues in every debate. He countered with ideas pertaining to the fact that corn is a necessity because everything we have is in corn and the role of of government subsidies is an idea that allows farmers to make the most money from their crops--even noting that some summers his family's farm is not at capacity due to the governments ability to sway the decisions of farming practices. He also defended corn through the growing role of ethanol--a sustainable practice that only further legitimized the massive monoculture of corn, soybeans etc. in America. I quickly informed him that while ethanol is a a more effective "resource" than oil, the enviornmental impact is sizable. The corn still needs to be grown and processed into ethanol--an idea of the federal governments to further perpetuate our dependency on corn within the United States. The debate quickly turned from here to a debate on the use of chemicals and fertilizers. He felt as though it did not matter what chemicals or fertilizers were used either on his family farm or foods that he eats, stating that they make them more resistant to disease etc. It was here that I expressed to him that monoculture growing practices only encourage and create a more formidable atmosphere for disease and plight. The discussion then evolved into my informing him about Monsanto, a company that he had never heard of. I expressed to him about the idea of patented seeds, an idea which he felt was reasonable due to the research that goes in to developing seeds (he's going to medical school next year so I assumed this was an idea that he would support). I continued my assault on Monsanto expressing stories learned from the previous group presentation, identifying the fact that corn is pollinated through the wind, which causes the controlling of Monsanto patented seeds to be a difficult task. The threat to farmers who do not pay their yearly stipend to Monsanto was something that did still not deter him from his support of industrialized agricultural practices. Our debate concluded rather abruptly as we both agreed to disagree.
The debate shed light into the disconnect between the "general population" and those with a greater knowledge within the field of sustainable/green ideas and practices. It was interesting to see defense of our economic and government organization. I think this debate brought to the surface an idea that is common within contemporary society and that is the inability of Americans to realize that we are no longer "the world power" (a common thought of my roommates) and the idea that everything we do is the correct way. It seems as though within government and the population there is a solid movement to maintain our current practices. It is evident for anyone involved within the political environment that there exist glaring needs for improvement and change and the failure to do so will only perpetuate problems for future generations--one of the central ideas of the sustainable movement and an idea that resonates in nearly all political arenas.
