I've been reading The Death of Grass by John Christopher

I've been reading The Death of Grass by John Christopher, which a friend lent/gave me recently. But this is not a book review: just some thoughts about the book.

 

The Death of Grass, a short, apocalyptic novel from the 1950s, posits a dystopian future in which nation states have pressed their farmers to change to an almost worldwide growth crop of 'grass'. The 'grass' in the UK is mainly wheat. The 'grass' in China is, of course, rice. Other countries grow their own national 'grass'. 

 

Monoculture is always a risky undertaking, and so it proves in this novel. When a deadly virus attacks the rice crops in China, and the scientists who had been expected to be able to overcome the problem, gradually find it beyond them, widespread famine/starvation/death results, and once-fertile ground becomes barren. Nearby countries find, courtesy of the wind and other dispersal agents, that their grassy crops become infected too. Eventually the wheat in Britain, where the story is set, becomes contaminated. There is too little other food to feed a nation and everyone has to try to survive as best they can, and by whatever means, abandoning as they must, moralities they previously followed.

 

This book was remarkably prescient. The threat of agrarian monoculture in this century is here already in parts of the world. I read only today in The Ecologist, of the threat to Paraguay's small farmers, "suffering social and environmental ills from the country's meteoric rise in soya farming." I urge you too to read the article and learn how today, in reality and not in fiction, the ruthless agrochemical GM/biotech industry is wreaking havoc on real farmers and on the environment. And I hope that if you do not already oppose the genetic engineering of crops, that you will consider doing so. Everyone's fate may depend on curbing the malign power of Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry.

Lobbying could lead to unapproved GM crops entering European food chain

Agribusiness accused of 'scaremongering' lobbying tactics as it pushes for the import of animal feed containing traces of unapproved genetically modified (GM) crops - using the guise of combating feed shortages
The EU is on the brink of allowing a raft of unapproved GM crops into the food chain as it prepares to lift restrictions on animal feed containing trace elements of GM crops.
Read article in The Ecologist (UK)

All Cows Eat Grass: Discuss.

When I was learning to play the piano, All Cows Eat Grass was the mnemonic I was taught for remembering the notes - A, C, E, G -in the spaces of the bass clef. I expect music students are still taught that. - The notes are still the same. The mnemonic still works. But is the former axiom still true? In the modern world in which agribusiness has taken the place of so much traditional farming, to get the names of the notes right, maybe we should change the mnemonic to All Cows Eat Grain.
See 'Cows Eat Grass and Other Inflammatory Statements'.

Monsanto's Roundup herbicide link to birth defects and child cancer?

Monsanto's Roundup herbicide link to birth defects and child cancer? Intimidatory mob seeks to stifle criticism and discussion. Read article and comments at truth-out.org