Introduction

Food is one of the absolute basics of life. Without it there is no life. Food = energy. Without energy to sustain life's processes there is no life. But food can also harm when that food is contaminated with pollutants. And a lack of food variety and quality is also detrimental to a healthy and productive life.

The necessity of mass food production and the lack of proper education about food have made many people unhealthy and unaware that food is a basic necessity to a long, healthy and happy life. You are what you eat is an absolute truth in bio-dynamics.

But what do we need to do in order to change the bad habits of food production and consumption?
 

Food evolution

Food is inextricably connected to human society and evolution. When we lived in small humanoid groups it was sufficient to hunt animals and collect plants and vegetables in order to stay healthy and obtain enough sustenance to keep us going.

But as we made our ascent in the food chain so did our food production habits adapt. Instead of wandering around looking for food, we started to grow and manage it ourselves. In order to feed a growing and stationary population you need a reliable food source. Farming became a part of society, changing animals, plants, the environment and our organizational structure in the process.

City life

City life demands larger quantities of food readily available. Farmers and city dwellers became two separate societies. Human society diversified in functionality. Survival and growth meant possession of the best farming land. As primitive groups already fought over the best food and water resources, cities fought each other to control the land's resources and each other.

Food management

In small populations it is not a problem to use local land for food production and livestock. Communities are built where conditions are favorable to farming and/or food gathering. A small part of the land that is best suited for farming is used and the remaining land is left untouched. This is utopia as far as local supply meets local demand is concerned and consists of a sustainable land management program. Slash and burn practices on poor soil is not part of Utopia as they leave the soil unusable after a few years.

But we have gone far beyond this basic principle of checks and balances. Because of our ever growing demand for more food production we have blatantly ignored these basic principles. We force food to grow where it would not, we destroy areas that other life besides humans need, and we manipulate our food supply in order to produce ever more and specific products. We also overproduce.

Because of materialism and uncontrolled population growth we have become the single most destructive force on the planet with total disregard of the consequences of our actions on ourselves and the world around us. We seem to be eating up the planet.

But any self respecting parasite manages to evolve into a state of symbiosis with its host rather than its consumption and subsequent destruction. Surely there is a better way to manage our food supply and ourselves and keep the planet beautiful?

Proper education about land and farming principles make it possible to use the land without destroying it. Unfortunately, this education is lacking in many areas of the world, especially in those where conservation is most needed.

Return to basics

After a number of food scandals during the 1960's and 70's there has been a return to organic and more environmentally friendly farming over the past decades.

But it hasn't been enough. Too few areas of the world are adapting to friendly food management practices and too many, particularly the Third World and their Developing Countries, have become a target of food multinationals, overturning and ignoring everything we have learnt about proper food management in the quest for ever increasing profits. 

These food multinationals, despite their commercials claiming the opposite, are using destructive agricultural practices that the more affluent nations have long banned. This includes the use of dangerous chemicals in pesticides, monoculture and destruction of local wildlife preserve and traditions.

Food production technology

Improving the quality and usefulness of those plants and animals we depend on for survival is one of the oldest practices in agriculture.

But does that mean that the beef or chicken I eat has to come from an animal that has been abused its whole life? Born of machines, living in a cage, fed with barely organic substances, only to die in the grip of another machine? No.

Farming problems and solutions

How about corporations, governments and war? And what about lack of money, lack of arable land?

And what about lack of markets to sell your products?

Proper information and education could alleviate many of these problems.

Sustainable development

The rainforests are not only the lungs of our world but contain the greatest diversity of life on the planet.

Many of our products and a large part of our medicines and pharmaceuticals come from substances found in rainforest plants. How then can we even consider destroying such a fantastic resource that nature has put at our disposal?

One of the problems lies in the attitude we have towards the forests. Many people simply consider them wasted or unused land. Or land too difficult to use as is. So we cut them down and plant crops instead. At best this results in a temporary profit. We can feed our family and perhaps have something left over to sell.

We consider this minimum use of what is really a maximum opportunity situation.

The good guys and the bad guys

Whereas before central government controlled food supplies it is now in the hands of multinationals, vying each other to buy up and monopolize the basics of life: water and food.