I've been looking over some past articles and decided that this week was a good time to tend to some unfinished business. I don't celebrate New Year's Eve so won't be doing a Year-In-review column, but, will start this week to provide some more information on topics such as genetic engineering because how we, as a society, respond to them, will have a signficant impact on food security.
Some technologies, such as the terminator gene, give me considerable alarm and need detailed public discussion. I am not ready to accept this level of control over the food supply, nor do I want to eat food, for example, tomatoes, which has been genetically altered. At the very least, I want to be given an option and have the ge-altered food labelled so that I know what I am buying.
The problem that the supporters of ge food claim to be addressing is a growing human population and a diminishing food supply. I'll save the nature of this argument for another article, as this one will focus on the alternatives that need their own champion. One alternative is growing your own organic food. If you live in an apartment or have no outside access, you can grow food indoors. This gives you control over what you eat.
On the personal scale, square foot gardening enables people to grow large quantities of food in a small space. On a larger scale, biointensive gardening signficantly increases the amount of food that can be grown. If we consider, this method of food production within a new community relationship we may discover that there are other alternatives.