Biotech is Godzilla: GM Insects & Bioengineered Everything

May 31, 2023

weaponized genetically engineer insect allies feature

Bio-technology, ain't what's so bad.
Like all technology, it's in the wrong hands
Cut-throat corporations, don't give a damn
When lots of people die, from what they've made

- Max Cavalera/Sepultura - Biotech is Godzilla (1993)

Source: Friends of Earth

Genetically Engineered Mosquito experiment in California’s Central Valley halted

May 12, 2023

Biotech corporation withdraws permit request in a win for agricultural communities threatened by risky insect mass release

SACRAMENTO, CA.— In a victory for environmentalists, scientists and vulnerable agricultural communities across California, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced yesterday the withdrawal of a permit request for a mass release of experimental genetically engineered mosquitoes in the Central Valley.

The withdrawal of the biotech corporation Oxitec’s request halts the controversial proposed release of billions of genetically engineered insects. Scientists and other experts in the field have raised concerns about Oxitec’s proposal to release genetically engineered mosquitoes due to inadequate scientific review and lack of appropriate and relevant regulations, pressuring the company to disclose data critical to assessing potential public health and environmental impacts.

Oxitec applied in April 2022 for a research authorization permit to release genetically engineered mosquitoes in Tulare County. In separate letters to DPR earlier this year, scientists and legislators urged DPR to deny the Oxitec permit because of concerns about risks posed to human health, wildlife and vulnerable ecosystems, and the lack of regulations to control billions of genetically engineered mosquitoes released into an open-air environment.

“All Californians should be relieved that this permit request has been withdrawn for the foreseeable future,” said Dana Perls, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth. “Significant scientific research on genetically engineered mosquitoes is still needed to understand the potential public health and environmental threats associated with the release of this novel genetically engineered insect.”

Earlier this year, Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) stated in her office’s press release that “there are too many unknown factors when it comes to how (GE mosquitoes) could affect our biodiversity in the long run, including how this might influence populations of birds, bats, fish species, and other insects.”

“The withdrawal of Oxitec’s application is a victory for California residents and wild species,” said Rebecca Spector, west coast director at Center for Food Safety. “This withdrawal in in line with leaders from our state legislature who demanded a more comprehensive review of the impacts of these genetically engineered mosquitoes before the approval of this permit.”

“This is a significant opportunity for California’s state agencies to hit pause and craft meaningful regulations that fully comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). We must do a full CEQA review of this proposal, and we need regulations governing the release of any genetically engineered animal in our state,” said Nan Wishner, founding board member of the California Environmental Health Initiative. “A full CEQA analysis requires thorough exploration of environmental harm and identification of less potentially harmful alternatives.”

“Genetically engineered mosquitoes are an environmental justice issue for Tulare County residents who should not be human experiments,” said Angel Garcia, co-director of the statewide coalition Californians for Pesticide Reform and Tulare County resident. “We are already impacted by some of the worst pollution problems in the state and deserve prior informed consent to being part of an open-air biopesticide experiment. Ahead of any future proposal for genetically engineered insects, DPR needs to have robust regulations in place that protect community members, and meaningful, inclusive public participation in any decision making.”  

Before an unregistered pesticide can be field tested in the state, U.S. EPA would need to approve an experimental use permit ahead of any field release, and DPR would need to approve a research authorization application. With the withdrawal of the Oxitec application, there is no pending research authorization request for the study of genetically engineered mosquitoes in California.

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2 years ago · Joel Walbert

Source: Children’s Health Defense

‘Weaponized’ Genetically Engineered Insects? DOD Funding $27 Million ‘Insect Allies’ Project

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, is planning to use insects to deliver genetically engineered viruses to crops, with the aim of altering the plant’s genetic traits in the field.

By Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at a glance:

Scientists and legal scholars question the rationale for the use of insects to disperse infectious genetically engineered (GE) viruses engineered to edit the chromosomes in plants, warning that the technology could very easily be weaponized.
This Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program is the first to propose and fund the development of viral horizontal environmental genetic alteration agents with the capacity to perform genetic engineering in the environment.
The $27 million project, called “Insect Allies,” is trying to take advantage of insects’ natural ability to spread crop diseases, but instead of carrying disease, they would spread plant-protective traits.
The opinion paper “Agricultural Research, or a New Bioweapon System?” argues that if plant modification were really the ultimate goal, a far simpler and more targeted agricultural delivery system could be used.
There are also serious concerns about environmental ramifications, as the insects’ spread cannot be controlled. It would also be impossible to prevent the insects from genetically modifying organic crops.

Genetic engineering is being used in myriad ways these days, despite the fact we know very little about the long-term ramifications of such meddling in the natural order.

For example, DARPA, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), is now planning to use insects to deliver GE viruses to crops, with the aim of altering the plant’s genetic traits in the field.

The $27 million DARPA project called “Insect Allies” (see video below) is basically trying to take advantage of insects’ natural ability to spread crop diseases, but instead of carrying disease-causing genes, they would carry plant-protective traits.

As explained by The Washington Post:

“Recent advances in gene editing, including the relatively cheap and simple system known as CRISPR (for clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats), could potentially allow researchers to customize viruses to achieve a specific goal in the infected plant.

“The engineered virus could switch on or off certain genes that, for example, control a plant’s growth rate, which could be useful during an unexpected, severe drought.”

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‘Insect Allies’ project raises concerns about bioterror use

However, scientists and legal scholars question the rationale for the use of insects to disperse infectious GE viruses engineered to edit the chromosomes in plants, warning that the technology could very easily be weaponized.

The opinion paper “Agricultural Research, or a New Bioweapon System?” published on Oct. 4, 2018, in the journal Science questions DARPA’s Insect Allies project, saying it could be perceived as a threat by the international community, and that if plant modification were really the ultimate goal, a far simpler agricultural delivery system could be used.

Jason Delborne, associate professor at North Carolina State University, has expertise in GE and its consequences.

He told Gizmodo:

“The social, ethical, political, and ecological implications of producing HEGAAs [horizontal environmental genetic alteration agents] are significant and worthy of the same level of attention as exploring the science underpinning the potential technology.

“The authors argue persuasively that specifying insects as the preferred delivery mechanism for HEGAAs is poorly justified by visions of agricultural applications.

“The infrastructure and expertise required for spraying agricultural fields — at least in the U.S. context — is well established, and this delivery mechanism would offer greater control over the potential spread of a HEGAA.”

The team has also created a website to accompany the paper, the stated aim of which is “to contribute toward fostering an informed and public debate about this type of technology.”

On this site, you can also find a link to download the 38-page DARPA work plan. DARPA, meanwhile, insists the project’s goal is strictly to protect the U.S. food supply.

A DARPA spokesperson told The Independent:

“[S]prayed treatments are impractical for introducing protective traits on a large scale and potentially infeasible if the spraying technology cannot access the necessary plant tissues with specificity, which is a known problem.

“If Insect Allies succeeds, it will offer a highly specific, efficient, safe, and readily deployed means of introducing transient protective traits into only the plants intended, with minimal infrastructure required.”

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are also participating in the research, which is currently restricted to contained laboratories. Still, many are unconvinced by DARPA’s claims of peaceful aims.

The release of such insects could “play into longstanding fears among countries that enemies might try to harm their crops,” says Dr. David Relman, a former White House biodefense adviser and professor of medicine and microbiology at Stanford.

According to The Associated Press (AP):

“Guy Reeves, a co-author of the Science paper and a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, says the technology is more feasible as a weapon — to kill plants — than as an agricultural tool. As a result, he said DARPA could be sending an alarming message regardless of its intentions.”

Unforeseen ramifications abound

Others are concerned about environmental ramifications, regardless of whether the genetic traits being delivered to the plants are perceived as beneficial or harmful.

According to DARPA, none of the insects would be able to survive for more than two weeks, but what if such guarantees fail? What if nature finds a way? If so, the insects’ spread could be near-unlimited.

Gregory Kaebnick, an ethicist at the Hastings Center bioethics research institute in Garrison, New York, told the AP he’s concerned the project may end up causing unforeseen environmental destruction, as insects will be virtually impossible to eradicate once released. If it turns out the genetic modification traits they carry are harmful, there will be no going back.

Yet others, such as Fred Gould, an entomologist at North Carolina State University who chaired a National Academy of Sciences panel on genetically modified food, believe the project’s stated goal of altering genetic traits of plants via insects is near-impossible in the first place.

However, while the research is still in its initial phase, they already have proof of concept. In one test, an aphid infected a mature corn plant with a GE virus carrying a gene for fluorescence, creating a fluorescent corn plant.

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Open scientific debate is needed

Reeves questions why there’s been virtually no open scientific debate about the technology.

According to Reeves, who is an expert on GE insects, the Insect Allies project is “largely unknown even in expert circles,” which in and of itself raises a red flag about its true intent.

He told The Independent, “It is very much easier to kill or sterilize a plant using gene editing than it is to make it herbicide- or insect-resistant.”

Felix Beck, a lawyer at the University of Freiburg, added:

“The quite obvious question of whether the viruses selected for development should or should not be capable of plant-to-plant transmission — and plant-to-insect-to-plant transmission — was not addressed in the DARPA work plan at all.”

How horizontal environmental genetic alteration agents work

As explained in the featured paper, the technology DARPA is using is known as horizontal environmental genetic alteration agents or HEGAAs.

Essentially, HEGAAs are GE viruses capable of editing the chromosomes of a target species, be it a plant or an animal.

The specificity of HEGAAs is dependent on:

The range of species the GE virus can infect
The presence of a specific DNA sequence in the chromosome that can then become infected

The image below illustrates how an insect-dispersed viral HEGAA would disrupt a specific plant gene.

As noted on the team’s website:

“Interest in genetically modified viruses, including HEGAAs, largely stems from their rapid speed of action, as infections can sweep quickly through target populations. This same property is also a serious safety concern, in that it makes it hard to predict where viruses geographically disperse to or what species they eventually infect.

“Probably due to the complex regulatory, biological, economic, and societal implications that need to be considered little progress has been made on how genetically modified viruses should be regulated when the intention is to disperse them in the environment.

“It is in this context that DARPA presented its Insect Allies work program in November 2016.”

The team also notes the use of HEGAAs is ultimately not likely to be limited to agriculture, which is why it’s so important to have an open discussion about the technology, its potential uses, misuses and ramifications — including unintended ones.

In 2018, three scientific publications discussed the development of “transmissible vaccines,” i.e., vaccines that would be transmissible between humans and therefore would no longer require individual vaccinations.

Such products would also remove any possibility of informed consent, which creates a really huge ethical dilemma. In the past decade, at least seven scientific papers have focused on transmissible vaccines.

The team also brings up the obvious point that insects will not be able to distinguish between conventional crops and certified organic crops, which do not permit genetic engineering.

Just how are organic farmers to keep these insect vectors from altering their crops? They can’t, and this could effectively destroy the organic industry as we know it.

DARPA technology may violate biological weapons convention

According to DARPA, the technology does not violate the United Nations (UN) Biological Weapons Convention.

However, according to the Science paper, it could be in breach of the UN’s convention if the research is unjustifiable.

Silja Voeneky, a specialist in international law at Freiburg University, told The Independent:

“Because of the broad ban of the Biological Weapons Convention, any biological research of concern must be plausibly justified as serving peaceful purposes.

“The Insect Allies Program could be seen to violate the Biological Weapons Convention, if the motivations presented by DARPA are not plausible.

“This is particularly true considering this kind of technology could easily be used for biological warfare.”

The Science team also calls for greater transparency from DARPA in order to discourage other countries from following suit and developing similar delivery technologies as a defensive measure.

Gene-drive technology needs international governance

In related news, Simon Terry, executive director of the Sustainability Council of New Zealand, is calling for gene-drive technology to be brought under international governance, as this kind of technology can make an entire species infertile in a relatively short amount of time, depending on the species life cycle.

Gene drive is yet another application for CRISPR. In short, it’s a GE technology that allows you to propagate a specific set of genes throughout an entire population, including its offspring, which allows you to genetically alter the future of an entire species.

Gene drive has been proposed as a means to control pests, including mosquitoes and possums. However, there’s no known way to control it.

As an example, while New Zealand would like to use gene drive to eradicate possums, it would be virtually impossible to prevent the spread of the gene drive to other areas, and in Australia, the possum is a protected species.

Gene drive has also been considered as an answer for barnyard grass, a pesky weed among Australian farmers, but a prized commodity in India.

Likewise, Palmer Amaranth is considered a weed in the U.S. but an important food source in Central America, Africa, India and China.

As noted by Terry, “One man’s pest could be another’s desired plant or animal,” and creating national regulations for a technology that can wipe out an entire species globally simply isn’t enough.

Should we use technology that can eradicate entire species?

In a 2016 report, the Institute of Science in Society discussed the creation of transgenic mosquitoes, carrying genes against a malarial pathogen.

Using CRISPR/Cas9, a gene drive was created that makes virtually all progeny of the male transgenic mosquito carriers of this antimalaria gene.

However, the transgene was found to be unstable in female mosquitoes, and key safety issues were also raised, including:

To what extent might crossbreeding or horizontal gene transfer allow a drive to move beyond target populations?
For how long might horizontal gene transfer allow a drive to move beyond target populations?
Is it possible for a gene drive to evolve to regain drive capabilities in a nontarget population?

According to the Institute of Science in Society, answering these questions is “crucial in the light of the instability of the gene drive in transgenic female mosquitoes.”

As noted in the report:

“When these females bite animals including humans, there is indeed the possibility of horizontal gene transfer of parts, or the entire gene-drive construct, with potentially serious effects on animal and human health.

“Cas9 nuclease could insert randomly or otherwise into the host genome, causing insertion mutagenesis that could trigger cancer or activate dominant viruses. …

“Finally, the ecological risks of gene drives are enormous … As the gene drive can in principle lead to the extinction of a species, this could involve the species in its native habitat as well as where it is considered invasive. As distinct from conventional biological control, which can be applied locally, there is no way to control gene flow. …

“Because the CRISPR/Cas gene drive remains fully functional in the mutated strain after it is created, the chance of off-target mutations also remain and the likelihood increases with every generation.

“‘If there is any risk of gene flow between the target species and other species, then there is also a risk that the modified sequence could be transferred and the adverse trait manifested in nontarget organisms.’ (This commentary has not even begun to consider horizontal gene flow, which would multiply the risks manyfold.)”

DARPA brushes off concerns

James Stack, a plant pathologist at Kansas State University and a member of the advisory panel of DARPA’s Insect Allies project, believes the concerns raised in the Science paper are unfounded.

He told The Washington Post:

“I don’t understand the level of concern raised in this paper, and to jump ahead and accuse DARPA of using this as a screen to develop biological weapons is outrageous.

“There’s risk inherent in life and you just have to manage it well. And I think as we move into a more crowded planet it’s going to put increasing demands on our food systems, our water systems. We’re going to need all the tools in the tool box that we possibly have.”

Unfortunately, recent history demonstrates we’ve not been very capable of managing these kinds of man-made risks very well at all.

Just look at Roundup-resistant genetically modified food, for example, or electromagnetic field radiation from cellphones and wireless technologies, both of which have been shown to cause significant health and environmental problems since their inception.

There’s virtually no evidence to suggest mankind is very good at predicting the potential outcomes of our technological advancements, so unleashing gene-altering technologies that cannot be recalled or reversed seems foolish in the extreme.

As mentioned, the Insect Allies project may be particularly detrimental to organic and biodynamic farming, as it would be completely impossible to prevent these gene-altering insect vectors from infecting organic crops.

Originally published by Mercola.

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published on Oct. 23, 2018.

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Source: The Organic Prepper

“Bold Goals”: Biden’s EO Will Have Us Bioengineering Everything

By Marie Hawthorne

May 13, 2023

In September 2022, President Biden released an Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology. Then, In March 2023, he released a document entitled Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing, outlining specific areas of focus in this bioengineering manifesto.

The goals in these documents sound very nice. They’re all about using new technology to fight climate change, increase the food supply, cure diseases, and strengthen national security by increasing domestic manufacturing.

Is that really the goal?

However, I believe that these goals will be used to grab land from existing farmers and ranchers. Farmers and ranchers need to turn a profit to pay taxes on their land; as actions are taken to achieve these goals all but the largest will be driven out of business. This will occur via a combination of oppressive regulations in the name of climate change, and lawsuits regarding patent-protected crops.

This probably sounds a little crazy, but the crazy people have been getting a lot right lately. Let’s look at these documents and see what they actually contain. Then we’ll look at what this actually means for people involved in food production and some of the precedents that have already been set.

Here’s what’s in the executive order.

The EO promotes bioengineered solutions for everything. There will be a push to replace petroleum-based plastics with biomanufactured products. So, for example, developing more plant-based compostable bags, rather than those old plastic ones at the grocery store.

The EO also addresses retaining intellectual rights to everything developed and emphasizes domestic manufacturing. Supply chain problems have impacted everyone; these documents claim that switching to supposedly environmentally friendly bioengineered products will solve those problems. This document tries to make promoting biotechnology companies into a national security issue.

What are these Bold Goals?

The Bold Goals document addresses more specific actions and lays down goals through 2040. It actually has five sections: (1) Climate change solutions, (2) food and agriculture innovation, (3) supply chain resilience, (4) human health, and (5) cross-cutting advances. These are all areas in which the federal government believes bioengineering holds a great deal of promise. But I’ll focus on the food and agriculture innovation section because I think that one most relates to who owns farmland.

Goals within the agricultural section cover a variety of topics. Many of them make sense; they relate to reducing waste and improving breeding strategies. However, many of the other goals sound like power grabs that have been discussed before.

By 2030, the stated goal of this document is to reduce agriculture-related methane emissions by 30%, and greenhouse gas emissions by 50%. 2030 is only seven years away; this document has some interesting high-tech-sounding solutions, but realistically, the only way to reduce methane emissions so dramatically will be to shrink herd sizes. Considering that our beef cattle herd is down to its lowest level in over 60 years, I’d say we’re well on our way there.

Within 5 years, American farmers are supposed to reduce agriculture-related nitrogen emissions. The document does not give a specific amount, but does nitrogen reduction sound familiar? If you’re a regular reader, it should. That’s been the big excuse given for seizing Dutch farms.

So, what happens next?

Goals such as these don’t ban meat outright, but they make it more expensive. They also make it harder for farmers and ranchers to pay their own bills. As they are driven out of business, it becomes easier for people like Bill Gates to buy up that agricultural land.

Another goal addresses reducing food waste, which is indeed admirable, but all discussions revolve around high-tech engineering solutions. Why do they not address teaching home economics in middle and high schools, to encourage young people to plan their meals and use their food more wisely?

Public authorities seem to think that trying to teach the general population about taking better care of their health and resources is a waste of time. But they believe in the power of marketing when it comes to convincing people to eat all kinds of garbage.

Beef or bugs?

The first section of Goal 2.1 is to “make novel foods more palatable, affordable, easier to prepare, and more easily incorporated into manufactured foods.”

We’ve talked about eating bugs on this website before The Bold Goals document doesn’t address eating bugs directly, but it does refer repeatedly to “novel food sources” and “new protein sources.” I would bet a bison burger that these are just euphemisms for insects.

They also want to promote “alternative protein sources,” such as those that are plant-derived, the result of fermented processes, or cell-cultured. So, along with the push toward insects, they want to push people toward the consumption of highly-processed fake meat items, as well.

This is also something we’ve talked about on this website. Government and industry have been pushing fake meat for a while now, and people just don’t want it. But they’re not taking “no” for an answer; they intend to keep pushing it.

Marketing is everything.

Goal 2.2 wants to address “nutrient density” in foods. They want to do this with more genetic engineering (of course), expanding the “range of organisms that can be used for nutritional purposes” (probably more insect- and algae-eating), and research into traditional medicinal foods.

Traditional medicine’s great. Ethnobotany was one of my favorite college classes, and Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions is one of my favorite books. But a big drive behind both the EO and the Bold Goals document is scaling up production of everything between food and industrial products; traditional food production methods are something individuals can replicate, but they don’t lend themselves to large-scale production.

For example, look at manoomin, the wild rice grown in Michigan, where it is the most culturally significant food source to Native Americans living in the area. Groups like Native Harvest collect wild rice in canoes and process it in the traditional way. It’s delicious, nutritious, and $24/lb. I bought some once because I was curious, and it is wonderfully unique. But anything that expensive can’t be a regular part of my diet, and I would guess it’s not realistic for most other people, either.

Is the government trying to replace farmers with AI?

This makes me think that either the federal government is just tossing this language into the document as a nod toward “diversity,” rather than any real attempt to expand the availability of traditional, nutritious food.

There is also a drive to get AI into farming. In some ways, this isn’t surprising; large-scale farms have had a very difficult time finding employees that can monitor the various systems needed to keep animals in large confinement operations reasonably healthy. Aden just had an article about AI getting into everything; I think this proves his point.

To facilitate all these goals, the government plans various initiatives for public-private partnerships, as well as incentive programs for people working in the alternative proteins sector. These documents emphasize developing new technologies for food production and then scaling up. There is no discussion of looking at models that work well, and then broadly replicating them. There is no whisper of supporting existing environmentally friendly, biodiverse farms.

Bio-engineering results in patents.

You can probably see how the increase in regulations and financial incentives are lining up to drive meat producers out of business. But let’s also look at how patent protection could potentially be used to drive many other conventional farmers out of business, as well.

Both of these documents reveal a mechanistic view of life as we know it. A theme throughout these documents is the desire to pick plants apart and then re-engineer them to meet scientists’ exact goals. Goal 1.2 is to:

Expand upon biorefinery technologies to efficiently break down biomass into its components (e.g., lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose); to convert lignin and hemicellulose into plastics, adhesives, and low-energy building materials; and to convert cellulose fiber into nanomaterials and cellulose derivatives for fibers, coatings, renewable packaging, and other products. [Source]

There is also the continued assumption that we can hack into cell mechanisms the exact same way people hack computer systems. The fourth paragraph of the EO states:

We need to develop genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers; unlocking the power of biological data, including through computing tools and artificial intelligence. . . [Source]

The people behind this see life as something that can be stripped down into its individual components and then rearranged in exactly the way they see fit. This stripping down of plants into their individual components, this precise engineering, makes them patentable products. And you can sue people for patent violations.

Patenting plant genetics has been on the rise since the 1980s. Monsanto has a history of suing farmers over patent violations, even when the use is unintentional. For example, a huge percentage of corn grown worldwide is Monsanto’s Roundup Ready. All corn is wind-pollinated, which means that even if you’re growing heirloom corn from seed you’ve saved yourself, if your neighbor grows Roundup Ready, that pollen will get into your heirloom corn plants. And Monsanto can sue you for it.

Monsanto is not alone.

Bill Gates, the largest owner of farmland in the U.S., has been notorious for suing competitors for patent violations. Considering that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has dumped many hundreds of millions of dollars into various biotechnology ventures over the ~~years~~, it’s probably safe to assume they have business interests in these Bold Goals, too.

The EO and the Bold Goals document make it clear that intellectual property protection will be a high priority with these emerging technologies. We have no reason to assume that the developers of these new technologies will not continue to file lawsuits against independent farmers at least as aggressively as they have in the past.

Any business owner knows that constant threats of legal action make it harder to stay profitable. Behind these nice-sounding goals are the tools to get independent people off the land.

The government is going all Stalin on farmers.

It’s no accident that Stalin went after the kulaks, and Mao went after landowners. Totalitarian governments have always dramatically shaken up who uses what land. Farmers are obnoxiously independent; their wide variety of useful skills makes them hard to herd into the 15-minute cities we’re all supposed to be living in. This push toward bioengineering everything is designed to shake up agriculture, get independent people off the land, and turn control of agricultural processes over to technicians.

Farmer-punishing actions are being taken by governments all over the world. The Dutch farmers have been in the news for a while now. Canadian farmers also have a very stringent new set of emissions laws that will likely drive many of them out of business.

This “solution” doesn’t benefit the average person.

The agricultural sector does face real challenges, but there are low-tech solutions, many of which are practiced by the people that read this website. Do we need healthier food? Absolutely. But we know that highly processed food is a cause of, not a solution to, the health crisis.

Don’t be fooled by promises of high-tech solutions coming down the pipes. Solutions such as the ones outlined by the Bold Goals are designed to enrich a few favored industries. If you value your health and your independence, growing, preserving, and preparing your own food has never been more important. (Learn how to grow food with this course.)

Are there other ramifications to this that aren’t mentioned here? Do you think this is an agenda similar to the one that Dutch farmers are facing? How are you going to prepare yourself for this? What, if anything, do you think we can do about it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.