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Food Security = National Security
Posted on December 21, 2004
The Meatrix and Seeds of Hope: South Africa underscore the importance of local, sustainable agriculture for community food security. In Think Globally, Eat Locally, a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, Jennifer Wilkins makes an argument that the same strategies would also create a more protected food supply, less vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Wilkins writes:
The combination of cheap food from overseas and the consolidation of domestic production compromises America's ability to feed itself. A food system in which control of the critical elements is concentrated in few hands can and will fall victim to terrorism or accidents. The solution to these insecurities is to establish community-based food systems that include many small farmers and a diversity of products. Such systems make large-scale contamination impossible, even for determined bioterrorists. Far more people have contact with the Mexican lettuce at the supermarket, for example, than with the locally grown lettuce at the farmers' market.
Read the full article.
Watch The Meatrix.
Watch Seeds of Hope: South Africa.
Join the fight against factory farms through the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment.
Find local organic alternatives through Local Harvest.