My friend Michelle asked whether I would be posting my speech from the March Against Monsanto, so I am going to post it here.

This blog is about me becoming more comfortable in my writer’s skin, about not being snarky and rude to myself about what I write, so I will not be the Teacher with The Red Pen telling you what I think is wrong with this piece.  It’s not bad, really.  Some of it is pretty good, I think.  It’s just that as I wrote it, it didn’t feel inspired.  It didn’t feel world-changing or earth-shaking.  That’s okay with me.  I was happy with how it fit into the story of the day, how it hopefully helped people there to make a connection with a farmer.  I think this piece was sort of like a good friend during the speeches, fitting into the group and helping the others to shine because of its presence there.  I’m going to post it here in its “speech-y” format.

Here it is:

Being a farmer is hard work.  You’re never quite finished with anything, and you live constantly with the feeling of having left something undone, some weed patch unmowed, some carrot field unweeded, some bean bed unpicked.  It’s rewarding, too, especially when your customers rave about the produce, or tell stories about how their children who used to be picky about vegetables will eat yours, because they know Farmer Jon, and they love the farm.  And that is satisfying to hear, to know that the chemical-free, GMO-free produce we raise is nourishing the bodies of growing children.

I am not here to demonize my colleagues, conventional farmers who are using the methods they believe to be the most efficient, the most effective, to make a living, to feed their families and their own customers.  I believe we need to bring them in gently as allies, asking at the farm stands and stores where we buy our potatoes or sweet corn:  “Is this genetically engineered?”  I think we need to raise awareness, let local farmers know that we’re interested in food that has not been tampered with, that there is a market ready and waiting for the pure stuff.

And we need to go to the source of the problem, which is what today is about.  We need to let the Corporate-Industrial-Food complex know that we are paying attention, that we demand our right to know what is in the food that we eat.  This system relies on the public to support it by consuming the things that it produces.  In this case, food.

Here are some of the things that concern me about Monsanto and the other giants of the Corporate-Industrial-Food Complex:
–The science that Monsanto uses to claim that its GE seed is safe is all paid for by Monsanto itself.  We the public are supposed to trust Monsanto’s own paid scientists.  When Monsanto-outsiders have been able to smuggle seed past Monsanto’s rigorously guarded contracts, studies have shown adverse effects to laboratory animals that alarmingly contradict Monsanto’s “science.”
There are some proponents of GE agriculture who want to label anti-GMO advocates as anti-science.  In reality, I would say that it is Monsanto that is anti-science–that closely guarding its own scientific data within its walls without outside peer review or trials that extend over time–that is anti-science.  Surely food security in the US would demand that many scientific trials by scientists unrelated to the company take place.
–Food security is compromised.  No longer a real understand of conflict of interest in politics:
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been a Monsanto attorney
FDA administrator Michael Taylor is a former Monsanto lobbyist
US Sec’y of Ag Tom Vilsack a leading advocate for Monsanto and for agricultural biotechnology
USDA’s chief of National Institute of Food and Ag Roger Beachy is former president of
Monsanto’s non-profit Danforth Plant Science Center
Many others. . .
–GE crops have already contaminated “pure” seed crops.  Beets and chard in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, corn, soy and canola in the Midwest, even old varieties of corn in the highlands of Mexico, wheat and alfalfa from supposedly test-only crops.
–Monsanto modifies soy and corn to be resistant to its own pesticides, meaning that farmers who buy the pairing of seed and pesticide can spray their crops with impunity.  Instead of decreasing pesticide use, as Monsanto has claimed, use of Monsanto’s  Roundup has actually risen.  Glyphosate, the active chemical in Roundup, has recently been fingered as one of the possible causes of Colony Collapse in honeybee populations.
–Monsanto says it wants to feed the world through the use of biotechnology and genetically modified seeds.  Instead, Monsanto’s highly priced seeds have not significantly increased yields, resisted droughts or increased nutrition, nor have they improved soil conditions.  Instead farmers around the world now find themselves saddled with expensive contracts for GE seeds and their matching pesticides, unable to save seeds for coming years, and the health of their soil depleted.  This is a social justice issue.  My heart breaks when I hear of the alarming rate of farmer suicides in India–people who have given up hope after continued failure of cotton crops planted with Monsanto seed plunged them into hopeless debt.  Monsanto controls 95% of cotton seed market.

So that’s the problem.  What about solution?
–Even for those of us who are trying to make fresh local fruits and vegetables the main part of our diet, most of us still buy things like flour and sugar and grains and other staples at supermarkets.  We have a right to know if those food products are genetically engineered.  Urge requirement to LABEL.  At least 64 countries have laws requiring the labeling of Genetically Engineered foods.  When people say this movement is shrill and anti-science, I say, Are these 64 countries all shrill, all ignorant of current science?
–Don’t buy into the Corporate-Industrial-Food Complex whenever possible.
Eat locally grown food.
Support farmers who refuse to buy GE seed.
When buying processed and boxed foods, try to buy from companies that voluntarily label non-GE foods.
Cook for yourself.
Learn to savor the flavor of real, unprocessed, food eaten in season.
Save seeds.  Share and exchange them.
Don’t try to do it all at once–if you go home today convinced that you need to forage for your supper and can this winter’s tomato sauce by November 1st, you’re liable to give up in despair.  Make one change today.  Practice it, make it part of your routine.  Then make another change and another.

And Grow something.  Turn your yard into an edible landscape bit by bit.  Or grow a cherry tomato plant beside your back door, or plant some parsley in pots on you windowsill, or a couple lettuces.

After today, let’s all call ourselves farmers, people with a direct connection–in some form–to the Earth which provides our nourishment.  Let’s be eaters, rebels against that culture that instead would label us consumers, and would study our consuming habits in order to better market to our consumption patterns.  And because I believe in the power of poetry, I offer you the words of farmer-poet-philosopher-wiseman Wendell Berry.  I propose a

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry