October 16 was World Food Day. Decades of consolidation of agriculture into large industrial farms and the drive for ever greater profits is destroying family farms, the environment and climate, our health and food safety. About industrial agriculture, Vandana Shiva writes, ““For the planet and people, the costs have been tragically high. 75 per cent of the earth’s biodiversity, soils, water have been destroyed, the climate has been destabilised, farmers have been uprooted, and instead of nourishing us, industrial food has become the biggest cause of disease and ill health.” We speak with Jim Goodman, an organic dairy farmer who started Family Farm Defenders, about the what smaller farms are doing to protect their futures and the integrity of the food system. Then we speak with Diana Reeves, founder and executive director of GMO Free USA, about the growing movement to label foods that contain GMOs and her work to build sustainable and healthy food systems.
Listen here:
Family Farms and Food Safety at Risk with Jim Goodman and Diana Reeves by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud
Relevant articles and websites:
Wisconsin’s Dairyland Disaster by Joel Greeno
From Anger to Activism: Diana Reeves of GMO Free USA by Carol Grieve
GMO Free USA Finds GMOs and Weedkillers in Kellogg’s Froot Loops by the Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire
‘Big Agri’ Doesn’t Serve Us: Reflections on World Food Day by Vandana Shiva
Guests:
Jim Goodman is an organic dairy farmer and farm activist from Wonewoc WI. The Irish famine of the mid 1800’s, the failed British farm policy and mono-culture farming that caused it brought Jim’s great grandfather to Wisconsin. Continuing failed farm policy in the US has compelled Jim to advocate for a farmer controlled, consumer oriented food system.
Diana Reeves, a Connecticut mom-turned-activist, founded GMO Free USA in response to a failed initiative to label genetically engineered foods in her home state in May 2012. Diana was a CPA on the fast track at a major accounting firm when her firstborn son was diagnosed with cancer at the age of two. She walked away from her career to take care of him and became a stay at home mom. Her son died before he turned five and she has since raised three children. After Diana’s family developed autoimmune disease and other health problems, she began to learn about the connections between these illnesses and genetically engineered foods. Her family’s health-related challenges, her lack of tolerance for putting children at risk and her anger with untested and unlabeled GMOs have instigated her passion to bring positive change to our broken food system.
Diana is the recipient of the Healthy Child Healthy World 2013 Mom on a Mission Award. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the GMO Free Global Coalition and Co-chair of the GMO Action Alliance.
