Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 10018 II. The Global Harvest & What It Means to Investors efficiency of agriculture throughout the world should …produce the most amount of food for the least cost. But what does that really mean? …What is cost? When you produce the intensified agriculture and you reduce the number of people on the land, what happens to those people?…They are chased into the towns. They lose their jobs on the land. If they go into the towns, there are no jobs, there is no infrastructure. The social costs of those people, the financial costs of the infrastructure has to be added to the cost of producing food. On top of that, you are breaking families, you are uprooting them, you are throwing them into the slums. Do you realize that in Brazil, the favelas (slums) did not exist before the Green Revolution of intensifying agriculture. In the world today there are 3.1 billion people still living in rural communities. If GATT suc- ceeds and we are able to impose modern methods of agriculture worldwide, so as to bring them to the level of Canada or Australia, what will happen? 2.1 billion people will be uprooted from the land and chased into the towns throughout the world. It is the single greatest disaster [in our history], greater than any war. We have to change priorities. Let’s take agri- culture. Instead of just trying to produce the maximum amount for the cheapest direct costs, let us try to take into account the other costs. Our purpose should not be just the one dimen- sional cost of food. We want the right amount of food, for the right quality for health and the right quality for the environment and employing enough people so as to maintain social stability in the rural areas. If not, and we chase 2.1 billion people into the slums of the towns, we will create on a scale unheard of mass migration – what we saw in Rwanda with 2 million people will be nothing — so as to satisfy an economic doctrine. … We would be creating 2 billion refuges. We would be creating mass waves of migration which none of us could control. We would be destroying the towns which are already largely destroyed. Look at Mexico, Rio, look at our own towns. And we are doing this for economic dogma?… What is this nonsense? Everything is based in our modern society on improving an economic index…The result is that we are destroying the stability of our societies, because we are worship- ing the wrong god… Economic index. The economy, like everything else, is a tool which should be submitted to, should be subject to, the true and fundamental requirements of society. This is the establishment against the rest of society… I am for business, so long as it does not devour society…[But] we have a conflict of interest. Big business loves having access to an unlimited supply of give away labor…. You cannot enrich a country by destroying the health of its population. The health of a society cannot be measured by corporate profitability…. We have allowed the instruments that are sup- posed to serve us to become our masters.” These were prophetic words. Indeed, the Doha Round of GATT (2001-8) broke down primar- ily as a result of controversies with India, Brazil, China, and South Africa over the economic and social costs of high-speed industrialization and centralization of agriculture. This included controversies primarily between the United States and European and BRICS nations regard- ing the legality and regulation of GMOs, the patenting of life and related intellectual capital ownership and enforcement, and the resulting impact on ownership, control and pricing of the seed supply. All of these issues have profound implications for political freedom, the soil and environment, and the health and integrity of the global food system. This leaves us with the developed nations in an industrial food model and the developing nations moving more slowly towards an indus- trialized model. As they seek to improve food availability, the developing nations will continue to face a major challenge with approximately three-quarters of a billion people who are de- fined as “undernourished.” “You cannot enrich a country by destroy- ing the health of its population. The health of a society cannot be measured by cor- porate profitability. We have allowed the instruments that are supposed to serve us to become our masters. ” –Sir James Goldsmith