Food Inc Reflection

The movie “Food Inc.” is an interesting documentary that takes a look into what really goes on in the food industry and shows the perspective of the farmers involved and exposes some of the issues with food production. During the movie it talked about several farmers whose crops were forcibly changed due to the overseeing company Monsanto. This company created a seed that they now own and any farmer that happens to have it found in their field is immediately sued for stealing it. The twisted part is that these farmers aren’t actually stealing anything. The farmers happen to have their crops next to the fields of farmers that legally use the seed, so when the altered seeds were sent into the air by natural process the unaltered plants were “infected” by the genetics from the altered plant causing it to take on the traits of the altered plant. Now with this there was a process that was being offered to farmers to “decontaminate” their seeds returning them to normal. But, the gentleman offering the service was sued for giving farmers the option to change from the seeds which would cost the company money. The lawsuit went on for a while and the only reason it ended with a settlement was because the man could no longer pay his legal bills. It has become a habit of large companies to sue individuals that “leak” the truth about how the companies run their operations. The crazy thing is that they threaten to sue and sue just to give a warning and keep poor farmers in line. It’s just stupefying the lengths companies will go to keep consumers in the dark. The American Beef Growers even tried to sue Oprah for a comment she said on her talk show. They are debasing the very idea of freedom of speech and the legal system is letting them! What the food industry has become a system that systematically tears down the long lasting freedoms built up through America’s history and passed down from generation to generation. They are suing calling it “slander” when actually it’s just an innocent, hard working, American sharing their opinion. A right that we all share and I see being taken away as the food companies become more powerful.