Message-ID: <37785B64.5287A1E2@persocom.com.br> Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 02:36:39 -0300 From: Joaquim Moura <mailto:joaquim.moura@PERSOCOM.COM.BR> Subject: Nourishment and development To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Dear friends,All we fellows working with social development know that it is not easy to overcome the serious problems that affect a huge parcel of our populations. But, as hard as this challenge can be, as adverse as the economic and cultural settings may be, we all trust that some day our efforts will gain so much critical mass that they will succeed. Am I translating properly what most the community and international leaders feel? Ok. But there is just one thing that can delete this trust in a better future, that can kill our hope and our motivation: it is to verify that the population's health and descent have decayed so much (along with nature) that they cannot recover anymore.
This situation is becoming closer and closer to us, here in Brazil. Our federal government is fully committed to help Monsanto to introduce the transgenic plants in our daily food (and in our bodies);.and now we discovered that the "most modern and productive farmers" are feeding their cows and oxen, hens and pigs with meat to make the animals (and their profits) grow fast. If the nations keep exchanging the natural nutrition (that brought us from unicellular organisms to human beings) by artificial food developed only according the agribusinessmen plans, all our personal efforts and all the institutional programming for social change, will be in vain, at the long range, because this nutritional degeneration will be translated by more people very ill, very poor, very indolent, very violent etc. By following the current trends, life in the megalopolis (and the megalopolis will be everywhere) will be a nightmare for most their dwellers, unemployed, the families destroyed, the youth lost.
In short, I am afraid that - the same way that "what you eat you are" - societies cannot be better than the food they eat. Are you ready to become a RoundupReady human being, or to give to your children milk from a carnivorous cow? I think that there is also an ethical problem here, and of course a society that disrespects nature so much cannot teach respect to its population, to its youth, to its political leaders and scientists.
How is the situation in your countries and how do you feel about theses problems? Cheers, Joaquim