Jamaica, Feed Thyself: Roundup-ready Growing Own Food -
Where To Start?
3 December 2009By John Maxwell
This article originally appeared in the Jamaica
Observer.
"In plantations such as Jamaica or Central America the
biocide of choice is a Monsanto Chemicals product
called Roundup."
By the time you read this it should be official – the
end of the Triangular Trade, the traffic in human
flesh, sugar and consumer goods between Europe, Africa
and the Caribbean begun 500 years ago. It will soon be
transformed by "Globalization" into a cat's cradle of
exploitative relationships in which the exploiters and
the exploited will remain the same, only the terms of
trade will be transformed to protect the guilty.
Europe's trade commissioner, Catherine Ashton, told
the world's press last week that within the next few
days the Europeans are close to a deal to end the
world's longest-running trade dispute and bolster the
World Trade Organization, whose Doha negotiations to
free up global commerce have at times been held
hostage by the row.
What Ms. Ashton meant was that the former Caribbean,
African and Pacific colonies of Europe will at long
last lose the tariff protection which kept their lands
addicted to producing bananas and sugar as against
producing food for their people. It was a serious
addiction for these nations, comparable to but worse
than addiction to crack or alcohol, distracting the
addicts from productive thought and activity and
promoting the short-cut, Anancy mentality.
In Jamaica the end of plantation banana and sugar cane
may bring enormous benefits to our national health and
well-being.
Plantation economics depend heavily on labor-sparing
techniques. No longer are weeds eliminated by hoes or
harrows but by spraying ferociously poisonous
chemicals which are "biocides," in Rachel Carson's
formulation, enemies of life which kill everything. In
plantations such as Jamaica or Central America the
biocide of choice is, as in the rest of the
"civilized" world, a Monsanto Chemicals product called
Roundup.
Roundup is a package deal. The farmer buys soya bean
or wheat seeds from Monsanto which has altered the
genes of the seed to make the emerging plant resistant
to Roundup – or glyphosate as it is known in the world
of chemists. Roundup is not a simple product; it
contains other chemicals – catalysts – to intensify or
accelerate the penetration of glyphosate, so making it
more potent.
"Hormone disruptors mimic or suppress the action of
human hormones, feminizing boys and deforming their
genitalia."
The problem with these so called surfactants and
accelerants is that some are even more toxic than
glyphosate and they are not simply more poisonous to
weeds, they are more poisonous to everything,
including fungi, worms, rats and human beings.
A recent article in the journal Toxicology reports
that very low doses of Roundup not only disrupt human
hormone function but also kill human liver cells
within 24 hours of exposure.
"The toxicity of some of the formulations was
independent of how much glyphosate - the active
herbicide in Roundup - they contained, suggesting it
is other "inert" ingredients that may alone - or in
combination with each other and/or the weed-killer -
assault the cells.This study's results are similar to
prior studies that find human embryo cells are
affected more by the Roundup formulations and an inert
ingredient than by the active ingredient."
What is even more alarming is that all formulations of
the weed-killer – even and perhaps especially those
with reduced glyphosate levels – were potent hormone
disruptors. Hormone disruptors mimic or suppress the
action of human hormones producing premature puberty
in young girls, for instance, or feminizing boys and
deforming their genitalia.
There is worse to come.
Soils are composed of organic (living) and inorganic
(non-living) material. Worms and fungi are among the
organic components of soil; rock and sand are
inorganic. In good soils these components are in
balance and harmony. In vegetation killed by Roundup
the normal balance of fungi is upset, penicilliums are
killed while toxic fungi of the fusarium family begin
to flourish.
Jamaica is "Roundup-ready"
The fusarium family includes fungi that kill bananas,
and in St. Elizabeth Parish, melons of all kinds,
cucumbers and others of that family. Dr. Robert Kremer
and other soil scientists at the University of
Missouri now believe that fusarium is a natural,
secondary characteristic of Roundup use. Fusariums
turn up even in the grain produced by the Roundup
ready plants, capable of killing innocent people
eating breakfast cereal, for instance.
This little tale of Roundup – the Great Panacea –
should allow us to see that we need to be more careful
in our decision-making. The bean counters, the armies
of MBAs, will always be Roundup-ready. Others among us
realize that thirty years after the introduction of
Roundup we still know very little about it or its long
term dangers. As Rachel Carson said more than forty
years ago, we should understand that it has taken life
on earth hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to
most of the chemicals naturally found on earth. We are
crazy to believe that – within the lifetime of any
human being – we can adapt to the hundreds of
thousands of new chemicals introduced annually.
Growing our own food
Now that we have the liberation from globalization in
bananas and sugar, it may be useful not only to look
at what we may have escaped but at the opportunities
we can now investigate. Edith Clarke gave me her
collection of the Journal of the Jamaica Agricultural
Society, from 1920 to 1954, one or two of which have
been borrowed/stolen in the 30 or so years in which I
have been their custodian. I am in Amsterdam at the
moment so I cannot quote from them but there is an
entry in one of them which has stuck in my memory
since the day I first read it.
"We need to devise a process to sweep away the Roundup
Ready culture."
The entry is entitled "A small holding" and is a
report from Mr. Hanson, a famous Agricultural
Instructor who was writing about a small farmer near
Clonmel, in St. Mary. This man had on his holding of
slightly more than an acre about a thousand different
plants, from coconuts to sweet basil, from ginger and
turmeric to annatto and calomel, varieties of
potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, grapefruit,cocoa, coffee
and tea (as in Earl Gray), black pepper and capsicums.
His land was always producing something he could eat
or trade or transform into a marketable product. He
was self-sufficient and proud. Professor Kari Levitt
was so impressed by this story that she used a copy of
it as an illustration in her book on the George
Beckford papers on sustainable agriculture.
In the JAS journal and in the memories of Jamaicans,
many of them relatively young, there exists a template
of a Jamaican culture that is mature, autonomous, and
self-respecting.
It is a culture that is capable of regenerating the
Jamaica that knows its people and their capacity
better than the British or the IMF ever could. We need
to devise a process to sweep away the politicians,
commentators and private sector leaders who promote
the Roundup Ready culture and its toxic contaminants
at every level and class.
Deliverance
Our connection with the Triangular Trade could not
have ended at a more opportune time. The World Summit
on Food has just ended without Jamaica making any
serious contribution to the discussion.
We know that there are millions of people starving all
around the world. The Cubans say that none of the
millions of children sleeping on the streets is Cuban,
but the Americans, the British and most "advanced"
societies in Europe and elsewhere cannot say that. We
certainly cannot.
Where would we start?
We should already have a pretty good idea of how many
people are short of food in our communities, how many
people, especially children, go to bed hungry.
"An acre of well-treated land can produce ten to
thirty tons or more of sweet potatoes."
If we know that we can calculate the amount of food
needed to bring them back into the society. What and
how much food does a child or an adult require?
We know that an acre of well-treated land can produce
ten to thirty tons or more of sweet potatoes. We know
how much corn and cassava can be produced on an acre
of land in Trelawny and St. Ann, how much pumpkin can
be produced on an acre of land in St. Elizabeth.
We may not understand but we are at this moment in a
state of extreme emergency and we need to move fast.
About two years ago I forecast this moment and
suggested that we needed a bipartisan approach to the
problem.
At that time Mrs. Simpson-Miller was Prime Minister
and I suggested that she should ask the leaders of the
society to volunteer their energies, abilities, money
or machinery to tackle the problem before it became
unmanageable. I would like to suggest that instead of
concentrating on whether UTECH should get the Trelawny
stadium it might make more sense to devise an
Emergency production plan and a distribution system to
go with it.
We need to get thousands of idle acres into production
and we can worry about systems of tenure later. I
really do believe that such an effort may be one thing
that most Jamaicans would find themselves willing to
support.
John Maxwell a veteran Jamaican journalist. He has
covered Caribbean affairs for more than 40 years and
is currently a columnist for The Jamaica Observer. He
can be contacted at jankunnu@gmail. com.
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