Designed to Fail: GMOs, Chemical Farming and Planned Obsolescence

Barbara H. Peterson

Farm Wars

One of the most important things to remember when dealing with companies such as Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, etc., is that they are first and foremost chemical manufacturing companies. The genetically engineered seeds (GMO) they produce are designed to increase pesticide usage, not decrease it. Their own pesticides, that is. Sold by companies that are… remember… first and foremost, chemical manufacturing companies, with profit as their sole reason for existence. Feeding the starving world? Marketing strategy, nothing more. These companies exist to sell chemicals, and pesticides are a mainstay.

Planned Obsolescence

Our society is based on unlimited consumption and planned obsolescence. This is by design, and it all started with the light bulb.

Planned Obsolescence Documentary

Did you know that the lifetime of light bulbs once used to last for more than 2500 hours and was reduced on purpose to just 1000 hours? Did you know that nylon stockings once used to be that stable that you could even use them as tow rope for cars and its quality was reduced just to make sure that you will soon need a new one? Did you know that you might have a tiny little chip inside your printer that was just placed there so that your device will break after a predefined number of printed pages thereby assuring that you buy a new one? Did you know that Apple originally did not intend to offer any battery exchange service for their iPods/iPhones/iPads just to enable you to continuously contribute to the growth of this corporation?

This strategy was maybe first thought through already in the 19th century and later on for example motivated by Bernhard London in 1932 in his paper Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence. The intentional design and manufacturing of products with a limited lifespan to assure repeated purchases is denoted as planned/programmed obsolescence and we are all or at least most of us upright and thoroughly participating in this doubtful endeavor. Or did you not recently think about buying a new mobile phone / computer / car / clothes / because your old one unexpectedly died or just because of this very cool new feature that you oh so badly need? LINK

We are conditioned to want the latest and greatest gadget, a new car every year, and to have the mega-mart down the street supply us with groceries. These goods are shipped around the world, with little regard for the ultimate cost to our health or the environment that such a long distance mentality causes. The food is irradiated, chemically lobotomized, and made to withstand long periods of travel. The fruit and veggies you get at the market most likely have come from a cold storage unit across the country, or even across the globe. Fresh? Good luck with that.

Chemical Agriculture Designed to Fail

Our agricultural system is designed to fail just like the light bulb. Why? Because it is much more profitable for chemical companies to continue to sell “new and improved” chemicals to solve the problems that the original chemicals caused due to resistance. They know it will happen, and plan ahead for it. Resistance is a given, so a system based on increased chemical resistance and the necessity to purchase new chemicals to combat it is designed to fail so that the companies can reap more profit from new products when it does.

Just as the truth is that chemical companies exist primarily to sell chemicals, another inconvenient truth is that chemical usage breeds resistance. This is a known issue. No matter how “new and improved” your product is, resistance will build up, and more, stronger chemicals will need to be used down the road to manage it. Planned Obsolescence. Throw the old away, get the new, improved, stronger chemical, and don’t worry, in a couple of years, when resistance builds up to that one, we will be sure and have another in the works to solve your problem. Only the problem is never really solved.

For farmers this means that weeds are building resistance to Roundup just as bacteria build up a resistance to antibiotics, and equine worms have built a resistance to chemical de-wormers. Any “new and improved” chemicals will only succumb to the same resistance, and while it may be a bad thing for you and me, the chemical companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Planned Obsolescence. It can’t go on indefinitely, and you will pay through the nose for patented seeds and proprietary chemicals that will only get more expensive and more toxic unless you ditch the practice of chemical farming.

As for the people eating these polluted creations of the chemical giants? Well, they will just keep making the doctors and lawyers rich beyond measure as they limp towards an early grave.

The solution? Local, non-GMO, fresh food grown at home and at the neighbor’s place. Small, organic neighborhood mini-farms designed to take care of the community and the family. We can either choose to continue throwing our money into a system that was designed to fail from the start through planned obsolescence and make the chemical companies rich in the process, or begin to take responsibility for our own food supply, and not some faceless corporation that relies on our ignorance to lead us all the way to the grave with chemicalized, radiated, genetically engineered foodstuffs that are designed to fail and make those who eat them fail, one disease at a time, as doctors shove “new and improved” chemical concoctions down the throats of those who have succumbed to the onslaught.

©2014 Barbara H. Peterson

Tags: agriculture, Barbara H. Peterson, chemical farming, chemicals, designed to fail, dow, dupont, Farm Wars, farmwars, genetic engineering, GMO, monsanto, planned obsolescence