Value food?

One of the things I really value about the Bay Area is the incredible range of small, organic farms. Those farms, and thus our local food security, such as it is, is threatened by the chemical corporations that push their genetically engineered crops on all farmers.
One farmer who has stood up against the chemical corporations is in the North Bay for the next few days. Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian canola farmer whose crop was contaminated with Monsanto's Roundup Ready GE variety, will speak along with GE expert UC Berkeley Professor Ignacio Chapela and Professor Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemna" and "The Botany of Desire."
I heard them speak at Berkeley last night. Even if you have to blow your carbon budget to go to Sonoma or Ukiah to see them, don't miss it.
Both Chapela and Schmeiser have come under concerted attack by agro-chem corporate interests, disguised as consumer choice advocates, intellectual property activists and such. Ever since I worked on Sonoma County's Measure M campaign, I have come to greatly respect Chapela, who discovered the GE contamination of the native teocinte in Oaxaca, and Schmeiser, who, with his wife, Louise, has battled Monsanto since 1997.
As Chapela has said, the release of GE organisms into our ecosystems is not an experiment. It's just a release, without any way of controlling or ending the contamination. Find out what these men have to say and you'll never look at a bottle of salad dressing (they're pretty much all made with canola oil) the same way again.