[Ferretlover]

Foods that were once plentiful are disappearing or already gone. A dedicated few are working hard to bring them back. By Allison Van Dusen for Forbes.com
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')… Sure, the average grocery store may carry six or seven different types of apples, some of them grown in America, but a century ago, Americans grew and ate more than 15,000 named varieties. Today you'd probably be lucky if you could find the trees representing the 1,500 kinds remaining in North America, according to Gary Paul Nabhan, editor of Renewing America's Food Traditions. The book lists some of the more than 1,000 food species and varieties once savored by Americans, but are now on the verge of disappearing from the landscape altogether. …

[blukatzen]

Along the same lines in the U.K., George Monbiot speaks on the same subject matter quite frequently.

Here is one.

This one's my favorite piece.

Blu

[kpeavey]

corporate agriculture follows the path of best return on investment. This narrows the field in terms of biodiversity. Fewer genetic differences allow devastation of entire crops on a national scale (google Ug99). Cultivars are grown because they respond well to specific chemical fertilizers and inputs, without which the crops will reduce yields dramatically. Livestock is bred from an ever shrinking gene pool, with Darwin swept aside in favor of response to hormone treatments in feed.

Its Tragedy of the Commons on a global agricultural scale. Each corporation looking out for the interests of the shareholder, crops be damned. In the long run, our species is dependent on biodiversity. Sooner or later the problem of shrinking gene pools will bite us in the rear.