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Surprising Science

Empty Food Fetish

While sustainable agriculture is rapidly becoming one of the looming issues of our time, a myth-based propensity toward naturalness may be stripping the movement of any effectuality.
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For the bulk of American environmentalists, ‘natural’ food is synonymous with sustainability. Yet, writes Seed Magazine’s Maywa Montenegro, this science-shirking faith in natural solutions may be a significant barrier to our ability to adequately respond to the challenges of responsible food production in the twenty first century. If we want a truly sustainable agricultural system, we need to understand that “now is the time for some deep soul-searching, to decide whether we will allow ideology to win out over evidence, particularly when the goals of biotech are increasingly aligned with many of the values the organic community allegedly holds dear.”

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