Food Structures Function as Arms, Crafted for Control Purposes | A Masterwork of Manipulation
Industrial ag is no busted up mess. It's an expertly designed instrument of control over our planet.
Across three volumes - Food, Dependency and Dispossession, Sickening Profits, and Power Play: The Future of Food - I’ve laid bare this damning critique. It's not about a failing sector but a global regime of dispossession - a machinery that transforms life into commodities and tramples on our autonomy, all under the guise of progress.
The food system ain't busted. It's a weapon, designed to pack a punch. It concentrates power, rips us from the land, deskills farmers, and turns nutrition into money. Big finance and big business win, while the costs - to our health, ecosystems, workers, and culture - get passed around.
In the Global South, 'development' is a velvet-gloved hitman, masquerading as poverty reduction and climate resilience. But it’s really about deepening debt, consolidating proprietary seed systems, and silencing food sovereignty with the deafening drumbeat of export-driven logic. For all its sweet talk and slick PR, corporations like Bayer aren't saving farmers - they're locking them up.
Behind shiny branding, a familiar pattern emerges. Contracts replace common Goods, ‘knowledge’ replaces wisdom, and land becomes an abstracted, bureaucratic cage. It's not progress, mate. It's a systematic disempowerment, straight outta Weber's industrial playbook.
Post-development theorists like Escobar and Esteva have long shouted from the rooftops that ‘progress’ is a colonial narrative, erasing plurality and imposing a singular vision of modernity. Moore, Barrington, and Brenner have reinforced this, showing us that the fate of democracy and tyranny frequently hinges on how we handle land, food, and power.
In Sickening Profits, I track the ties between key financial asset managers, such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, and the interconnected sectors of seed, chemicals, food manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. These folks don't just invest - they orchestrate. The result is a vicious cycle of ultra-processed, poisonous food making us sick, Big Pharma cashing in with treatments, and investment firms profiting on both sides. The Web of deceit tightens as pension schemes and sovereign investment ties bind our wellbeing to the very structures that condemn us.
This isn't a bug. It's the system's heart. As Marx warned in his theory of the metabolic rift, capitalism tears apart the natural bond between humans and nature - corroding land, polluting water, and degrading ourselves in the name of profit.
In Power Play: The Future of Food, I peer into the digital future of industrial ag - a future that's increasingly tech-driven and owned by a select few. Precision farming, AI, blockchains, gene-editing - these ain’t innocent tools. They're instruments of enclosure, stripping farmers of their skills, centralizing control in private platforms, and transforming our farmers into data-mining machines. The digital revolution won't democratize the system - it'll strangle the last breaths of democracy out of it.
Yet, hope springs eternal. Gandhi's disciple, Bhaskar Save, proved that you don't have to choose between abundance and integrity. His eco-friendly farm wasn't just productive - it was sacred. Save understood that true self-reliance begins with the soil. His methods - not just practical but ethical, spiritual, and political - offer a radical alternative to the extractive logic of Western industrial modernity.
In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi critiques Western industrial civilization as a poisonous illusion that worships machinery, consumption, and speed. His vision of swaraj - self-rule grounded in locality, restraint, and interdependence - remains a potent antidote to the corrosive logic of extraction.
Our planet ain't a resource to be exploited by Bayer. It's a spiritual commons - a living universe of memory, culture, and identity, not a digital plantation. To degrade the land is a profound act of violence against ourselves and our collective spirit. Resistance to industrial ag is not just material - it's spiritual, too.
But the system isn't just defended by corporations. It's legitimized by institutions. Universities like Florida and Saskatchewan, Cornell's Alliance for Science, and certain careerist academics churn out research that washes the dirty laundry of Big Ag, oiling the system's machinery and muddying the waters of truth. Careerists in cozy ivory towers - entrenched, insulated, and careless with the truth - serve as the intellectual wing of industrial capitalism. They don't study the system. They shield it, from their soapboxes on social media - if not hourly, then certainly daily.
The Diggers of 17-century England, led by Gerrard Winstanley, knew that land is the foundation of freedom. Their call to reclaim the commons was revolutionary then - and it remains so today, in every seed swap, every land occupation, every act of mutual aid that defies the logic of extraction. They knew that enclosure is the blueprint of oppression. To invoke the Diggers is to declare: We will not be tenant farmers on a planet leased out to capital.
This system’s control doesn't stop at the soil - it seeps inside us too, attacking our gut microbiomes, degrading health, and turning our inner landscapes barren. Power no longer governs through territory and labor - it operates through microbial environments, reproducing the conditions for chronic illness and chronic dependency within our very bodies.
Reclaiming food isn't just about better policies. It's about rupturing the industrial model and building anew. Agroecology isn't a niche specialty - it's a living practice of resistance and regeneration, centered on biodiversity, local knowledge, and ecological reciprocity. It's not about scaling up - it's about rooting down.
Wendell Berry reminds us that the health of culture and soil go hand in hand. His call for affection, stewardship, and place-based living is an irresistible call to arms against the march of industrial modernity. Slow living, seed sovereignty, territorial autonomy - these aren't lifestyle choices - they're counter-hegemonic acts that challenge the status quo and dismantle the pillars of capitalist supremacy.
The Zapatistas of Chiapas remind us that autonomy is possible - it's not just a dream, it's a practice. They've built a living alternative - agroecological farming, communal governance, and education rooted in dignity. Their call for "a world where many worlds fit" is a blueprint for a brighter, greener, genuinely equitable future.
This system’s control may be entrenched in institutions and fortified by economics, but it's not invincible. By choosing local, by standing up for farmers, by growing our own food, and by practicing solidarity, we can disrupt industrial ag and create the world we want: a world where food is abundant, healthy, sustainable, and just.
- In the realm of 'environmental-science', it becomes apparent that industrial agriculture is not a flawed system, but an intricately designed tool for control over our planet's resources, often under the guise of 'progress'.
- The 'science' sector, particularly 'general-news' and 'politics', frequently legitimizes this system, producing research that veils theDirty tactics of Big Ag, effectively functioning as the intellectual wing of industrial capitalism.
- 'Education' plays a crucial role in cultivating a generation that regards the exploitation of our planet's resources for corporate gains as 'progress'. To challenge this, we must emphasize the importance of 'agroecology' and the regenerative practices it promotes, as an alternative to the extractive model of industrial agriculture.
- 'Health' is another critical area where the impacts of industrial agriculture are tangible. The ultra-processed, poisonous food produced by the system contributes to chronic illnesses, while Big Pharma profits from the resulting treatments. By embracing local, sustainable food systems, we can improve individual and planetary health.
- Ultimately, the struggle against industrial agriculture is not merely about policy changes or technological advancements; it's about 'freedom'. By reclaiming our planet's resources, particularly the land, we can secure our autonomy and break free from the system designed to exploit and control us.
