Food and culture are the currency of life and you cannot have one without the other says Vandana Shiva.

Have you noticed world leaders are jetting around to their very important meetings of late, amidst their climate crisis, and dining on freshly slaughtered wagyu beef with their influencers and groupies. They are the politicians, oil and gas representatives, corporates and tag along oligarchs that are talking shop; discussing ways in which to manage  the pressing world issues that threaten to tip us all into the abyss. But really it looks like drumming up Climate Change crisis so they can push their utilitarian morality; being for the greater good, upon us common folk. Us that is. Not them.

Schools are scaring the bejesus out of kids into believing that the world is on fire, pharmaceutical companies continue to evade serious questions, and governments and regional representatives are threatening us with the consequences of being socially irresponsible if we do not turn off our power, stop eating fish and reduce our travelling. Us that is, not them.

If they thought their actions were fostering happiness and compliance then there has been a miscalculation.

Despite our understanding of the last three years and prior to that the perils of industrial scale food production and corporate control of the markets; we were as it turned out still simply not cynical enough. It was far worse than that. 

The last three years have been an expose. A crack that has let the light in. They have shown us just how susceptible western governments are to the influence of powerful corporations, the lengths the corporations are willing to go to and the methods they use to get there.  But it was worse than that.

Most of us remotely awake will have known that globalisation has been a trouble maker for some time now. It’s growth has been rapid and it has fuelled the power of industry and corporations. It had its good points, but we were ill prepared for the bad ones. We know that there are some climate change initiatives that make sense to clean up industries excess and abuse; reduce plastics, improve air quality, protect natural environments etc. But as it turns out there are many initiatives that don’t.

Now globalisation has new friends.  They look like a cult with their doomsday forecasts. They have cultivated a collective madness. The absurd has become the possible.

How hopeful we were to trust government policies or promises that looked like they might address pollution and bad farming practices and the proliferation of a largely unregulated food industry. But the policies were really just a repeat of the same old system of economics and junk science, and the opportunity for the wrong people to profit. Growth continues.  Even Extinctions Rebellion’s hyping up the kids on the perils of wreckless industry seemed a good idea at the time. But in hindsight how naïve we were.  It was worse than that.

It was Big Pharma who showed us too much. Pharmaticual corporations during the covid crisis exposed  the depth of corruption in our system of governance.

So it goes, like toppling dominoes every aspect of our lives has continued to fall under the influence of corporations and increasing government regulation.  We have come to realise that the purpose of government has become one of taking taxpayer money and handing it to private enterprise.  

We have also witnessed how our leaders panic and make wrong decisions. Just like us. But you don’t ask for an amnesty until you are able to admit your guilt. They haven’t.

Many of us are dictated and addicted to social media that is saturated with corporate backing. Many of us have been captured by the allure of the western mainly Americanised lifestyles that scream success. Some of us were more than happy to sell out on our own culture for that western one. Many of us do business with the wrong people and either can’t avoid it or don’t realise it. But it gets worse.

The last three years changed everything for a lot of people. How could they not.  One’s world view would have changed as many of us woke up; some of us more slowly than others.   It has become apparent that governments have reneged on their role; which is to be responsible and accessible to people. Instead we have clearly seen that democratically elected governments and their institutions in mainly western industrialised democracies in particular are unanimously willing to sacrifice, exclude and punish some of their citizens for spurious reasons.  

They have shown us that channels of information have been enclosed and commodified by the corporate-controlled media and internet platforms. They have shown us their relationship with the finance and banking institutions is so close that they are willing to partake in wreckless debt creation. They are on one hand telling us we will own nothing and be happy at the same time telling industry to ‘ scale up’ production so we can continue to consume. But it’s worse than that.

Government leaders in these western democracies are in with a bad crowd. Singing from the same song sheet. Their discussions and threats are about less consumerism on one hand for us and more on the other for them. Scaling up globalised systems; along with the help of digital tech, will it is claimed, save us from the crisis they define and keep telling us is inevitable. With the backing of industry and corporates and hoping to sweep the ramifications of the covid crisis under the carpet, we are seeing an  unprecedented uniting of minds in western industrialised nations.

Corporate love in’s in the form of COP22 , G8 and G20 and Davos which include the leaders from most western democracies; are great places to agree on serious world issues. They are hubs for networking and finding out who is richer than thou. Places for seeking out career opportunities, groupies, parties, hob nobbing. They also provide ample leg room for more serious looking subjects like ramping up dialogue that fits doomsday scenarios. Ones that will enable them to justify digital ID’s and central bank digital currency, as a means to reduce carbon emissions and irresponsible social consumption, all in the name of Utilitarianism which is for the greater good of course. Their greater good. These democratically elected government leaders, self-interested CEO’s and filthy rich oligarchs are colluding in making big top down pseudo political decisions about our futures that protect their interests. Feral globalisation is on their menus.

Are we supposed to notice the double standards and hypocrisy? What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander in this case. Perhaps they don’t care.  But it’s worse than that.

Central to their concerns is the topic of food security. This encompasses a wide range of industries in the Big Ag arena; machinery, digital technology, chemical companies, bio tech etc. Governments  seem oblivious to the criticism they are receiving from many quarters around the world; the failures in their industry initiatives, the flaws in their scientifically based theories, double standards, the irony, paradox and arrogance that so emboldens them as they march us on into the abyss.

Retaining their system of globalisation; one that relies upon constant growth on an industrial scale with mechanised digitized business will only compound existing flaws in their systems. Industry call it a systems change. Whereas from land use to mono culture consumerism,  most green initiatives turn out to be just as energy intensive as the alternatives.  Instead they share a collective ideology which quite clearly supports continued corporate interests, globalisation, phantom wealth and centralisation.  It’s looking like a one world power, if you like.  But’s it worse than that.

Whist it is tempting to mock the ego centric bunch of social climbers in their globalised fantasy of how they want the world to look in 2030, they are quite powerful. Even though some of them wear tin hats they are capable of leading us to places even they are not sure about.  

Their policies are starting to trickle down to our local land of reality. With the help from some corporates and industry groups that benefit from Government subsidies there is excitement in the tech industries.  

Over the past few decades farming food on a global scale has been on that corporate trajectory of control; Big Ag.  Food and how we define it, how we grow it, how we access it has long been captured by corporate interests.  Corporatisation of the food industry and all the associated industries is driven by the deregulation of  trade and finance. Junk science based ideology fronted by populist academics reduces public resistance.  With only 10 companies historically controlling the food industry globally, from Nestle, Coca Cola to Pepsi the entire system is well geared to scale up to the next level.  So it gets worse.

It’s being called the 4th Industrial Revolution.  At a local level the Ministry of Economic Development,  Callaghan Institute who advise the NZ Government, and who also fund the Our Land Our Water are calling for all industries to scale up and digitise. 

Farmers are being engulfed in this revolution of tech whether they like it or not. The New Zealand Government approach to those reluctant to adapt to the new system is the same as it was for those teachers and nurses and doctors who resisted the mandated injection: shape up or ship out.   This is not about old fashioned laggards or luddites. These changes to our production of food and use of land are not dissimilar to the Mao Zedong Great Leap Forward of 1958 when the government of the time made sweeping changes to the agrarian economy and also not unlike the Swing Riots of Sussex England 1830 when the old threshing machines were replaced by the modern technology, or the new Green Revolution in Africa at the hand of the Gates Foundation which failed after centralising power for the GE corporations and big agri-tech companies.

All were times of radical change for some sectors of the community at the whim of powerful people and all with tragic results. The governments and the corporations of the time considered themselves right.  But they were grossly inefficient in not realising the unforeseen consequences of their actions. Whereas in China 40 million died from starvation, in Sussex hundreds of farmers were executed or were shipped off to the colonies because they rebelled, in Africa the farmers incurred so much debt there were many suicides. In all instances the political classes saw an opportunity to profit for themselves without realising that the possibility that just maybe  the cure might be worse than the envisaged problem. 

Recent protesting farmers in New Zealand and in Europe who are subject to new government policies addressing climate change, feel aggrieved at the sweeping changes being thrust upon them. It’s the classic top down one size fits all categorisation that will impact upon their livelihoods and ours. The topic of emissions obviously does not apply to those leaders in their jet set lifestyles.  So all farmers can do is protest in your streets.  Those farmers who fuel the industrial food complex are likely to benefit from Government policies, as they have scaled up for the digi tech carbon friendly nature positive food production on their corporate owned mono-culture farms. 

With the media up to its neck in corporate backing it too is captured by government, because government is captured by corporates. So you won’t be reading or hearing about much of interest that does not support government ideology. Protesters against government ideology either go ignored, or are maligned. But it’s worse still.

Climate Change initiatives could have been acceptable to some if they had not been captured by corporations eager to make some money from it.  With the help of the digital tech we can expect to see Green Energy and  the likes of climate positive slogans and  government supported initiatives and industries getting on board.   There is a rush at the door of funding by tech industries eager to get the climate change corporate backing.   It’s not a first. We have witnessed first-hand the tactics that pharmaceutical companies were and are willing to make to ensure a monopoly of financial power and shareholder profits.  We have experienced the duopoly of supermarkets control over the local food supply during the government enforced lockdowns. This is just another power grab but on a much bigger scale.

The Industrial Revolution of the late 1700’s was a good thing. It came with many advantages including mainly an improvement in the quality of life for your average Joe, but the 4th industrial revolution with Government leading, ironically threatens to do the opposite in its mop up of what has preceded it.  When too many climate change initiatives retain their backbone of growth associated with globalisation then it’s hard to understand what the benefits for us plebs will be.

With the digital tech industry getting on board we can expect to see further moves away from the natural world. Harking back to the reductionist viewpoint adopted by junk science academics and institutions, the natural word is troublesome and problematic. Digital, bio tech dehumanises us and separates us from nature even more than some might imagine. Foresight, instinct and understanding give way to madness on a collective scale.  But it’s worse than that.

Western leaders at best appear to be in this mind set. Oblivious or at worse they don’t give a shit about the loss of confidence in them by the people and they don’t seem bothered by the company they keep. Consequently they are losing any trust they may have had with us. With mounting criticism from even the most main stream of places, their associations with some groups are raising eyebrows. All roads lead here. The last three years have clearly shown us just how the system works in favour of big business and how it does not work for its citizens. Are our leaders working in with the wrong crowd? But it’s worse than that. 

It is in this zeitgeist of a kind of political Hollywood, that those in power are empowered. For some time now many of them have been following the doctrines of an increasingly influential collection of oligarchs and corporate leaders. Our government along with Australia, Canada, Norway, France, USA, Britain have for some time now and  with increasing urgency embraced the absurdly fear mongering dystopic take on the future of the world as drawn up by  the  World Economic Forum. The WEF has a wealth of knowledge and enormous corporate backing.  With a unified front there is no room for petty party politics. But it gets worse.

Confusing as it may be, it is difficult to digest any reference to the WEF without recalling the highly effective media campaign that set out to discredit any reference to this very real, very influential organisation. Its not hard to see why we get so little concrete information regarding this bunch. They are an odd organization for leaders of democratically elected countries to hang out with. Depending where you are on the level of understanding, the WEF are a collection of like-minded leaders from political, academic and industry. They share a dystopic, almost virtual world view which at times sounds bit loopy.

Many of our elected leaders and even community leaders and academics are showing their support of this odd collection of influencers who have the characteristics of a cult.  These people are powerful figures from industrialised countries. Their supporters along with the WEF members presumably embrace that which is promoted on their website being the roll out of digital technology, the bio tech which includes GE, gain of function research, Nuclear Energy, robotization and transhumanism.  Presumably our leaders do too. They don’t say other wise because no one seems to be asking them. Have the greens gone GE too?

Along with  people with capital like Larry Fink of Blackrock, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan and Albert Bourla of Pfizer, the organisation is led by the infamous Knighted Klaus Schwab. The expertise of the board of trustees they say is immense; ‘business, politics, academia and even civil society’.  The WEF  ‘engage in shaping the future’. Hope you are buckled in.

You can hear them quite frequently espouse the value of technocracy which breathes heavily in the direction of transhumanism. But let’s get real here, Governments and their accomplices over the past three years have shown us how far down that dehumanised path they already are. So we have arrived ladies and gentlemen.  It’s all ok in their echo chambers of power.

The problem is, there are many of us who elected our leaders and who would like a more robust debate about the future of GE, bio tech, gain of function experiments, transhumanism, robotisation, Nuclear Energy, digitised ID, centralised banking systems which will affect how we live our lives. We feel our leaders are working in with the wrong crowd. Clearly they are.

It would be farcical, if it was not true. They really are influencing policies that have, do and  will affect us in ways that we don’t know and they don’t know.  In this case it seems like ‘it’s the devil you know’ and our leaders are in the mix. But it’s worse than that if that is possible.

Corporate governance is the one thing that all members of the WEF appear to agree on. It’s the key to the kingdom of control. That’s the point. Corporate. The World Economic Forum is also supported by many of those very large industry groups and corporations like these guys we have met before Coca Cola, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase &Co. Members also include  the well heeled including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who had penchant for funding some of the most unregulated  bio tech experiments. The WEF like the big disappointment climate change advocate/hedge fund manager that was Al Gore, are big on telling us mere common folk that we will have to go without. This, in the same space as they gain more. For the Greater. But it gets worse, they don’t appear to care.

Top down politics always trickles down to the roots. Civic duty looks like ‘it starts with the community’ aka the Young Global Leaders Community. This is a branch of the Forum with 1400 members worldwide who seek ‘to drive public-private co-operation in the global public interest’ amidst todays pressing problems. You can find Prime Minister Jacinda Adern , Clayton Cosgrove, Golriz Ghahraman as members as were Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau.  Even though the WEF clearly states their members are ‘independent’  and  impartial to interference or influence of corporations and industries it would be quite incredulous and probably naïve to think that might be possible in its entirety.

The 4th Industrial Revolution is espoused by the WEF, countries and industries that support it. Accordingly, they will rely upon science innovation to address those big issues which they themselves and their corporations rate as needing addressing like Climate Change. By continuing to centralise industries and corporations and also banks with the help of the digital tech industry their objective they say is ‘to create as many communities, organisations, that ‘disrupt business as usual to lead the way to the nature-postive global economy’. But it gets closer to home.

We are already experiencing regulations and jargon that have trickled down from the WEF amongst our farming communities. Local level food systems were considered to be at a tipping point hence the need for “transformative change’ which will obviously involve considerable investment into the industries selling stuff. Hence the farmers protests.  

This is all about scaling up food production in a globalised digitalised world with increasing reliance on technology. It’s about using technology, mono cultures and industrially grown food.  Our Land Our Water also funds the National Science Challenge which creates local heroes or leaders who support the WEF agenda . It also supports Aronui Industry which is all about tech and product development. All these organisations and government agencies are linked somewhere along the digital currency trail to  funding by the New Zealand Callaghan Innovation Agency who are involved with  around 500 businesses including  the NZ Trade and Enterprise and regional business partners and nine universities in NZ. They collectively along with their business partners ‘reduce barriers’ to growth’.  It’s all about turbocharging the global growth for the agri- tech sector along with governing partners. And all based on junk science.

The Government of New Zealand may also like the  WEF 100 Million Farmers intuitive too, with nay a murmur about regenerative agriculture. It’s a ‘multi stakeholder platform’. It’s objective is to ‘catalyse, and action a transition to a national, regional and local food system that is net zero, another  nature-positive and will increase farmer resilience and  enable 100 million farmers and consumers to place the climate, nature and resilience at the core of their economy. ‘  But its worse than that.

Annoying and most unfortunate associations like funding from the infamous Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation keep popping up.  Gates seem to have a finger in lot of pies of the technological kind. The Gates Foundation has been a big stakeholder in the GE industry and also in the bio tech lab food industry like his highly ridiculous GE synthetic meat idea ambition.  He is a generous fellow, amongst his many beneficiaries he  gifts money to Dunedin University for Covid research, Agri NZ, and Universities like Auckland and Dunedin along with bio tech corporations like Scion, and Scentica Bio.   The company you keep can sometimes destroy your reputation but not in his case, he has hung out with some bad folks but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Double standards are ok amongst the rich and famous.  They have particularly thick skins it seems. Or is it worse than that?

Mr Gates is wealthy beyond measure, has his failures but is relentless in pursuit of success.  His lab meat obsession is one he just won’t drop nor his obsession with nuclear energy . He has also just announced another bash at African farmers with his GE based Green Revolution in Africa amidst much criticism . What he perceives as a brilliant problem solver by way of using GE and fertiliser companies and creating resilience transpired as just another food system take over by Big Ag as well as destroying African culture.  But you just can’t get him to listen. He is convinced we are all starving to death when really the problem is food accessibility not food shortages. Even so he goes on, “Our foundation will continue to support solutions in health, agriculture, and other critical areas—and the systems to get them out of the labs and to the people who need them.”  which was probably not the best thing to say all things considered with labs etc. However he means well.  

Presumably Gates has many a sleepless night in one of the many beds in one of his many super big houses or on his many jets, night-maring about the end of the world and how he can help speed it up. Which could explain why he hangs out with the other groupies at the big political love in meetings where they obsess over the looming dystopia. Why doesn’t someone help him out here. But no, it’s worse.

Nature positive is probably the hip word amongst this cult of influencers. It is certainly being touted by those who support bio and tech industries.  It’s a strange combination of words;  implying nature is seldom positive, possibly. It speaks loudly about the  mechanised/reductionist view of the world. The more tech you put into nature the further we seem to move away from it.

With a penchant for the mechanised, the digital, the robotic, bio tech and junk science, the corporate and  the industrial and Government policy and of course the Holy Grail that is the Genetic Engineered;  we can expect to see a lot more peer reviewed studies telling us of the efficacy and merits of new bio tech that will be necessary if we are to be competitive in the global market. GDP does not measure the wellbeing of a country, remember.   MRNA technology has opened a Pandora’s box and here in New Zealand we have for a long time been proponents of being GE free.

The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 has kept  the lid on the GE bottle until now, but this is up  for review as a result of the Productivity Commission requesting one with consultation with universities, corporations and industries.  They say,

"So our brand story can be around sustainability, how we are farming, more sustainability, how we farming within the new climate that we are faced with, so you know the brand is really important but it's how we tell that story."‘ That brand is GE.

ACT would make changes to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act to allow the agriculture industry to access game-changing technology that can revolutionise agriculture.

There will be many in the science community, bio tech industry and farming industry that will be enthusiasts for GE. But not all of us will want to swallow the story.  If we were allowed a more widespread  discussion of the true origins of the covid virus that appears to have been deliberately engineered to infect humans* and at best escaped from a laboratory due to sloppy safety practices, then this might help us come to some sensible decisions about GE’s future in this country. But we are not, and that presents a disturbing future to many.  This denial is a form of collective insanity. Consequently will we continue to allow them to make more serious mistakes? 

The farmers  protests and their supporters quite rightly are concerned about this era we are in.  There is another word for that kind of dystopia; a nasty one where corporations work with governments and vice versa, and we are considered as mere consumers or worse dissidents because we disagree with their ideologies. But what makes this 4th Industrial revolution unique is the apparent dependency upon the digital technology. It dehumanises us, our lives become dependent upon the machine.  Not all of us want that future but it looks like the jackboot is on the other foot.

This is clearly moving towards an urban and rural divide. Governments are fueling the push for intensive urban housing, smart cities and centralising industry. Goodbye Transition Towns. The use of digital tech is ideally suited to environments that are urban or broad acre rural. This is even happening in the less developed countries at the hand of interfering oligarchs. The acquisition of land for inefficient mono culture food production requires people in the cities to be spoon fed.

We have the opportunity for a reset of a different kind to that proposed by those supporters of corporate centralised governance.

We still have the opportunity to strengthen our local economies by a grass roots movement which already exists. Localisation is the antithesis of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

By owning our food systems, our communities grow strong, resilient and independent.

Localisation is not about nationalism or austerity or going without technology or digital. It is about using time wisely, spending and relying on the digital less. Get closer to nature.

Local is about your place and it puts power back to the regional democratically elected councils. Work from home.

It encourages local business that are compatible with the people who live there. It encourages diversity, accountability, honesty and transparency. Support the smaller independent businesses and your local food growers.

By reducing unnecessary consumerism we reduce the scale of the economy, and the power of the corporations and the banks. Local eliminates redundant trade and reduces rampant consumerism. This way we halt the erosion of democracy.    

We cannot un see what we have seen, and we have seen that things are not ok in the world of globalisation controlled by corporations and their client governments.

You have the power to strengthen your local more resilient way of life. It’s been done before.

References and relevant sites of interest:

https://www.callaghaninnovation.govt.nz/industry-4

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/465051/call-for-review-of-genetically-modified-tech-regulation-in-nz

https://www.productivity.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Final-report-Frontier-firms.pdf

https://brownstone.org/articles/16-studies-on-vaccine-efficacy/

• https://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/What-Really-Happened-Wuhan-Sharri-Markson/9781460760925?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4OybBhCzARIsAIcfn9lmre9o-ox889ONRmbFL1Rug2sKPgMQgjeuNX0FkfrFxPe0AC4GV64aAkdPEALw_wcB

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35156705/

https://nzdsos.com/2022/08/07/covid-19-childhood-vaccination/

https://www.weforum.org/topics/climate-change

https://www.agresearch.co.nz/about/our-land-and-water/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/30/climate-change-anxiety-is-real-expert-advice-on-what-to-do-about-it.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/15/bill-gates-nuclear-company-terrapower-raises-750-million.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bill-gates-should-stop-telling-africans-what-kind-of-agriculture-africans-need1/

https://theecologist.org/2020/aug/14/gates-failing-green-revolution-africa

https://regenerationinternational.org/2021/04/05/vandana-shiva-bill-gates-empires-must-be-dismantled/

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2206/S00029/will-nz-really-miss-out-by-not-adopting-ge-technology.htm

https://www.act.org.nz/press-releases/government-s-review-of-ge-falls-short-a

https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1996/0030/latest/DLM381222.html

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rfk-jr-interviews-vandana-shiva-gates-empire/

https://www.localfutures.org/learn-take-action/learning-guides/learn-big-picture-activism/

https://www.localfutures.org/films/planet-local-a-quiet-revolution/

https://www.localfutures.org/learn-take-action/learning-guides/localization-is-it-the-solution/

https://www.youtube.com/@thispivotalmoment1616