Caught in the World Wide Web: The Post-Organic World

Firstly, I’d like to thank you all for your well wishes and kind words and support as always. Jinksee is doing well and Sammy and I are taking better care of ourselves than ever (now we just have to balance that with working as hard as we do when we don’t care for ourselves but I digress already).

Anyhow! If you like my stuff, you’re in for a real treat. If you think I’m a crazed conspiracy nut well this certainly isn’t the one for you… or maybe it is! Ya’ll better strap in, as usual I don’t know where I’m starting but I do have an idea where I am going…

Ever since I heard the term “world wide web” my immediate reaction is “who is/ are the spider/s and what is the web meant to catch?” Well, what if that web wasn’t just on the computer and your smart phone but everywhere all the time? What if you couldn’t unplug? Could there ever be a world where it was illegal or severely discouraged to be unplugged? What does this have to do with nanofood farmer Zac?

Basically my whole thesis is a centralized group of un-elected officials are steering culture via corporations, politics, marketing, and coercion to move us to a post organic world (if you haven’t noticed). So I came across this here article about some nerd who thinks he is an innovator because he is doing hydroponic growing while artificial intelligence runs his business. Wow, who else would have thought of that one ChatGPT nice job. So, growing indoors totally removed from nature is “post-organic” and somehow better than growing naturally? According to this dweeb, yes.

I don’t have a problem with his argument other than that whenever you see anyone pointing out the flaws of agriculture, it’s always the giant commercial farms… mainly because that’s mostly what there are. But your local small farmer isn’t transporting gas-ripened fruit. And if you want out of season produce preserve that from your locally farm, otherwise it’s coming from a far away processing plant and how is that different from a transported tomato? Let’s see though, what belief has the demand for organic growing?

Well shoot I agree with Mr. AI farmer again. Those large-scale farms do be spraying a lot. And you already know if you’re a reader of mine that USDA couldn’t care less about nutritional content. So what solution did this guy have AI generated for him?

Of course it’s about marketing and avoiding all of those annoying variables of the natural world, yuck. That gross soil with all of it’s pathogens and that air we all breathe… gross. Which reminds me of this point I once made about how natural farming will one day be demonized…

But this isn’t about us. This is about staying human. Go on Mr. Automatic Lights…

Honestly I was just being a jerk getting to this here point right here mhmm… What in the habadasheries does IoT mean? (Just a heads up, I am very excited to share this with you and have 17 more references to get into so like I said, strap in if you’re down, if not sorry in advance)

The internet of things you say… well there sure are a lot of things aren’t there? Like, your whole house?

Could you ever imagine feeling safe or having conveniences without being able to connect your whole world of inanimate objects to artificial intelligence!? What could go wrong!? (insert campy horror flick of all the things becoming sentient). Where was I? Oh, right… everything gets connected! You get connected! You get connected! Everybody gets connected! You mean thing? No! Everybody!

Internet of bodies? Sounds like some crazy rave… do we dare dive a bit?

Naturally, for your safety and convenience we’d like to insert these biosensors to monitor your health. We definitely won’t be selling your biometric data with our corporate sponsors as you interact with their content on your smart device… what would give you that idea?

So they use nanomaterials to create biosensors. Any reason not to?

Toxic effects you say? Well at least they aren’t using nanoparticles often…

Okay so, they are encouraging us to put products full of nanoparticles all over our skin… which seems to be the dermal route that could lead to potential toxic build up? What well surely they aren’t using nanoparticles in the food supply to be ingested directly though…

From: Nanotechnology offers small food for thought at https://www.theguardian.com/what-is-nano/nanotechnology-small-food-for-thought (Used this couldn’t screen shot: https://www.removepaywall.com/ )

“Nanomaterials are already part of our diet and the vast majority are naturally occurring. But should 'artificial' nanoparticles be added to our foodstuffs?”

“Imagine a humble grain of rice. Shrink it down a thousand times, and it becomes the size of a human skin cell. Shrink it a thousand times more, and you arrive at the nanoscale, where matter is measured in billionths of a metre.

Over the past three decades, scientists have developed a plethora of techniques that allow them to design and build structures at the nanoscale. Now they are applying these to our food.

Nanoparticles could smuggle vitamins into our daily diet, help deliver medicines where they are needed in the body, or even help to reduce food waste. "The possibilities seem endless," says Jeffrey Card, a toxicology expert at Intertek, a multinational safety consultancy that works extensively in the nanotech area. "Think of nanoscale filters to remove bacteria from milk and other beverages without boiling," he says, "or nanosensors to detect and alert consumers to pathogens or spoiled food."

"Some groups are even attempting 'molecular food manufacturing'," he adds. That involves creating food from its basic atomic components – carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on – without the need for soil, seed or animals.”

So, we are indeed being fed nanomaterials in fact for decades now. But what I find most interesting, just like that computer nerd, these nano-nerds want to produce food without soil.

This is a great website (above) that helps you to search for what products may contain certain nano materials if you have any concerns about that.

Indeed, there are many naturally occurring compounds that are of the scale to be considered nanomaterials or nanoparticles, however they don’t typically improve connectivity to the internet…

So what are the benefits? Obviously we are very concerned about how dirty soil is, and how dangerous the air is so that’s great we can now test for contaminants because we could never do that before…

Right right packaging that changes color when spoiled or contaminated got that one but a drink that you decide the color and flavor and texture? What is this quantum physics? My concern with all of this isn’t so much the fact that we have no idea how these nanomaterials affect us as much as the more these science nerds get involved with capitalizing off of the food system the further from nature our food becomes and the fewer people there are that are able to afford to manipulate reality to produce “food” molecule by molecule.

So… about that whole… internet of things… thing?

Naturally we are concerned about the security risks of connecting everything to the internet, but we really want to spy on everyone and everything so…

Internet of Nano-Things? We have learned that they can fit these devices pretty much anywhere, unknowingly to consumers.

From this little blip I get many red flags. Could these nanosensors become mandatory on farms for food safety? This article is referring to wearable sensors on plants but goes on to talk about concerns over accumulation and other concerns. Now, are these sensors going to be genetically inserted into these plants eventually? Is the “immunological response" and “accumulation” concerns referring to the plants response, or those consuming the plants, or the environment after it is covered in human engineered nanomaterials?

Are we heading toward a world where there is no escape from genetically modified, molecularly manufactured, internet connected, data collecting devices even potentially in the food system? Will we be using nanotechnology to connect ourselves to the internet of bodies to be under scrutiny of our health and consumption status? Will it be worth it to be able to think the lights on to lose all privacy? Will the world be a sustainable place when there are no farms or farmers, just buildings with AI technology turning on and off lights and injecting artificial fertility but hey! they didn’t spray it with pesticides! I’ll leave you with something from an old blog post of mine:

Edit: Adding this video below (which is 4 years old) from CISO Global.

“CISO Global is an industry leader in Managed Compliance and Cybersecurity (MCCP) services with its exclusive MCCP+ managed compliance and cybersecurity services plus culture program. The company is rapidly expanding by acquiring world-class cybersecurity, secured managed services, and compliance companies with top-tier talent that utilize the latest technology to create innovative solutions to protect the most demanding businesses and government organizations against continuing and emerging security threats and compliance obligations. At CISO Global, cybersecurity is a culture, not a product.”

The relevance of this video could not be overstated.

Well, that was interesting. Now see how far they’ve come in 4 years with this video below:

Take Care

Taking a break from my normal ranting to get serious with you all. If you or anyone you know is having mental health worries, touch base, reach out, know that you have people and know that you’re someone’s people. Both of us have had our ups and down in life, and lately we have been down as many of you close to us have been aware. It has been a rough season for a myriad of reasons, most of which unrelated to the everyday aspects of farming. We want you to know if you’re struggling, you are not alone. And if you are struggling, you need to let your people know. And if you are in a good position, and feeling good, the best thing you can do is check in on your people. Use your positive position and strength to lift up others. One of my favorite things is to be there for my people, and all of you are my people. So if any of you have some struggles, we are here for you in strength and weakness. We can relate and are more than willing to lend you an ear and we can all lift each other up.

As the world continues to speed up, and the demands and responsibilities grow, it is important that we keep our human. We are all in this together, with our feelings and opinions and environmental influences. No one can know what another is going through, and it’s best to be understanding and give people the benefit of the doubt. Most people are good and hard working, and sometimes they have some stuff going on that throws them off their game.

It has been difficult for us to make the decision to miss market when we have, and it is something we never want to do. After a long week of working in the field and only seeing the unending chores, the weeds, the mowing, the things unfinished, seeing our tables of vegetables reminds us we are actually doing somethings. But frankly, seeing you all and hearing your words of gratitude and encouragement help us get through another week and not having that is worse than not making money. Even harder than both of those is feeling like we have let you all down who have shown up by not being there. But believe me, we want nothing more than to be soaking in your love and sharing our bounty with you, that is all we want to do.

This season we had enough physical and mental stressors to finally decide if we are in farming for the long haul we need to take care of ourselves first or we won’t be able to take care of the farm. We hope that you can find that putting yourself first can help you to better take care of those around you, maybe before you burn yourself out like we tend to do.

Fear not. For your farmers have been through many trails and tribulations. And we are blessed to have each other and our marriage. Blessed to have our aging dog for little longer. Blessed to have you guys. And we are only going to get stronger and better prepared to deal with the difficulties of life.

You aren’t alone. Check in with your people. Most importantly, take care of yourself.

1 CORINTHIANS 3:7 KJV "So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase."