When renowned author and environmental activist Vandana Shiva writes about ‘Mad Cows and Sacred Cows’ she makes a compelling case against the trade policies of the global cattle industry. That cows are sacred in Indian culture almost goes without saying, but few consider the practical, economic and environmental uses of cattle – especially on poor and rural communities.

Besides providing milk, skins and hides, eighty million cattle meet two-thirds of the energy needs of Indian villages from cattle-dung fuel.

“Indian cattle can produce more food than they consume,” she says. This is particularly striking in contrast to the US cattle industry – which feeds its cattle 6 times more food than they produce.

MAD COW DISEASE (BSE) is a brain-destroying illness which was created as a direct result of the cattle industry’s factory farming techniques.

Cows are essential to maintaining the fertility of the earth and they are an important chain in the biological sustainability of global agriculture. This highly efficient system is being altered for the sake of corporate profit. Shiva laments the exportation of cattle along with the ‘green revolution’ and other wasteful practices. To replace the energy and fertility cows provide for free India must import more fertilizer, fossil fuels, tractors, trucks and other equipment.

Dr. Shiva claims that the slaughter of increasing numbers of Indian cows for export is creating more poverty than wealth. In addition, because so many cows are being exported for meat, less dung is available for manure and fuel. This kind of exploitation results in a loss of the vast nation‘s wealth, a loss of livelihood for millions of people, and the permanent loss of the self-sustaining environment.

She points out that when it comes to food production, the proponents of globalization ignore both the context and consequences of their actions. They continuously argue for modernization – more, bigger, faster – without any concern for what if anything is left behind.

This argument transcends mere economics to encompass moral values, justice and ethics. Trying to instill a meat-eating culture in India is wrong economically, ecologically and spiritually. Shiva writes: “The world of Indian agriculture has built its sustainability on the integrity of the cow, considering her inviolable and sacred…[meat production] leads to non-sustainability, violence to animals and lower productivity when all systems are assessed.”

The creation and use of GMOs is a dangerous and short-sighted development in the US Biochemical industry’s profoundly immoral attempts to control the global food supply. Controlling the population’s food and water is the latest method which the global elite use to inhibit the lives of billions of people; all for the sake of ‘modernization.’

The granting of patents for food is a crime against humanity and must be stopped. GMOs are an affront to all that is decent and right in the world, and any global body which sees fit to condone these crimes – WTO, GATT, IMF – should be immediately dismantled. Monsanto’s “terminator” seeds only grow for one season and then they die, forcing the farmer to purchase more seeds each year – when they used to be free.

Shiva points out that these patents are being granted illegally and this amounts to global piracy. Farmers are being turned into criminals simply for exchanging seeds.

There are unknown consequences and possibilities for unwanted mutations in genetically altered organisms. We are probably just beginning to see the results.