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The Daily Mail has never been found of progress, change or modernity. It especially abhors change or progress where food production is concerned. The Mail has successfully linked GM crops to ‘genocide’ and Frankenstein, whilst factory farming chickens has been linked to superbugs and ‘deadly poisoning bugs’; they have even magnificently reported that ‘factory farm tigers [are] being turned into wine’. However, as the Mail is a vast ocean of contradictions so they have also reported that the ‘poison bug’ is more likely to be found in organic chickens, and a GM ‘purple “super tomato”’ can actually fight against cancer. It is never boring in Mail world, but it is repetitive.
Take today’s Mail, for example, reporting on the Thanet Earth development that is essentially a giant greenhouse that can grow salad crops all year round – using water to provide nutrients to the plants instead of soil. Naturally the Mail judges this project as being bad, so the headline appropriately picks up the Frankenstein food theme that is regularly applied to any food growing technique not carried out by one hard-working British man in his allotment or cottage country garden: Frankenfarm food on sale: British fruit and veg grown without soil - all year round. The article starts: You've heard of the factory chicken. Now the factory fruit and veg have arrived. Grown in their millions in nothing but water inside greenhouses large enough to house ten football pitches each, they are as far as you can get from 'natural' homegrown food. You've heard of the factory chicken. Now meet the factory vegetable. Grown in their millions in trays of nutrient-enriched water inside a heated, artificially-lit greenhouse large enough to house ten football pitches, they are as far as you can get from 'natural' home-grown food. Cue recycled images, quotations and underlying sense that this is something rather negative. The Guardian also reported this in 2008, seems the only reason for running this news story is that the products are now starting to be produced. Nevertheless the author of today’s article does make a vague effort to earn his money, he has removed some of the overtly negative tirades from the original article (although he has, of course, made the headline far more negative), including: At a time when people are increasingly concerned about industrial-scale farming, this latest, monumental step in the steady, insidious creep of factory farming is a controversial one. And subtly changes the accusatory tone to come not from the mouth of the Mail, but the mouth of an ‘expert’: But Ben Raskin, from the Soil Association, said: 'Soil contains billions of organisms, many of which we don't even know about, which create complex sets of relationships. 'I suspect if you tried to survive purely on hydroponically grown food, you'd quickly find your body wasn't getting everything it needs.' Sorry, rewind a second, for a minute there I thought Ben Raskin was plucking a personal suspicion out of thin air to imply that these foods are somehow unnatural and not good for you. Why would Ben Raskin want to do this? Surely a project in Britain, producing British fruit and veg, reducing the need for imported food, is a good thing. Perhaps it is not a good thing if you are, like Ben, ‘passionate about inspiring a new generation of organic farmers and growers… through the Soil Association Organic Apprenticeship Scheme’. I imagine Ben would probably also describe hydroponically grown food as 'competition'. Some credit is due to the Mail readers pointing out the negative tone of the article, and the standard Mail technique of appealing to someone who sounds like an authority on the matter, but isn't: Trust the Maul to knock this. Is it because it's being done in this country?
Click to rate Rating 3 - anglicus, England, 4/3/2009 0:35 What an excellent project. However these projects only ever get hampered by idiots like Ben Raskin 'I suspect if you tried to survive purely on hydroponically grown food, you'd quickly find your body wasn't getting everything it needs.' Ok Mr Raskin, your argument is purely speculative. Im pretty sure Tesco and the companies and countries that have been doing this for years have had to go through the proper channels to make sure this food is fit for human consumption. Britian being a net importer of food can now start to claw back some of its previous trade revenue and, as has been in the news lately, this kind of scheme can mean more jobs in THIS country instead of the countries we are importing from! Also this same kind of system can be used to grow things like bananas that would otherwise have to travel thousands of miles because they cant be grown here, also reducing 'sweatshop' type cheap labour. Something the greenies and fair trade crowd cant argue against.
Click to rate Rating 20 - Rob, Kent, 4/3/2009 6:09 Silly of you to pander to the organic people by callining these vegetables Frankenfoods. Anyway this is a scarmongering term that they use to denigrate GM food, Hydroponics is at least 100 years old having been started by Victorian horticulturists.The very last sentence of the piece is total rubbish,pure superstition.
Click to rate Rating 16 - Edward Welsh, Lampeter Wales, 4/3/2009 6:11 Still, the repetition of an old article simply to imply once again that growing food this way is somehow unnatural and must therefore deprive you of natural goodness is representative of the way the Mail recycles scare stories to keep their readers on edge and in fear of every plate of food put in front of them. The Mail do not seem to see the irony that their industrial production of ‘news’ creates stories that are unnaturally modified, ‘enhanced’ and most definitely not full of natural goodness. |
