HPS200H1 Lecture Notes - Life-Cycle Assessment, Food Miles, Mercatus Center
16 Mar 2014
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Without human manipulation of nature, it is exceptionally unlikely (a probability approaching 0) that we would have anything remotely close to the contemporary tomato. The same is true of cattle, goats and other agricultural animals; they have all been domesticated by humans (shaped by arti cial selection) for human purposes. Not that different in overall structure but its trait characteristics--those that are useful for agriculture--are vastly changed/selected. No organic farmer would take these human superseding of natural processes to be a reason to avoid growing the selected potatoes. They aren"t going to want to turn their back on the available stock of farm animals and plants today--they are going to be planting things that are not natural in the primordial sense. Emphasis not placed on wholly naturalness, but on molecular manipulation-- selecting for is not a focus. If an organic farmer did, the acceptable plants and animals for farming would be near zero.
