At first glance, Giuseppe Oglio's farm near Milan looks like it's suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop.
Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming techniques -- chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery -- in favor of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological, he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be replicated in starving regions of the globe.
Nearly 5,000 miles away, in laboratories in St. Louis, Missouri, hundreds of scientists at the world's biggest seed company, Monsanto, also want to feed the world, only their tools of choice are laser beams and petri dishes.
Monsanto, a leader in agricultural biotechnology, spends about $2 million a day on scientific research that aims to improve on Mother Nature, and is positioning itself as a key player in the fight against hunger.
The Italian farmer and the U.S. multinational represent the two extremes in an increasingly acrimonious debate over the future of food.
Everybody wants to end hunger, but just how to do so is a divisive question that pits environmentalists against anti-poverty campaigners, big business against consumers and rich countries against poor.
After bountiful Thanksgiving repasts in the U.S., we might want to talk about food today. This article is a special feature that is timely reading for all eaters.
Actually food is not a given for any of us. All it takes is for a few unfortunate events to happen all at once, and any of us could be without something to eat. We know also that our food supply is less safe over the past few years.
Thanksgiving seems to be the one time of the year when hunger is on our minds. This is follow up to that impulse.
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