One of my passions is farming, I know it sounds a little weird, but I’m a little weird too. Ever since I was in grade 2 or 3, I have wanted to be a farmer, and be in the military, like I said, I am a weird kid. Farming is special to me because I have grown up with a garden in the back, and my mom always coming up with ways to fit more plants in our backyard, and me helping her. There is something special about eating only food you have grown, and being completely self sufficient in that kind of way, I don’t think you can get that with anything else. And watching something grow, that you planted, and then getting to pick it and eat it, it will always taste better then if someone else planted it, your hard work finally pays off. I am passionate about organic farming, farming without the complications and extra chemicals cluttering it up. Food wasn’t originally made with these chemicals, so why d we add them? The answer is complicated. First we have to understand what are pesticides, and what makes something GMO. something categorized as GMO, contains Genetically Modified Organisms, what that means is scientists can change the DNA makeup of a certain organism, giving it benefits from other organisms to help it do better in its environment, kind of like giving it superpowers, but its not all good. Changing how something is made is complicated, its not always going to go right, when you add something from another plant to the plant you are trying to improve, making it bigger, prettier, look more perfect, hardier, etc.. Those new added parts can contain allergens that people wouldn’t think would be in it, making it difficult for people to find what they can and cannot eat. So after improving the DNA of lets say, corn, now the seed is changed, but its still not good enough. Next they add insecticides and pesticides to help it grow without having to worry about insects and pest destroying your crop. But these chemicals are used to kill of the pests, they weren’t made to be eaten by humans, that not their purpose. Having the chemicals sprayed on the food, put into the soil and however else they can put it in, the plant is now covered in chemicals that have the potential to be hazardous. In addition to all this, the water that goes through the soil is now contaminated by the chemicals, spreading the pesticides to places that they aren’t supposed to be, lakes, rivers, water supplies, other peoples soils. You just cant contain it anymore. But if you think of it from a large scale farmer, they have to produce lots of food, all the time, they grow large quantities of the same thing. On farmer might grow only potatoes, one might grow only peaches. There is another problem with this other them the GMO problem. Have you ever seen a rainforest with only one kind of tree, and regulated animals going in and out? The answer is no, everything in the environment works together, that why its such a big deal when one species goes extinct, everything suffers. picture it like everything is a gear, they are all connected, turn one and everyone turns. that like an eco system. there is variety. You need that in order for an eco system to flourish, you need things that have deep roots, shallow roots, medium roots so that each part goes to different parts of the soil. You need things that help with everything, because every plant does and helps with something different. When you have biodiversity you have lots of insects, organisms, the things you cant see, all of these things aren’t there when you only grow one crop, it exhausts the soil, and nothing goes back into the earth, then they add more chemicals because their crop isn’t growing as fast as it used to and it becomes cycle that’s hard to break, it takes years to do, lots of money and patience and time, and these large crop farmers don’t have the time or want to do it. why should they? Life is going well for them in the moment, as long as they meet the supply demands, why does it matter? Just to sum all this up because its pretty long, there are a ton of different reasons why farmers use pesticides and insecticides, and Genetically Modified Organisms. But most of them connect back to time, convenience, and money. Why work harder when you can work smarter? But for how long is that working smarter? And for how much longer can the earth take it? It seems not that long, and we need to break the cycle.