I just got back from a spending some time in France, and I was amazed at the way they go about agriculture. I should say, my amazement was not due to great technologies or innovative methods, but merely farming in a sustainable way.

First of all, cattle and other livestock are grazed on grass, not chained to a feeding trough where they are forced to eat genetically engineered corn. Below is a picture of my mother, Rebecca Tunnacliffe, chatting with a herd of curious cattle.

Second of all, the fields are small, and largely organic. In the areas I visited, including Burgundy and the Rhone, villages are only a few kilometers apart, and are generally agriculturally based. Farmers will have their own plot or plots of land, on which they grow a variety of crops or graze animals. It was such an extreme contrast to the mega-agribusiness I am used to seeing here in Canada.

Finally, last fall France banned GE crops. It was such a relief to be able to enjoy a meal or go shopping without having to worry about whether there were any GE ingredients.

One might assume that without the use of modern farming technology, France would not be a productive agricultural country, however, France is the largest agricultural producer in Europe! I think it is time to learn a lesson from the French: relax, enjoy food and wine, and adopt small, village based farm economies free from GE crops.

After repeated frustrations with spammers, I have decided to temporarily give up on maintaining the forum. At first the spam load was manageable, with only 3-5 new spam registrations, and half a dozen or so spam posts per day (mostly graphic pornography and generic meds). The last time I logged on, there were over 400 new posts, all spam, and more than half of the members on the message board were spammers, so I decided to call it quits.

Sorry to all of those who have posted, or wanted to post. At some time in the future I will start it again.