The fake food industry wants people to believe that products produced with precision fermentation are no different from other fermented foods, like kimchi and yogurt. But what they fail to disclose is that the most often used organism in precision fermentation is the common bacteria E. coli.

The E. coli is likely creating any number of non-targeted metabolites that have completely unknown environmental consequences. The waste products created by natural fermentation are non-hazardous and actually edible and beneficial in many cases. It also is compostable and not a biohazard.

In contrast, the biowaste from GE synthetic biology fermentation products can’t go into a landfill. Because this has been going on for decades, the laws are already in place to allow these products to bypass any safety testing, as they’ve been labled as biologically equivalent to real food.

I recommend staying as far away from fake food as you can and focusing on foundational human nutrition. This is what will get us through The Great Reset.

Other speakers in the symposium included Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director for the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), who summed up the evidence that food from real farms is being replaced with fake food. From Haiti and Sri Lanka to Indonesia, Holland and Canada, “the story is the same.”

Corporate interests with global trade prerogatives collaborate with government, the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, which offered debt relief in the form of grants or low-interest loans to countries collapsing economically during the pandemic, but with strings attached.

“They drive the family farmers off of their land and into the city,” Baden-Mayer said.

Benjamin Dobson, who spoke about the history of incursions on small farms, noted that independent farmers and people who grow herbal medicines are a threat to a centralised economic system. Seneff shared how the use of chemicals like glyphosate is also threatening the future of food.

The amount of glyphosate used annually in the US is equivalent to one pound for every man, woman and child, she said. It’s the most used herbicide on the planet.

While it’s common on GMOs, she pointed out that the highest residues are showing up in non-GMO foods such as wheat, oats, barley and rye, because it’s used as a desiccant, or drying agent, on these crops right before harvest.

Glyphosate inhibits the shikimate pathway, which is involved in the synthesis of the essential aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan. Seneff used Florida manatees as an example of glyphosate’s toxicity. The chemical is ubiquitous in the state’s waterways, particularly during the sugar cane harvest.

Manatees have increased body burdens of glyphosate and have become sick, plus they’re starving because seagrass is dying off in the waterways’ disturbed ecosystems. However, there are 60 million small and medium farms that could become certified organic if it weren’t for all the regulatory hurdles in place.

“If you look at the amount of farmland and the amount of food that these people are producing, it’s substantial. The global food market is about $10 trillion, but it’s estimated that a good $1.5 trillion of that is being produced in an organic or nearly organic manner,” he says.

Since many organic farmers are able to find and flourish with local markets, this is one strategy to keep afloat.

Meanwhile, food sovereignty naturally leads to complete ecosystems that support human and planetary health, according to Mark Fulford, an independent farmer and farm consultant. He advocates for independent food hubs, which cut out the middle man, and using strategies like reading the landscape, using fungal or bacterial composts and embracing bees and other pollinators.

Dr John Day shares how to prepare a kitchen garden that’s as close to your kitchen as possible. He recommends choosing a spot that’s at least 400 square feet and 20 feet away from trees, because their roots will take the water from your garden.

Southern exposure is ideal to get adequate light for your plants. “During hard times, and for food security, having your own vegetable garden and already knowing how to work it is really helpful.”

Beverly Johannson, another gardener, advocates for no-dig gardening, another strategy you can use to grow vegetables. When you till the land, it stimulates the earth to initiate repairs, which it does by increasing weed growth.

Tilling also destroys vital microbes and fungal mycelium, which helps to mobilise nutrients in the soil. With a no-dig garden, you’ll experience fewer weeds, higher yields and healthier plants, with less watering.

She points out that storage is a key element of gardening, as you’ll want produce not only during the growing season but during the winter as well. Johannson has a root cellar where potatoes and other root vegetables are stored and another area for winter squash and onions, so she has access to fresh food year-round.

The final session deals with societal solutions to fight back against the war on food. US Representative Thomas Massie highlighted the vulnerabilities in the US food supply, which fell apart during the pandemic when farmers had to euthanise animals because they couldn’t get them processed.

Four meatpackers control 85 per cent of the meat that’s processed in the US. One of them is owned by China, one by Brazil and the other two are multinational corporations. Food prices are going up while farmers are going broke.

Massie introduced the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act, which would allow farmers to sell meat processed at smaller slaughtering facilities and allow states to set their own meat processing standards.

Because small slaughterhouses do not have an inspector on staff – a requirement that only large facilities can easily fulfill – they’re banned from selling their meat. The PRIME Act would lift this regulation without sacrificing safety, as random US Department of Agriculture inspections could still occur.

“If a farmer wants to sell pork, beef or lamb to a consumer, as long as that consumer and that farmer and that processor are all in the same state, they’re not crossing state lines, they keep the federal government out of that transaction,” he says. He’s also introduced legislation to protect access to raw milk, which he calls fresh milk.

Ultimately, the answer to food safety and security lies in a decentralised food system that connects communities with farmers growing real food sustainably and distributing it locally.

• The Defender report / By Dr Joseph Mercola, reporter for The Defender