L'appeal by the great French chefs against the invasion of agrochemicals on our plates

The site of gastronomic news Atabula publishes an open letter against the invasion of agrochemicals on our plates, following the announced merger between Bayer and Monsanto. A hundred or so great French chefs such as Yannick Alléno, Olivier Roellinger, Mauro Colagreco or Michel and Sébastien Bras denounce "this danger for our plates".

What is good food? "Eating well" does not mean first of all taking and understanding in itself, but learning and giving to eat, learn-to-get-to-eat-to others. We never eat alone, that's the rule of "you have to eat well". It is a law of infinite hospitality [...]. It says the law, the need or desire [...], the'orexis...hunger and thirst ..., respect for the other at the very moment when, in experiencing him or her ... we must begin to identify with him or her, to assimilate him or her, to internalize him or her, to understand him or her ideally ..., to speak to him or her in words that also pass through the mouth, the ear and the sight .... Sublime refinement in the respect of the other is also a way of "eating well" or "eating it right". The Good is also eaten. It must be eaten well. »

Jacques Derrida, "Il faut bien manger" or the calculation of the subject, Points of suspension

« Lhe takeover of the American group Monsanto by Germany's Bayer in September 2016 cannot leave catering professionals indifferent. With this acquisition, this new mastodon of seeds and pesticides has one ambition: to control the entire food chain, from the land where the seed grows to the consumer's plate. Such a company has only one ambition: to increase its activities, and therefore its profits, on all continents, with no regard for biodiversity and the health of populations. Although the European Union has shown concern following this rapprochement, citizens cannot be content to watch chemistry fill their plates.

Ardent defenders of good food, committed on a daily basis to promoting good products and small producers, catering professionals want to remind us of their attachment to a few fundamental values: support for biodiversity, respect for the environment and consumer health.

This agrochemical rapprochement constitutes a danger for our plates, but it is also a source of concern for peasants and farmers who see their freedom to plant and cultivate this or that seed being limited. Tomorrow, because of GMOs, Roundup and the various chemical products coming out of factories, cultural and cultural diversity will no longer exist. Living nature will be nothing more than a marketed product, transformed, mutated in the service of a Leviathan.

It is necessary for chefs and all those involved in the catering industry to speak out and publicly express their concerns: without a healthy, quality product, without cultural diversity, the cook can no longer express his creative talent. He is no longer able to do his job the way he likes it and pass it on with passion. As for the peasant and the farmer, they are transformed into simple executors of a great agrochemical whole that surpasses them: workers in the pay of a stateless company, out of the soil.

This Open Letter against the invasion of agrochemicals on our plates is a call for responsibility and collective awareness. Major stakes for our food are currently at stake. No, the nature, diversity and quality of our food must not be put under the liberticidal steamroller of the Bayer-Monsanto Group. »

At the origin of this open letter, the founder and editor-in-chief of Atabula, Franck Pinay-Rabaroust, was delighted with the rapid response of the leaders he had requested: "Today they have media visibility, a weight, a speech to give", said the journalist, a former editor for the Michelin guide.

Corine Pelluchon in her book "Les nourritures" invites us to take into consideration the conditions of our existence, and therefore to think about what we live and who we are: "Life in the world of food is enjoyment..."...characterizing our way of being in all areas of life. "The way I consume food affects other people. More fundamentally, my relationship to food is itself, an ethical position in life.".

And Nietzsche linked "the question of diet" to the destiny of humanity...

Monsanto Court International mobilization of civil society to try Monsanto for crimes against humanity and ecocide. It will be held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from 14 to 16 October 2016.