Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Why Do People Hate Monsanto?

Monsanto - Crown Prince of the New Robber Barons

We keep hearing an old story that should have died years ago: An organic farmer invites his children’s city cousins to visit. After the urban kids reveal that they eat McDonalds French fries twice a day, the farmer decides to experiment by having his own kids lay down in a field next to the city kids. After awhile, the farm kids are swatting away potato beetles but not single beetle comes near their city cousins.
True believers of this story are aware of some little known history. In the 1990’s, Monsanto released a “new leaf” potato genetically engineered with enough Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to repel potato beetles. McDonalds bought new leaf potatoes for its fries. No studies were ever done on the long term effects on people who consumed large quantities of such potatoes. We have never met any such storytellers who could identify an actual farmer who performed this test, so the story was always probably apocryphal. It’s undoubtedly so today because the new leaf potato never gained more than a five per cent share of the market, McDonalds quit buying them back in 2000 and Monsanto retired them soon afterwards.
The story lives on though because it incorporates the main ingredients of an urban (rural) legend - a worrisome hypothesis, an entertaining application and a logical conclusion. Therefore, it keeps finding new tellers among the growing tribe of those who are suspicious of industrial agriculture and all it represents.
Monsanto is the new Standard Oil, the corporation that typifies today the same relentless dominance of its industry that John D. Rockefeller’s company did in the Gilded Age. Like the old robber barons, Monsanto has successfully enlisted government support that helped them privatize profits while socializing the real costs of their products through subsidies, write-offs (of health and environmental damage) and ruthless stifling of both dissent and competition. Because both Monsanto and Standard Oil extracted the raw materials of their new technologies from the earth, with only a secondary regard for sustainability, they have been equally vilified by conservationists, naturalists and anyone who ever got in the way of their will.
In historical hindsight, it’s hard to hate Standard Oil. Few of us would choose to return to the days of whale oil lighting, steam engine transportation and pre-plastic economies. Though civilization might have found its way through the 20th century without Rockefeller’s indomitable guidance, it surely would not have done so as quickly or brightly. If governments turned their eyes away from the tactics of the old robbers barons it was because they had sold themselves as agents of a future prosperity that would trickle down to all. Monsanto similarly enjoys a privileged access through revolving doors of government because they have sold themselves as agents for universal prosperity.

Probably another hundred years will tell for sure but Monsanto has already convinced their farmer customers that they are “feeding the world” through higher yields, “saving the environment” with reduced use of pesticides and, lately, “promoting sustainability” by using seeds that are genetically modified to require less water. (That latter message has particularly irked the audience of National Public Radio where it’s been played via Monsanto sponsorship announcements.) On paper, those sound like reasonable endorsements for Monsanto’s technological innovations. Yet, that company has alienated so many people that it’s hard to find folks within the organic community who don’t believe Monsanto’s claims are disingenuous. How on earth did they manage to do that? Let’s begin to count the ways.
1. Impudently patenting mother earth. Monsanto, more than any other company, appropriated the concept of intellectual property rights to control farmers. To purchase their genetically modified seeds, a farmer must sign an “end-user agreement” that limits what he can do with them. Agreements are considered necessary to protect intellectual property, justifiably precluding replications that make the seeds unique. However, Monsanto and their ilk also explicitly forbid the use of the seeds for independent research. Scientists can be sued if they examine whether such genetically modified crops lead to unintended environmental side effects. Thus the only research that ever gets published in peer-reviewed journals is that approved by industrial seed companies. According the Scientific American, “In a number of cases, experiments that had the implicit go-ahead from the seed company were later blocked from publication because the results were not flattering.”

2. Bullying law suits. Monsanto’s lawyers spent a decade tracking down farmers who might have saved seeds for replanting, like responsible farmers have done since civilization began. They sued them and broke them. They also sued a number of organic dairy farmers who advertised that their milk came from cows that had not been fed bovine growth stimulants. Monsanto, which owned the most commercially successful such stimulant rBGH, claimed such ads implied there was something wrong with their product. With control over most research, Monsanto almost always won such cases.

3. Sterilizing Mother Earth. In 1998, the infamous US Patent # 5,723,765 threatened to change farming forever by giving Delta & Pine Land Co. rights to a new technology that sterilizes seeds, as well as any other seeds contaminated by them. Named genetic use restriction technology (GURT) and nicknamed The Terminator, it was frightfully unpopular in countries like India where farmers still primarily grow foods with seeds saved from previous crops. Monsanto pledged a moratorium on commercialization of Terminator technology but then it bought Delta & Pine Co. The Terminator would free Monsanto lawyers from hunting down farmers who save their seeds, so their pledge is viewed cynically by many folks.

4. Sterilizing Mother Earth - unless. GURT’s latest form, called reversible transgenic sterility, is nicknamed The Zombie and appears to be Monsanto’s way around its pledge. Whereas Terminator technology produces plants with sterile seeds, Zombie technology requires an annual chemical application (patented and sold by guess whom) to trigger fertility.
5. Bullying the media. Monsanto’s influence has long managed to kill stories unfavorable to the company, That is most famously documented in the movie “The Corporation” and in Jeffrey Smith‘s book “Genetic Roulette and Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods.” Both documented a 1990’s case in which a Fox-affiliated television station in Florida killed a thoroughly researched story about ill effects from milk produced by dairy cows given Monsanto’s rBGH.
6. Blatantly influencing FDA and USDA policy. Revolving doors swing between industry and government agencies all over the world but Monsanto’s manipulation of them has left its critics with jaws agape. Anyone who thought things might change in the Obama Administration was dismayed by this summer’s appointment of Monsanto’s former Vice President for Public Policy as Special Assistant to the FDA Commissioner - for Food Safety. Michael Taylor is credited with ushering Monsanto’s rBGH through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply - unlabeled. He is also regarded as responsible for the FDA’s decision to treat genetically modified organisms as “substantially equivalent” to natural foods and therefore not requiring any safety studies. That “substantially equivalent” ruling allowed the FDA to ignore evidence that genetically engineered foods are in fact quite different from natural foods and pose specific health risks.

With Taylor back in charge of implementing whatever food safety laws Congress might pass, Monsanto’s opponents are growing. They now have an entire line of anti-Monsanto T-shirts (www.zazzle.com/monsanto+tshirts). Most ask people to trust GMO’s based on past performances of products Monsanto would like us to forget - agent orange, P.C.B., aspartame, etc. Our favorite says “Soil is Soul” and “Monsanto deals in dirt.” That’s why many of the others are too dirty for us to print.

28 comments:

  1. bravo for this post! I almost puked up my local organic roasted potatoes when I saw a Monsanto ad in The New Yorker.

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  2. But, these folks, just folks... like you and I, sit down to a meal every night with the products that they believe to be healthy. At their corporate buffets, at their family table, at their factory tables...these products are not seen as unhealthy. Target the science, target the process...we need to see real food back on the American table. But to believe that there is a conscience effort to poison/make unhealthy food for people is simply not true.

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  3. 1) boycott any products connected with monsanto 2)join a seed trader's group so you can get seeds that monsanto doesn't "own" 3) find yourself an old time farmer and buy your food directly from him (a great farmer's market wlll do).
    every dollar that we take out of the industrial food chain hurts monsanto too. let's bring'em down

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  4. Let's bring them down is right-on!!! I grew an organic head of broccoli and harvested this beautiful, deep-green healthy vegetable. It began to wilt within 2 days, so I cooked it and ate it. Delicious. I had another non-organic head of broccoli already in my refrigerator that I allowed to stay there; it did not wilt after a week; it did not wilt after a month; it did not wilt after 3 months! I put it in my compost pile and after 4 MORE months, it was still intact. This is a true story; that head of non-organic, genetically modified, probably irradiated head of broccoli is likely still intact 3 years later, but I've moved so I haven't seen it's "progress" in decay; it did not decay. Monsanto has us by the sack (of potatoes) and we need to collect and save all of the organic seeds we can for a sustainable future. Grow your own and support local farmers, too! Lisa K. Denver, Colorado

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  5. As as farmer's wife even though we do not support some of practices of Monsanto, they are still one of the primary reasons that there is food on the table here in America. You can go buy organic, but what the farmers here in America produce, makes its way into more products than you can imagine. Including fuel for your vehicle. I do not want to get into a pissing contest on this one because everyone has their own opinions, just keep in mind. You hurt Monsanto, and you will be hurting farmers across the nation, and I am proud to call myself one of them. Because of the work my husband and I do, we help feed this nation. Keep in mind, the small people are the ones being hurt, because any cost incurred to the big corporation is passed onto the little people all across the board.

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    1. Non-sense? ...and I'm sure you would know because you're probably a farmer, right? ...or is it because you grow your own food? ...perhaps you have a degree in economics?

      It never ceases to amaze me how the people who know nothing about an occupation or what a company does believe they understand everything because they read some biased bull$*** on the internet written by some sensual tree huggers with liberal arts degrees.

      Since I too grew up on a farm, I can tell you for a fact that there are some agriculture practices, such as chemical fertilizers, that result in substantial yield differences and growth in plants. Go ahead and relate that to steroids, since steroids are seen as inherently bad, and not vitamins which are seen as inherently good, even though either in the wrong doses can be destructively bad for you... the same thing goes for chemical fertilizers.

      Yes, for all of you urbanites who are utterly clueless, crops will died if they are OVER fertilized.

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    2. You help feed this nation poisonous food. Good for you.

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    3. I always wondered why a farmer would chose to buy the seeds form Monsanto instead of just grow heirlooms? You have to pay each year and can't use your own farm's production from the prior year's harvest as seed. Are you saving a lot of money this way? Why is it your choice to do this? I just have wondered... p.s. - i do buy from a local farmer with raw dairy and organic produce. I am a member of their CSA. I support my local farmer who produces as I believe. You know, there might not be an issue with GMO stuff. It could be all internet mumbo-jumbo. But me... I have a right to know if it is GMO before I put it in my mouth. So I can choose to agree that it is lacking in vitamins and full of chemicals and choose not to eat it. Don't get me started about how useless Ethanol is in fuel.

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    4. To: Anonymous farmers wife... Fuck you. You're lucky you and your husband will be dead before this comes crashing down. You think you're smarter than several billions of years of the natural way. We wouldn't be here if we needed genetically modified shit. So again FUCK YOU and FUCK your farm!

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  6. i think monsanto is starting to advertise how wonderful they are now that word is out about how they are slowly killing the planet with their greed. and bullying and suing little farmers- real nice pr! i hope everyone will wake up when they see food inc and fresh!

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  7. Your broccoli reminds me of the Kurt Vonnegutt story about aliens coming to earth 100 years after life was wiped out by nuclear war and wondering "How did the people die, there food hasn't spoiled yet?"

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  8. How then do we not know our "Organic Foods" are not really organic? Especially now that this guy is in control of Food Safety??

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  9. I am so glad that i am not alone facing the challenges of spreading these stories about the corruption of the corprate world and the United States Government! The FDA has gone to far! OUR country is the last to stand (as usual)We must unite and stop this Monster before we all are dead and full of cancer! Vote with your fork! Get Educated or DIE!!!

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  10. I teach in a low income school and have noticed the alarming maturation rates of elementary school students. We have 4th and 5th graders that look like they're on steroids and 2nd graders developing body odor --- all abnormal. Our students eat free lunch and breakfast each school day, and junk foods and fast foods. Without a doubt, they are being fed the worst GM foods. I am so infuriated, it makes me want to take to the streets! I HATE Monsanto and all their "friends" in the corporate world and Washington!

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  11. By not wanting to consume Monsanto products we are not trying to hurt the farmers, but protect our families. My family will always be first. Im sorry the farmer above feels like we are hurting the farmers. Not true, I love fresh vegetables and fruit. I wish that the farmers could maybe find other alternatives to Monsanto. I realize that cost is a big deal, but I want quality,and if that means it goes bad in 2 days then so be it. Ill buy more often in smaller quantities. But in the end im still going to buy quality every chance I get. I also feel that everytime I buy organic, im supporting a farmer! It may be a local farmer, but its still a farmer.

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  12. I can't afford to buy organic. It's simple as that. I can not afford to pay the high prices that food is worth because I am not being paid enough to live on. I subsist on cheap white rice and cheap potatoes and what little I can grow in my own tiny urban yard... but until someone starts paying the minimum-wage workers more than what we are currently getting, all the Monsanto hatred isn't going to make a difference - Monsanto does provide CHEAP food, even if it's not good. When you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, the difference between buying 3 organic apples and buying 10 non-organic ones is the difference between having nothing to take for lunch next week, and having an apple every day. I could see a healthy single young adult making the decision to eat organic and eat far less, but someone with kids to feed? Unlikely. So Monsanto will rule, and we will hate them for it, but when will we look more closely at the reasons for their success? Here's a hint: It's our fault.

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  13. I came to this article to try to understand all the hate directed at Monsanto. I'm not sure what they are doing that is so bad. Why are people so against cloning and science that helps make fruits and veggies bigger. Sure, it's bad when it's processed to hell like french fries, but if it's just a bigger strawberry that lasts longer and is pest resistant I don't see the issue.

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    1. Please don't be ignorant. Start with a simple Wikipedia search on Monsanto and check all the facts. ALL of them. It will take you awhile. Genetically modifying foods is not for the purpose of making vegetables bigger. One thing it does is change the DNA of the food in order to make it resistant to a toxic chemical. Hmm, what does that do to our immune systems? The truth is, we don't know. But studies done in other countries show that it has been linked to cancer, food allergies, and auto immune disorders. Why does our FDA approve GMO? Because our FDA and Monsanto are the same people! Ha! Look it up. Look up Michael Taylor. Type in Michael Taylor FDA Monsanto.

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    2. And that's only one person. The FDA and Monsanto have many revolving doors. And they are linked to SO many corporations that nobody wants to blow the whistle on them. It's up to the people.

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  14. i think listening to these people rant is hilarious keep it up guys!

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  15. Yesterday I watched a long video on a study of mice fed solely on GMO corn. It was done in France. The mice developed huge tumors. Over there, activists have succeeded and having GMO produce banned, except for soy animal feed from the US. The corn has been modified so that the fields can be sprayed all over with Roundup to control weeds. So not only were the mice eating GMO, but the corn was grown on plants that were immune to Roundup...at least productivity was improved..but who knows how much Roundup was taken up by the plants and the corn.

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  16. Most of the world's hunger is caused by a poor distribution system and bad practices where most food is wasted rather than eaten. For example here is the UK if vegetables are not equal shape and size for example too small the supermarkets will not accept them and they go into landfill. Loo at the HUGE portions in restaurants in the USA, how much of that food goes into the bin every day? If we all wake up and work with what we have we can solve the world's hunger problem without Monsanto. But it takes everybody working together.

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  17. if people want or need to eat gm food, so be it But i at least to have it labeled as such.

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  18. I grew up on a farm. You libtard hippy idiots don't know jack about the affects of GM food, people are always scared of something new. Life expectancy is getting longer and you retards think the sky is falling! LOL Find a real cause...

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  19. Just so you know, "Organic" milk is the biggest joke on earth. I have literally met farmers who buy 5x the amount of Posilac they need and then resell it under the table to "Organic-Certified" milk producers - it is a natural occuring hormone that occurs in the cattle anyway - and USDA/FDA do not test it to see if it has an 'escalated' amount.

    Get real, your organic food is a joke. The idea that GMO food is "not organic" is also hilarious to me.

    People who claim all this stuff that is anti-monsanto, pioneer, dow, etc. don't have the first fucking clue on how the science works.

    Thank you for being part of the problem.

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    1. Sounds like you're part if the problem Anonymous.

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