AP Investigation Shows Monsanto's Reach Is Even Wider Than We Thought.
Hmm. Do you think it's really a good idea that one multinational corporation controls the vast majority of the international food supply? Haha, just kidding. Of course it's a good idea! That's why one of the first things we did when we invaded Iraq was to announce a law that farmers could no longer save their own seed:
ST. LOUIS — Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.
With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes.
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages, include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments.
The company has used the agreements to spread its technology — giving some 200 smaller companies the right to insert Monsanto's genes in their separate strains of corn and soybean plants. But, the AP found, access to Monsanto's genes comes at a cost, and with plenty of strings attached.
This is gonna work out well./
What is your conceptual, continuity?
..and how it was raised, you'd better start learning about it soon.
He's right about this one.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Too late.
The rise of an unregulated genetic monoculture will likely result in massive crop failure and famine.
Oopppss.
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
and when, if not already, monsanto moves it's corporate
headquarters to some very offshore location, they will
control who gets to eat and who does not.
ever watch the movie "solent green"? a very close
scenario. when the food corporations control the
power, then they control it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE
I've always been somewhat annoyed by the cannibalism angle that crept into that story when it was made into a film. It doesn't exist at all in the original book. Make Room, Make Room! by Harry Harrison was about overpopulation, and it didn't need the sensationalistic Hollywood angle of people eating each other to make its point as a horror story. The skin-crawling world overcrowded with people was more than bad enough. The two foodstuffs that people lived on - soylent red and soylent green - were exactly what they sounded like, a mixture of soybeans and lentils. Those were the only crops left, produced by shadowy government/food conglomerates. Only the very richest could afford any other food.
That is the world we're headed towards - crowded to the gills with people eating only tasteless monoculture food and drinking overfiltered water (when they can get it). Read the book - it's a hell of a lot more scary than that silly gotcha ending to the movie.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Bad for the environment, bad for farmers, bad for people, bad for pets
Seed corn and seed beans are now being sold by seed count determined by how many plants per acre are going to be used. The price raised dramatically as well. The friend I talked to told me he'll have $650 into an acre and needs at least 200 bushels of corn an acre to break even.
Absolutely horrible, isn't it.
Bayer has admitted it has been unable to control the spread of its genetically-engineered organisms despite the best practices to stop contamination.
United States federal jury ruling on 4 December 2009 that Bayer CropScience LP must pay $2 million US dollars to two Missouri farmers after their rice crop was contaminated with an experimental variety of rice that the company was testing in 2006.
whose fields have been contaminated by their crops & tries to say the farmer has done it on purpose.
Don't you just love how our courts pretty well always side with the corporation in any dispute?
As alarming as this is, it is not news. This sort of information has been out there and largely ignored for years. There have been several good documentary films made on the subjects. There are corporate inspectors that go around small farms and test their seed. If the seed proves to be a "patented" seed, and the farmer is not registered to grow it, the farmer is sued for using it, much like using pirated software. Now, let's say you are growing a crop not using patented seeds, but next to you is a field that grows the same sort of crop from a "patented" seed. We all know that birds poop seeds wherever, and that the wind and water is capable of spreading seed willy-nilly, so, if your crop interbreeds acidentally with the mutant crop, you still get charged with pirating the seed. To me this is a criminal detestable way of doing business, but it has been around for some time. It is time everyone woke up to the economic and environmental disasters that gentic engineered corporate farming truly are.
Why is Monsanto playing God? The food that God put on this earth isn't good enough? Get the evangelists attacking Monsanto.
It was said earlier, control the food, control the world.
Control the fresh water, control the world.
I get it now. Corporations are Gawd!
You know, The Family's Jesus Plus Nothing. When I said food would be the next big issue to fight, some people criticized me for being so trivial. Does it still look trivial to you now? Huh?
I almost forget--Fuck you Monsanto. Bring it!
If anyone said it was trivial, they are certainly naive.
Thanks to the SCOTUS their will be a new class of citizen this spring......the Corporate Super-Citizen!
Just in time for spring planting.
'We, the People'............rimshot................hahahahahaha!
Corporate Super Citizen. Sounds like a great new comic book. Make sure you buy a dozen # 1 issues and keep them tightly sealed in plastic so you can make the most money off them in 20 years. Our corporate masters would be proud to hear that we're all making money, the 20 years part though would make them all physically sick.
Just more of me not being able to hold back a big huge fucking "I TOLD YOU SO."
Oh and now that the AP says it, well, it's ok to believe what I've been saying for DECADES.
And you know, one poster had the fucking BALLS to say I was rude to their
approved pr representativelittle talking points parroting spokesmodel on another thread here, some months back. Not rude enough, if you ask me. Oh yeah, that's right. NOBODY WAS asking me.Anyway, I want to thank the AP for resting not only my case, but the case of thousands of others among them Vandana Shiva who has been on their case so long out in the public, it's amazing she hasn't had a fatal 'accident'
me-oww!
... I used to have that one bookmarked for the links. I just checked to post a link here, but I couldn't find it. That means nothing yet; my bookmarks are a mess.
But I then ran a C&L search on the Monsanto tag, and couldn't find it there either. I'll keep looking though. It's worth it.
And I didn't think you were rude in the least. You were quite... appropriate.
[on edit] Got it. Here.
I missed it before. Then I remembered that much Monsanto information can be found with searches using the word "puss"
Go figure.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Fist bump, high five, etc. It's about time. I am really fed up with people acting like I'm a fanatic. Obviously, so are you.
and proud of it...
:P And a 'terrorist fist bump' back atcha, savannah43
me-oww!
I got talking about corporations and banks and stuff last night and my sister-in-law got very angry and stomped out of the room. I guess she isn't ready to hear that we're all owned by the super elites.
The worst part about this is? Nothing will happen in terms of changing this until there is some kind of widespread crisis. The kind that leaves piles of bodies. Then, and only then will people scream and howl for change.
It is wrong for one corperation to have such power and control. This planet is much more fragil than we think it is. Monsanto is playing with the switch to the hangman's gallows!
government is for sale at a much cheaper price than even ours. This is bad, bad, bad. Their crops are resistant to their weed killer "Round-Up," and so those who grow the crops are free to overuse it. Do not eat corporate food. Not if you value your life and your health.
Listen to Vandava Shiva talk about these greedy assholes trying to patent rice genes...
Monsanto wants to make plants Round Up ready so they can sell more Round up, which is poison, which goes on your food, or on food which your food (feed lot animals) will eat "Oh it breaks down in 48 hours. Have we ever lied to you?" Love, Monsanto. By the time we all wake up with one leg shorter than the other, they'll be well protected by even more shiny-suited lawyers
You know, before these heinous fucks started inserting Bt Protein genes into plants, no insect species had developed a tolerance to Bt proteins now 3 species are known to have Bt tolerances, which is a bit of info I got from the potato episode of the Botany of Desire, but there is no transcript.
me-oww!
banned in most European countries? Yep. Their seeds are Round-Up ready. This is all quite advanced because few listened to us, There was an episode on CSI Miami about this, and the company rep told Horatio that people don't care what is in their food--they just want to eat. I believe that is close to the truth as they see it. They try to convince us that this is a good thing as it will prevent people from starving. Poisoning people keeps them from starving. I can't see that, myself. Of course I actually think about things, and that is not a habit corporate America encourages. I can't decide if they are trying to kill people off in large numbers, or if they just need as many customers as possible. Decisions, decisions.
in kollij, wrote papers that got good grades and stuff on the subject. :)
That was 2005.
It's just gotten worse as these corporate sociopaths have been allowed to run roughshod over the wold, basically unfettered, based a lot on their cries of "You don't know enough to object!" and "You're fearmongering!!! We need to feed the world!"
me-oww!
DC politicians. Can you think of a better way to control people? I can't. It's necessary and immediate. EVERYONE needs to eat.
On the recommendation of a C&Ler, I *just* watched Food, Inc. The magic of synchronicity.
The doc is well worth watching, too. Speaks right to this.
Colony Collapse Disease
Would anyone obey a law so stupid? If they told me I could not save my seed they might not like what I told them. It's just like all the crap about gun laws no one cares if they are illegal. I would not turn mine in if they did. why would anyone not sve their seed.
monsanto can go to hell. I worked for Ashland oil years ago. They use to send a letter to me about once a month that said I had to sign it. It said if I had any ideas that had anything to do with anything they were doing it was their idea. Each month I would throw it away.
I never signed it!
"infected" (as I call it) with the pollen from their GM seeds. Then they sue them. Farmers have to spend money they don't have to defend themselves. This is like a science fiction/horror movie.
In the documentary: The Corporation, they were comparing corporations with psychopaths. It's been awhile since I saw it but I believe they compared them on 15 points. The conclusion they came to was that corporations and psychopaths have almost identical characteristics. It's pretty scary when you consider that our world is ruled by psychopathic monsters.
Corporate control of genetic material is definitely not somethign we need (it's really quite scary), and GMO should undergo more research and testing, but fearmongering about GMO from the left is no better than fearmongering about socialism from the right. GMO is an important tool that we will almost certainly have to exploit if we don't want to stoop to some fairly draconian population control measures and other things eventually. GMO is probably where we will have to go to increase yields per acre and per time period; pest, disease, and climate change resistance; and decreased reliance on harmful chemical means of fertilization and pest control.
What we need is to have both sides step back from the fearmongering and rhetoric and let good science in. Oh, and get the corporate control, or at least the monopolistic practices, out of the process. GMO is a tool, and just like any tool, it can be used for both good and bad aims. Don't discard it completely just because Mnostanto and people like them have gotten ahold of it.
STFU. Monsanto invented it, and I'll bet you know that. Saving the life of your children and yourself is not fear mongering. Want to talk about tools? You are a tool.
to know a tool.
Fearmongering my ass. Nice little meme ya got there. SOunds like its right out of a Monsanto Corporate protection playbook.
Pssssst savannah43, 'metman' just signed up! Shock and surprise! Who'dve guessed it?!11!!!!!?!?//!??!111!! :P
me-oww!
and Their Concerns About Our Poisonous Crop Seeds."
... you're with us, but you have some concerns.
savannah43 may have some valid points. I mean, I agree with you mostly, but I do have some concerns.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Huh?
miss kitty is here.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
anything for at least 30 minutes. Go for it Metman.
maybe Monsanto doesn't pay for follow-ups....
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I am deeply shocked. I was all set for a throw down.
... can't say we didn't offer you a warm welcome.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Sorry, I have a life outside of commenting on blogs. As I stated, I don't like Monstanto's control in this situation one bit. However, I do think that science is an important tool that we need to embrace, not fear. I've read this site for months now, but this is the first time I've felt compelled to comment because this clip is, in my opinion, as far off the deep end on the left as many of the clips on CNL of righties are off the right end.
I'm not supporting Monsanto in the slightest, despite what your reactionary reading of my statement may be. I think the idea that anyone can patent genetic material at all, and especially that anyone can use these patents to strong arm farmers or anyone else in to paying licence fees is a gigantic problem and threat to everyone. I also recognize the threat posed by monocultures, and think this is a risk that we need to work much harder to mitigate. (Incidentally, the risks of monoculture are not dependant upon GMO. Monoculture can and does easily exist with classically engineered, ie artificially bred, crops as well.)
However, I refuse to buy in to the rhetoric on either side. The large corporations aren't kind benefactors to society any more than any genetically modified foods or other organisms are grave systemic threats to the entire planet simply by virtue of being GM. All I'm saying is that reasoned concideration and exploration with all facts in the open is ultimately far more productive than flame wars and vitriol, and that both sides of the debate are guilty of such approaches. As with most things, the best course likely lies in the middle of both extremes.
Just to reiterate again, for those who have a little problem with reading comprehension, I IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM SUPPORT MONSANTO. However, I do think genetic research and GMO technology is important and can be potentially valuable to society. I don't concider Monstanto and its ilk synonomous with GMO, so reserving an open mind towards the one does not make me a fan of the other.
Or maybe, just maybe, I left that comment before leaving from work (at a tech firm not related to biotech, if you are wondering), and I was sitting on a bus getting home for the next 30+ minutes? And didn't feel the need to obsessively check for replies to my reasonable comments on CNL before getting back in to work in the morning, when I have more time to waste? No, that couldn't be it at all.
At least you properly read my statement, fiver. I'm glad someone around here is open to people who's opinions do not fall lock step behind thiers, but are none the less generally freindly.
And it will result in "...decreased reliance on harmful chemical means of fertilization and pest control." Good science wouldn't touch this with a Haz-Mat suit on.
If Americans would simply consume 10% less meat, there would be enough arable land to feed the world. Monsanto, et al. are inventing false doomsday scenarios to rationalize the destruction of responsible farming.
They want to control all food and the corn for ethanol. Using GM corn for ethanol that has been grown in toxic soil loaded with Round-Up is producing more and different air pollution. Can you see that?
I'm agreeing with you. He said GMO "is an important tool that we will almost certainly have to exploit if we don't want to stoop to some fairly draconian population control measures..." to which I replied, "Bullshit..." I've been bitching about Roundup Ready for ages. And plain old Roundup for that matter. Gardening and farming do not require chemicals or genetic modification.
I get wound tight. I know you're on the right side. You're one of the good guys.
I really appreciate that you inply I'm on the bad side, even when you clearly lack a basic understanding of my position.
You're conflating a specific implementation of GMO with the entire field of study. I think using GMO so that plants can be grown in soil that would be otherwise toxic due to use of chemical herbicide is exactly the opposite of the way that we should be taking GMO (and yet another reason to keep it out of the hands of people, like Monstanto, with a vested interest in using the technology to support and enhance thier chemicals-based approaches). There is also research out there in to creating strains of food crops that are narturally (read: less/no herbicide/pesticide) more resistant to pests and disease. That is the direction I would say is quite good to take GMO in. Another good direction is embodied in the strain of rice they modified to provide vitamin A to people in cultures where rice constitutes significant portions of thier diet and they have vitamin A deficiency related eye problems as a result.
My position is that this technology should be responsibly applied to revolutionize the food production systems around the world to reduce environmental impact and improve quality of life for people, not to support and extend the old, harmful ways of doing things (as Monstanto etc are using it). I would hope that this is something we can all agree on.
more or less. Sorry for jumping down your throat. The same thing has happened to me here so I should've known better. Monsanto = Evil in my mind, so I jumped to conclusions.
and monoculture farming leads to disaster and famine. Ask the Irish, who grew only one kind of potato, the 'Lumper.' It was sensitive to, and wiped out by a strain of phytopthera, carried through the mists and ground water.
If they'd been growing a number of varieties, the famine would not have been so great, or happened, even.
Right now, we grow mainly Burbanks. The Indians in Peru, descendants of the Inca, grow 5000 different varieties. They always have potatoes.
me-oww!
The Irish didn't need GMO to get monoculture though, and there is no reason that responsible development of GMO must necessarily lead to monoculture. In fact, I would imagine that widespread use of GMO would lead to a wider diversity, if other market forces aren't applied (or aren't sufficiently controlled). For instance, my understanding is that our potato crop didn't become so monovarietal because of the intrinsic desires of farmers, but because the most common type of potato being grown is the one used for making frenchfries for fast food chains and the freezer sections of grocery stores, which is the highest demand consumer of potatos by far. If we want to guard against monoculture (which we should), we shouldn't fear GMO, we should instead be demanding that we as consumers have access to more variety from the largest middle men (namely restaraunt chains and other bulk processors).
I've become a farmer's market eater. Only a few things I eat are packaged, and I don't eat them every day. Monsanto and their ilk can kiss my ass.
I look forward to the day when these maggots and leeches are dragged out of their high-rises and thrown up against the wall to be shot like the rabid dogs they are. Some people just do not deserve to take up precious space on this earth.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
fitting, I think.
I'd say stuff a bushel of their own seeds down their throats. See how they like gm food.
Here is a group that began fighting monoculture back in the 80's.
http://www.seedsavers.org/
'We, the People'............rimshot................hahahahahaha!
I agree that the book was much better than the movie; however, without the movie we would not have had the budding actress in Drop Dead Gorgeous reciting "soylent green is people" during the beauty contest. I think this makes the cheesy ending of Soylent Green well worth it. On a much more serious note...many people are already eating mono culture crap that the book describes in the form of fast food burgers…what’s worse is they seem to enjoy it.
wouldn't be so popular.
http://www.documentarywire.com/the-world-acco...
The World According to Monsanto
"This video currently unavailable”
is being taken down from sites left and right over the past few days. Hmmm, it's been up for almost a year and pretty available, wonder why it's disappearing now? The youtube version no longer works, but the link listed above is still working, at least for me. I'm sure Monsanto is again threatening/harassing people to continue their Mission.
If not, it is (so far) still up on Documentary Wire.
http://www.documentarywire.com/
search 'The World According to Monsanto' to find it.
Also tons of good info here if you want to learn more:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm
I couldn't get it an hour or so ago, so I tried to report it to the web site. I couldn't get that to go through, either.
Monsanto is full of ugly mean spirited bastards. I do not believe anything is beneath them. They threaten to sue anyone who dares tell the truth about them. Hey Monsanto, stop screwing with Mother Nature. She doesn't like that. Is nothing sacred to you greedy pigs? Your little foray into Frankensteinism will end badly.
Maybe I posted the link incorrectly? I can still watch the film at documentarywire.com up to this second. I was also able to report that some folks here are having problems. I dunno. Keep trying, 'The World According to Monsanto' is a must see.
[The link was posted just fine. Sometimes, when a video server is busy, or offline, it will say it's unavailable. I checked you link after lafingas said he couldn't get it, and it came up fine for me-Sitemonitor]
I pulled it up later, just finished it, scary stuff!
Try again, it worked for me.
and it is quite stunning and scary what is happening. it is a very well referenced book that anyone can use to educate others about the pitfalls and dangers of GMOs. The author encourages readers to spread the word because, like posted elsewhere, the more people know the more they will reject the GMO industry and demand changes. I intend to inform my health care patients and bring the subject up in school lunch programs with school boards, farm meetings (like chamber of commerce), any local governmrent agency where there is a public forum, etc. We need to become active to create change, and we need to do it now!!. JOIN US!!
PS the book was designed with easy to read and understand summaries on the left page of the following pages' research. Very good format.
Monsanto using the invasion to legally force the Cradle of Civilization (which invented farming) to become reliant upon their annual cost of mutant seed instead of using sustainable practices that have worked perfectly well for thousands of years is everything that is insane about the postmodern western world in a nut shell. Spin off your favorite ramification and write a chapter for "The 21st Century Book of the Great Meltdown."
Use only heritage seeds from local companies!
The Associated Press article on Monsanto’s licensing agreements with companies missed the mark on the real facts. Please click here for Monsanto's response.
Thanks,
Kathleen
Riiiight. Have you guys got a bridge in Brooklyn for for sale, because I'm in the market for one...
me-oww!
Uhh... But that was the point of the AP article. To show how much influence your bosses have. Also, that doesn't change the fact that Monsanto is wiping out sustainable farming methods that have lasted thousands of years simply to make a profit. Sorry, but I'm not buying the spin, and (IMHO) I don't think many others at this site will either.
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