Haitian Farmers Say No To Toxic Monsanto Seeds, Standing Up For Food Sovereignty
(Image credit to Dropstone Farms.)
This is how our corporations practice disaster capitalism. They insinuate themselves into these fragile economies in third-world countries under the guise of "help", usually in the form of signing contracts they either don't understand, or that are overwhelming coercion. So it's heartening to see Haitians fighting back:
“A new earthquake” is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that American agribusiness giant Monsanto will be donating 60,000 sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti—some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto’s seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation’s presence in Haiti on June 4, World Environment Day.
In an open letter sent May 14, Jean-Baptiste, both Executive Director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti “a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds…and on what is left of our environment in Haiti.”[1]
Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to imports of seeds and food from agribusinesses, which they say undermine local production and local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). For now, without a law regulating the use of GMOs in Haiti, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected any offer of genetically modified Roundup Ready seeds. In an email exchange, a Monsanto representative assured the Ministry of Agriculture that the seeds being donated are not genetically modified.
With that exclusion, the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved the donation (Elizabeth Vancil, Monsanto’s Director of Development Initiatives, called the news “a fabulous Easter gift” in an April email). [2]
Monsanto is known for aggressively pushing seeds, particularly GMO seeds, in both the global North and South—including through highly restrictive technology agreements with farmers who are not always made fully aware of what they are signing. According to interviews by this writer with representatives of Mexican small farmer organizations, contracted farmers then find themselves forced to buy Monsanto seeds each year under conditions they find onerous and at costs they sometimes cannot afford.
The hybrid corn seeds Monsanto has donated to Haiti are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram. [3] Thiram belongs to a highly toxic class of chemicals called ethylene bisdithiocarbamates (EBDCs). Results of tests of EBDCs on mice and rats caused concern to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which then ordered a special review. The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them. The EPA also ruled that pesticides containing thiram must contain a special warning label. The EPA also barred marketing of the chemicals for many home garden products, based on the assumption that most gardeners do not have adequately protective clothing. [4]
Monsanto’s passing mention of thiram to Ministry of Agriculture officials in an email contained no explanation of the dangers, nor any offer of special clothing or training for those who will be farming with the toxic seeds.
Almost all seeds by virtually every large scale producer are treated with fungicides (not pesticides) to increase the chances of successful germination.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
until recently it was available at retail outlets to the general public for use as a seed and bulb dust for fungal prevention. In this case, it is used to prevent seedlings from damping off. It is not translocated into growing plants.
Burning seed treated with this chemical would likely cause far more environmental hazards than simply planting the seeds.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Genetically modified seed that is fungus resistant doesn't need to be treated with fungicides.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
are some of the goals of genetic modification.
I'm still not sold on GM, but it does have some positive attributes such as these.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
want engineered seeds...Look at the problems we have in the USA with Big Farms produce and the shift to organic...I would call it 'principled'...which, since being taken over by the Mega Farms, we no longer are!
They modify our seeds to produce faster- more and use 'cheap immigrant slave labor' to pick it and get it out to us!
C&L NEEDS a SCIENCE BLOGGER!!!!!!!
PLEASE!!!
Important Topic.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
these seeds rather than bring farmers, growers, pickers and other parts of the food chain into contact with toxins that have been proven to be unnecessary.
Monsanto is like MacDonalds - You by a box that contains a product and do nothing else but consume it. You don't have to know anything other than how to get more.
Even supposedly organic seeds are treated everywhere in North America. It can double the germination yield. They're also dyed to distinguish them from edible products. I fully expect that the corn at least will not be destroyed but will be diverted into the food supply by corrupt officials and we will see a repetition of the mass poisoning that occurred in Iran in the sixties when similarly treated donated wheat seed was diverted into the food supply. That was dyed red and people quite enjoyed their pink bread for awhile.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
http://twilightearth.com/environment-archive-...
One need look no further than Monsanto and their business practices to understand the sheer evil of the NeoLiberal Crony Corporatists that press for globalization in their quest for economic subjugation and slavery. Control of subject countries’ public utilities, like electricity & potable water is evidence of the international corporatists fascistic nature, but control over the world’s food supplies goes beyond the pale of mere greed -- pure evil incarnate.
Monsanto & Paul Bremer in Iraq
[http://www.alternet.org/world/62273/]
Monsanto in Iraq and Afghanistan
[http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18999.cfm]
Monsanto’s Cotton “Seeds of Death” in India
[http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/indiacotton012406.cfm]
Canada’s Percy Schmeiser vs Monsanto
[http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/PSchmeiser_Monsanto.html]
Monsanto Puts Normal Seeds Out Of Reach
[http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/the-multiple-ways-monsanto-is-putting-normal-seeds-out-of-reach/]
The IMF & World Bank as Tools of Monsanto and The Crony Corporatists
[ http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v13/2/imf.html ]
[If you don't bracket your links, or leave spaces between the brackets at the beginning and end of the URL, it will hyperlink, like I did to your last one-Sitemonitor]
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
To help a starving country, a company donates $4 million worth of its product, arranges for UPS and others to transport the 60 tons of seeds for free, and STILL people complain.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Unbelievable.
"Haitians fighting back" should read "Haitians cut off nose to spite their face" ...
I never believe that company donations are purely to help. To advertise, to gain a foothold in a new market, that I do believe. As for it being worth 4 million, Monsanto is worth billions and billions. getting its name and seeds in there was probably worth more than 4 million.
And who is to say that those seeds are worth 4 million in the first place? Destruction of edible/viable stuffs is normal.
has a sale at the store, I'm going to count my blessings for the grain that God has given us while I walk away from the oil, dye, fat and sugar that come along at no additional charge.
if it gnawed their backside off.
Monsanto has wreaked havoc on the small farmers in India. These Haitians are only being wary of Greeks bearing gifts.
me-oww!
Ah, Monsanto one of our benevolent corporate masters. In case anyone didn't know, Monsanto is trying very hard to "corner the market" on food.
Here are a few horror stories from India:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/art...
http://www.countercurrents.org/glo-shiva05040...
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/...
Thanks for the links, nw--here are some more:
From this site:
Another link.
Here's a story on Monsanto messing with Brazil.
...And here's some science for ya.
"When profit comes up against morality, it's rare that profit loses."~Shirley Chisholm
Do you work for Monsanto?
What's unbelievable is how ignorant are most citizens about this corporate giant. Monsanto's 'donation' would insure that Haitians would have to acquire Monsanto's seeds for every subsequent crop in Haiti. $4 million is a pitiful investment to corner that market.
Speaking of pitiful... we humans are witnessing the consequences of our species' rampant and relentless hedonism. Whinging because a mere handful of us are courageous enough to fight back is not surprising; it's just sad.
These loopy ideas about food are dangerous. People will die because of their irrationality. Good job liberals!! In this case you are just as bad as the anti-science conservatives.
Please C&L get a science blogger.
Yes, yes they are. Ticker symbol MON on the NYSE.
Now, you said "No good deed goes unpunished."
OK. Monsanto is required by law to try to create value for its stockholders.
So, can Monsanto do anything purely from the "goodness of its heart"? First, no heart. Second, no. Everything it does is supposed to create value for shareholders.
So that leaves us with two likely options that I can think of:
1. Doing it to take advantage of situation (most cynical option).
2. Doing it for the good press. I.E. generating "good will". They hope that people will hear of the good deed and buy more from them (or not buy less).
But in no case, can they do this out of altruism. That would be illegal -- a violation of their "sacred trust" with the shareholders.
http://civileats.com/2010/05/17/five-questions/
http://www.monsantoblog.com/2010/05/20/five-a...
Please read the comments.
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
The Monsanto statements I thought were pretty fair and reasoned in this case.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
that the lucrative defense contract which reaped bundles in the 1960's for Agent Orange (Vietnam) has been a thorn in their side ever since.
Monsanto R&D that gave the LED calculator its first display seems overshadowed still by Roundup, Agent Orange and now GMO's.
When I see footage of Saint Louis Tea Baggers, how many participants are Monsanto employees wanting some gripe time with those that learned to gripe about what's behind the business of food?
Using crop yields as a PR hostage when my choice of box cereals can now be an organic one only strengthens my resolve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searle_%28compan...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NutraSweet
They also sell "self destructing" seeds, seeds that sprout and do not produce viable offsping, forcing farmers to purchase Monsanto seeds every year. Farmers purchase seeds because yields are higher, but they have to pay for it with virtual slavery with Monsanto running people's farms and using the actual owners as slave labor.
Monsanto is fucking evil. They're a hideously criminal Republican company with zero ethics or morality.
Also the fucking rightarded crooks have sued people because some farms which have genetically modified Monsanto plants that do allow offspring some times blow seeds to neighboring farms, and Monsanto sues the innocent farms which were infected through winds and other natural forces for copyright, patent, or other theft crimes.
Monsanto is pure evil. It's a company run by a Dick Cheney act-alike. Monsanto is literally ecoterrorism and bioterrorism, the equal to Halliburton on a global scale.
Monsanto WANTED
Like DamOTclese says, Monsanto is Satan incarnate. They will give you the free seeds now, and then force you to pay for new seeds. If you think you will get around that by replanting the offspring, SURPISE! They will sue the living shit out of you for IP infringement. They have patents for all their products and they enforce those patents with an army of very underhanded lawyers.
If you think they may have pity on Haiti, think again. If they actually had a soul and gave Haitian farmers a pass to replant their seeds, they would then be unable to further enforce their patents. The reality is that these soul sucking bastards are trying to give Haiti a time bomb that would blow their already impoverished economy to bits. Monsanto and ADM are companies with one purpose, to enslave the world's agricultural systems and by proxy, the people who eat commercial food.
where you get the first taste for free.
me-oww!
Plenty of seeds of hybrids aren't viable, or won't be "true to type" even if they do sprout. And Monsanto is known for selling seed intentionally designed not to sprout a 2nd generation. This was even before "genetic engineering" in the modern sense, just good old fashioned breeding and selection.
The people of Hati are smarter then the people in the us. Maybe they don't get much fox down there!
Easy, satisfactory answers are out there for the essential questions on this issue. If we hope to hold crazy rightwingers accountable for antiscientific propaganda we must hold ourselves to the same standard. The comments above conflate dozens of quarter-true anti-Monsanto canards (and a few complete falsehoods). THe truth is considerably more complex and will take some work and flexibility to understand. More important is the need to elevate the truth above any momentary advantage or neat PR moment.
Haiti is suffering primarily because its infrastructure is insufficient to keep its people alive. Modern agricultural methods are infrastructure. Even a handful of seeds can be technology. Haiti may elect to refuse high-yield, specialized, GM, or hybrid seeds. But this isn't some suburban yuppie electing to grow only heirloom tomatoes; the people are starving, and their agricultural base wasn't sufficient to feed themselves before the quake.
Would they have refused donations from Caterpillar or Case Equipment or Kubota, preferring to move rubble the traditional way? Do they consider dysentery a national treasure and repudiate western water treatment and delivery systems? Do they refuse the tons of food aid--grown no doubt with state-of-the-art seed--that was landed every day in Port au Prince?
Generally conservatives are ten times more likely to adopt and defend patently untrue ideas (and defend them in complete consensus--see Quiggin, http://crookedtimber.org/2010/05/03/the-orego... and Slacktivist, http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/20... for some excellent examples and discussions of this). But liberals have their weak points, and Monsanto is one of them. I do not defend their practices, but they are legal, generally. But the whiff of antiscientific purism that attends any discussion of big ag or the food industry in general is unbecoming of a civilized debate, and also quite wrong, and often predicated on the same destructive dishonesty that is, and should remain, the main province of the far right.
Read, learn, question, and grow up.
ice9
thanks for the thoughtful post...mine are usually judgemental and snippy...but it really irks me when I see my fellow liberals acting like right wing anti-science crazy talk.
C&L please get a science blogger...not only to poke fun at the conservatives but to also address issues where liberals get mislead.
Monsanto has a long reputation for predatory practices w.r.t. farmers, particularly 3rd world farmers. You don't have to be liberal, anti-science or anything at all to be suspicious of their motives. They have a bad history. Ignoring that just to be "scientific" is not a good idea.
"Read, learn, question, and grow up."
That quip just pisses me off. You make a reasonable argument (that I partially agree with and partially disagree with) then poison it with this little parting shot. WTF?
Perhaps some of the harsher comments can be attributed to the tone of some of the anti-GMO comments that precede them.
Haiti was a successful agrarian economy until the IMF and the World Bank forced certain economic policies on the country (flooding the country with cheaper food from other countries, etc. - just as they did with Mexico) that actually made it unprofitable to farm.
So the farmers were forced into the cities -- by design -- in order to provide cheap labor for the new (multinational) manufacturing industries so benevolently placed there through the civilized nations' master plan. We were "helping" them then, too.
But since the country was being sucked dry by interest on those helpful loans, and the new industries didn't pay anything like a living wage, what resulted was a lot of very poor Haitians living in tin shacks.
These are the policies for which Bill Clinton apologized.
That's why so many people died in the quake. Because of benevolent Western industrial policies. People claiming to "help" created the conditions that killed so many.
So excuse me if I'm a little skeptical of multinational corporations who claim they're trying to "help."
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
This is the real problem. It's taken by inches at a time, but before you know it, an entire country is (again) enslaved.
Just so people can have cheap shirts at Wal Mart..
Haiti was flooded with cheap American rice (Arkansas, Texas) and their farmers could not compete. This was part of the neoliberal plan to make Haiti more efficient, in other words the farmers would be more useful sewing baseballs. Haiti needed and needs help, but the help that comes from organizations like the IMF is to eradicate a way of life then replace it with a corporate economy instead of working with the existing culture.
I think most of the objection to the seeds is not that they are treated, since the amount of chemical used is very small and will likely break down in the soil, but that fact that these are hybrid seeds that will not reproduce true and will be useless. The farmers will then have to buy more seeds every season unless they can build up a supply of viable open-pollinated seeds. I also have to wonder how well these hybrid varieties are adapted to Haitian conditions.
Susie
Go !
C&L please look into getting a science blogger.
Anyway for decent commentary on GMO's please visit the blogroll (linked from C&L on every page) site onegoodmove.org
doesn't make them 'right.' How do you think they got legal? By a groundswell of public support or some deals in back rooms between lobbyists and lawmakers?
I mean come on, don't lecture us about science, claiming 'legality' when it's common knowledge that corporations like and including Monsanto have stacked the deck in their own favour, through glad-handing and extreme manipulation.
I call bullshit. Read, learn, question, and grow up yourself. Quit projecting.
me-oww!
Herbert's article on BP, but they have not put it up. Too much tuthiness for them I guess:
The main stream media, including the NY Times, always refer to small groups of environmental radicals who, rather than writing to their oil money bought and paid for Congresswomen (Landrieu and Murkowski being the most glaring examples), take mostly harmless publicity driven actions to prevent the very type of disasters we are witnessing in the Gulf of Mexico, as eco-terrorists.
I'd like for once to see the MSM finally acknowledge that the true eco-terrorists are the corporations like BP, Shell, Union Carbide and Monsanto who are destroying environments around the world, murdering activists and poisoning thousands of the poor in countries they operate in and depriving them of their thousands of years of agricultural self sufficiency and heritage. Because now the MSM has about as much credibility on the subject of eco-terrorism as the executives of BP do in their pronouncements of how the oil "leak" in the Gulf of Mexico is going.
The problem is that their population grows and their old style traditional farming can not keep up with the population. Science and technology, however, can help.
The post above has some inaccurate information regarding Monsanto's seed donation, including information that Thiram belonged to the ethylene bisdithiocarbamates (EBDCs) class of chemicals. This is incorrect. The current classification is (dimethyl dithiocarbamate) DMDC. Source: Oregon State University, 1996.
The hybrid seeds sent to Haiti have been tested in the region with no fertilizer use and the yield obtained with them has been higher than the average yield Haitian farmers currently obtain using their open pollinated varieties. Although Haitian farmers have very limited resources in general, the use of fertilizers and pesticides is quite normal among them. The donated seeds do not require the use of fertilizers or pesticides. The fungicidal seed treatments that were applied are commonly used in Haiti, and the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved them prior to the donation.
It’s disappointing to see people encouraging Haitian farmers to “burn Monsanto seeds,” especially when the ones hurt by that action will be Haitian farmers and the Haitian people—not those of us watching on the sidelines.
I see that some people already linked in previous comments, but we addressed the Haiti seed donation in two posts on the Monsanto blog here:
http://www.monsantoblog.com/2010/05/13/monsan...
http://www.monsantoblog.com/2010/05/20/five-a...
Thank you,
Kathleen Manning
Monsanto Company
like the tobacco company 'studies' by 'scientists' that 'proved' cigarette smoking was AOK.
Thanks but no thanks.
Here's a thought: If you lot are so all-fired concerned about the Haitians and want to help, send them some unaltered seed you have to buy from an organic supplier. No strings. No revisiting the island with the sales force later on. That would give the appearance of a true gift and help, not voracious opportunism.
Just give them clean seed that they can grow and collect seed from the harvest, like rural farmers do. None of this sterile seed crap. That's insidious.
Then maybe your attempts at aid, help and altruism won't ring hollow with those of us who have watched your 'antics' over the years.
me-oww!
on another blog regarding GMOs in general and Monsanto's role in the technology in particular, and I've been doing a lot of reading on the topic lately, including a book called "Tomorrow's Table," by Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak. There are two aspects to this issue: the technology itself, and the role that large corporations like Monsanto play in dominating and manipulating the technology. The genetic modification of crops, if conducted by responsible parties with no inherent corporate bias, can lead to valuable applications with benefits to the population at large. However, the scenario I describe, i.e., "no inherent corporate bias," is nearly impossible to achieve in the current research environment in which universities depend on companies like Monsanto for research grants.
I've also read as much as I could about Monsanto's recent seed donation to Haiti, and, try as I might, I could find nothing untoward in Monsanto's seed donation, except, of course, that it might be part of Monsanto's effort to repair its well-deserved terrible reputation. There is nothing about the donation that compels Hatian farmers to purchase future licensing agreements or anything like that, and the seed varieties are no more "toxic" than any other traditional crops. In my judgment, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste is over-reacting, although such over-reactions are understandable, given Monsanto's history.
Monsanto's seed donation to the Haitians reminds me of something you might see in a Batman movie or something, where the Riddler donates something to the citizens of Gotham City, and everyone is suspicious that it is some sort of trick. In this case, however, I think the only trick, as I said, is that Monsanto is campaigning to repair its bad reputation.
Technology is not inherently evil. It's how it's used that's the problem - and the relative indifference of corporations to individual outcomes. Kind of like Ford when they figured it would be cheaper to let people die than to recall the Pintos.
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
uncaring Corporate Killers.
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