In addition to the problems produced by the pesticides Monsanto seeds are developed to be immune to, Peter Whoriskey writes in the Washington Post about how 93% of soybeans and 80% of corn grown in the U.S. now comes from Monsanto-developed seeds. And during the decade in which that has happened:

…for farmers such as Lowe, prices of the Monsanto-patented seeds have steadily increased, roughly doubling during the past decade, to about $50 for a 50-pound bag of soybean seed, according to seed dealers.

In a blog post about this subject:

Many farmers are fed up with Monsanto’s ruthless use of litigation. All over the United States, the wind is carrying Monsanto’s genetically altered seeds into neighboring fields. Monsanto regularly sends out investigators to visit farms and to test whether any Monsanto strains have shown up on those farms. If they have, then Monsanto proceeds to sue the living daylights out of those farmers.

A commenter makes the monoculture point:

They don’t have to be more susceptible to crop diseases. They have extremely low genetic diversity, so a disease that strongly affects that strain of plant will be able to spread over millions of acres of nearly identical targets.

This is exactly what happened to the Irish during the potato famine. The Inca, who discovered the potato, had thousands of varieties. Some resisted blight, some resisted insects, others performed better in dry years, etc.

Monoculture Monsanto cotton crops have already failed in India. Continue reading →