Tag Archives: Monsanto

Greed is Good for Poisoning the Food Supply?

For many years big agro has treated the world’s health as an economic externality, a problem for somebody else that did not affect its own bottom line. That is starting to change, most recently in Argentina.

Anthony Gucciardi wrote for NaturalSociety 11 April 2012, Explosive: Monsanto ‘Knowingly Poisoned Workers’ Causing Devastating Birth Defects,

In a developing news piece just unleashed by a courthouse news wire, Monsanto is being brought to court by dozens of Argentinean tobacco farmers who say that the biotech giant knowingly poisoned them with herbicides and pesticides and subsequently caused ”devastating birth defects” in their children. The farmers are now suing not only Monsanto on behalf of their children, but many big tobacco giants as well. The birth defects that the farmers say occurred as a result are many, and include cerebral palsy, down syndrome, psychomotor retardation, missing fingers, and blindness.

This would be the same Monsanto that was convicted of chemical poisoning in France.

But this is once again far away in a small country of which we know nothing, right? Wrong:

The farmers come from small family-owned farms in Misiones Province and sell their tobacco to many United States distributors. The family farmers say that major tobacco companies like the Philip Morris company asked them to use Monsanto’s herbicides and pesticides, assuring them that the products were safe. Through asserting that the toxic chemicals were safe, the farmers state in their claim that the tobacco companies ”wrongfully caused the parental and infant plaintiffs to be exposed to those chemicals and substances which they both knew, or should have known, would cause the infant offspring of the parental plaintiffs to be born with devastating birth defects.”

Still, it must be some obscure poison only sold in the third world, right?

Wrong:

The majority of the farmers in the area used Monsanto’s Roundup, an herbicide with the active ingredient glyphosate that has shown to be killing human kidney cells. What’s more, the farmers say that the tobacco companies pushed Monsanto’s Roundup on the farmers despite a lack of protective equipment. In other words, these farmers — many in dire economic conditions — were being directly exposed to Roundup in large concentrations without any protective gear (or even experience or skills in handling the substance). Still, the farmers say the tobacco giants required the struggling farmers to ‘purchase excessive quantities of Roundup and other pesticides’.

That would be the same Roundup that farmers use around here all the time, without protective equipment. The Roundup we already knew was Continue reading →

Why Monsanto Thought Weeds Would Never Defeat Roundup

Wishful thinking. That’s why Monsanto unleashed crops and pesticides that are both poisonous to humans. Wishful thinking. Also known as greed.

Daniel Charles wrote for The Salt 11 March 2012, Why Monsanto Thought Weeds Would Never Defeat Roundup,

First, the company had been selling Roundup for years without any problems. Second, and perhaps most important, the company’s scientists had just spent more than a decade, and many millions of dollars, trying to create the Roundup-resistant plants that they desperately wanted — soybeans and cotton and corn. It had been incredibly difficult. When I interviewed former Monsanto scientists for my book on biotech crops, one of them called it the company’s “Manhattan Project.”

Considering how hard it had been to create those crops, “the thinking was, it would be really difficult for weeds to become tolerant” to Roundup, says Rick Cole, who is now responsible for Monsanto’s efforts to deal with the problem of resistant weeds.

So they thought small scale would be the same as saturating 90+% of every corn, soybean, peanut, and cotton field in the U.S. and numerous other countries with virulent poisons. Because they wanted the money.

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Monsanto Worst Company of 2011 —Natural Society

Back in 2010, a survey by Covalence found Monsanto to be the least ethical company in the world. Another year, another award for Monsanto!

Michelle Schoffro Cook wrote for care2 1 February 2012, Monsanto Wins Worst Company of 2011 Award,

Natural Society has awarded Monsanto the Worst Company of 2011 award for its ongoing work to threaten human health and the environment. Currently responsible for 90 percent of all genetically-modified (GM) seed in the US, the biotechnology giant is also the leader in developing genetically-modified (GM) seeds and the resulting crops worldwide. But Monsanto is perhaps best known for its herbicide Roundup, which many experts link to soil damage and herbicide-resistant superweeds, not to mention potential health problems.
The article gives plenty of reasons, and that was even before the recent hard evidence that both Monsanto’s GM corn and Monsanto’s Roundup are toxic to humans.

Why do people keep growing that stuff around here and spraying Roundup on it?

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Both Roundup-Ready corn and Roundup are toxic to humans: scientific evidence

Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini put out a press release yesterday, NEW STUDY: Genetically Modified Corn Toxic to Humans,
“We were very much surprised by our findings. Until now, it has been thought almost impossible for Bt proteins to be toxic to human cells. Now further investigations have to be conducted to find out how these toxins impact the cells and if combinatorial effects with other compounds in the food and feed chain have to be taken into account,” says Gilles-Eric Séralini from the University of Caen, who supervised the experiments. “In conclusion, these experiments show that the risks of Bt toxins and of Roundup have been underestimated.”
The toxicity of the corn itself may have been a surprise, but not that of Roundup:
These findings are in accordance with several other investigations highlighting unexpected health risks associated with glyphosate preparations.
Previous studies, including ones by Dr. Séralini, already showed exposure to glysophate (the active ingredient in Roundup) to be “a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma”, and to be toxic to human umbilical, placental, and placental cells with a that “is far below agricultural recommendations and corresponds to low levels of residues in food or feed.” In Argentina, Prof. Andrés Carrasco has demonstrated birth defects in amphibians and there is increasing evidence of human birth defects.

Regarding Monsanto’s GM corn itself, we already knew it causes liver and kidney damage in rats (later reverified using Monsanto’s own data), and chickens fed feed including Monsanto corn show abnormal gene expression.

Now we have even more hard evidence of the toxicity of Monsanto’s GM corn and of Monsanto’s Roundup. The journal article is available through Wiley online.

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Monsanto convicted of poisoning

Marion Douet wrote for Reuters today, Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning in France. The farmer who wonthe case remarked,
“I am alive today, but part of the farming population is going to be sacrificed and is going to die because of this,” Francois, 47, told Reuters.

He and other farmers suffering from illness set up an association last year to make a case that their health problems should be linked to their use of crop protection products.

France and the EU have already take other actions:
The Francois case goes back to a period of intensive use of crop-protection chemicals in the European Union. The EU and its member countries have since banned a large number of substances considered dangerous.

Monsanto’s Lasso was banned in France in 2007 following an EU directive after the product had already been withdrawn in some other countries.

France, the EU’s largest agricultural producer, is now targetting a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use between 2008 and 2018, with initial results showing a 4 percent cut in farm and non-farm use in 2008-2010.

Maybe we should try that in the U.S. Ban RoundUp, that is. Like Paul François said back in December aboout Lasso,
Monsanto knew they had a problem with this product.
As Yves Calvi wrote for RTL.fr 12 December 2011,
Because of the dangerousness of these products, in the country, nobody says anything, it’s omerta! Why such a vow of silence? The pressure of lobbyists is strong according to Paul François. He says the dangers of pesticides may be as important as those of asbestos.
I would say worse, because asbestos doesn’t usually drift across the road onto you, and isn’t deliberately applied to most crops, unlike RoundUp.

It’s time to break the silence, so we won’t have so many farmers and children and other people being made sick by pesticides.

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Massive lawsuit against Monsanto for seed patent abuse

The Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA) are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Monsanto’s attempts to control seeds.

Wake Up World wrote 19 September 2011, Case Update: 270,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto

The 83 family farmers, small and family owned seed businesses, and agricultural organizations challenging Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seed filed papers in federal court (13th August 2011) defending their right to seek legal protection from the threat of being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement should they ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed. The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) represents the plaintiffs in the suit, titled Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA), et al. v. Monsanto and pending in the Southern District of New York. The August 13 filings respond to a motion filed by Monsanto in mid-July to have the case dismissed. In support of the plantiffs’ right to bring the case, 12 agricultural organizations also filed a friend-of-the-court amici brief.

“Rather than give a straight forward answer on whether they would sue our clients for patent infringement if they are ever contaminated by Monsanto’s transgenic seed, Monsanto has instead chosen to try to deny our clients the right to receive legal protection from the courts,” said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT’s Executive Director. “Filings include sworn statements by several of the plaintiffs themselves explaining to the court how the risk of contamination by transgenic seed is real and why they cannot trust Monsanto to not use an occurrence of contamination as a basis to accuse them of patent infringement.”

This goes well beyond control of seeds, of course, and beyond the plaintiffs: Continue reading →

Organic yields higher than pesticided, all around the world

To feed the world, we need to get rid of Monsanto’s pesticided patented seeds and get on with diversified sustainable organic agriculture.

A friend commented about Organic farming better for bottom line:

Devil’s advocacy: yields from organic agriculture are lower than from artificially fertilised + pesticide’d crops; therefore, the practice tends to increase food prices; therefore, organic food means starvation for people who would otherwise eat. Discuss!
Nope, that’s simply not true. Organic farming yields more, in addition to being more profitable, healthier, and tastier.

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SEC investigating Monsanto’s Roundup tactics

Somebody oughta.

Tom Philpott wrote for Mother Jones 19 July 2011, SEC Investigates Monsanto’s Roundup Biz

The SEC is investigating Monsanto’s tactics for defending the market for its herbicide, Roundup. The news emerged just before the July 4 holiday weekend, during Monsanto’s press conference about its quarterly financial earnings. Company execs boasted of a 77 percent increase in profit before dropping a mini-bombshell, The Wall Street Journal reported:
Monsanto said it was cooperating with a previously undisclosed US Securities and Exchange Commission probe into its customer incentive programs for herbicides in fiscal years 2009 and 2010, and had received a subpoena to provide related documents.
A subpoena sounds like a start. If they do a real investigation I wouldn’t be surprised if they find enough evidence to pull some licenses.

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Weeds winning against Glysophate

Chuck Darwin was right! Glysophate is losing to mutant weeds.

Gus Lubin wrote in Business Insider 9 June 2011, Dramatic Proliferation Of Herbicide-Resistant Weeds Threatens U.S. Crops

Researchers at Iowa State University warn that herbicide-resistant weeds are proliferating and may jeopardize U.S. food supply.

In an article published in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, weed scientist Michael Owen said the proliferation of superweed “has been fairly dramatic in the last two to three years.”

Weeds are developing resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, which has been used extensively since 1996.

U.S. soybean, cotton and corn production could suffer from further proliferation, according to Science News:

“Today, 98 percent of U.S. soybeans, 88 percent or so of U.S. cotton and more than 70 percent of U.S. corn come from cultivars resistant to glyphosate,” Owen reports. Reliance on these crops — and an accompanying weed-control strategy that employs glyphosate to the exclusion of other herbicides — “created the ‘perfect storm’ for weeds to evolve resistance,” Owen and Jerry Green of Pioneer Hi-Bred International in Newark, Del., argue in their new analysis.

Oh, you mean like this pigweed-infested cotton from last year? The Palmer amaranth is already just as bad this year.

It’s not like this is news. We’ve been going on about it Continue reading →

Small farms increasing

For the first time in many decades, small farms are increasing.

Christopher Wanjek wrote in LiveScience 10 February 2009, Small Farms Sprout in Economic Drought:

When the economy gets tough, it seems that the tough get farming. Tens of thousands of small farms were created since 2002, according to new data from the Census of Agriculture.

The farming forecast isn’t entirely sunny. But packed with a cornucopia of surprise findings — such as large increases in the number and percentage of Asian, Hispanic, Black and female farmers, and a coup staged by the frigid state of Wisconsin to become the second-leading vegetable producer, behind California — the census brings promising news to those interested in reducing obesity and improving the environment.

What’s the connection? More small farms brings greater diversity of crops, more fresh and local foods, less dependency on chemical fertilizers, less concentration of manure, and less emphasis on cheap corn to make unhealthy, industrially produced beef, pork and chicken.

We know this works elsewhere:
In Japan, were obesity is negligible and the population lives on average about five years longer than Americans do, most cities and their surroundings are filled with small farms. Farmers south of Tokyo, which has a climate similar to Washington, work year round, planting winter crops such as broccoli and hearty greens, which are then picked and delivered to local stores within a day or two. The system is called chisan, chishou, “produce local, consume local.”
Unfortunately, big farms also increased during the same period, and mid-sized farms decreased. Basically, mid-sized farms can’t compete in the pesticide game, and are being absorbed by huge corporate farms while being a grass-roots movement of small farms is coming up from the bottom.

Rather than massive Monsanto farms, I choose chisan, chishou.

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