Tag Archives: soybean

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.

-jsq

Animal miscarriages from new fungus or virus in Roundup-read crops?

Jill Richardson publishes a letter from Col. (Ret.) Don M. Huber, Emeritus Professor, Purdue University, who is APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS). It begins:
Dear Secretary Vilsack:
A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn-suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!
What’s an “electron microsope pathogen”? Continue reading →

How Monsanto Leverages Patents to Dominate World Food Supply


Soybean pods by jwinfred
There is a Creative Commons license attached to this image. AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works
Christopher Leonard of the Associated Press says (14 Dec 2009) Monsanto seed biz role revealed:
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.

Why should you care?

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.

Where does Monsanto get such power? Continue reading →

Soy 93% Corn 80% Monsanto

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 →