The
harsh reality is that Monsanto's clear mandate is to generate
artificial revenue monopolies in the chemical business. They have
hugely succeeded in doing this with the industrial farm model while
dumping certain costs out onto the environment. These costs are been
sustained though simple propaganda and obfuscation.
It is
obvious to everybody that mass production of cattle and pigs and
chickens needs a market for the byproduct of animal manure. No such
market presently exists. The obvious fix is to apply a direct tax on
this manure and include imported meat to level the playing field.
Rebates would be established for natural consumption and nothing
else.
Such
a system would at least drive the problem back into the industry and
likely completely solve it.
Yet
this and many other problems are not been regulated away and
gigantism is allowed unnecessarily dominate. Many of the problems
been solved by Monsanto are driven by this gigantism.
What
is now happening, push back is building up and we are beginning to
see rallies and affirmative action taking place. Not only is the
Monsanto business model dangerous, it is terribly vulnerable to
systemic collapse. Many will argue that that is unproven but the
canary in the mine is dying in the form of collapsing bee colonies.
I
think that we are seeing a building challenge to clear oligarchic
tendencies of a hyper rich global corporation. This could be
historic and may actually help trigger a global governance consensus
to oversee this type of behavior.
The Growing Global
Challenge to Monsanto's Monopolistic Greed
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
00:00
By Kevin Zeese
and Margaret Flowers
The common problem we
face is the power of concentrated wealth and monopolistic corporate
interests. This has created a crony capitalist economy that uses
government to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the
people, often threatening our basic necessities for life.A clear
example of this is found in the behavior of the chemical and seed
corporation, Monsanto.Monsanto threatens the world's food supply;
this is a major challenge of our era. This struggle is central to the
global ecosystem, economy and energy crises. Monsanto also pushes
poisonous chemicals into the environment and promotes agricultural
practices that exacerbate climate change.
Monsanto's actions
truly affect each of us. They put their profits over the need for
healthy foods, diverse seed supplies and the stability of the
agricultural economy. They employ a variety of tools to control
access to seeds and aggressively push genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) and toxic chemicals despite serious safety concerns about
them. And they accomplish this with great help from the US
government.
When President Obama
appointed a Monsanto lobbyist, Michael Taylor, as the "food
czar" (officially the deputy commissioner for foods) - avoiding
the Senate confirmation process, which would have brought public
attention to the appointment - it was one more example of how
corrupted both parties have become by corporate influence.
A global grassroots
movement is building to challenge Monsanto as more people realize
that we are in a struggle for our survival. May 25 is a global
day of action against Monsanto taking place in hundreds of
cities and 41 countries. Monsanto must be stopped before its
unfettered greed destroys our health and environment. We urge you to
join the effort to stop Monsanto.
Monsanto: A Threat to
Public Health and the Environment
Monsanto's products
increase the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, water and
energy. At a time when the world needs to be making a transition away
from the destructive impacts of energy and chemical-intensive
agriculture toward local and organic food and farming, Monsanto is
pulling the world in the opposite direction.
Monsanto began as
a chemical company in 1901. In the 1930s, it was responsible for
some of the most damaging chemicals in our history - polychlorinated
biphenyls, or PCB's, and dioxin. According to a Food & Water
Watch corporate profile, a single Monsanto plant in Sauget, Illinois,
produced 99 percent of PCB's until they were banned in 1976. PCBs are
carcinogenic and harmful to multiple organs and systems. They are
still illegally dumped into waterways, where they accumulate in
plants and food crops, as well as fish and other aquatic organisms,
which enter the human food supply. The Sauget plant is now the home
of two Superfund sites.
Dioxin is the
defoliant used in Vietnam known as Agent Orange. It is one of the
most dangerous chemicals known, a highly toxic carcinogen linked to
50 illnesses and 20 birth defects. Between 1962 and 1971, 19 million
gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed in Vietnam. A class action
lawsuit filed by Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange was settled
for $180 million. And a Monsanto plant that made dioxin in Times
Beach, Missouri, poisoned the area so greatly that the town has been
wiped from the map. Thousands of people had to be relocated and it is
now also a superfund site. Consistent with their method of operation,
Monsanto has denied responsibility for the harm these chemicals have
caused.
Their biggest selling
chemical worldwide is the herbicide glyphosate, sold under the name
RoundUp. Monsanto markets it as a safe herbicide and has made a
fortune from it. Sales of Roundup and other glyphosate-based
herbicides accounted for 27 percent of Monsanto's total 2011 net
sales. Monsanto engineers genetically modified seeds, branded as
"Roundup Ready," to resist Roundup so that the herbicide is
absolutely necessary for those who buy these seeds. Roundup Ready
seeds have been Monsanto's most successful genetically modified
product line and have made Roundup the most widely used herbicide in
the history of the world.
Roundup is toxic,
known to cause cancer, Parkinson's Disease, birth defects and
infertility. A 2012 European Report found that the,
"Industry has known from its own studies since the 1980s that
glyphosate causes malformations in experimental animals at high
doses" and that industry has known "since 1993 that these
effects also occur at lower and mid doses." This information was
not made public, and both Monsanto and the European government misled
people by telling them glyphosate was safe - as did the US
government.
In response
to Monsanto's denial of this toxicity, Earth Open Source
explicitly pointed to studies, including some funded by Monsanto,
that showed "glyphosate causes birth defects in experimental
animals" and also causes "cancer, genetic damage, endocrine
disruption and other serious health effects. Many of these effects
are found at very low, physiologically relevant doses."
Before the use of
glyphosate-resistant seeds, farmers used lower quantities of Roundup
for fear of killing their own plants (since the herbicide kills
anything green). But, a 2012 report found that with
resistant seeds, "the herbicide can be sprayed in massive
amounts, often from planes, near homes, schools and villages,
resulting in massive increases in cancer and birth defects."
In addition, farmers
are discovering Roundup resistant "super weeds" that
are not killed by the herbicide. An Arkansas farmer tells US
News "This is not a science fiction thing, this is
happening right now. We're creating super weeds." Indeed, there
are now 24 Roundup resistant weeds that have been reported.
In response to the appearance of these weeds, a report found:
"farmers ... use progressively more glyphosate as well as
mixtures of other even more toxic herbicides." In fact, farmers
who grow genetically modified crops use about 25 percent more
herbicides than farmers who use traditional seeds.
Monsanto produces a
variety of pesticides that are less well known. Author Jill
Richardson reports that these include "a number of
chemicals named as Bad Actors by Pesticide Action Network." They
include known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and other toxins such
as Alachlor, Acetochlor, Atrazine, Clopyralid, Dicamba and
Thiodicarb.
Not only does Monsanto
never take responsibility for the impact of its poisonous chemicals,
but they do their best to prevent research showing toxic effects. For
example, in 2011, Monsanto acquired Beeologics, a company
dedicated to restoring the health of the bee population, amid
scientific and media speculation that an overuse of pesticides was to
blame for dwindling bee populations.
Monsanto also
threatens the sustainability of agriculture because its products
require the use of larger quantities of water and fossil fuels in
farming. While genetically engineered crops are supposed to be more
drought resistant, the opposite turns out to be true. Don Huber,
a science expert, notes "It takes twice as much water to
produce a pound of a Roundup-ready crop soybean plant treated with
glyphosate, as it does with soybean plant that's not treated with
glyphosate."
Monsanto is a major
threat to climate change due to its energy-intensive agricultural
model and promotion of ethanol as a fuel source. The Organic
Consumers Association adds it all up: "All told, the production
and processing of Monsanto's GMO crops, from deforestation to
fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, polluting factory
farms, and fuel-intensive food processing and distribution, is
estimated to produce up to 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions."
As a result of
Monsanto's marketing, there are a lot of myths about GMOs. The
truth is that GMO foods are different from traditional foods and are
neither more nutritious - nor have they been proven to be safe to
eat. Limited studies so far indicate that GMO foods may
cause kidney and liver damage. GMO crops do not produce larger
crop yields or make farmers' lives easier, nor are they a key to
feeding the world. The use of GMO seeds does environmental damage by
increasing the use of pesticides, fossil fuels and water. And they
make the world's biggest environmental problem, climate change,
worse.
Monsanto: A Threat
to Biodiversity and Independent Agriculture
One of the keys to
sustainability and durability in times of environmental stress is
biodiversity. This means the existence of many varieties of plants
and the insects, fungi and bacteria they require for survival so that
food can be produced under different conditions. With climate change
upon us, the environment is in a state of great stress: more extreme
weather, new varieties of insects moving from south to north and new
weeds are becoming common. This is a time when biodiversity is more
important than ever.
Yet years of
chemical-based agriculture have poisoned the air, water, soil and
food supplies, which has killed many living things and decreased
biodiversity. In addition to causing disease in humans, the use of
herbicides and pesticides is contributing to arapid species
extinction of beneficial plants, insects and animals.
Monsanto is pushing
agriculture toward less biodiversity by concentrating the world's
seed supply under its control. Through promotion of their genetically
altered crops, contamination of traditional seeds and the practice of
monopolization, Monsanto is rapidly dominating our global food
system.
Monsanto's genes are
currently found in 40 percent of the crops grown in the United
States. A March 2013 report found 86 percent of corn, 88
percent of cotton and 93 percent of soybeans farmed in the US are now
genetically engineered (GE) varieties, making the option of farming
non-GE crops increasingly difficult. As GE crops spread and infect or
mix with traditional crops, it is becoming harder to preserve
traditional seeds. This creates a great problem because, as we
discussed above, GE crops are unsustainable for a variety
of reasons.
Monsanto's efforts to
dominate the market began with buying up the competition as early as
1982. In the decade after the mid-90s, Monsanto spent more than
$12 billion to buy at least 30 businesses contributing to the
decline of independent seed companies. One of the big purchases
that consolidated the market was a 1997 purchase of Holden
Foundation Seeds and two Holden seed distributors for $1.02
billion. Holden was the country's last big independent producer
of foundation seed. The company was in the Holden family for three
generations. They produced seed that was planted on about 35 percent
of the acreage set aside for corn and were the biggest American
producer of foundation corn, the parent seed from which hybrids are
made.
Jill Richardson
describes how aggressively Monsanto uses their market power "to
get seed dealers to not stock many of their competitors' products ...
they restrict the seed companies' ability to combine Monsanto's
traits with those of their competitors. And, famously, farmers who
plant Monsanto's patented seeds sign contracts prohibiting them from
saving and replanting their seeds." They promised
rebates to farmers who ensured that Monsanto products made up at
least 70 percent of their inventory to keep competitors out of the
market. As a result of this, through either purchases or forcing
competitors into bankruptcy, the number of independent seed
producers has dropped from 300 to under 100 since the mid-90s.
Monsanto also required that their Roundup Ready seeds be
used only with Roundup, thereby keeping generic, less expensive
competitors out of the market.
The result has been
increased prices for farmers and consumers. Since 2001, Monsanto
has more than doubled the price of soybean and corn seeds
and farmers have been told to expect prices to keep increasing.
According to a March 2013 report, from 1995 to 2011, the average
cost to plant one acre of soybeans has risen 325 percent; cotton
prices spiked 516 percent and corn seed prices are up by 259 percent.
The rising cost has had a deadly effect in India, where more
than 270,000 farmerswho grew Monsanto's Bt Cotton committed suicide,
many by drinking pesticides, because of endless growing
debt. Nonetheless, the greatest threat from the loss of
biodiversity in the seed markets is the ability to adapt to
increasingly unpredictable climate changes. As Salon reports:
"Many of the seed breeders and retailers Monsanto purchased were
regional experts, familiar with the soil and adept at breeding crops
suited to the vagaries of local pests and climate. That sprawling
network of local knowledge and experimentation has been severely
thinned." Richardson adds, when crops are "too genetically
homogenous, then they are vulnerable to a single disease or pest that
can wipe them out."
A March 2013
report, Seed Giants vs. US Farmers, found that Monsanto's seed
dominance is also shrinking the number of independent farmers.
According to the report, as of January 2013, Monsanto, alleging seed
patent infringement, had filed 144 lawsuits involving 410 farmers and
56 small farm businesses in at least 27 different states. Some of
these farmers are sued because pollen brings Monsanto products onto
their farms. There are so many cases it is impossible to summarize
them in this article, but the Organic Consumers Association has
an excellent web sitefor more information on this and other Monsanto
controversies.
Monsanto: Leading Example of Corrupted Government Unable to Operate in the Public Interest
You would think this
concentration of industry would lead to antitrust litigation. In
fact, shortly after taking office, the Obama administration began an
antitrust investigation, taking over from several states that were
looking into the market practices of Monsanto. The investigation was
announced with much fanfare, but last November, without even a
press release, the Department of Justice closed the investigation,
leaving us to conclude that it may have been a tactic to thwart state
efforts.
At the beginning of
the antitrust investigation, there was hope that a marketplace with
more diverse seed sources and competition could exist in the future,
but with the Obama administration's decision to drop the
investigation, Monsanto domination of the market has been given the
imprimatur of legality and the abusive practices Monsanto uses to buy
or destroy competition have been ratified.
Monsanto exemplifies
political connections, the revolving door, bought-and-paid-for
corporatist governance and so much that is wrong with the way the US
government operates. Open Secrets reports Monsanto is one
of the biggest spenders in Washington. It spent $6 million
lobbying in DC in 2012, the biggest agribusiness spender. The next
was Archer Daniel Midlands, spending just over $1 million.
Monsanto epitomizes
the revolving door between industry and government. At least
seven Monsanto officials have served in government positions.
Michael Taylor left the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in
1984 to join King & Spalding, a law firm that lobbies for
Monsanto. He returned to the FDA in 1991 and then left again to
return to Monsanto in 1994 as their vice president for public policy,
only to return to the FDA again as the current "food czar,"
where he has led major advances for genetically modified foods.
Taylor played the lead role in introducing rBGH (bovine growth
hormone), which was used to increase cows' milk production, into the
US market in the early 90s along with two other Monsanto-FDA
door revolvers, Dr. Margaret Miller and Susan Sechen, both from the
Office of New Animal Drugs.
Other door
revolvers include high level officials: Arthur Hayes,
commissioner of the FDA from 1981 to 1983 and consultant to Searle's
public relations firm, which later merged with Monsanto; Michael
A. Friedman, former acting commissioner of the FDA, who later
went on to become senior vice president for clinical affairs at
Searle; and Virginia Weldon, a member of the FDA's
Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee, after retiring
as vice president for public policy at Monsanto.
It is not only the FDA
where the Monsanto revolving door has influence. On the Supreme
Court, Justice Clarence Thomas used to be a lawyer for Monsanto.
Recently, the Supreme Court ruled against a farmer who was sued
by Monsanto, ordering the farmer to pay $84,000 in damages.
But it is not only the
revolving door that is the problem. It is also that some top
government officials "work" for Monsanto while they are in
office. One example took place during the Clinton administration when
the French government was reluctant to allow Monsanto's seeds on
French soil. First the US Trade Representative Charlene Barschefsky
urged the French government to allow the seeds. When that did not
work, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright lobbied for Monsanto in
France. When that failed, President Clinton himself took up the task
of giving Prime Minister Lionel Jospin "an earful" about
Monsanto. Even that did not work. Finally, Vice President Gore pushed
Jospin - who finally gave in.
This is just one
example of many in which the US government foreign policy apparatus
operated on behalf of Monsanto. Five years of WikiLeaks
diplomatic cables during the Bush and Obama administrations
reveal that the State Department lobbied for Monsanto products
worldwide and pushed genetically modified foods wherever it could. It
is almost like the US government is a marketing arm for
Monsanto and genetically modified foods. Indeed, in August 2011,
WikiLeaks exposed that American diplomats requested funding to send
lobbyists for the biotech industry to hold talks with politicians and
agricultural officials in "target countries" in areas like
Africa and Latin America.
There is no doubt that
in the new massive trade agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership
and the trade agreement being negotiated with Europe, the United
States will seek to include protections for Monsanto and
GMOs. Europeans involved in every aspect of agriculture or
food safety are very concerned that lowered trade barriers will allow
GMOs into Europe. In Europe, GMOs are currently grown on less than 1
percent of farmland.
When people try to use
democratic tools to change Monsanto's behavior, Monsanto and its
allies spend millions to confuse voters and create fear. That was
clear in the California initiative in November 2012 in which
tens of millions were spent to prevent the requirement that
foods be labeled so consumers would know whether they contained GMOs
or not. Consumer groups continue to push for labeling. Another vote
will be held in 2013 in Washington State, and Vermont may become the
first state to pass a law requiring labeling.
Although labeling of
foods that contain GMOs is required in Europe and US corporations
such as Walmart and McDonald's comply with these rules in Europe,
Monsanto and its allies are taking the fight to prevent labeling in
the United States to new levels. As more state-level battles and an
energized grass roots develop, Ronnie Cummins of the Organic
Consumers Association reports Monsanto and allies are trying to
subvert these efforts by getting the corrupt federal government to
pass a law forbidding states to pass labeling laws.
Impossible, you think?
Well, Monsanto has done the seemingly impossible before. Most
recently, one legislative victory that enraged people was the
Monsanto Protection Act (actually misleadingly named the Farmer
Assurance Provision) which was buried in a spending bill earlier this
year and which protects Monsanto from the courts. For example, under
the new law, federal courts are not allowed to stop the sale or
planting of controversial genetically modified seeds, no matter what
health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future. There are
now efforts to add a rider to the farm bill to repeal this
measure.
Stopping Monsanto and
Moving to Sensible Agricultural Policy
The first step to
stopping the entrenchment of genetically modified foods in our food
supply is labeling. As noted above, states are moving forward on that
front, despite the efforts of Monsanto to stop them. This is the big
battle because when foods are labeled, consumers have the power of
knowledge and can choose not to buy them.Cummins reports that in
Europe, the labeling of foods was the key to stopping the development
of genetically modified foods.
One of the tools we
must use is the boycott. Large food and beverage corporations that
sell billions of dollars of organic and natural foods bankrolled
the industry opposition to GMO labeling in California. Brand
names like Kashi, Cascadian Farms, Bear Naked, Honest Tea, Odwalla,
Naked Juice and others need to be told that we will not buy their
products if they continue to fund ignorance by blocking GMO labeling.
To protect our food
and health, the United States needs to adopt the precautionary
principle, which means products must be proven to be safe before they
are allowed on the market. The US applies a sham standard of
"substantial equivalence" which avoids the need to
test for safety. Applying the precautionary principle to Monsanto's
products would mean a moratorium on them until their safety can be
demonstrated by independent (non-corporate-funded), long-term tests
for food safety as well as safety for agriculture. Our health should
come before Monsanto's profits.
People need to be
empowered not just with credible information about genetically
modified foods and how to avoid them - that is, buy organic and
non-processed foods - but also with access to courts to sue if
agriculture, the environment or their health is damaged by GMOs. The
repeal of the "Monsanto Protection Act" is a first step in
that direction, but people also need to have a greater ability to sue
corporations that harm them.
We advocate a two-path
approach - protest what you do not like and build what you want. That
means that while we encourage community-supported agriculture,
organic and local gardening, preparing your own non-processed foods
and working to change laws, we also urge protest. This May 25, nearly
300 protests are being held all over the world against Monsanto in
the March Against Monsanto organized byOccupy Monsanto.
Join these protests.
As it is with many
other issues, the future of the world's food supply boils down to the
people vs. concentrated wealth and corporate power. It highlights the
corruption of government and the need for a real democracy in which
people are allowed to make choices for themselves on basic issues
like what kind of food they eat and what kind of plants they want to
grow. Popular resistance to concentrated wealth is growing as more
people demand the right to control their own lives.
You can learn more and
hear our interview with Ronnie Cummins, Patty Lovera and Adam
Eidinger, "Reasons to Protest Monsanto" at Clearing
The FOG.
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