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Monsanto's Really needs to be STOPPED HELP

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mean mr.mustard

I Pass Satellites
Veteran
for you to say people are not healthier is just plain stupid. And for you to think that science and genetics are not involved in having fruit (grapes also0 in the market 12 months out of the year just shows your ignorance. You have no idea what it takes to bring food to market.

And for every failed example of GM, there are plenty of successes.

Without science, you wouldn't even know how to can you freaking tomatos, yet you can pass the fattie and dream of the good old days that were not very good at all. You'd know that if you listened in school.

You have no idea what I have no idea about.

I do know that we are NOT healthier.

I do know that genetic engineering is NOT necessary to transport produce.... or can tomatoes.

I paid attention in school.

You are a hard act to follow.
 

Ciarán

Member
from the organic seed aliance...

A Brief History of the Development of the Seed Industry –
The Shift from Public to Private Seed Systems


One hundred fifty years ago the United States did not have a commercial seed industry; today we have the world’s largest.* Some view this as real progress, a form of genetic Manifest Destiny. A nation once a ‘debtor’ in plant genetics now supplies the world. In 1854, seeds were sourced in the U.S. by way of a small number of horticultural seed catalogs, farmer (or gardener) exchange, on-farm seed saving, and through the beneficence of the United States government. Specifically, beginning in the 1850s, the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (PTO) and congressional representatives saw to the collection, propagation and distribution of varieties to their constituents throughout the states and territories. The program grew quickly so that, by 1861, the PTO had annual distribution of more than 2.4 million packages of seed (containing five packets of different varieties). The flow of seed reached its highest volume in 1897 (under USDA management) – with more than 1.1 billion packets of seed distributed.

The government’s objectives in funding such a massive movement of seed stemmed from the recognition that feeding an expanding continent would require a diversification of foods. To the early colonies, the introduction of wheat, rye, oats, peas, cabbage and many other vegetable crops was as critical to food security as was the adoption of the corn, beans and squash. Immigrants were encourage to bring seed from the old country, founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson engaged in seed-exchange societies, and by 1819 the U.S. Treasury Department issued a directive to its overseas consultants and Navy officers to systematically collect plant materials.

The first commercial seed crop was not produced until 1866—cabbage seed produced on Long Island for the U.S. wholesale market. The industry flourished to some degree, but early seed trade professionals felt their growth was stymied by the U.S. government programs as well as the self-replicating nature of their product (that is, the factory contained within that product). In 1883, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) formed and immediately lobbied for the cessation of the government programs. The organization developed powerful allies, such as Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of Agriculture, J. Sterling Morton, who wrote that the government giveaway was “antagonistic to seed as a commodity-form and in direct competition with the private seed trade.” But the program was very popular with constituents, and the USDA’s seed budget was kept intact – at one point counting for a full 10 percent of the agency’s overall annual expenditures.

In the early part of the 20th century, the first wave of hybrids began to provide seed companies with a potential increase in product profitability (as farmers would now need to return to the seed distributor for materials each year). However, most of the hybrid development was occurring at Land Grant Universities, and these universities refused to give the companies exclusive rights to the seed. Once again, the industry felt its growth hindered by federal programs and complained of unfair trade practices. Mounting data also indicated a slowing in yield increases from seed developed in government programs. The industry used this last point to strengthen its argument for the privatization of seed development in order to foster greater food security.

In 1924, after more than 40 years of lobbying, ASTA succeeded in convincing Congress to cut the USDA seed distribution programs. The USDA still supported breeding at the state agricultural schools, and for a time these programs continued to compete with seed companies by developing ‘finished’ commercial varieties. Associations such as the American Society of Agronomy and American Society of Horticulture Science eventually convinced the public programs that their appropriate role was in training plant breeders, performing fundamental research, and creating raw materials and technologies for private industry to capitalize on. The LGUs began to increasingly serve in this capacity, developing inbred parental lines and breeding stock that the seed trade would use to create proprietary varieties.

These changes in the public role, along with improvements in hybrid techniques, led to the growth of the seed trade following World War II. The trade was well represented during this period by regional companies. The conversion to monocropping and large-scale corporate agriculture had not yet moved into full swing. The Santa Clara Valley grew vegetables and fruit and not internet startups, and Americans still planted their Victory Gardens. The seed trade reflected this diversity in food production.

In the 1960s, a few larger seed firms began to purchase smaller companies (mostly to acquire strong hybrid holdings). But the consolidations of this period were minor compared to the frenzy that would come with a Supreme Court ruling on June 16, 1980, in the case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty. Prior to the Chakrabarty decision, a plant (or animal) could be owned, but the genetics could not. This case cleared the patenting of life forms on the bases of their genetic coding. The PTO granted more than 1,800 such patents following the ruling. Companies that had no historical seed interests—primarily chemical and pharmaceutical firms—began purchasing seed companies. In a few short years, there were billions of dollars in mergers and acquisitions—with little to no regulatory oversight—creating for the first time a majority ownership of plant genetics by a few multinational companies. No other natural resource (marine, timber, minerals) has ever shifted from public to private hands with such rapidity, such intensity of concentration, and so little oversight.
 

DocLeaf

procreationist
ICMag Donor
Veteran
People can help others by helping themselves.

The fritillary seed collective have been aware of Monsanto for many years (it good to see other catching on) and have made active steps in-breed rare heirloom varieties of food crops for future generation of organic growers to grow, eat and enjoy.

Harvesting healthy food is a birthright

Click the butterfly below for information about fritillary collective veggie seed multi-packs at seedbay.
 
E

elmanito

But CC - you know that flavor has far more to do with genetics, and not organic growing methods. Strawberries and tomatos especially. Both products are notorious due to the fact that the tastiest (genetics) have the shortest legs (shipping distance is short). That is the main reason folks like homegrown or local tomatos and strawberries. It has little to do with organic methods.

Flavor is not only genetics, but the cultivation method is also important.Tomatoes cultivated on rockwool contains more water and less sugar than the ones cultivated on soil from the same variety.The use of Sea-Crop for instance showed in different researches that the TDS increased but also sugarcontent, phytonutrients, vitamins etc.

Durood Bar Shoma :plant grow: :canabis:
 

grapeman

Active member
Veteran
You have no idea what I have no idea about.

I do know that we are NOT healthier.

I do know that genetic engineering is NOT necessary to transport produce.... or can tomatoes.

I paid attention in school.

You are a hard act to follow.

Well if you don't know that we are healthier then look it up.
Genetics play a large part in produce shipping as does other science (for example, Muscat grapes have a distinct and desired flavor. Problem was that Muscats, once cut from the vine, deteriorated rapidly and the variety died. Now science is bringing back the flavor of Muscats in new varieties that have a much longer shelf life.) And Science (war science) brought you canned tomatos.
Pay attention.
 

mean mr.mustard

I Pass Satellites
Veteran
Well if you don't know that we are healthier then look it up.
Genetics play a large part in produce shipping as does other science (for example, Muscat grapes have a distinct and desired flavor. Problem was that Muscats, once cut from the vine, deteriorated rapidly and the variety died. Now science is bringing back the flavor of Muscats in new varieties that have a much longer shelf life.) And Science (war science) brought you canned tomatos.
Pay attention.

Where do you get your information?

We are not healthier.

Muscats are not extinct.

Breeding isn't genetic engineering.

DNA manipulation is one facet of science... the facet you were upholding as the answer to the world's problems.

Now you are just saying "science" like those who aren't proGMO are against science.

Get your facts straight and clean out your ears.
 
Science or religion or both???

Someone must be blamed!!!!
...or do we need to stop posting and start growing more food and meds methinks...

The long-term consequences of the Columbian Exchange were mixed. It created enormous increases in food production and human populations, but it also destroyed the ecological stability of vast areas, increased erosion of the land, and led to the extinction of many life-forms.

Id like to mention this is the exchange which brought europe things like tomatoes and corn... and which brought to the americas, such fine things as grapes.
Joy!

No matter which choice is accounted for, there will always be pros and cons, its a matter of priorities. Money or health, since I have become firmly rooted in the belief that money will not buy me health... it seems like it could but its a trick... be aware!
I choose non manipulated, yummy, locally bred veggies grown organically in my garden... and Id also ask we stop putting nasties in the air. Gosh theres so much more to say, but even more to grow...

Take care folks...

Oh and cheers to Frit, and Doc. Noticing their amazing idea we have adopted similar strategies to include veggie seeds as part of a sustainable program for replenishing genetic commodities, I would urge others to do the same
 

Clackamas Coot

Active member
Veteran
Well if you don't know that we are healthier then look it up.

Given the explosion in Type II diabetes, not just a huge increase, but a scary future because children as young as 12 are being hit with this disease. It's one thing like in the past when Type II was an 'old person's disease' and you knew that you probably could pull out 10 years and maybe even 15. The number of years that these 'healthy children' will loose is truly sad.
Genetics play a large part in produce shipping as does other science (for example, Muscat grapes have a distinct and desired flavor. Problem was that Muscats, once cut from the vine, deteriorated rapidly and the variety died. Now science is bringing back the flavor of Muscats in new varieties that have a much longer shelf life.) And Science (war science) brought you canned tomatos.
Pay attention.
Let's hope that the new and improved modified Muscat grapes fare better than Calgene's Flavr Savr disaster.

Calgene was later acquired by Monsanto - of course.

Even the rats in the testing labs at UC Davis wouldn't eat these tomatoes - they literally had to be force-fed. We sat out Flavr Savr deal and were rewarded in spades with increased business & revenue from grocery store chains not wanting to get involved in the crap being promoted and pushed by the kids at Calgene. It's fitting that Monsanto bought them - it fits into their business model(s).

CC
 

mrwags

********* Female Seeds
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Where do you get your information?

We are not healthier.

Muscats are not extinct.

Breeding isn't genetic engineering.

DNA manipulation is one facet of science... the facet you were upholding as the answer to the world's problems.

Now you are just saying "science" like those who aren't proGMO are against science.

Get your facts straight and clean out your ears.

Let's talk about Wal-Mart milk for a moment you know the Family Value's crap thats on average 2-2.35 cheaper per gallon than say anything else.

rBST is a growth hormone that is given to dairy cows to make them give more milk and has FINALLY been proven to upset the minstrel cycle of women. It wasn't until a DR published a thesis ONLINE that anybody knew about it and when this said DR went to his next convention he was shocked to find it harmed THOUSANDS of women across the country.

We can play god to a certain point imho. But when we do something out of simple greed is when MAN as a whole will always fail.

rBST does absolutely nothing to improve the taste of the milk. It does not make it better for you it simply allows a cow to provide on average 20% more milk and in the end causes infections of the udders. Instead of the obvious answer of getting more cows.

Women have had cycles of 2-3 years going from Dr to Dr to find out why they were sick and damn near bleeding to death all because Suck-Mart was able to keep it under wraps as long as they did.

For fact of this farce simply google Wal-Mart milk and or rBST and you will find hundreds of story's all having the same symptoms and all going away once they stop drinking it.

So lets bottom line this for a moment.

I have a synthetic (man made drug) that I can inject into my cow to make her give me 20% more milk but it will hurt her and some of those who drink it BUT I do it anyway.

If that's not Corporate Greed I have no idea what is.

Oh and I say Corporate greed because Wal-Mart own the farms,they bought them from the bankruptcy court AFTER they refused to sell their milk anymore and they went udders up. (sound familiar?)


Have A Nice Day
Mr.Wags
 

mean mr.mustard

I Pass Satellites
Veteran
Given the explosion in Type II diabetes, not just a huge increase, but a scary future because children as young as 12 are being hit with this disease. It's one thing like in the past when Type II was an 'old person's disease' and you knew that you probably could pull out 10 years and maybe even 15. The number of years that these 'healthy children' will loose is truly sad.Let's hope that the new and improved modified Muscat grapes fare better than Calgene's Flavr Savr disaster.

Calgene was later acquired by Monsanto - of course.

Even the rats in the testing labs at UC Davis wouldn't eat these tomatoes - they literally had to be force-fed. We sat out Flavr Savr deal and were rewarded in spades with increased business & revenue from grocery store chains not wanting to get involved in the crap being promoted and pushed by the kids at Calgene. It's fitting that Monsanto bought them - it fits into their business model(s).

CC

I would feel like a force fed rat everytime I didn't have a choice that I'd like to choose.

We need to maintain lines because soon many will have less and less of a choice.

Choosing entirely nonGMO products is becoming very difficult... especially for those with lower incomes.

I feel that we are subject to trickery moreso than progress... label it how you may.

Terminator genes should show you what Monsanto considers the future.
 

Clackamas Coot

Active member
Veteran
Shipping Tomatoes

In the retail produce sector there are 5 items that comprise 75% of total sales with bananas being the #1 revenue source in the entire supermarket.

Tomatoes are another one of the "Heavy 5" and setting aside the boutique tomatoes like Cherry Toms, Grape Toms, et al. the major thrust is in what consumers mistakenly refer to as 'Beefsteak Tomatoes'

Between 18-20% of this market is in what are called 'Layered Tomatoes' and these are of uniform size and you buy them and specify the size - like 4 x 6 means that there are 4 tomatoes across the box and it's 6 rows deep. This is the largest size generally available with 5 x 6 and 6 x 6 being the sizes most often ordered.

These tomatoes are picked when they hit a light pink color - kinda like pulling your cannabis flowers in Week 4 or 5. It looks like the real deal (sort of) but not much benefit.

The rest of the industry buys tomatoes in 25# lugs and these are picked green. Extremely green. They're referred to as 'gassed greens' because when they hit the wholesale distributors, grocery store distribution centers, et al. they have to be processed for several days in the gas chambers.

Both types will be placed in what are called ripening rooms where ethylene gas is injected into the sealed room and this brings them 'to color' - these are the same rooms used to ripen bananas. Produce managers order bananas according to an established color chart. A #1 banana is solid green and a #5 is completely yellow and is showing a large number of sugar spots (the brown ones). Avocados are another commodity that requires some time in the ripening room.

A tomato in order to taste like a tomato requires that it ripen on the vine. Just like growing cannabis, monitoring the ripening of the flowers and moving forward with your 'nute schedule' will, hopefully, give you the results you're looking for.

So what are tomato shippers looking for? It's certainly not flavor. Mineral levels a concern? Nope! But the shelf life to take into consideration of moving the product from the sheds to operations on the East Coast - landed viability is the issue.

So that's why your tomatoes taste like crap and the ones you buy that are grown locally by people who actually give a sh*t on what they bring to the table (pun sort of intended) - now you'll be eating real food.

Given the level of technology that has gone into the hydroponic greenhouse operations in Europe and North America it would seem to me that one of these jamokes could produce a tomato that tasted like something other than lightly flavored water.

CC
 
The only way I see out of the GMO loop is CSA: Community Supported Agriculture.

Community Supported Agriculture
Thinking about signing up for a CSA but want to learn more about the idea before you commit? Read on.

Over the last 20 years, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a "membership" or a "subscription") and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.

This arrangement creates several rewards for both the farmer and the consumer. In brief...

Advantages for farmers:

Get to spend time marketing the food early in the year, before their 16 hour days in the field begin
Receive payment early in the season, which helps with the farm's cash flow
Have an opportunity to get to know the people who eat the food they grow
Advantages for consumers:

Eat ultra-fresh food, with all the flavor and vitamin benefits
Get exposed to new vegetables and new ways of cooking
Usually get to visit the farm at least once a season
Find that kids typically favor food from "their" farm – even veggies they've never been known to eat
Develop a relationship with the farmer who grows their food and learn more about how food is grown
It's a simple enough idea, but its impact has been profound. Tens of thousands of families have joined CSAs, and in some areas of the country there is more demand than there are CSA farms to fill it. The government does not track CSAs, so there is no official count of how many CSAs there are in the U.S.. LocalHarvest has the most comprehensive directory of CSA farms, with over 2,500 listed in our grassroots database. In 2008, 557 CSAs signed up with LocalHarvest, and in the first two months of 2009, an additional 300 CSAs joined the site.

Variations
As you might expect with such a successful model, farmers have begun to introduce variations. One increasingly common one is the "mix and match," or "market-style" CSA. Here, rather than making up a standard box of vegetables for every member each week, the members load their own boxes with some degree of personal choice. The farmer lays out baskets of the week's vegetables. Some farmers encourage members to take a prescribed amount of what's available, leaving behind just what their families do not care for. Some CSA farmers then donate this extra produce to a food bank. In other CSAs, the members have wider choice to fill their box with whatever appeals to them, within certain limitations. (e.g. "Just one basket of strawberries per family, please.")

CSAs aren't confined to produce. Some farmers include the option for shareholders to buy shares of eggs, homemade bread, meat, cheese, fruit, flowers or other farm products along with their veggies. Sometimes several farmers will offer their products together, to offer the widest variety to their members. For example, a produce farmer might create a partnership with a neighbor to deliver chickens to the CSA drop off point, so that the CSA members can purchase farm-fresh chickens when they come to get their CSA baskets. Other farmers are creating standalone CSAs for meat, flowers, eggs, and preserved farm products. In some parts of the country, non-farming third parties are setting up CSA-like businesses, where they act as middle men and sell boxes of local (and sometimes non-local) food for their members.

Shared Risk
There is an important concept woven into the CSA model that takes the arrangement beyond the usual commercial transaction. That is the notion of shared risk. When originally conceived, the CSA was set up differently than it is now. A group of people pooled their money, bought a farm, hired a farmer, and each took a share of whatever the farm produced for the year. If the farm had a tomato bonanza, everyone put some up for winter. If a plague of locusts ate all the greens, people ate cheese sandwiches. Very few such CSAs exist today, and for most farmers, the CSA is just one of the ways their produce is marketed. They may also go to the farmers market, do some wholesale, sell to restaurants, etc. Still, the idea that "we're in this together" remains. On some farms it is stronger than others, and CSA members may be asked to sign a policy form indicating that they agree to accept without complaint whatever the farm can produce.

Many times, the idea of shared risk is part of what creates a sense of community among members, and between members and the farmers. If a hailstorm takes out all the peppers, everyone is disappointed together, and together cheer on the winter squash and broccoli. Most CSA farmers feel a great sense of responsibility to their members, and when certain crops are scarce, they make sure the CSA gets served first. Still, it is worth noting that very occasionally things go wrong on a farm – like they do in any kind of business – and the expected is not delivered, and members feel shortchanged. At LocalHarvest we are in touch with CSA farmers and members from all over the country. Every year we hear get complaints about a few CSA farms (two to six farms a year, over the last nine years) where something happened and the produce was simply unacceptable. It might have been a catastrophic divorce, or an unexpected death in the family. Or the weather was abominable, or the farmer was inexperienced and got in over his/her head.

In our experience, if the situation seems regrettable but reasonable – a bad thing that in good faith could have happened to anyone – most CSA members will rally, if they already know and trust the farmer. These people are more likely to take the long view, especially if they have received an abundance of produce in the past. They are naturally more likely to think, "It'll be better next year," than are new members who have nothing to which to compare a dismal experience. The take-home message is this: if the potential for "not getting your money's worth" makes you feel anxious, then shared risk may not be for you and you should shop at the farmers market.

Sometimes we hear complaints from CSA members in situations where it appears to us that nothing really went wrong, but the member had unreasonable expectations. In the hope of minimizing disappointment and maximizing satisfaction, we've prepared the following tips and questions.
 

mriko

Green Mujaheed
Veteran
Some interesting reading here

Monsanto’s Roundup Triggers Over 40 Plant Diseases and Endangers Human and Animal Health

The following article reveals the devastating and unprecedented impact that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is having on the health of our soil, plants, animals, and human population. On top of this perfect storm, the USDA now wants to approve Roundup Ready alfalfa, which will exacerbate this calamity. Please tell USDA Secretary Vilsack not to approve Monsanto’s alfalfa today. [Note: typos corrected from Jan 16th, see details]



Continued at : http://www.responsibletechnology.org/blog/664


Round'em up I tell you !


Irie !
 

Jack784

New member
I agree that hydroponic production is environmentally friendly. It increases yields with reduced water and fertilizer usage. It also reduces fertilizer leaching and pesticide usage. However, I am not aware of a viable hydroponic method for the production of grains etc.

In my opinion with an increase in research into production organic farming techniques yield and commercial viability will increase. For example look at rodales covercrop roller. http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/no-till_revolution

These tools are mostly homemade as they are not cheap or readily available. They allow the farmer to quickly kill a cover crop, lay that crop as a durable mulch layer that will not blow away. Then with a modified seeder replant. A tool like that will make it possible for no-till farming methods to reach the commercial level. Imagine what else could be accomplished if half the effort and money spent of GMO's etc was used for organic research.
 
E

elmanito

Monsanto: a history

Monsanto was created in 1901. The company's first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. In the 1920s Monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals. During the Second World War Monsanto contributed to research on uranium for the Manhattan Project, which lead to the atomic bomb. Monsanto continued to operate a nuclear facility for the U.S. government until the late 1980s. During the 1940s Monsanto also become a leading manufacturer of synthetic fibres and plastics, including polystyrene - ranked fifth in the EPA’s list of chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste. From the 1940s onwards Monsanto was one of the top 10 US chemical companies.

Following the Second World War, Monsanto championed the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture. Its major agrochemical products have included the herbicides 2,4,5-T, DDT, Lasso and Agent Orange, which was widely used as a defoliant by the U.S. Government during the Vietnam War and which was later shown to be highly carcinogenic. The Agent Orange produced by Monsanto had dioxin levels many times higher than that produced by Dow Chemicals, the other major supplier of Agent Orange to Vietnam. This made Monsanto the key defendant in the lawsuit brought by Vietnam War veterans in the United States, who faced an array of debilitating symptoms attributable to Agent Orange exposure. Internal Monsanto memos show that Monsanto knew of the problems of dioxin contamination of Agent Orange when it sold it to the U.S. government for use in Vietnam.

Agent Orange contaminated more than 3 million civilians and servicemen, and an estimated 500,000 Vietnamese children have been born with deformities attributed to Agent Orange, leading to calls for Monsanto to be prosecuted for war crimes. No compensation has been paid to Vietnamese civilians and though some compensation was paid to U.S. veterans, according to William Sanjour, who led the Toxic Waste Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "thousands of veterans were disallowed benefits" because "Monsanto studies showed that dioxin [as found in Agent Orange] was not a human carcinogen." An EPA colleague discovered that Monsanto had apparently falsified the data in their studies. Sanjour says, "If [the studies] were done correctly, they would have reached just the opposite result."

The success of the herbicide Lasso had turned around Monsanto's struggling Agriculture Division, and by the time Agent Orange was banned in the U.S. and Lasso was facing increasing criticism, Monsanto had developed the weedkiller "Roundup" (active ingredient: glyphosate) as a replacement. Launched in 1976, Roundup helped make Monsanto the world's largest producer of herbicides.

The success of Roundup coincided with the recognition by Monsanto executives that they needed to radically transform a company increasingly under threat. According to a recent paper by Dominic Glover, "Monsanto had acquired a particularly unenviable reputation in this regard, as a major producer of both dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) - both persistent environmental pollutants posing serious risks to the environment and human health. Law suits and environmental clean-up costs began to cut into Monsanto's bottom line, but more seriously there was a real fear that a serious lapse could potentially bankrupt the company."

Such a fear was not misplaced. By the 1980s Monsanto was being hit by a series of lawsuits. It was one of the companies named in 1987 in an $180 million settlement for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange. In 1991 Monsanto was fined $1.2 million for trying to conceal the discharge of contaminated waste water. In 1995 Monsanto was ordered to pay $41.1 million to a waste management company in Texas due to concerns over hazardous waste dumping. That same year Monsanto was ranked fifth among U.S. corporations in EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, having discharged 37 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land, water and underground. In 1997 The Seattle Times reported that Monsanto sold 6,000 tons of contaminated waste to Idaho fertilizer companies, which contained the carcinogenic heavy metal cadmium.

Then in 2002 the Washington Post ran an article entitled, "Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution, PCBs Drenched Ala. Town, But No One Was Ever Told". Monsanto began production of polychlorinated biphenyls in the United States in 1929. PCBs were considered an industrial wonder chemical - an oil that would not burn, was impervious to degradation and had almost limitless applications. Today PCBs are considered one of the gravest chemical threats on the planet.

Monsanto produced PCBs for over 50 years and they are now virtually omnipresent in the blood and tissues of humans and wildlife around the globe. These days PCBs are banned from production and some experts say there should be no acceptable level of PCBs allowed in the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says, “PCB has been demonstrated to cause cancer, as well as a variety of other adverse health effects on the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system and endocrine system.” But the evidence of widespread contamination from PCBs and related chemicals has been accumulating from 1965 onwards and internal company papers show that Monsanto knew about the PCB dangers from early on. For instance, toxicity tests on the effects of two PCBs in 1953 showed that more than 50% of the rats subjected to them died, and all of them showed damage.

With experts at the company in no doubt that Monsanto's PCBs were responsible for contamination, in 1968 the company set up a committee to assess its options. In a paper distributed to only 12 people but which surfaced at the trial in 2002, Monsanto admitted "that the evidence proving the persistence of these compounds and their universal presence as residues in the environment is beyond question ... the public and legal pressures to eliminate them to prevent global contamination are inevitable". Monsanto papers seen by The Guardian newspaper reveal near panic. "The subject is snowballing. Where do we go from here? The alternatives: go out of business; sell the hell out of them as long as we can and do nothing else; try to stay in business; have alternative products", wrote the recipient of one paper. In 1969 the company wrote a confidential Pollution Abatement Plan which admitted that "the problem involves the entire United States, Canada and sections of Europe, especially the UK and Sweden".

The problem was particularly severe in the town of Anniston in Alabama where discharges from the local Monsanto plant meant residents developed PCB levels hundreds or thousands of times the average. As The Washington Post reported, "for nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as 'CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy' -- show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew."

Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group says that based on the Monsanto documents made public, the company "knew the truth from the very beginning. They lied about it. They hid the truth from their neighbors." One Monsanto memo explains their justification: "We can't afford to lose one dollar of business." Eventually the company was found guilty of conduct "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society".

But by the time that the Anniston pollution case came to court, Monsanto had already managed to hive off the old core of its business into a new company called Solutia. Although Monsanto and Solutia eventually agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims brought by more than 20,000 Anniston residents, Monsanto had by then relaunched itself as an agricultural biotechnology company.

Solutia was spun off from Monsanto as a way for Monsanto to divest itself of billions of dollars in environmental cleanup costs and other liabilities for its past actions - liabilities that eventually forced Solutia to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to a spokesman for Solutia, "(Monsanto) sort of cherry-picked what they wanted and threw in all kinds of cats and dogs as part of a going-away present," including $1 billion in debt and environmental and litigation costs. Some pre-bankruptcy Solutia equity holders allege Solutia was set up fraudulently as it was always doomed to fail under the financial weight of Monsanto's liabilities.

The key to Monsanto's metamorphosis into a biotechnology company was the run away success of the herbicide Roundup. Within a few years of its 1976 launch, Roundup was being marketed in 115 countries. According to Glover, "Sales grew by 20 per cent in 1981 and as the company increased production it was soon Monsanto's most profitable product (Monsanto 1981, 1983)... It soon became the single most important product of Monsanto's agriculture division, which contributed about 20 per cent of sales and around 45 per cent of operating income to the company's balance sheet each year during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today, glyphosate remains the world's biggest herbicide by volume of sales."

By 1990 with the help of Roundup, the agriculture division of Monsanto was significantly outperforming Monsanto's chemicals division in terms of operating income, and the gap was increasing. But as Glover notes, while "such a blockbuster product uncorks a fountain of revenue", it "also creates an uncomfortable dependency on the commercial fortunes of a single brand. Monsanto's management knew that the last of the patents protecting Roundup in the United States, its biggest market, would expire in the year 2000, opening the field to potential competitors. The company urgently needed a strategy to negotiate this hurdle and prolong the useful life of its 'cash cow'."

Biotechnology was increasingly seen not just as a valuable complement to Monsanto's chemical technology but as a way of enabling it to further expand into agriculture and secure its "cash cow". This lead to Monsanto selling off its plastics business to Bayer in 1996, and its phenylalanine facilities to Great Lakes Chemical Corporation (GLC) in 1999. Much of the rest of its chemicals division was spun off in late 1997 as Solutia, as already noted. This helped Monsanto distance itself to some extent not only from direct financial liability for the historical core of its business but also from its controversial production and contamination legacy.

By 2000 the current Monsanto had emerged from various transactions, including a merger for a time with Pharmacia, as a legally different corporation from the Monsanto that had existed from 1901-2000. This was depite the fact that both Monsantos shared not just the same name, but the same corporate headquarters near St. Louis, Missouri, and many of the same executives and other employees, not to mention much of the responsibility for liabilities arising out of its former activities.

As Monsanto had moved into biotechnology, its executives had the opportunity to create a new narrative for the company. They begun to portray genetic engineering as a ground-breaking technology that could contribute to feeding a hungry world. Monsanto executive Robb Fraley, who was head of the plant molecular biology research team, is also said to have hyped the potential of GM crops within the company, as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Monsanto to dominate a whole new industry, invoking the monopoly success of Microsoft as a powerful analogy. But, according to Glover, the more down-to-earth pitch to fellow executives was that "genetic engineering offered the best prospect of preserving the commercial life of Monsanto's most important product, Roundup in the face of the challenges Monsanto would face once the patent expired."

Monsanto eventually achieved this by introducing into crop plants genes that give resistance to glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup). This meant farmers could spray Roundup onto their fields as a weedkiller even during the growing season without harming the crop. This allowed Monsanto to "significantly expand the market for Roundup and, more importantly, help Monsanto to negotiate the expiry of its glyphosate patents, on which such a large slice of the company's income depended." With glyphosate-tolerant GM crops, Monsanto was able ìto preserve its dominant share of the glyphosate market through a marketing strategy that would couple proprietary "Roundup Ready" seeds with continued sales of Roundup.

Although the first of Monsanto's biotech products to make it to market was not a GM crop but Monsanto's controversial GM cattle drug, bovine growth hormone - called rBGH or rBST, Monsanto's corporate strategy led them for the first time to acquire seed companies. During the 1990s Monsanto spent $10 billion globally buying up seed companies - a push that continues to this day. It has purchased, for example, Holden's Foundations Seeds, Seminis - the largest seed company not producing corn or soybeans in the world, the Dutch seed company De Ruiter Seeds, and the big cotton seed firm Delta and Pine. As a result, Monsanto is now the world's largest seed company, accounting for almost a quarter of the global proprietary seed market.

Monsanto's biotech seeds and traits (including those licensed to other companies) accounted for almost 90% of the total world area devoted to GM seeds by 2007. Today, over 80% of the worldwide area devoted to GM crops carries at least one genetic trait for herbicide tolerance. Herbicides account for about one-third of the global pesticide market. Monsanto's glyphosate-resistant (Roundup Ready) seeds have reigned supreme on the biotech scene for over a decade - creating a near-monopoly for the company's Roundup herbicide - which is now off patent. Roundup is the world's biggest selling pesticide and it has helped make Monsanto the world's fifth largest agrochemical company.

This concentration of corporate power drives up costs for farmers and consumers. Retail prices for Roundup have increased from just $32 per gallon in December 2006 to $45 per gallon a year later, to $75 per gallon by June 2008 - a 134% price hike in less than two years. Because gene technologies can be patented, they also concentrate corporate power - by 2000 five pesticide companies, including Monsanto, controlled over 70% of all patents on agricultural biotechnology. And this concentration again drives up costs. According to Keith Mudd of the U.S.-based Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), "The lack of competition and innovation in the marketplace has reduced farmers’ choices and enabled Monsanto to raise prices unencumbered."

At a July 2008 meeting, Monsanto officials announced plans to raise the average price of some of the company's GM maize (corn) varieties a whopping 35 percent, by $95-100 per bag, to top $300 per bag. Fred Stokes of OCM describes the implications for farmers: "A $100 price increase is a tremendous drain on rural America. Let's say a farmer in Iowa who farms 1,000 acres plants one of these expensive corn varieties next year. The gross increased cost is more than $40,000. Yet there's no scientific basis to justify this price hike. How can we let companies get away with this?" What holds good for maize, also holds good for other GM crops. The average price for soybean seed, the largest GM crop in the US, has risen by more than 50% in just two years from 2006 to 2008 - from $32.30 to $49.23 per planted acre.

Patenting also inhibits public sector research and further undermines the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds. Monsanto devotes an annual budget of 10 million dollars to harassing, intimidating, suing - and in some cases bankrupting - American farmers over alleged improper use of its patented seeds.

Recent price hikes have taken place in the context of a global food crisis marked by rapid food price inflation, which has exacerbated extreme poverty and hunger, and increased social tensions. The World Bank attributes 75% of this global food price inflation to "biofuels", and Monsanto has been at the very heart of the "biofuels" lobby, particularly the lobby for corn ethanol. Monsanto has been accused of both contributing to and benefiting from the food crisis, while simultaneously using it as a PR platform from which to promote GM crops as the solution to the crisis.

In 2008 the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations condemned corporate profiteering: "The essential purpose of food, which is to nourish people, has been subordinated to the economic aims of a handful of multinational corporations that monopolize all aspects of food production, from seeds to major distribution chains, and they have been the prime beneficiaries of the world crisis. A look at the figures for 2007, when the world food crisis began, shows that corporations such as Monsanto and Cargill, which control the cereals market, saw their profits increase by 45 and 60 per cent, respectively."GMwatch

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