GMOnsanto

GMOnsanto

   So what's with all the suicides by farmers, not so much here in the U.S. (although the number of farmer suicides is still quite high) but rather in India where the numbers continue to climb; right now, about 12 farmers kill themselves each day in just one region alone (India has one of the highest suicide rates in the world) with farmers accounting for as many as 10% of the suicides, according to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek.  And so what does all or any of this have to do with Monsanto?

   First off, we have to back off a bit and say that blaming one or several companies, especially such large agribusiness companies such as Monsanto or Dupont or Archer Daniels Midland is difficult at best, despite appearances.  Monsanto in particular has gone to court often and has won in a majority of cases, often to the chagrin of organic or small farmers whose crops got pollinated by Monsanto's GMO plants, the GMO pollen from a farmer's field across the road blowing in the wind and cross-pollinating their plants (Monsanto sued saying that the non-GMO farmer was using their GMO seed the next year...Monsanto won).  Without seeing the legal arguments or briefs, it is hard to conclusively state that one or the other was at fault.

   That being said, the arguments swirl in both directions, often inconclusively as edited in this Wikipedia article:  Bt cotton (Bacillus thuringiensis cotton) was claimed to be responsible for farmer suicides.  The Bt cotton seeds cost nearly twice as much as ordinary ones.  The higher costs forced many farmers into taking ever larger loans, often from private moneylenders charging exorbitant interest rates (60% a year).  The moneylender was claimed to collect his dues at harvest time, by compelling farmers to sell their cotton to him at a price lower than it fetches on the market.  According to activists, this created a source of debt and economic stress, ultimately suicides, among farmers.  Scholars claim that this Bt cotton theory made certain assumptions and ignored field reality.   In 2011, a review of the evidence regarding the relationship between Bt cotton and farmers' suicides in India was published in the Journal of Development Studies, also by researchers from IFPRI, which found that "Available data show no evidence of a 'resurgence' of farmer suicides.  Moreover, Bt cotton technology has been very effective overall in India."  Matin Qaim finds that Bt cotton is controversial in India, irrespective of the scholarly evidence. 

   You may know Monsanto primarily for it's negative image, that of the maker of Roundup (alone in its controversy of now possibly producing superbugs, these being live bugs resistant to a majority of our ever-stronger pesticides; the glyphosate herbicide is also now suspected in aiding the decline of pollinating bees), DDT, Agent Orange and that famous bovine growth hormone.  But Monsanto also became the largest producer of LEDs, developed saccharin (for better or worse) and also polystyrene (also for better or worse).  And lest one jump all over the company for its heavy lobbying and battle against consumers in labeling which fruits and vegetables in the grocery store have been from GMO crops (another victory for Monsanto), bear in mind that consumers and cities (and golf courses) were right behind farmers in slathering their lawns with many of Monsanto's pesticides and weed killers mixed into fertilizers or directly sprayed from above (notice the warnings to keep animals and children off of the area once the toxic liquid is applied).

   In an interview with Vandana Shiva, author of 30 books and creator of the Seed Freedom movement, Mother Earth News quoted her as saying:  In the United States, independent researchers can’t even study GM seeds because the biotechnology and chemical firm Monsanto won’t allow them to obtain seeds. When I once asked a group of U.S. farmers why they grow GM soy, a farmer replied, “The companies have a noose ’round our neck. We can only grow what they sell to us.”  With patents on seed, an illegitimate legal system is manipulated to create seed monopolies...And attacks on scientists and the silencing of independent research, as in the case of Árpád Pusztai and Gilles-Eric Séralini, are examples of knowledge fascism. (Árpád Pusztai is an internationally esteemed biochemist who was censored and dismissed after 36 years at the Rowett Research Institute because he publicly discussed his research demonstrating the harmful effects of GM potatoes on rats.  Gilles-Eric Séralini is a professor of molecular biology at the University of Caen whose published findings on the toxicity of the herbicide Roundup and Roundup-resistant corn were uncharacteristically retracted by the science journal Food and Chemical Toxicology )

   Where the interview gets interesting, however, is with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, "which is currently negotiating U.S. participation, is even more disastrous, because it heavily promotes corporate intellectual property rights and GMOs.  Monsanto wrote the intellectual property rights clauses and the massive multinational corporation Cargill wrote the agriculture treaty.  Worse, the TPP agreements contain investor-state clauses that would allow corporations to sue governments. (Learn more about the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations.)"  Monsanto currently owns Cargill's seed business.

   The subject of GMOs (often simply called GMs or genetically modified) is complex and difficult to accurately navigate.  Splicing and grafting a plant can be considered genetically modifying a plant.  But in this case, the controversy over GM crops is mostly about chemical and molecular manipulation, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  And to put things in perspective, Dow AgroSciences owns just 3% of the world's seeds, while Monsanto and Dupont close in on combined holdings nearing the 50% mark...and there is little information available about which of the foods that you're eating are from these GM crops (in just one example, most cereal companies  use GM grains, as mentioned in an article on Kellogg's in Bloomberg Businessweek).  It's gotten to the point where beer companies are stepping up to the plate to announce that they use only non-GMO grains (this from mostly smaller companies such as Sierra Nevada in northern California and Deschutes in southern Oregon.  In other words, GM crops are nearly everywhere (click on the link for an unbiased listing from Consumer Reports)...which I'll discuss more in the next post.