ROAST ARSENIC CHICKEN with GRAVY???

Activists Mobilize to Ban Arsenic in Maryland Poultry Production
New Food & Water Watch Report Warns of Public Health and Environmental Risks of Chemical

WASHINGTON - November 9, 2010 - As part of a movement to ban the use of arsenic in poultry production in Maryland, the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch today partnered with community leaders throughout the state to educate the public about the environmental and public health problems associated with the chemical.

A known poison, arsenic is often added to chicken feed in the form of the compound roxarsone to control the common intestinal disease coccidiosis, to promote growth and as a cosmetic additive. Chronic exposure to arsenic has also been shown to increase the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological deficits and other health problems.

“The FDA approved this drug in 1944 when FDR was president. Since then, science has shown it’s a dangerous, unnecessary contaminant in our food supply,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “Maryland has an opportunity to demonstrate true leadership on this issue by banning the use of arsenic in its poultry facilities.”

The seventh largest broiler-producing state in the U.S., according the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture, Maryland sold nearly 300 million broiler chickens that year. On the Delmarva Peninsula alone, 1,700 chicken operations raise 11 million chickens per week. Researchers estimate that between 20 and 50 metric tons of roxarsone are applied to crops there every year via poultry waste. Groundwater tests on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay’s Coastal Plains found arsenic in some household wells reaching up to 13 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) tolerance limit. Arsenic in chicken litter can convert to more dangerous forms of arsenic than those originally used in feed. This is why a bill to ban arsenic in chicken feed was introduced earlier this year in the Maryland House of Delegates.

“A week ago today, Maryland’s conservation-minded voters turned out in force to send a message that protecting the health of our air, land, water, and residents is an important priority,” said Jen Brock-Cancellieri, deputy director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters. “We hope that after reading this report, Maryland’s legislators will continue to speak up for their constituents and support legislation to ban the unnecessary use of arsenic by the poultry industry.”

These concerns are reinforced by a new report on the poultry industry’s use of arsenic also released today by Food & Water Watch. Poison-Free Poultry: Why Arsenic Doesn’t Belong in Chicken Feed exposes the dangerous, widespread use of arsenic in the poultry industry and calls on Congress and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take action to update antiquated rules and protect consumers.

“We should be able to eat chicken without consuming harmful additives, but Marylanders are inadvertently exposing themselves and their loved ones to a known carcinogen hidden in a seemingly nutritious meal,” said Jenny Levin, an advocate for Maryland PIRG. “As a proud poultry production state, Maryland should ban the use of arsenic in chicken feed immediately, thereby protecting a valuable industry and the health and trust of its citizens.”

Dr. Keeve Nachman, director of farming for the Future Program at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future notes that “approval of roxarsone for use in poultry and swine production is based on sorely outdated science that ignores both our present-day understanding of arsenic’s toxicity and the potential for arsenic to contaminate soils, water and crops where animal waste is spread.”

Although approved for use in the chicken industry by the FDA over six decades ago, the average American’s annual chicken consumption has since tripled from less than 20 pounds in the 1940s to nearly 60 pounds in 2008. Yet the FDA hasn’t revised its allowed levels for arsenic residues in poultry since 1951.

Additionally, new studies show that arsenic residues may be higher in chicken meat than previously known. USDA data suggests that the typical American is eating between 2.13 and 8.07 micrograms of total arsenic per day through consumption of chicken meat.

“The science shows the use of arsenic in chicken feed is dangerous and that viable alternatives to arsenic exist,“ said Hauter. “The FDA needs to stand up to the big chicken companies and make public health its priority.”

The report outlines the shared responsibility by the FDA, USDA and EPA for fixing a fragmented, antiquated system to regulate arsenic. It concludes with recommendations to these agencies to mitigate the damage already caused by arsenic in livestock feed and calls for a ban on future use of arsenic for livestock production.

“One of the main reasons why we have found such strong demand for the chickens grown on our pasture is that we don’t use arsenic to raise them,” said Ted Wycall, owner of Greenbranch Farm, located on the Eastern Shore. “Consumers are smart; they don’t want to eat food containing arsenic. Pasture-raised poultry is in big demand locally and nationally. Farmers should consider this a tremendous business opportunity; we need more of us doing this.”

The full report can be downloaded here.
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Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.
CONTACT: Food & Water Watch Erin Greenfield at (202) 683-2457
or news[at]fwwatch[dot]org

MONSANTO PAYS FARMERS TO USE COMPETITORS' POISONS (NOW THAT ROUNDUP IS FAILING!!) ON OUR FOOD!

Monsanto's ongoing humiliation proceeds apace. No, I'm not referring to the company's triumph in our recent "Villains of Food" poll. Instead, I'm talking about a Tuesday item from the Des Moines Register's Philip Brasher, reporting that Monsanto has been forced into the unenviable position of having to pay farmers to spray the herbicides of rival companies.

If you tend large plantings of Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soy or cotton, genetically engineered to withstand application of the company's Roundup herbicide (which will kill the weeds -- supposedly -- but not the crops), Monsanto will cut you a $6 check for every acre on which you apply at least two other herbicides. One imagines farmers counting their cash as literally millions of acres across the South and Midwest get doused with Monsanto-subsidized poison cocktails.

The move is the latest step in the abject reversal of Monsanto's longtime claim: that Roundup Ready technology solved the age-old problem of weeds in an ecologically benign way. The company had developed a novel trait that would allow crops to survive unlimited lashings of glyphosate, Monsanto's then-patent-protected, broad-spectrum herbicide. It was kind of a miracle technology. Farmers would no longer have to think about weeds; glyphosate, which killed everything but the trait-endowed crop, would do all the work. Moreover, Monsanto promised, Roundup was less toxic to humans and wildlife than the herbicides then in use; and it allowed farmers to decrease erosion by dramatically reducing tillage -- a common method of weed control.

There was just one problem, which the Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out as early as 1993, New York University nutritionist and food-politics author Marion Nestle recently reminded us. When farmers douse the same field year after year with the same herbicide, certain weeds will develop resistance. When they do, it will take ever-larger doses of that herbicide to kill them -- making the survivors even hardier. Eventually, it will be time to bring in in the older, harsher herbicides to do the trick, UCS predicted.

At the time and for years after, Monsanto dismissed the concerns as "hypothetical," Nestle reports. Today, Roundup Ready seeds have conquered prime U.S. farmland from the deep South to the northern prairies -- 90 percent of soybean acres and 70 percent of corn and cotton acres are planted in Roundup Ready seeds. Monsanto successfully conquered a fourth crop, sugar beets, gaining a stunning 95 percent market share after the USDA approved Roundup Ready beet seeds in 2008. But recently, as I reported here, a federal judge halted future plantings of Roundup Ready beets until the USDA completes an environmental impact study of their effects.

Given what happened to other Roundup Ready crops, it's hard to imagine that the USDA can come up with an environmental impact study that will exonerate Monsanto's sugar beet seeds. Today, there are no fewer than 10 weed species resistant to Roundup, thriving "in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres," The New York Times recently reported. And the ways farmers are responding to them are hardly ecologically sound: jacked-up application rates of Roundup, supplemented by other, harsher poisons.

And as Monsanto's once-celebrated Roundup Ready traits come under fire, there's another Roundup problem no one's talking about: Roundup itself, once hailed as a an ecologically benign herbicide, is looking increasingly problematic. A study by France's University of Caen last year found that the herbicide's allegedly "inert" ingredients magnify glyphosate's toxic effects. According to the study, "the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death" at levels commonly used on farm fields.

Moreover, the annual cascade of Roundup on vast swaths of prime farmland also appears to be undermining soil health and productivity, as this startling recent report shows.

Meanwhile, the endlessly repeated claim that Roundup Ready technology saves "millions of tons" of soil from erosion, by allowing farmers to avoid tilling to kill weeds, appears to be wildly trumped up. According to Environmental Working Group's reading of the USDA's 2007 National Resource Inventory, "there has been no progress in reducing soil erosion in the Corn Belt since 1997." (The Corn Belt is the section of the Midwest where the great bulk of Roundup Ready corn and soy are planted.) "The NRI shows that an average-sized Iowa farm loses five tons of high quality topsoil per acre each year," EWG writes.

In short, Monsanto's Roundup Ready technology is emerging as an environmental disaster. The question isn't why a judge demanded an environmental impact study of Roundup Ready sugar beets in 2010; it's that no one did so in 1996 before the technology was rolled out. After all, the Union of Concerned Scientists was already quite, well, concerned back then.

As I wrote in June, rather than spark a reassessment of the wisdom of relying on toxic chemicals, the failure of Roundup Ready has the U.S. agricultural establishment scrambling to intensify chemical use. Companies like Dow Agriscience are dusting off old, highly toxic poisons like 2, 4-D and promoting them as the "answer" to Roundup's problems.

In a better world, farmers would be looking to non-chemical methods for controlling weeds: crop rotations, mulching, cover crops, etc. Instead, they're being paid by Monsanto to ramp up application of poisons. Perhaps the USDA's main research arm, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, will rise to the occasion by funding research in non-chemical weed-control methods? Not likely, since the Obama administration tapped a staunch Monsanto man to lead that crucial agency.

But instead of true innovation, we have the spectacle of Monsanto paying farmers to dump vast chemical cocktails onto land that not only feeds us, but also drains into our streams and rivers.
http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-10-20-why-monsanto-paying-farmers-to-spray-rival-herbicides

TURN THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES:

Time to End War Against the Earth

by Vandana Shiva
Published on Sunday, November 7, 2010 by The Age (Australia)

When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and Afghanistan. But the bigger war is the war against the planet. This war has its roots in an economy that fails to respect ecological and ethical limits - limits to inequality, limits to injustice, limits to greed and economic concentration.

A handful of corporations and of powerful countries seeks to control the earth's resources and transform the planet into a supermarket in which everything is for sale. They want to sell our water, genes, cells, organs, knowledge, cultures and future.

Vandana Shiva The continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and onwards are not only about "blood for oil". As they unfold, we will see that they are about blood for food, blood for genes and biodiversity and blood for water.

The war mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names of Monsanto's herbicides - ''Round-Up'', ''Machete'', ''Lasso''. American Home Products, which has merged with Monsanto, gives its herbicides similarly aggressive names, including ''Pentagon'' and ''Squadron''.This is the language of war. Sustainability is based on peace with the earth.

The war against the earth begins in the mind. Violent thoughts shape violent actions. Violent categories construct violent tools. And nowhere is this more vivid than in the metaphors and methods on which industrial, agricultural and food production is based. Factories that produced poisons and explosives to kill people during wars were transformed into factories producing agri-chemicals after the wars.

The year 1984 woke me up to the fact that something was terribly wrong with the way food was produced. With the violence in Punjab and the disaster in Bhopal, agriculture looked like war. That is when I wrote The Violence of the Green Revolution and why I started Navdanya as a movement for an agriculture free of poisons and toxics.

Pesticides, which started as war chemicals, have failed to control pests. Genetic engineering was supposed to provide an alternative to toxic chemicals. Instead, it has led to increased use of pesticides and herbicides and unleashed a war against farmers.

The high-cost feeds and high-cost chemicals are trapping farmers in debt - and the debt trap is pushing farmers to suicide. According to official data, more than 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.

Making peace with the earth was always an ethical and ecological imperative. It has now become a survival imperative for our species.

Violence to the soil, to biodiversity, to water, to atmosphere, to farms and farmers produces a warlike food system that is unable to feed people. One billion people are hungry. Two billion suffer food-related diseases - obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cancers.

There are three levels of violence involved in non-sustainable development. The first is the violence against the earth, which is expressed as the ecological crisis. The second is the violence against people, which is expressed as poverty, destitution and displacement. The third is the violence of war and conflict, as the powerful reach for the resources that lie in other communities and countries for their limitless appetites.

When every aspect of life is commercialized, living becomes more costly, and people are poor, even if they earn more than a dollar a day. On the other hand, people can be affluent in material terms, even without the money economy, if they have access to land, their soils are fertile, their rivers flow clean, their cultures are rich and carry traditions of producing beautiful homes and clothing and delicious food, and there is social cohesion, solidarity and spirit of community.

The elevation of the domain of the market, and money as man-made capital, to the position of the highest organizing principle for societies and the only measure of our well-being has led to the undermining of the processes that maintain and sustain life in nature and society.

The richer we get, the poorer we become ecologically and culturally. The growth of affluence, measured in money, is leading to a growth in poverty at the material, cultural, ecological and spiritual levels.

The real currency of life is life itself and this view raises questions: how do we look at ourselves in this world? What are humans for? And are we merely a money-making and resource-guzzling machine? Or do we have a higher purpose, a higher end?

I believe that ''earth democracy'' enables us to envision and create living democracies based on the intrinsic worth of all species, all peoples, all cultures - a just and equal sharing of this earth's vital resources, and sharing the decisions about the use of the earth's resources.

Earth democracy protects the ecological processes that maintain life and the fundamental human rights that are the basis of the right to life, including the right to water, food, health, education, jobs and livelihoods.

We have to make a choice. Will we obey the market laws of corporate greed or Gaia's laws for maintenance of the earth's ecosystems and the diversity of its beings?

People's need for food and water can be met only if nature's capacity to provide food and water is protected. Dead soils and dead rivers cannot give food and water.

Defending the rights of Mother Earth is therefore the most important human rights and social justice struggle. It is the broadest peace movement of our times.

This is an edited version of Dr Vandana Shiva's speech at the Sydney Opera House last night.
© 2010 The Age

Vandana Shiva is an Indian feminist and environmental activist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology.

REPORT: GE SALMON - A LESS NUTRITIOUS COSTLY DANGER TO WORLD ECOSYSTEMS

New Report Refutes Industry Argument that Genetically Modified Salmon will Feed Hungry World Populations
BRUSSELS - November 4, 2010 - Food & Water Europe released a report today outlining why the genetically engineered (GE) salmon currently being considered by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval as a human food will not alleviate global hunger.

GE Salmon Will Not Feed the World outlines several reasons why this transgenic fish is likely to be more expensive to produce than perceived, as well as problematic for the environment, fishing communities and consumers. The report was released a day after Scottish MP Rob Gibson motioned to petition the Scottish Government to monitor the FDA’s approval process, noting that escapees are likely to occur through time and could easily reach the shores of Scotland, “altering forever the genetic integrity of wild Atlantic salmon and of quality Scottish farmed salmon.”

“The company producing this experimental fish, AquaBounty, is the only one who will be profiting from it, despite misleading claims that this product could be a means to feed growing populations around the world,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Europe.

Since GE salmon can require large amounts of food, display deformities and likely have higher oxygen demands, they can be costly to produce. These projected costs, combined with the various potential human health and ecological concerns associated with GE fish, will not likely add up to a more financially advantageous product for growers or consumers.

Furthermore, farmed salmon in general may not be as nutritious or safe as wild salmon. They contain on average 35 percent fewer omega-3 fatty acids – which are important for human health, but not produced by the body. Also, farmed salmon often contain higher levels of contaminants in their fat (which they can have more of than wild salmon), including 10 times the amount of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). GE salmon are also known to have higher levels of insulin-like growth factor 1, which has been associated with increased risk of certain types of cancer.

These worrying food safety issues are compounded by the environmental damage GE salmon would add to the already unsustainable salmon farming industry. The small, wild fish used in salmon feed are a major food source for marine mammals, birds and larger fish as well as low-income, food insecure populations around the world. In 2006, the aquaculture sector alone consumed nearly 90 percent of small prey fish captured worldwide. GE salmon may require about five times the amount of feed as a non-altered salmon to grow faster. This will further exacerbate the decline of available wild fish for marine wildlife and people in countries that need it most. If fish are not used in feed, it is entirely likely that the fish would be fed on industrial soya—which is associated with serious environmental and human rights impacts as well. Escapes of GE salmon into the wild could also threaten wild salmon, by competing for food, habitat and mates.

“GE salmon is an inefficient way to produce food that comes with more costs than benefits,” says Hauter. “We should be concerned about protecting consumers and our wild fish populations rather than pushing forward to approve this potentially dangerous product.”

Read the report – http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/world/europe/factsheets/ge-salmon-will-not-feed-the-world-europe/
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Food & Water Europe is a program of Food & Water Watch, Inc., a non-profit consumer NGO based in Washington, D.C., working to ensure clean water and safe food in Europe and around the world. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.

CONTACT: Food & Water Watch Europe
Eve Mitchell, +44 (0)7962 437 128 or +44 (0)1381 610 740, emitchell(at)fweurope.org
Gabriella Zanzanaini, +32 (0)488 409 662, gzanzanaini(at)fweurope.org

US MEDIA MISSED THIS??? NO!!!!!!!!!

The Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies published research findings in late September showing an insecticidal protein, called Cry1Ab, inserted into genetically modified corn to fight insect predation, was found in US waterways.
The Cary Institute announced the publication of their research results in late September, but only a small handful of media outlets picked up on the story. The researchers found streams near corn fields containing corn genetically modified to contain Bt contained the pesticidal bacteria, and they were able to determine that the pesticide contamination came directly from the GM corn. The results of the research, Occurrence of maize detritus and a transgenic insecticidal protein (Cry1Ab) within the stream network of an agricultural landscape was published in September by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Monsanto acknowledged the research in a simple statement that said

"On September 27, 2010, an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reported the presence of corn leaves and other plant material in streams close to corn fields, and detection of the protein Cry1Ab which is present in Bt corn. Previous studies have already reported this observation.
The results of this study are neither new nor surprising. Cry1Ab protein is expected to be present in degrading corn residues in aquatic systems near corn fields. The study did not suggest that concentrations of Cry1Ab detected have any effect on non-target organisms.
Monsanto takes the safety and stewardship of our products seriously. Our scientists review every new publication related to the safety of our products, promptly and carefully."

Bt or "Bacillus thuringiensis ... is a naturally occurring, soil borne organism that has gained recent popularity for its ability to control certain insect pests in a natural, environmentally friendly manner." Bt corn first was planted in 1996 in the USA, and since then, said a study by Indiana University researchers, has been enormously beneficial for farmers.
While Bt itself appears to be safe for many animals, there have been concerns raised about transgenic Bt -- the Bt inserted into the genes of plants since then, according to a 1998 research paper prepared by scientists from the Swiss Federal Research Station for Acroecology and Agriculture. That paper said a definitive conclusion on the safety of transgenic Bt was not possible at the time. Many subsequent studies have concluded that transgenic Bt does not pose a threat.
However, some studies have shown the protein Cry1Ab poses a threat to some living creatures, usually called "non-target organisms," such as butterflies and honey bees reported The Bioscience Resource Project.
Leaving aside safety issues, the real issue, said lead researcher for the Cary Institute report, Dr. E.J. Rosi-Marshall was the fact that

“... corn crop byproducts can be dispersed throughout a stream network, and that the compounds associated with genetically-modified crops, such as insecticidal proteins, can enter nearby water bodies.”

As the researchers point out,

"... Genetically-modified plants are a mainstay of large-scale agriculture in the American Midwest, where corn is a dominant crop. In 2009, more than 85% of U.S. corn crops were genetically modified to repel pests and/or resist herbicide exposure. Corn engineered to release an insecticide that wards off the European corn borer, commonly referred to as Bt corn, comprised 63% of crops. The tissue of these plants has been modified to express insecticidal proteins, one of which is commonly known as Cry1Ab."

The researchers assessed 217 streams in Indiana, finding

"... dissolved Cry1Ab proteins from Bt corn present in stream water at nearly a quarter of the sites, including headwater streams. Eighty-six percent of the sampled sites contained corn leaves, husks, stalks, or cobs in their channels; at 13% of these sites corn byproducts contained detectable Cry1Ab proteins. The study was conducted six months after crop harvest, indicating that the insecticidal proteins in crop byproducts can persist in the landscape."

More than that, however, the researchers said the streams with the Cry1Ab

"... were located within 500 meters of a corn field ... Furthermore, given current agricultural land use patterns, 91% percent of the streams and rivers throughout Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana —some 159,000 miles of waterways—are also located within 500 meters of corn fields."

Ultimately, why should anyone care about a substance that has largely been scientifically proven to be save for most living beings? As the Cary Institute points out,

"... These corn byproducts may alter the health of freshwaters. Ultimately, streams that originate in the Corn Belt drain into the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes."

Research on the effects of Cry1Ab on waterways and animals living in streams, rivers and lakes is lacking. However, early research conducted in Canada showed some accumulation of Cry1Ab in fresh water mussels. No one knows what effects this contamination might have.


Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299425#ixzz143kQGb9z

ROUNDUP -MAGIC FAILURE!

Monsanto has no magic cure for its woes as company flounders
By Stephanie Dearing.
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Monsanto is under the gun on a number of different issues, and the company has no magic elixir or engineered fix to halt the corporation's plummet from its recent position as Forbe's Company of the Year.
Major cracks have formed in the Monsanto facade this past year. Dropping fortunes appear to be the result of a combination of factors, including 'super weeds,' the high cost of Monsanto seeds and inputs and competition on the herbicide front from China. Could Monsanto could be in a dive so precipitous it won't be able to recover?
Glyphosphate-resistant weeds have proven to be a major Achilles heel for Monsanto. Glyphosphate is the key ingredient in the corporation's main product, the herbicide it calls Roundup. Obviously a field full of resistant 'super weeds' is not good business for a farmer, and Monsanto recently announced it would issue millions in rebates to farmers who use other herbicides.
Stephen P. Bowles summarized the glyphosphate issue in a research paper on glyphosphate resistance, published in PNAS earlier this year.

"... History shows that threats to food production have major repercussions, including famine, war, and civil unrest. A major threat to food production occurs every single growing season, when wild plant species (weeds) infest crop fields. Humans have battled since the dawn of agriculture to control weeds and to minimize their negative influence on food production. Modern herbicides have largely replaced human labor as the primary tool for weed control, and this has contributed significantly to the productivity of world cropping. However, despite the success of herbicides, weeds remain a primary challenge to food production, in part because selection pressure from herbicides has resulted in the evolution of herbicide resistance in weeds."

Initially, Monsanto paid lip service to the topic of glyphosphate resistance, but even this summer, the corporation was still downplaying the extent of the problem. CBC News reported Monsanto said 'resistance was often overstated.' At the same time, Monsanto was offering American farmers a $12 per acre rebate for using competitors' herbicides.
Monsanto made the rebate official this month after experimenting with it over the summer. Farmers in the United States growing cotton and soybeans are eligible for rebates of either $3 or $20 per acre -- that is, if the farmers follow Monsanto's directions for integrated management outlined in Monsanto's Roundup Ready Weed Management Plus Platform. When announcing the program, Monsanto said

""We have talked with farmers, weed scientists and others in the industry to develop a set of best management recommendations to control glyphosate-resistant weeds where they exist and reduce the risk of developing these weeds on other fields where farmers are growing Roundup Ready crops. The Roundup Ready PLUS platform was designed to improve on-farm productivity, sustain the benefits of conservation tillage and provide effective weed management. We have assembled a set of recommendations, products and incentives packaged together to bring solutions to the farm."
The Roundup Ready PLUS platform provides weed management recommendations for Roundup Ready crops for each farm situation, by pairing crop protection products from Monsanto and other companies."

But not all farmers are pleased with the new program. Some farmers, reported AgFax, have panned the deal, saying (in part)

"... Monsanto has helped somewhat in weed resistance management by rebating a small amount ($2.50/ac or so) for each of several herbicides if they are applied. However, it would require that a producer use all five herbicides on the list in order to get a total of $12.50/ac in return.
And there is no consideration for rates. Cotoran and diuron, for instance, must be used at the highest labeled rates for most of our soil types where cotton is grown in our area, yet the same amount of $ is allocated per acre regardless. The $2.50/ac rebate for Cotoran would be less than 20% of the cost of a efficacious rate of that herbicide for many of our acres. We appreciate the thought, but we need more bucks if Monsanto truly wants to help with resistance management in our area."

Why is Monsanto backing down from its denial of glyphosphate resistance? As Joseph Mendelson noted in 1998, writing for The Ecologist,

"... Monsanto has built much of its corporate empire upon the back of one chemical - glyphosate. Introduced almost 25 years ago, glyphosate, marketed mainly as the herbicide Roundup, is Monsanto's key agri-chemical product."

Monsanto lost money on its sales of Roundup in the third quarter of 2010, but optimistically predicts the company will make $550 to $600 million from Roundup sales in 2011. Profits from Roundup sales in the 4th quarter of 2009 were $322 million.
Monsanto developed Roundup in 1974, and has been designing crops to be Roundup ready ever since. The herbicide has been hailed as a breakthrough product for agriculture, and Monsanto claims its products create many benefits for farmers and the environment, as well as human health, although there is at least one study claiming Roundup causes liver cell death.
Monsanto's financial fortunes are facing increased pressure from issues such as the US Department of Justice's investigation into Monsanto for allegations that the company has monopolized the seed market with its Roundup ready seeds, said St. Louis Public Radio. In addition, a number of other states are looking into Monsanto's soy beans, and West Virginia just filed a law suit against Monsanto for not backing up its claims about the superiority of its soybeans. At the same time, those who care were rocked by the revelation that the Gates Foundation holds 500,000 shares in Monsanto.
Last year, Forbes named Monsanto "Company of the year," which journalist Robert Langreth said in his Forbes blog was a big mistake.
Zack's just rated Monsanto as "... Underperform Recommendation in line with the stock’s current Sell rating, equivalent to a Zacks #4 Rank." Zack's is confident Monsanto will climb out of this deepening hole, primarily due to the GE corn, SmartStax. Zack's issued its rating for Monsanto on October 20, saying

"... We believe this will continue for a substantial period of time based on the slower market recovery. Further, an intensely competitive environment and Monsanto's huge dependence on a few large customers can lead to risk.
Monsanto also faces foreign currency risk since a significant portion of its income comes from outside the U.S. Thus, we downgraded our recommendation on the stock from Neutral to Underperform...

Addendum: Earlier this month, Monsanto told the New York Times the company was taking steps to deal with the growing discontent farmers have expressed with Monsanto's products. One of those steps was the rebate program for integrated weed management to fight glyphosphate resistance, and another step is the lowering of the price of SmartStax corn. The corporation is even going so far as to offer seeds that are less genetically engineered, reported the New York Times.


Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299576#ixzz143iSeZ3t

HERE THEY ARE: YOUR GLOBAL CHEMICAL CARTEL:

Six multinational companies dominate the agricultural input market, and they’re in cahoots.

Market share pesticide companiesWhen a handful of corporations own the world’s seed, pesticide and biotech industries, they control the fate of food and farming. Between them, Monsanto, Dow, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont control the global seed, pesticide and agricultural biotechnology markets. This kind of historically unprecedented power over world agriculture enables them to:

* control the agricultural research agenda;
* dictate trade agreements & agricultural policies;
* position their technologies as the “science-based” solution to increase crop yields, feed the hungry and save the planet;
* escape democratic & regulatory controls;
* subvert competitive markets;

…and in the process, intimidate, impoverish and disempower farmers, undermine food security and make historic profits - even in the midst of a global food crisis.






Sample Cartel Agreements:

Monsanto & BASF announce a $1.5 billion R&D collaboration involving 60/40 profit-sharing. (March 2007)

Monsanto & Dow Agrichemicals join forces to develop the first-ever GE maize loaded with 8 genetic traits, for release in 2010. (Sept. 2007)

Monsanto & Syngenta call a truce on outstanding litigation related to global maize & soybean interests, forge new cross-licensing agreements. (May 2008)

Syngenta & DuPont announce a joint agreement, broadening each company's pesticide product portfolios (June 2008) Source: ETC report, “Who Owns Nature?"

What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain. —Robert Fraley, co-president of Monsanto's agricultural sector

According to the UN, corporate concentration of the agricultural input market “has far-reaching implications for global food security, as the privatization and patenting of agricultural innovation (gene traits, transformation technologies and seed germplasm) has been supplanting traditional agricultural understandings of seed, farmers' rights, and breeders' rights.”
http://www.panna.org/issues/pesticides-profit/chemical-cartel