Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Africa Studio
May 22, 2013
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Fed up with the fact that she has to spend “a small fortune” in
order to feed her family things she says “aren’t poisonous,” Tami Canal
of Utah has organized a global movement against the giant chemical and
seed corporation Monsanto. Monsanto is the conglomerate mastermind
behind many of the pesticides and genetically engineered seeds that
pervade farm fields around the world. Monsanto
produces the world’s top-selling herbicide; 40 percent of US crops
contain its genes; it spends millions lobbying the government each year;
and several of its factories are now toxic Superfund sites.
Canal,
who has a 17-month-old baby and a six-year-old girl, cites concerns
over public health, adverse affects on the environment, and political
corruption as her motivation to organize against the biotech giant. And
her concern has resonated. Protesters around the world have responded to
Canal’s call to action, and will amplify their dissatisfaction with the
corporation in a “March Against Monsanto” on May 25.
“Not
only are they threatening our children and ourselves as well, but also
the environment,” Canal says. “The declining bee population has been
linked to the pesticides that they use, and that’s just the start. I’ve
been reading studies recently that butterflies are starting to
disappear, and birds. It’s only a matter of time, it’s pretty much a
domino effect.”
What started as one mother’s call to
action on a Facebook page has become a movement with more than 400
demonstrations scheduled in 50 countries and 250 cities around the
globe. The events are organized online via an open Google Document,
where people can find the protest nearest them. The March Against
Monsanto Facebook page has received more than 105,000 “likes.” It has
reached more than 10,000,000 people in the last week according to its website, which averages over 40,000 visitors per day.
One
of the short-term goals of the march, Canal says, is to spread
immediate awareness about the offenses Monsanto commits. Another is to
inspire people to vote with their dollars by boycotting Monsanto-owned
companies that put unsafe products—like genetically modified organisms
(GMO) and pesticide-ridden foods—on the market. The effort also
advocates for labeling of genetically modified products so consumers can
make informed decisions, and demands further scientific research on the
health effects of GMOs.
Canal is particularly
interested in drawing attention to what she calls dangerous products
that are marketed to children. “Like Kellogg's,” she says. “For example,
Froot Loops is 100-percent genetically engineered, and that’s a
children's cereal. That’s irresponsible and unacceptable on so many
levels.”
The ultimate goal of the march is a complete
ban on Monsanto within the US. At least 60 countries worldwide,
including Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan,
New Zealand, Peru, South Australia, Russia, France, and Switzerland,
have implemented outright bans of Monsanto and its genetic modification
of food products.
“I don’t understand why the US isn’t
on the forefront of that thinking,” says Canal. “[Monsanto] has a long
history of crimes against humanity.”
Here are the five most disturbing reasons you should join the March Against Monsanto:
1. Profiteering poisonous chemical company posing as agribusiness.
Remember
the horrors of Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, when the US
military designed a chemical warfare program and used the herbicide and
defoliant Agent Orange to kill and maim 400,000 people (estimated by
the Vietnam government), and ultimately cause birth defects for 500,000
children? Monsanto made that possible.
Monsanto began as a chemical company
in 1901 and was responsible for some of the most damaging toxins in US
history, like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s), and dioxin. Consumer
advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW) released a report
on APril 3 detailing Monsanto’s role in chemical disasters, Agent
Orange, and the first genetically modified plant cell. The report shows
that the “feed-the-world” agricultural and life sciences company
Monsanto markets itself as today is only a recent development. The
majority of Monsanto’s history is involved with heavy industrial
chemical production, including the supply of Agent Orange to the US for
Vietnam operations from 1962-'71.
Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association told Common Dreams, in response to the FWW report:
Despite
its various marketing incarnations over the years, Monsanto is a
chemical company that got its start selling saccharin to Coca-Cola, then
Agent Orange to the U.S. military, and in recent years, seeds
genetically engineered to contain and withstand massive amounts of
Monsanto herbicides and pesticides. Monsanto has become synonymous with
the corporatization and industrialization of our food supply.
Another
example, according to the FWW corporate profile, is a Monsanto plant in
Sauget, Illinois that produced 99 percent of PCBs until they were
banned in 1976. PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to multiple organs and
systems, but they're still illegally dumped into waterways. They
accumulate in plants and food crops, as well as fish and other aquatic
lifeforms, which enter the human food supply. The Sauget plant is now
home to two Superfund sites.
Monsanto’s chemicals continue to impact the world, both inside and outside of the United States, and Monsanto has settled a number of chemical lawsuits in the last couple of years alone. Scientific studies have linked the chemicals in Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides to Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimers disease, autism and cancer.
Another example of Monsanto’s chemical folly came in February when a French court declared Monsanto guilty
of chemical poisoning of French grain grower, Paul Francois. The farmer
suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and
stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004, and
blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on
the product label.
AlterNet published an article
in April titled, “Exposed: Monsanto’s Chemical War Against Indigenous
Hawaiians,” which details a series of protests on the five Hawaiian
Islands Monsanto and other biotech companies have turned into the
world’s “ground zero” for chemical testing and food engineering.
2. Building a monopoly, putting farmers out of work.
There
is nothing more quintessentially American than the independent family
farmer; and there is nothing more un-American than stomping out that
farmer’s livelihood to bolster your corporate monopoly. Monsanto is
attempting this as it sues small farmers out of their livelihoods time
and again.
You might have heard about
the 75-year-old soybean farmer from Indiana, Vernon Hugh Bowman, who
was ordered in the beginning of May to pay Monsanto $85,000 in damages
for using second-generation seeds genetically modified with Monsanto’s
pesticide resistant “Roundup Ready,” treatment. He pulled the seeds from
the local grain elevator, which is usually used for feed crop, and
planted them. The court decided Monsanto’s patent extends even to the
offspring of its seeds, and the farmer had violated the company’s
patent.
Bowman is by no means the only US farmer to be sent into debt at Monsanto’s hands. Monsanto reported
enormous profits from 2012 to shareholders in January, while American
farmers filed into Washington, DC to challenge the corporation’s right
to sue farmers whose fields have become contaminated with Monsanto’s
seeds. Oral arguments began on January 10 before the U.S. Court of
Appeals to decide whether to reverse the cases' dismissal last February.
The corporation’s total revenue reached $2.94 billion at the end of
2012, and its earnings nearly doubled analysts' projections.
In the article, “Monsanto's Earnings Nearly Double as They Create a Farming Monopoly”—originally published in Al Jazeera and reprinted
on AlterNet on January 16—Charlotte Silver outlines how Monsanto has
increased the price of the Roundup herbicide and exploiting its patent
on transgenic corn, soybean and cotton, to gain control over those
agricultural industries in the US, “…effectively squeezing out
conventional farmers (those using non-transgenic seeds) and eliminating
their capacity to viably participate and compete on the market.” The
company also uses its power to coerce seed dealers out of stocking many
of its competitor products.
Monsanto was under
investigation by the Department of Justice for violating anti-trust laws
by practicing anticompetitive activities towards other biotech
companies until the end of 2012. The investigation was quietly closed
before the end of last year.
Monsanto exerts vast control over the seed industry.
It started buying out seed companies as early as 1982. Some of
Monsanto’s most significant purchases were Asgrow (soybeans), Delta and
Pine Land (cotton), DeKalb (corn), Seminis (vegetables) and Holden’s
Foundation Seeds (in 1997). Monsanto is unmatched in its tactics for
squashing its competition, but the US has not put its antitrust laws
into practice to clamp down on the corporate monopoly it's forming.
3. Controlling the food, privatizing the water.
Half of the Earth’s population will live in an area with significant water stress by 2030, according to estimates
from the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development.
Corporations like Monsanto (along with Royal Dutch Shell and Nestle) are
vying for a future in which free water supply is a thing of the past,
and private companies control public water sources.
According to a government report titled "Intelligence Community Assessment; Global Water Security,"
by 2025, the world's population will likely exceed 8 billion people,
and the demand for water will be 40 percent higher than sustainable
water supplies available, with water needs of around 6,900 billion cubic
meters due to population growth.
Private corporations already own 5 percent of the world's fresh water.
Billionaires and companies, including Monsanto, are purchasing the
rights to groundwater and aquifers. In an even more ominous twist,
Monsanto is accused of dumping its plethora of toxic chemicals,
including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup) into the water supply
of various nations worldwide. Then, seeing a profitable market niche, it
has begun privatizing those water sources it polluted, filtering the
water, and selling it back to the public.
4. Running the FDA, writing its own protection laws.
Ex-Monsanto
executives run the United States Food and Drug Administration, the
agency tasked with ensuring food safety for the American public.
This
obvious conflict of interest could explain the lack of government-led
research on the long-term effects of GM products. Recently, the U.S.
Congress and president together passed the law that has been dubbed
“Monsanto Protection Act.” Among other things, the new law bans courts
from halting the sale of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds.
The
pro-Monsanto “Farmer Assurance Provision, Section 735,” rider was
quietly slipped into Agricultural Appropriations provisions of the HR
933 Continuing Resolution spending bill, designed to avert a federal
government shutdown. It states that the department of agriculture
“shall, notwithstanding any other provisions of law, immediately grant
temporary permits to continue using the [GE] seed at the request of a
farmer or producer [Monsanto].”
Obama signed the law on
March 29. It allows the agribusiness giant to promote and plant GMO and
GE seeds free from any judicial litigation that might deem such crops
unsafe. Even if a court review determines that a GMO crop harms humans,
Section 735 allows the seeds to be planted once the USDA approves them.
Public health lawyer Michele Simon told the New York Daily News
the Senate bill requires the USDA to “ignore any court ruling that
would otherwise halt the planting of new genetically mengineered crops.”
5. Continuing environmental nightmares.
Their environmental blunders don’t stop there. In 2002 the Washington Post published a piece titled “Monsanto Hid Decades of Pollution,” outlining the corporation’s pollution of an Alabama town with toxic PCBs for decades without disclosure.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published an articledebunking Monsanto’s claim that it is a “leader and innovator in sustainable agriculture.”
While
Monsanto advertises its technology as important to achieving such goals
as adequate global food production and “reducing agriculture's negative
impacts on the environment,” the UCS says in reality, the corporate
giant stands in the way of sustainable agriculture.
For
one, Monsanto’s policies promote pesticide resistance. “Their
RoundupReady and Bt technologies lead to resistant weeds and insects
that can make farming harder and reduce sustainability,” reads the UCS
article.
The article also notes that Monsanto’s policies
increase herbicide use, which can cause health effects, and perpetuates
gene contamination, as engineered genes tend to show up in non-GE
crops. Additionally, the UCS says Monsanto is a purveyor of monoculture
because it focuses only on limited varieties of a few commodity crops,
reducing biodiversity, and as a result, increasing pesticide and
fertilizer pollution.
The union points out that
Monsanto’s lobbying, advertising and stronghold over research on its
products makes it difficult for farmers and policymakers to make
informed decisions about more sustainable agriculture.
Finally,
UCS says Monsanto contributes little to helping the world feed itself,
and has failed to endorse science-backed solutions that don't give its
products a central role.
***
Tami
Canal encourages those who can’t make it to the March Against Monsanto
on Saturday to support and foster relationships with their local
farmers, buy organic, plant a vegetable garden, and become more
self-sustainable. “That is definitely the one way to break the bond
Monsanto has on us,” she says. “People should get involved because this
is basically an outright attack on humanity.”
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