MONSANTO EMPLOYEE ADMITS TO AN ENTIRE DEPARTMENT DESIGNED TO DISCREDIT SCIENTISTS

Monsanto Employee Admits An Entire Department Exists to “Discredit” Scientists

by Christina Sarich / Natural Society
Tuesday April 7, 2015
Dare to publish a scientific study against Big Biotech, and Monsanto will defame and discredit you. For the first time, a Monsanto employee admits that there is an entire department within the corporation with the simple task of ‘discrediting’ and ‘debunking’ scientists who speak out against GMOs.
The WHO recently classified glyphosate, a chemical in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup, as carcinogenic – news that is really heating things up with biotech. So Monsanto has been demanding that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) retract their statements about the poisons’s toxicity to human health.
The company demands this even though a peer-reviewed study published in March of 2015 in the respected journal, The Lancet Oncology, conducted a analysis proving that glyphosate was indeed ‘probably carcinogenic.’
Monsanto’s vice president of global regulatory affairs Philip Miller told Reuters the following in interview:

“We question the quality of the assessment. The WHO has something to explain.”

It has already been explained, Mr. Miller. The study states:

“Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide, currently with the highest production volumes of all herbicides. It is used in more than 750 different products for agriculture, forestry, urban, and home applications. Its use has increased sharply with the development of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant crop varieties. Glyphosate has been detected in air during spraying, in water, and in food. There WAS limited evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of glyphosate.
Glyphosate has been detected in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, indicating absorption. Soil microbes degrade glyphosate to aminomethylphosphoric acid (AMPA). Blood AMPA detection after poisonings suggests intestinal microbial metabolism in humans. Glyphosate and glyphosate formulations induced DNA and chromosomal damage in mammals, and in human and animal cells in vitro. One study reported increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage (micronuclei) in residents of several communities after spraying of glyphosate formulations.”

In a recent talk attended mostly by students hoping to get decent paying internships in their field, a student asked what the company was doing to negate “bad science” concerning their work.
Monsanto’s employee, Dr. William “Bill” Moar, who gives talks on Monsanto’s products to reassure everyone that they are safe, perhaps forgot the event was public when he openly revealed that Monsanto had:

“An entire department” (waving his arm for emphasis) dedicated to ‘debunking’ science which disagreed with theirs.”

Likely, this is the first time a Monsanto employee has publicly admitted that they have immense political and financial weight to bear on scientists who dare to publish against them. Of course they don’t list this discrediting department anywhere on their website.
The company will stop at nothing to discredit and devalue the contributions of unimpeachably respected Lancet and the international scientific bodies of WHO and IARC, among others.
The stakes are high – after all, an entire industry of GMO seed (for which they currently hold more than a three-fourths monopoly share) is based on being Roundup ready. Glyphosate is their hallmark product, and it accounts for billions in sales when you account for the seed they sell to go with their best-selling herbicide.
In a single publicly made phrase, Moar has admitted that the Monsanto-funded science is sheer propaganda – essentially that they indeed have dozens, if not hundreds of employees out making sure that no science which tells the truth about their cancer-causing products ever garners any credibility whatsoever in the information age.
Monsanto has also held up the findings of regulatory bodies, particularly in the United States where the revolving door between agrochemical corporations and government seems never ending.

Source:   http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2015/04/07/monsanto-employee-admits-an-entire-department-exists-to-discredit-scientists/

DROUGHT? BIG AG STEALING CALIFORNIA WATER FOR PROFIT

Sunday, April 05, 2015

by

Common Dreams

Californians Point to Big-Ag, Unrestrained Development as Drought Culprits

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

20 Comments

The nearly-dry Uvas Reservoir. (Photo: Ian Abbott/flickr/cc)

As residents adapt to recently imposed water restrictions and California's historic drought continues, experts are closely examining the dry spell's exacerbating factors—from thirsty agribusiness operations to unrestrained development—and saying a fundamental shift is in store for the Golden State.
In an analysis published Sunday, the New York Times suggests that the drought will "force a change in the way the state does business."

"Much like the Gold Rush more than 150 years ago or the rise of Silicon Valley, the assumption of cheap and abundant water has been a crucial part of California’s identity, history and economy," write Times journalists Adam Nagourney, Jack Healy, and Nelson D. Schwartz.

They continue:

And until recently, it seemed that the California dream was sustainable: booming cities, wide lawns in the suburbs, green golf courses in an otherwise parched landscape and, above all, a vibrant agricultural sector in places not much wetter than a desert.

But no longer.
According to the Times piece, "California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth," the mandatory water restrictions announced by Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday will bring about not just lifestyle adjustments but cultural change.
It argues that the "punishing drought—and the unprecedented measures the state announced last week to compel people to reduce water consumption—is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammeled growth that has for so long been this state’s driving engine has run against the limits of nature."
Still, the Times notes—as environmental groups did last week—that "even a significant drop in residential water use will not move the consumption needle nearly as much as even a small reduction by farmers. Of all the surface water consumed in the state, roughly 80 percent is earmarked for the agricultural sector."
Adam Scow, California director of Food & Water Watch, said Wednesday: "It is disappointing that Governor Brown’s executive order to reduce California water use does not address the state’s most egregious corporate water abuses. In the midst of a severe drought, the Governor continues to allow corporate farms and oil interests to deplete and pollute our precious groundwater resources that are crucial for saving water."
News outlets have reported that reductions in water supplies for farmers are likely to be announced in the coming weeks, and there is also likely to be increased pressure on the farms to move away from certain water-intensive crops, like almonds or beef.
But in an appearance on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Brown defended the state's powerful agricultural sector.
"The farmers have fallowed hundreds of thousands of acres of land," Brown told ABC host Martha Raddatz. "They're pulling up vines and trees. Farm workers who are very low end of the economic scale here are out of work. There are people in agriculture areas that are really suffering."
He argued against cracking down further on big-ag operations or factory farms, saying: "If you don't want to produce any food and import it from some other place, of course you could do that. But that would displace hundreds of thousands of people and I don't think it's needed."
Another group not shouldering its share of the water-shortage burden is California's wealthy class, the LA Times reported Sunday:

As California gears up for the first mandatory water restrictions in its history, a long-standing class divide about water use is becoming increasingly apparent.
Beverly Hills and other affluent cities use far more water per capita than less-wealthy communities, prompting some to cast them as villains in California’s water conservation effort.
Water usage in Los Angeles was 70 gallons per capita. But within the city, a recent UCLA study examining a decade of Department of Water and Power data showed that on average, wealthier neighborhoods consume three times more water than less-affluent ones.

Stephanie Pincetl, who worked on the UCLA water-use study, told the LA Times that wealthy Californians are "lacking a sense that we are all in this together."
She added: "The problem lies, in part, in the social isolation of the rich, the moral isolation of the rich."
And others underscored why the four-year drought is much more than a local or state-level problem.
The Detroit Free Press editorial board on Sunday reminded readers that "those of us living in the other 49 states won't be exempt from the fallout. California farmers, who provide about half the country's fruits and vegetables, have already lost hundreds of thousands of acres of previously productive farmland. The impact on produce prices at your local grocery store will only intensify if the drought, already reckoned the worst in California's recorded history, persists."
The editorial continued:

Our proximity to abundant supplies of freshwater may give many Michiganders a false sense of security, at least until they wander into the produce aisle. But Brown's emergency edict makes it clear that the consequences of climate change are growing less theoretical, and more concrete, with each passing season.

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BIG AG SELLING BIG BUNK: REPORT SHOWS GMOs YIELD OPPOSITE OF HYPE

New Report Debunks 'Myth' That GMOs are Key to Feeding the World

Study upholds value of traditional methods 'shown to actually increase food supplies and reduce the environmental impact of production'

by

Lauren McCauley, staff writer

Published on Wednesday, April 01, 2015 by Common Dreams

About 70 percent of the world's poor are farmers, and to raise them out of poverty requires access to basic resources such as fertilizer, water, and the infrastructure to properly store or transport crops to market—not expensive, resource-intensive GMO seeds. (Credit: La Montañita Co-op)

The biotechnology industry "myth" that feeding billions of people necessitates genetically engineered agriculture has been debunked by a new report out Tuesday by the nonprofit health organization Environmental Working Group.
The report, Feeding the World Without GMOs (pdf), argues that investment in genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, has failed to expand global food security. It advocates more traditional methods "shown to actually increase food supplies and reduce the environmental impact of production."
Over the past 20 years, the report notes, global crop yields have only grown by 20 percent—despite the massive investment in biotechnology.
On the other hand, it continues, in recent decades "the dominant source of yield improvements has been traditional crossbreeding, and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future."
As the report states, "seed companies' investment in improving yields in already high-yielding areas does little to improve food security; it mainly helps line the pockets of seed and chemical companies, large-scale growers and producers of corn ethanol."
After examining recent research on GMO crop production, the report also found:

• Genetically modified crops—primarily corn and soybeans—have not substantially contributed to global food security and are primarily used to feed animals and cars, not people.
• GMO crops in the US are not more productive than non-GMO crops in western Europe.
• A recent case study in Africa found that crops that were crossbred for drought tolerance using traditional techniques improved yields 30 percent more than genetically engineered varieties.

Alternately, the report recommends a number of "common sense" strategies for expanding the global food supply, including: implementing a smarter use of fertilizers, eliminating bio-fuels, eliminating food waste, and cutting global meat consumption in half. Producing meat requires huge quantities of often-genetically modified crops such as corn and soy for animal feed.
Further, the report points out, "the narrative that GE crops will help feed the world ignores the fact that hunger is mostly the result of poverty."
About 70 percent of the world's poor are farmers, report author Emily Cassidy writes, and to raise them out of poverty requires access to basic resources such as fertilizer, water, and the infrastructure to properly store or transport crops to market—not expensive, resource-intensive GMO seeds.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Cassidy writes: "Given that creating just one genetically engineered crop variety can cost upwards of $130 million, you'd think Big Ag companies would invest in strategies that have been proven to work and less on GMOs that may not even increase crop yields. But what corporations really care about is increasing their profits, not feeding a hungry world."

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Feeding the World – Without GMOs

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE: STUDY SAYS: ROUNDUP - GLYPHOSATE, PESTICIDES MAJOR LINKS

Study Links Widely Used     Pesticides to Antibiotic Resistance

Glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba found to affect bacteria in ways that could promote resistance to common antibiotics.

By Elizabeth Grossman on March 24, 2015

This has not been a good week for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had classified glyphosate, the United States’ most widely-used pesticide, as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Now, the chemical has another strike against it. A study published today by theAmerican Society of Microbiology’s journal mBio has linked glyphosate and two other widely-used herbicides–2,4-D ( ~50% of Agent Orange) and dicamba–to one of the most pressing public health crises of our time: antibiotic resistance.

This study found that exposure to these herbicides in their commercial forms changed the way bacteria responded to a number of antibiotics, including ampicillin,ciprofloxacin, and tetracycline–drugs widely used to treat a range of deadly diseases.

Dicamba, 2,4-D, and glyphosate have been in use for decades, so why have their antibacterial-resistance effects not been documented before? As the study’s lead author, Jack Heinemann, professor of genetics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, explains, when pesticides are tested for adverse effects, “it’s the lethal toxicity that people focus on.” In other words, how much of the chemical will kill an organism.

“What makes our study different, is that it is looking at a sub-lethal effect,” says Heinemann. “The effect we see requires that the bacteria stay alive.”

Previous studies done by other researchers have found that substances chemically similar to dicamba and 2,4-D can cause antibiotic resistance, Heinemann explains. So he and his colleagues decided to investigate whether these herbicides would produce similar effects. They added glyphosate to the study because it is chemically unlike the other two. But, to their surprise, it also produced some antibiotic resistance.

Heinemann explains that because these herbicides are not “supertoxic” to the bacteria the study tested–E. coli and Salmonella–they are not killed outright at levels typically used to kill weeds. Instead, the bacteria stay alive while activating proteins known asefflux pumps in order to rid themselves of toxins. And this defense mechanism can make the bacteria develop resistance to the threat from which it is defending itself.

Scientists know that overuse of antibiotics in humans can decrease their effectiveness. In the same way, says Heinemann, “exposure to these pesticides make the pathogens stronger.”

Although this study only looked at two laboratory strains of human pathogens, the antibiotics examined represent what he calls “broad classes” of drugs we’ve come to depend on to fight infections and the herbicides are three of the most-used worldwide.

Heinemann also notes that the different pesticides produced a variety of responses. While all three produced an antibacterial-resistant response to some of the antibiotics, some of the combinations his team tested produced no response and some increasedthe antibiotic’s effect.

Although the study is likely to be seen as controversial by some, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth assistant professor of biology, Dr. Mark Silby says it “followed established protocols” and the existing scientific literature supports its findings.

“This is a very carefully-designed study,” says Dr. Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumers Union. “It’s incredibly important work showing the complexity of an effect that hadn’t been thought about before.” The mechanisms by which the bacteria respond to toxics–in this case herbicides–are already well-known, Hansen explains. What’s new and important is looking at non-lethal levels of exposure in combination with the antibiotics.

The weed-killers used in the study were purchased at a local store and were used at levels specified in use directions, which means the scientists were testing chemicals actually in use worldwide rather than a special laboratory sample of the active compound.

How could any of this affect people?

“These herbicides are now used at such a scale that we can almost use the term ubiquitous,” says Heinemann. For one, glyphosate is used on about 94 percent of the soybeans and 89 percent of the corn grown in the U.S, while 2,4-D is the third-most widely used herbicide in the U.S., while dicamba ranks fifth in use worldwide.

The levels at which the researchers saw effects were higher than the residues allowed on food, but below what is often used in rural settings, says Heinemann.

The results of Heinemann’s study suggest there is probably a small chance that exposure through food would produce these effects, but they could be a concern in areas where the pesticides are being applied, says Hansen. Thus, the people most likely to be affected are farmers, farmworkers, and other people who live in agricultural communities.

Also to consider is the approval earlier this year of a new pesticide that combines glyphosate and 2,4-D and soybean and cotton seeds genetically engineered to resist dicamba, all of which are expected to increase use of these pesticides.

Pesticide-induced antibiotic resistance could also affect honeybees since many commercial hives are now being treated with antibiotics. It’s possible, Heinemann says, that “comingling of antibiotics and herbicides could be compromising the effectiveness of those antibiotics,” and thus honeybee health.

Meanwhile, Monsanto says it disagrees with WHO’s announcement on glyphosate. “All labeled uses of glyphosate are safe for human health and supported by one of the most extensive worldwide human health databases ever compiled on an agricultural product,” the company says in a statement on its website.

Neither Monsanto nor other pesticide manufacturers have had the opportunity to respond to the new mBio study. But the Council for Biotechnology Information said on its website “GMO Answers” last month, that glyphosate had once been considered for use as an antibiotic but that “levels needed to kill microbes are relatively high, and resistance can develop readily.” In other words, the phenomenon Heinemann and colleagues observed is not entirely unexpected.

“A jigsaw puzzle is a good metaphor,” for how these effects fit together, says the scientist.

The next steps in this research will be to test additional bacteria and pure samples of the pesticides. But for now, it’s clear that “further work is needed,” says Hansen. “This is something we need to look at as we expand the use of these herbicides.”

Source:
http://civileats.com/2015/03/24/study-links-widely-used-pesticides-to-antibiotic-resistance/

WHO REPORT: "ROUNDUP" - GLYPHOSATE A LIKELY HUMAN CARCINOGEN

BREAKING: Glyphosate is “probable human carcinogen” – WHO’s cancer agency      IARC’s verdict comes as glyphosate "RoundUp" is set to be re-approved in Europe this year

The World Health Organisation’s cancer agency has declared the world’s most widely used weedkiller a “probable human carcinogen” in a move that will alarm the agrochemical industry and amateur gardeners. The assessment by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of glyphosate, which is used in herbicides with estimated annual sales of $6bn, will be of special concern to Monsanto, the company that brought glyphosate to market under the trade name Roundup in the 1970s. Over 80% of GM crops worldwide are engineered to be grown with the herbicide. The IARC has no regulatory role and its decisions do not automatically lead to bans or restrictions, but campaigners are expected to use them to put pressure on regulators. The IARC reached its decision based on the view of 17 experts from 11 countries, who met in Lyon, France, to assess the carcinogenicity of 5 organophosphate pesticides. The IARC’s assessment of the 5 pesticides is published in the latest issue of The Lancet Oncology. Europe is set to re-approve glyphosate this year. The IARC assessment is here (register to gain free access): http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/abstract Financial Times article behind paywall: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8b79a572-cf14-11e4-893d-00144feab7de.html#axzz3UxYNKYO6 The response by the pesticide industry association, the Glyphosate Task Force, is here: http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/28574811/statement-of-the-gtf-on-the-recent-iarc-decision-concerning-glyphosate __________________________________________________________ Website: http://www.gmwatch.org Profiles: http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/GM_Watch:_Portal Twitter: http://twitter.com/GMWatch Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GMWatch/276951472985?ref=nf

CONGRESS ALERTS OBAMA: 90% EXTINCTION OF MONARCHs DUE TO GMOs

52 House Democrats tell Obama the chief cause of decline of monarch butterflies is GMO crops

52 Democrat Members of the US Congress have written to President Obama telling him that the chief cause of the 90% decline in monarch butterfly populations is GM herbicide-tolerant crops. Glyphosate herbicides sprayed on the GM crops have wiped out the monarchs’ food, milkweed. The letter says, “With the advent of herbicide-resistant genetically engineered crops, the use of herbicides like glyphosate has increased from less than 20 million pounds per year in 1992 to over 250 million pounds per year in 2011. “As a result, researchers now estimate that more than half of milkweed has been wiped out in the Midwestern Farm Belt since 1999, and more than 98% of milkweed has been wiped out from corn and soybean areas in Iowa due to the widespread overuse of glyphosate.” The Members of Congress say that they appreciate efforts by farmers and others to plant milkweed, but warn that “without a sea-change in how the federal government address the use of herbicides, especially as applied to herbicide-resistant crops, vital monarch habitats will simply continue to disappear.” The letter recommends bringing monarchs – which were plentiful before GM herbicide-tolerant crops were widely planted – under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. This would give legal muscle to attempts to protect the monarchs and enable sanctions against those who kill or endanger them. It’s hard to imagine that anything short of a phase-out of herbicide-tolerant crops will save the monarch. The letter is available here: http://gmwatch.us6.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=29cbc7e6c21e0a8fd2a82aeb8&id=0a04274570&e=872a621ccb __________________________________________________________ Website: http://gmwatch.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=29cbc7e6c21e0a8fd2a82aeb8&id=88dd5d23a1&e=872a621ccb Profiles: http://gmwatch.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=29cbc7e6c21e0a8fd2a82aeb8&id=bfcc867d45&e=872a621ccb Twitter: http://gmwatch.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=29cbc7e6c21e0a8fd2a82aeb8&id=de096306c7&e=872a621ccb Facebook: http://gmwatch.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=29cbc7e6c21e0a8fd2a82aeb8&id=fd116e49df&e=872a621ccb

GMOS - WHO OWNS THE STORY AROUND THE PLANET

The Geopolitics of GMOs    

Weekend Edition March 13-15, 2015

Seeds of Power

by COLIN TODHUNTER

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not essential for feeding the world (see this and this), but if by some massive stretch of the imagination  they were to lead to increased productivity, did not harm the environment and did not negatively impact biodiversity and human health, would we be wise to embrace them anyhow?
The fact is that GMO technology would still be owned and controlled by certain very powerful interests. In their hands, this technology is first and foremost an instrument of corporate power, a tool to ensure profit. Beyond that, it is intended to serve US global geopolitical interests. Indeed, agriculture has for a long time been central to US foreign policy.

“American foreign policy has almost always been based on agricultural exports, not on industrial exports as people might think. It’s by agriculture and control of the food supply that American diplomacy has been able to control most of the Third World. The World Bank’s geopolitical lending strategy has been to turn countries into food deficit areas by convincing them to grow cash crops – plantation export crops – not to feed themselves with their own food crops.” Professor Michael Hudson.

The Project for a New American Century and the Wolfowitz Doctrine show that US foreign policy is about power, control and ensuring global supremacy at any cost. Part of the plan for attaining world domination rests on the US controlling agriculture and hijacking food sovereignty and nations’ food security.
In his book ‘Seeds of Destruction’, William Engdahl traces how the oil-rich Rockefeller family translated its massive wealth into political clout and set out to capture agriculture in the US and then globally via the ‘green revolution’. Along with its big-dam, water-intensive infrastructure requirements, this form of agriculture made farmers dependent on corporate-controlled petroproducts and entrapped them and nations into dollar dependency and debt. GMOs represent more of the same due to the patenting and the increasing monopolization of seeds by a handful of mainly US companies, such as Monsanto, DuPont and Bayer.

In India, Monsanto has sucked millions from agriculture in recent years via royalties, and farmers have been compelled to spend beyond their means to purchase seeds and chemical inputs. A combination of debt, economic liberalization and ashift to (GMO) cash crops (cotton) has caused hundreds of thousands of farmers to experience economic distress, while corporations have extracted huge profits. Over 270,000 farmers in India have committed suicide since the mid to late nineties.

In SouthAmerica, there are similar stories of farmers and indigenous peoples being forced from their lands and experiencing violent repression as GMOs and industrial-scale farming take hold. It is similar in Africa, where Monsanto and The Gates Foundation are seeking to further transform small-scale farming into a corporate controlled model. They call it ‘investing’ in agriculture as if this were an act of benevolence.

Agriculture is the bedrock of many societies, yet it is being recast for the benefit of rich agritech, retail and food processing concerns. Small farms are under immense pressure and food security is being undermined, not least because the small farm produces most of the world’s food. Whether through land grabs and takeovers, the production of (non-food) cash crops for export, greater chemical inputs or seed patenting and the eradication of seed sharing among farmers, profits are guaranteed for agritech corporations and institutional land investors.
The recasting of agriculture in the image of big agribusiness continues across the globe despite researchers saying that this chemical-intensive, high-energy consuming model means Britain only has 100 harvests left because of soil degradation. In Punjab, the ‘green revolution’ model of industrial scale, corporate dominated agriculture has led to a crisis in terms of severe water shortages, increasing human cancers and falling productivity. There is a global agrarian crisis. The increasingly dominant corporate-driven model is unsustainable.

More ecological forms of agriculture are being called for that, through intelligent crop management and decreased use of chemical inputs, would be able to not only feed the world but also work sustainably with the natural environment. Numerous official reports and scientific studies have suggested that such policies would be more appropriate, especially for poorer countries (see this, this and this).

When on occasion the chemical-industrial model indicates that it does deliver better yields than more traditional methods (a generalization and often overstated), even this is a misrepresentation. Better yields but only with massive chemical inputs from corporations and huge damage to health and the environment as well as ever more resource-driven conflicts to grab the oil that fuels this model. Like the erroneous belief that economic ‘growth’ (GDP) is stimulated just because there becomes greater levels of cash flows in an economy (and corporate profits are boosted), the notion of improved agricultural ‘productivity’ also stems from a set of narrowly defined criteria.
The dominant notions that underpin economic ‘growth’, modern agriculture and ‘development’ are based on a series of assumption that betray a mindset steeped in arrogance and contempt: the planet should be cast in an urban-centic, ethnocentric model whereby the rural is to be looked down on, nature must be dominated, farmers are a problem to be removed from the land and traditional ways are backward and in need of remedy.

“People are perceived as ‘poor’ if they eat food they have grown rather than commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made from ecologically well-adapted materials like bamboo and mud rather than in cinder block or cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear garments manufactured from handmade natural fibres rather than synthetics.” Vandana Shiva

Western corporations are to implement the remedy by determining policies at the World Trade Organization, IMF and World Bank (with help from compliant politicians and officials) in order to  depopulate rural areas and drive folk to live in cities to then strive for a totally unsustainable, undeliverable, environment-destroying, conflict-driving, consumerist version of the ‘American Dream’.
It is interesting (and disturbing) to note that ‘developing’ nations account for more than 80% of world population, but consume only about a third of the world’s energy. US citizens constitute 5% of the world’s population, but consume 24% of the world’s energy. On average, one American consumes as much energy as two Japanese, six Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 31 Indians, 128 Bangladeshis, 307 Tanzanians and 370 Ethiopians.
Despite the environmental and social devastation caused, the outcome is regarded as successful just because business interests that benefit from this point to a growth in GDP. Chopping down an entire forest that people had made a living sustainably from for centuries and selling the timber, selling more poisons to spray on soil or selling pharmaceuticals to address the health impacts of the petrochemical food production model would indeed increase GDP, wouldn’t it? It’s all good for business. And what is good for business is good for everyone else, or so the lie goes.

“Corporations as the dominant institution shaped by capitalist patriarchy thrive on eco-apartheid. They thrive on the Cartesian legacy of dualism which puts nature against humans. It defines nature as female and passively subjugated. Corporatocentrism is thus also androcentric – a patriarchal construction. The false universalism of man as conqueror and owner of the Earth has led to the technological hubris of geo-engineering, genetic engineering, and nuclear energy. It has led to the ethical outrage of owning life forms through patents, water through privatization, the air through carbon trading. It is leading to appropriation of the biodiversity that serves the poor.” Vandana Shiva

The ‘green revolution’ and now GMOs are ultimately not concerned with feeding the world, securing well-rounded nutritious diets or ensuring health and environmental safety. (In fact, India now imports foods that it used to grow but no longer does; in Africa too, local diets are becoming less diverse and less healthy). Such notions are based on propaganda or stem from well-meaning sentiments that have been pressed into the service of corporate interests.

Biotechnological innovations have always had a role to play in improving agriculture, but the post-1945 model of agriculture has been driven by powerful corporations like Monsanto, which are firmly linked to Pentagon and Wall Street interests. Motivated by self-interest but wrapped up in trendy PR about ‘feeding the world’ or imposing austerity to ensure prosperity, the publicly stated intentions of the US state-corporate cabal should never be taken at face value.

In India, Monsanto and Walmart had a major role in drawing up the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture. Monsanto now funds research in public institutions and its presence and influence compromises what should in fact be independent decision and policy making bodies. Monsanto is a driving force behind what could eventually lead to the  restructuring and subjugation of India by the US. The IMF and Monsanto are also working to ensure Ukraine’s subservience to US geopolitical aims via the capture of land and agriculture. The capture of agriculture (and societies) by rich interests is a global phenomenon.

Only the completely naive would believe that rich institutional investors in land and big agribusiness and its backers in the US State Department have humanity’s interests at heart. At the very least, their collective aim is profit. Beyond that and to facilitate it, the need to secure US global hegemony is paramount.
The science surrounding GMOs is becoming increasingly politicized and bogged down in detailed arguments about whose methodologies, results, conclusions and science show what and why. The bigger picture however is often in danger of being overlooked. GMO is not just about ‘science’. As an issue, GMO and the chemical-industrial model it is linked to is ultimately a geopolitical one driven by power and profit.

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher based in the UK and India.

Source:  http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/13/the-geopolitics-of-gmos/