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Tag Archives | Monsanto
Monsanto’s New Idea For Suing Farmers
Is the big, bad monster of biotech going to back off its aggressive litigation to force farmers to join their evil empire of GMO seeds? Maybe… Report via NPR:
For years, the biotech giant Monsanto has provoked outrage among its critics for suing farmers who save and replant seeds from the company’s patented Roundup Ready crops, such as soybeans and canola.
Some of that outrage is based on a decade-old case in Canada, in which a court ruled that a farmer, Percy Schmeiser, violated Monsanto’s patents by planting canola that he “knew or ought to have known” contained Monsanto’s Roundup Ready gene. Schmeiser argued that he didn’t want the gene in his fields, and that it had become incorporated into his canola via wind-blown pollen.
Monsanto won that case, but the company might have been better off losing because the victory has been a public relations disaster. Around the world, many people now believe, mistakenly, that Monsanto is suing farmers for growing patented seeds that wandered into their fields without the farmers’ knowledge and against their will.
Supreme Court To Rule On Monsanto’s ‘Self-Replicating Patent’ Seeds
Monsanto demands that anyone who plants a seed containing the its patented herbicide-resisting genes pay steep “technology fees.” The problem is that Monsanto’s plants amount to self-replicating patent machines, as the Monsanto-created genes spread through the ecosystem. NPR reports:
This farmer, Vernon Hugh Bowman, has been a loyal customer for Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” soybeans. Sometimes he bought ordinary soybeans from the local grain elevator or another farmer.
But here’s the problem: Monsanto’s soybeans account for 94 percent of all the soybeans grown in Indiana. So almost all the soybeans that Bowman could get his hands on contained the patented “Roundup Ready” gene. Monsanto found out and took Bowman to court [where he was ordered] to pay $84,000. An appeals court affirmed that decision.
The arguments and counter-arguments that both sides have submitted to the Supreme Court mostly focus on the reach of Monsanto’s patents — specifically, whether Monsanto really can demand a royalty for the planting of any soybean containing its patented genes.
Breaking the Set: Monsanto’s Government Orgy
Abby Martin takes a closer look at the incestuous relationship between the White House and Monsanto, by calling out Romney and Obama’s longstanding ties with the company on Breaking the Set.
Russia Blocks Monsanto’s GMO Corn
It might be grandstanding by the Russians, but the issue of Roundup being carcinogenic is nonetheless alarming. From The Register:
Monsanto’s GM corn, the centre of a storm inspired by the now-notorious French “rat tumours” study, has been banned from Russia following a decision by consumer rights regulator Rospotrebnadzor.
The ban is more symbolic than anything else: Russia doesn’t allow its farmers to plant GM corn, and is a net exporter of grains.
According to TV-Novosti site RT, Rospotrebnadzor has asked Russia’s Institute of Nutrition to review the French study, which claimed that rats developed large tumours either when exposed to the “Roundup-resistant” crop or to concentrations of Roundup in their water as low as .1 parts per billion.
According to Bloomberg, Russia had already asked the European Commission to comment on the study.
The European Food Safety Authority expects to have a preliminary review of the study completed by next week…
[continues at The Register]… Read the rest
US Coup D’Etat, Monsanto, Iran War, CNN Censorship, NYPD in Israel – Breaking The Set
Abby Martin brings up the issue of global surveillance and drone warfare and talks to NIAC Policy Director Jamal Abdi about the possibility of war with Iran. MSNBC is called out for political bias, and RT Producer Ramon Galindo speaks about the impending doom of nuclear reactors built by fault lines. She breaks down the corruption of the NYPD and asks: why are they bringing their criminal enterprise to Tel Aviv, Israel?
Walmart To Sell Unlabeled GMO Corn From Monsanto
At prices this low, how could you expect the food not to be laced with insecticide? Russia Today reports:
America’s largest bio-agriculture company and the biggest retailer in the country are joining forces. Walmart will soon be stocking their shelves with GMO corn made by Monsanto.
The retail giant says they won’t advertise which of their products are made with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, which could become a big problem very soon. Zack Kaldveer explains in an editorial published by the California Progress Report this month that Walmart will soon sell a special factory-made corn manufactured by Monsanto, which while it will allow most of Americans more easy access to affordable food, will also fill them with unknown insecticides: the very GMO crop Walmart will be selling has been genetically engineered to include chemicals right inside the corn.
Voters in California will decide later this year if retailers on the West Coast will be legally bound to correctly label all foodstuffs sold in shopping centers that are made from genetically modified foods.
Biotech Giants Are Bankrolling a GMO Free-for-All
Tom Philpott brings the bad news to Mother Jones:
The so-called “Big Six” agrichemical companies—Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow Agrosciences, BASF, Bayer, and Pioneer (DuPont)—are sitting pretty. Together, they control nearly 70 percent of the global pesticide market, and essentially the entire market for genetically modified seeds. Prices of the crops they focus on—corn, soy, cotton, etc.—are soaring, pushed up by severe drought in key growing regions. Higher crop prices typically translate to increased pesticide sales as farmers have more money to spend on agrichemicals and more incentive to maximize yield.
The companies operate globally—and have gained a stronghold in that emerging center of industrial agriculture, Brazil—but the biotech-friendly US is their profit center. They’ve got a big chunk of US agriculture pretty well sewn up—their GMO seeds dominate our corn, soy and cotton crops, which account for more than 53 percent of US farmland, and have won approval for GMO alfalfa (hay), which accounts for another 19 percent.
Monsanto Kicks Off Campaign To Prevent Genetically Modified Food Labeling
The Monsanto-funded StopCostlyFoodLabeling.com (featuring articles such as “How California’s GMO Labeling Law Could Limit Your Food Choices and Hurt the Poor”) provides a sample of what will be rolled out as Californians mull a referendum requiring the labeling of GMO foods. Via BlackListed News:
In February, Vermont contemplated the Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act. The proposed bill prohibits GMO food producers from using keywords like “natural,” “naturally made,” “naturally grown,” and “all natural” to describe GMO ingredients and products. The National Conference of State Legislatures reported that nearly 20 states were considering similar programs. Public surveys show a whopping 90 percent of the U.S. in favor of such practices.
In theory, this should make California’s GMO labeling initiative, which would require all foods within the state made with GM ingredients to carry a label stating so, a shoo-in. But let’s not get so hasty.
Leaders in the disinformation campaign launched against the labeling initiative cry out that it would be—like the infamous Proposition 65, “The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986”—a way for bounty-hunting trial lawyers to file suits against even natural food companies for supposedly selling products containing undisclosed GMOs.
Monsanto’s Legacy of Toxicity, Corruption and Scandalous Dealings
MEDIA ROOTS — Seeds are at the very core of the public commons as the first link in an essential food chain. Throughout the 20th century, the agricultural biotech giant Monsanto perverted intellectual property laws to corner the world’s seed supply.
By allowing the food supply to be attached to the bottom line of a corporation, the world places its future in the hands of a corrupt few. Abby Martin explores the multinational corporation’s sordid past of corruption and toxicity and their current scandalous dealings for RT.
