I want to talk about something today, and I hope that it does not result in my office getting burned down. But I work in a basement, so I guess its not that much of an issue. Genetically modified crops — devil incarnate or world savior? Solution to the hunger problem, or a capitalist venture? Each of these holds a little bit of truth, and I want to explore a side of the debate that isn’t normally discussed in the press — GM crops as the good guys.
When talking about genetically modified crops, Monsanto is, for the most part, the centerpiece of conversation. Debates, if they can even be called that, are riddled with hearsay, rumors, myths, “I read this” or “I heard that.” It seems to me that most people simply have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. And those who do have some knowledge on the subject are focusing on all the wrong things.
As bad press and political heat goes, Monsanto is on the sharp end of it more often than not. The “liberal” media paints Monsanto as a mean, heartless company, set on destroying any and all competition.
So Monsanto has some rather shrewd business practices … all successful companies do. They have some of the most consistently stable stock prices on Wall Street, and have earned massive investments from both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. So what is it about Monsanto that the public finds so appalling? Most of the arguments I have heard against this company are that Monsanto destroys the small farmer. While many small farmers are bankrupt by lawsuits with Monsanto, it is merely the result of Monsanto defending its intellectual property … to the death.
Monsanto makes a large percentage of its money from licensing patented genes to other companies. They have contracts with Dow Chemical, Syngenta, Novartis and many others. Monsanto is truly ruthless in its negotiations when licensing out its patents, and it should be.
No one is forcing these companies to license with Monsanto, no one is forcing farmers to buy Monsanto seeds. But good products cost more, and consumers (farmers and other corporations in this case) are willing to pay the premium that Monsanto charges for good products. Good products cost more. That’s business. That’s how the world works.
There is some humor I find in this situation, and that is the complete hypocrisy of the hoards of internet users who rush to vilify Monsanto. How many of the people writing about this company are typing on a computer made by Apple and manufactured by Foxconn? A computer made in factories with such terrible working conditions that Foxconn had to install bars on the windows to prevent suicides due to low pay and illegal overtime. Employees even need to sign away the right for their family or any of their descendants to sue the company in the case of death. I myself am guilty of owning multiple Apple products. I am willing to pay that premium because Apple products are beautiful and functional.
How many of these writers are wearing Nike shoes, manufactured by children paid pennies per day? I find it completely asinine that these individuals who claim to hold themselves to such a high moral standard are so selective in their moral battles. They buy a $2,000 computer and then blog about the unfairness of big corporations.
Now don’t get me wrong — I do understand that there is a fundamental difference between bad labor practices for something you wear or use, like a computer, and a genetically modified food product that you assimilate into your body. There is an intimacy related to food that does not exist with shoes or computers; the food that you eat is broken down on a molecular level and literally becomes part of you.
After doing my homework for this column, I came to the realization that there are in fact many reasons to hate, or at least avoid, Monsanto.
First, the excessive enforcement of patents. Monsanto has customers sign end-user license agreements (EULAs) that prevent the replication and even the study of their seeds. These EULAs forbid independent research and can block unflattering findings from being published.
Another frowned upon practice is the implementation of the Terminator and the Zombie. The infamous Monsanto patent #5,723,765, a.k.a., the Terminator gene, is for a gene that makes all seeds of Monsanto crops completely sterile. The Zombie gene is similar to the Terminator gene except that sterility can be reversed by spraying a chemical, made by Monsanto, that triggers fertility.
One of the last points I want to make is that the general public has an uncanny knack for remembering every mistake in history and forgetting the good parts. Monsanto is often condemned as as the manufacturer of Agent Orange and the other “Rainbow Herbicides” during the Vietnam War. What surprises me yet again about the public is that they cry murder for a chemical that was meant to kill crops, and had the unfortunate side effect of stillbirths and infant deformations, but that same public seems to develop complete amnesia regarding companies who design products with the sole purpose of taking life. There are easily close to a hundred weapons manufacturers just in the United States.
And finally, I want to talk about consumer stupidity. Hate me, don’t hate me; I really don’t care, but it is my honest opinion that the average consumer is not educated enough to know what a GMO is, or educated enough to make decisions about GMO legislation. I read dozens of bloggers’ posts about GMOs and many of them are under the idiotic impression that GMO is a chemical that is added to plants.
Monsanto may have questionable-at-best legal practices, but they have achieved the ultimate corporate success — government support the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the times of John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Our government turns a relatively blind eye toward Monsanto’s activities because Monsanto has branded itself as “agents of a future prosperity that will trickle down to all.”
Let’s for one moment imagine a world without Monsanto. Without the Golden Rice engineered by Monsanto, millions of malnourished individuals would die every year of Vitamin A deficiency, and nearly half a million more from blindness caused by Vitamin A deficiency.
I am by no means suggesting that Monsanto is a good company. Their level of social standards leave much to be desired. What I am saying is that if you want to launch a campaign of hate and protest against a multinational, multi-billion dollar company, at least educate yourself enough to know what you are talking about.
And ask yourself this: Is it worth sacrificing the hundreds of thousands of lives saved every year by Monsanto’s products just to destroy the company that bankrupt the small farmer down the street?
HUDSON LOFCHIE can be reached at science@theaggie.org.
Mr Lofchie,
I won’t accuse you of being paid by Monsanto. However, I will accuse you of belittling anyone whose opinion differs from your own. Basically, you’re a bully who says – if you are against Monsanto, it is because you are misinformed and stupid. Let me just quote your article for a moment… “I hope that it does not result in my office getting burned down,”-because anyone who does not agree with you is obviously violent- “most people have no idea what they are talking about… [they] are focusing on all the wrong things,” “consumer stupidity,” “[they] are under the idiotic impression…” ” at least educate yourself enough to know what you are talking about.” Get the picture? Your words are incredibly insulting, as if you are the sole person capable of understanding the giant corporation that is Monsanto. You are not more educated than everyone else. We are quite capable of understanding what is happening to our food system thanks to companies like Monsanto. We have eyes to see.
You argue that Monsanto is “merely” defending its intellectual property. You know as well as I do, that this is false. They are happily contaminating farms all around the world through wind-blown genetically modified pollen and seeds. When a hapless farmer is “caught growing” these mutated plants, Monsanto attacks. They throw lawyers and investigators at them until they are decimated, utterly destroyed. And they happily do this over and over and over again. Through these tactics, they will own every piece of arable land in the world. They will own food and they WILL own life and humans. The fact that they are successful, have stable stock prices and massive investments makes them rich, not ethical. No one will ever accuse them of being ethical.
And I beg to differ that farmers are not being forced to license with Monsanto. Farmers are being intimidated, pressured and bullied into signing with them. And once they do, they are pretty much stuck forever buying their terminator seeds, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. And we all know that farmers are being forced to spray more, not less, as the years go by.
And I’m sorry, but your pathetic arguments about Apple, Foxconn, Nike and weapons manufacturers are IRRELEVANT. If you would like to discuss corporate greed in general, that is a different article. However, I have a feeling you would attempt to defend them too, for some unknown reason. It just seems like that’s how you roll.
Your only logical, truthful, and reasonable arguments come in the paragraph where you admit to some Monsanto faults, like their enforcement patents and license agreements that prevent unflattering findings from being published. Basically, they have made it so that their misdeeds, dirty tricks and highway robbery will never be known by the public. Thank goodness we dummies have been able to find out anyway.
And as for that government support? You can try to use that to their credit all you want, but again, we uneducated people know that this was accomplished through their underhanded, insidious revolving door tactics. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Monsanto employees also work for the FDA, the USDA, and the supreme court as judges who make rulings on these matters. Yep, just a coincidence.
Let’s for one moment imagine a world without Monsanto. Indian farmers might actually stop committing suicide long enough to regain their independence and food sovereignty. Our fertility rates might climb back up to where they used to be. All of these mysterious food allergies and intolerances might disappear. The bees might stop dying. Cows might stop suffering from the unnatural overproduction of milk. Sounds pretty good to me.
But Monsanto isn’t so bad. They only “bankrupt the small farmer down the street.” You really do think we’re stupid. “Hmmm… maybe if I downplay how many farmers have been destroyed by this company, I’ll convince my audience that I’m right.”
You, sir, need to be educated, not the average person who seems to know more than you do. Your insults, downplaying, and distracting tactics won’t work here. Do some more research, then get back to us.
Meanwhile, my family and I, along with about 100,000 others will be Marching Against Monsanto in a few weeks. So many idiots in one place. Oh, no, wait. It will be all around the world from Egypt, to India, to Australia, to Russia, to Mexico, to the USA, to my hometown, Ottawa, Canada. Huh, we must all be wrong.
Come on out, we’re always looking for more idiots.
I don’t really see much research in this article. At all, in fact. Have you spoken directly to the farmers? Have you interviewed those who can tell you that they do NOT have the freedom to not buy non-GMO seeds as you state (without anything to support this claim)? Have you gone to the seed companies to see what varieties they have? Have you, like myself in my current research on Monsanto’s lobbying and public relations efforts, spoken with the president of OSGATA who spearheaded the OSGATA et al. v. Monsanto lawsuit, and learned of the atrocities that have occurred for the 83 farmers who were involved?
Have you reviewed the below article, and the conclusions that he has made on the serious implications of this oligopoly?
Visualizing Consolidation in the Global Seed Industry: 1996–2008
Philip H. Howard
Received: 28 October 2009 / Accepted: 4 December 2009 / Published: 8 December 2009
I suggest that before you chide those who don’t know what GMOs are, you should do your own research, too. This is why journalism is dead: the “voice” of the people is more ignorant than the people themselves. Your eloquence doesn’t replace the need for actual sources to back up your claims.
You really, REALLY need to read up before you go off pimping for this megacorporation. Your entire argument seems to rest on these underclass masses needing us to give them vitamin A in their one bowl of rice a day, or whatever you’ve decided they deserve. Please reflect on yourself– as to what a degree of classwar snobbery this is.
And btw, mr Science.. how about some capitalism boosterism, i.e. labeling products for consumers to choose whether to buy or not buy within a packaged product? Naww.. not monopolistic enough. Both huge parties, to whom you seem to be sucking up, are on the take.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121002092839.htm
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/10/19/herbicide-resistant-super-weeds-increasingly-plaguing-farmers
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-growing-menace-from-superweeds
http://www.nationofchange.org/first-super-weeds-now-super-insects-thanks-monsanto-1338362046
https://thebovine.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/gmo-crops-and-their-superweeds/
http://gmoinside.org/superweeds-frightening-reality/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/03/gmo-crops-affect-farmers.aspx
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23960
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/research/biotech_suicide.html
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/03/gmo-crops-affect-farmers.aspx
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/316370-gmos-a-global-debate-linked-to-indias-farmer-suicides/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zester-daily/bitter-seeds-film_b_1902221.html
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19347-monsanto-rural-debt-and-the-suicide-epidemic-in-india
http://www.projectcensored.org/21-monsanto-indias-suicide-economy/
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/01/12/dow-chemical-ready-to-usher-in-new-era-of-superwee/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/engineered-bluegrass/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19585341
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/newsletters/12012011spillingthebeans.html
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Also using GMO rice to fight world hunger is a bandaid and very reductionist and not a long term solution. People don’t often ask why these people are starving in the first place, it seems like some perpetual thing that always has happened there until we throw just one grain at it. People in these countries starve for socio-economic and political reasons, they starve because of global warming, because of over-fishing, because of cheap factory labor, because of reasons that can traced back to colonialism. Their crops suffer because of pollution, climate change, population increase and loss of irrigation systems and loss of local knowledge adapted to these environments. Throwing magic rice at the problem is no solution and it makes them dependent on it rather than self-sufficient.
Most people against Monsanto are also against those corporations and agribusiness is even more dangerous because not only does it contribute to labor violations and pollution and local warming but directly compromises the health of its consumers, and can do so covertly. Also GMO seed studies can only be one by independent researchers by permission which immediately is cause for suspicion that the science behind GMO safety is tainted. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-seed-companies-control-gm-crop-research
[…] In defense of Monsanto | The Aggie […]
You state, “I really don’t care, but it is my honest opinion that the average consumer is not educated enough to know what a GMO is, or educated enough to make decisions about GMO legislation.” I would say you are not educated enough to know what you’re talking about. ” What is carefully kept out of the Monsanto and other agribusiness propaganda in promoting genetically manipulated crops as an alternative to conventional is the fact that in the entire world until the present, all GMO crops have been manipulated and patented for only two things—to be resistant or “tolerant” to the patented highly toxic herbicide glyphosate chemicals that Monsanto and the others force farmers to buy as condition for buying their patented GMO seeds. The second trait is GMO seeds that have been engineered genetically to resist specific insects. Contrary to public relations myths promoted by the agribusiness giants in their own self-interest, there exists not oné single GMO seed that provides a greater harvest yield than conventional, nor one that requires less toxic chemical herbicides. That is for the simple reason there is no profit to be made in such.” You need to do your own research and stop listening to Monsanto’s propaganda.
Humans are animals and are therefore natural (actually, the whole definition of ‘natural’ assumes and relies on the premise that humans are separated out from animals and all other living things on the planet). Following this, all human inventions are natural. Stupidity and groupthink are natural. Motivation through resources (i.e. money$) is natural. Famine, due to overpopulation and scant resources, is natural. Balance will be found, in the short term and in the long run. Revolution challenges oppression, predator seeks prey. Don’t fight it…scramble for your position: the one that secures you reproductive success and the promulgation of your genes. My friends and associates, this is ecology.
DEFENSELESS~~! Now we know Monsanto is the cause of bee deaths nationwide. They have purposely poisoned bees to kill them off so, just like the terminator seed, you will have to purchase ‘super bees with immunity to these toxins, from Monsanto.
This has cost billions of dollars in unfertile crop failures. No way of counting the farm failures and other losses in the infrastructure, processing and sales of food stuffs.
“In Defense of………” . You sir are a joke and an embarrassment to the journalistic profession. So, what were your perks for attempting to put a positive spin on the most negative corporation on the planet? Huh? Not gonna tell us I bet.
I am proud to state that I am in no way shape or form associated with Monsanto. I received no compensation, no job offers, and I own no Monsanto stock.