Monsanto Horror Stories Legit or Not?

[Joe_K]

Watching a documentary on farming crops, seeds, planting etc. on the TV channel Pivot. I don't usually watch this channel and normally wouldn't have a great interest in this sort of thing but after a long work and School week when I got home this evening the Wife was allready watching it and I'm too tired to not watch it, so here I am.

The basic premise so far is Monsanto is a seed Cartel that is run by the descendents of Hitler and Mao.

Since my Grandfather who was a Farmer his whole life isn't around to get his insight I ask you the scholarly and informed to shed some light and opinion on this subject.

Velocitas, Opprimere,
Violentia Operandi

[rondog]

Don't know for sure but I've heard similar things.

[Bailey Guns]

The farmers up here sure put up a lot of Monsanto crop signs in their fields. I've always thought the Monsanto bashing came mostly from the left and tend to think they do more good than not in terms of bringing crop products to market. But I'm no expert.

[buffalobo]

Monsanto is a large company with profit motive. They exist to produce and sell products to make profit for share holders.

They are no particular friend to anyone and their actions are easy to twist and villify.

While no particular friend to anyone, their tech advancements and seed products make it possible for a few to produce food for many.

Thay are not quite the villains they are portrayed as nor are they looking out for your best interests.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Great-Kazoo]

Monsanto, Pharma corps, gun ind. it's all about character assassination. Hitler & Mao?? seriously..............

I'd be more concerned about the national seed repository's scattered around the globe. Who controls them, who decides when and if distribution will be done, etc.

[Joe_K]

Monsanto, Pharma corps, gun ind. it's all about character assassination. Hitler & Mao?? seriously..............

I'd be more concerned about the national seed repository's scattered around the globe. Who controls them, who decides when and if distribution will be done, etc.
Not my opinion at all. The folks narrating and being interviewed in the documentary were talking about Monsanto the way you would expect someone to talk about a vicious dictator. Hushed tones, insinuations, bold accusations etc.

Velocitas, Opprimere,
Violentia Operandi

[Irving]

Not my opinion at all. The folks narrating and being interviewed in the documentary were talking about Monsanto the way you would expect someone to talk about a vicious dictator. Hushed tones, insinuations, bold accusations etc.

Velocitas, Opprimere,
Violentia Operandi

That is to be expected when someone threatens your livelihood.

[theGinsue]

Not a fan of Monsanto.

They've bankrupted farmers who've refused to buy Momsanto seeds for their crops after proving that those famers had Monsanto seed originated plants in their fields - caused by the inevitible wind/bird carry of those seeds from nearby fields.

Monsanto has also made it their mission to control the access to small pkg plant seeds used by folks for their backyard gardens. They've made it very difficult for you and me to find non-GMO "heirloom" seeds. Monsanto's genetic manipulation of their seeds prevents the seeds from their plants to be harvested for growing crops/gardens beyond 1 year. This ensures folks will have to buy more seeds next year, etc.

While Monsanto's GMO seeds do produce more crop yield per acre, they are GMO crops. I understand that by increasing yield it keeps the cost of foodstuffs down, but I don't trust GMO produce. Yeah, I know that just about every vegetable I buy canned or fresh at the grocery store is genetically modified, but I can't help but wonder what long term effects mankind will experience from these foods. I prefer my food as close to what God created than anything man modified.

Just my opinion.

[CS1983]

You might be interested in Order 81 and Iraq. :)

[ChadAmberg]

Not a fan of Monsanto.

They've bankrupted farmers who've refused to buy Momsanto seeds for their crops after proving that those famers had Monsanto seed originated plants in their fields - caused by the inevitible wind/bird carry of those seeds from nearby fields.

From what I understand, this isn't quite the right story, but is the one that's talked about. The actual original story was something like the farmer was actually doing something unethical, and that story got modified and twisted into a big bad monsanto picking on the little farmer story. And it's only happened one time, but the stories got twisted into the normal urban legend of "father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate" had it happen to them.

[SA Friday]

From what I understand, this isn't quite the right story, but is the one that's talked about. The actual original story was something like the farmer was actually doing something unethical, and that story got modified and twisted into a big bad monsanto picking on the little farmer story. And it's only happened one time, but the stories got twisted into the normal urban legend of "father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate" had it happen to them.
My mother's side of the family have been farmers since before the dustbowl. I related to half of Duel county NE and a fair portion of the Sedgwick area. I grew up working on the family farm.

Monsanto does have a section of personnel that travels around and tests crop fields. As to how bad the issues are with this are in question, but Monsanto has sued way too many farmers to not be suing for cross-contamination. This actually leads to some scary stuff. Companies owning genetic code. If you dig, you find that Monsanto had a case go all the way to SCOTUS concerning this issue. Thomas used to work for Monsanto and in multiple cases has refused to recuse himself. There are lots of issues with this. One being if the majority of seeds are owned by corporations, they dictate food. Wow, that's bad.

As for the genetic manipulation itself, it can get scary. We don't really know everything about genetic code. Recently scientists have found secondary code within the genetic code already identified. We don't understand it much less how manipulation will effect it. Scientists have also found secondary protein sequences they call shadow proteins and many are related to rare diseases. We don't understand those either. Then their is the mechanism as how they insert genetic code. They use an viral genetic code along with a resistant strain antibiotic genetic code to insert the relevant gene into the sequence. The virus is used to splice the code. The resistant antibiotic strain is used for the antibiotic wash after insertion to get rid of any sample that didn't take the insertion. So no you have a sequence with not just the wanted trait, but the antibiotic resistant sequence. No big deal until you learn that some bacteria can transfer genetic material into their own sequence (they are much more simple and circular in comparison to more sophisticated organisms). Independent testing in the USA for this transfer and potential protein issues from GMOs has been crushed by Monsanto. Most European testing has also. Russian tests have come up with some scary results, but haven't been confirmed since Monsanto sues anyone who even tries to test GMOs.

I did a 13 page paper in College a couple years back on GMOs. Taking genetics and chemistry etc, it was an easy English II paper to research. What I found scared me. Unfortunately any subtle long term effects will only come out after testing is allowed. As it stands the FDA legal section is more than half ex-Monsanto employees. The deck is stacked for them.

I know when my wife has a lupus flare up, we get rid of all GMO foods and it stops immediately.

[Irving]

I don't understand how clothing can be immune from patent issues because it is deemed a necessary item, but food is not treated the same way.

[SA Friday]

I don't understand how clothing can be immune from patent issues because it is deemed a necessary item, but food is not treated the same way.

The same way DC v Heller was a 5-4 decision. We are not in control any more.

[DavieD55]

Monsanto is not working in the best interests of agriculture in the USA as they are a radical far left corporatocracy pushing the little farmers out and taking over in conjunction with the radical environmentalists at the EPA and UN going around militantly stealing private property from private property owners in the name of the endangered species act and fraudulent water conservation regulations.

[Joe_K]

If they are the only game on town for seeds how is that not a monopoly?

Velocitas, Opprimere,
Violentia Operandi

[Irving]

If they are the only game on town for seeds how is that not a monopoly?

Velocitas, Opprimere,
Violentia Operandi

It's a patent issue. They have patents, it's not their fault that alternatives are hard to come by, right?

[Rumline]

I've always thought the Monsanto bashing came mostly from the left
Yep. I love poking at the Liberals I know whenever some Monsanto person shows up in leftist politics. Such as when Hillary hired a former top Monsanto lobbyist to run her campaign in Iowa.

With that being said,

I prefer my food as close to what God created than anything man modified.
This.

[GilpinGuy]

I posted about GMO's a few years ago(last election cycle). Interesting thread. I'll see if I can find it later.

What gets me the most about Monsanto and the GMOs is this in a few sentences:

Monsanto genetically engineers corn to be resistant to "Round Up" (herbicide). Then the farmers absolutely drench the fields with this herbicide - after all, it doesn't kill the corn, it only kills the "weeds". But the herbicide is absorbed by the corn and we eat it.

Good? You like eating herbicide?

Of course not. The herbicide cannot just be washed off in your sink. It's in the water that the pants take in through their roots. Unfortunately, corn is in almost every processed food we eat these days in one way or another.

As the years go by, I am more and more of an anti-GMO/Monsanto guy.

[Ah Pook]

Spent some years with OH farmers. Non had anything good to say about Monsanto. Seen some docs. about Monsanto and non were surprising.

[COcz]

All the anti-GMO talk is silly, humans and nature have been randomly doing genetic "engineering" for thousands (millions, billions?) of years. The only difference is the engineering vs randomness part. They are not inventing new genes, just rearranging them in an intelligent manner(we hope, and so do they).

Is Monsanto evil and trying to kill you and farmers' lively hood, no. They exist to make a profit by making better crops in various ways and selling them to farmers. If they put farmers out of business or kill folks with their crops they go out of business.

The reason that small farmers are losing out to big agribusiness has more to do with economy of scale and government regulation and subsidies, not seed companies. Most commercial farmers buy new seeds every year anyways and it has nothing to do with Monsanto, it has to do with hybrid vigor, consistency, and crop rotation. Most of both sides of my family were/are in farming and ranching in several areas of the country for over a hundred years.

I hear lots of horror stories from my prog friends about this issue, and there is a serious deficit of facts, and an overabundance of hurt feelers.

[D_F]

All the anti-GMO talk is silly, humans and nature have been randomly doing genetic "engineering" for thousands (millions, billions?) of years. The only difference is the engineering vs randomness part. They are not inventing new genes, just rearranging them in an intelligent manner(we hope, and so do they).

Is Monsanto evil and trying to kill you and farmers' lively hood, no. They exist to make a profit by making better crops in various ways and selling them to farmers. If they put farmers out of business or kill folks with their crops they go out of business.

The reason that small farmers are losing out to big agribusiness has more to do with economy of scale and government regulation and subsidies, not seed companies. Most commercial farmers buy new seeds every year anyways and it has nothing to do with Monsanto, it has to do with hybrid vigor, consistency, and crop rotation. Most of both sides of my family were/are in farming and ranching in several areas of the country for over a hundred years.

I hear lots of horror stories from my prog friends about this issue, and there is a serious deficit of facts, and an overabundance of hurt feelers.



Thank you! I work in ag and this is my perspective almost to a T. I was starting to think my tinfoil hat had a hole in it or had lifted up in the back or something.

[roberth]

Excellent post COcz


The reason that small farmers are losing out to big agribusiness has more to do with economy of scale and government regulation and subsidies, not seed companies. Most commercial farmers buy new seeds every year anyways and it has nothing to do with Monsanto, it has to do with hybrid vigor, consistency, and crop rotation. Most of both sides of my family were/are in farming and ranching in several areas of the country for over a hundred years.

[sbgixxer]

There is PLENTY everyone should be concerned about with Monsanto. How deeply connected they are to our government... how can Obama appoint former VP for Monsanto to senior advisor to the FDA? It's a terrible conflict of interest that no intelligent person could possibly think is innocent. Even if you only see it as another corrupt company looking for bro deals from their lobbying in DC, I'd think that's plenty (...and there's a lot more). Another big issue for me with actual seeds (other than I don't want ones that were created outside of nature) is the sterility. I know Monsanto claims they'll never use it BUT they own the patent on how to do it. How bad would it suck to grow all your own fruits and vegetables and yet still have to buy seeds every year because what nature has produced to keep a plant alive (seed production) has been removed by a huge corporation that wants more of your money and control of anyone wanting to grow their own food. From that angle, it's just less control over your own life.

In the end, everyone must do their own research. The deeper you get into it, the more obvious it all becomes. We all know that ANY fruit or vegetable you care for in your back yard is always better than one bought at the store. Monsanto to me is the antithesis of that family garden.

[D_F]

There is PLENTY everyone should be concerned about with Monsanto. How deeply connected they are to our government... how can Obama appoint former VP for Monsanto to senior advisor to the FDA? It's a terrible conflict of interest that no intelligent person could possibly think is innocent. Even if you only see it as another corrupt company looking for bro deals from their lobbying in DC, I'd think that's plenty (...and there's a lot more). Another big issue for me with actual seeds (other than I don't want ones that were created outside of nature) is the sterility. I know Monsanto claims they'll never use it BUT they own the patent on how to do it. How bad would it suck to grow all your own fruits and vegetables and yet still have to buy seeds every year because what nature has produced to keep a plant alive (seed production) has been removed by a huge corporation that wants more of your money and control of anyone wanting to grow their own food. From that angle, it's just less control over your own life.

In the end, everyone must do their own research. The deeper you get into it, the more obvious it all becomes. We all know that ANY fruit or vegetable you care for in your back yard is always better than one bought at the store. Monsanto to me is the antithesis of that family garden.

I don't disagree entirely. But 2% of the country is feeding the rest of us. Our food system is completely whacked. Wheat and corn prices have barely moved in the last 60 years. Compare that to the cost of a tractor. Or real estate, or the big one that's huge out west here is water. The only way a farmer makes a living today is yield. We have allowed ourselves be backed into this corner because we always buy cheap. It's the walmart symptom. And I'm guilty too not throwing stones from a glass house. Another point, a lot of hybrid's that are insect and disease resistant won't self propagate either.

I work in the family AG biz, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about finding another line of work. Between the regulations and influx of city folks wanting a pot garden on 3 acres in their back yard and water Colorado agriculture is doomed. My son will never have the chance to work in the family biz.

Is Monsanto a part of that system? You bet. They are money grubbing hoes just like the rest of us. But they don't have DNA from Hitler and Stalin that they are cloning embryo's with.

[sbgixxer]

2% of the country is feeding the rest... and that's a huge problem. Few people think of what they buy, how it was produced, where it came from, etc. That's exactly why it's so wrong to have a former Monsanto VP leading the way at the FDA. People have too much faith in the FDA and what they say is safe actually is. I'm in the water treatment industry and I know what the EPA says is acceptable to drink. That's why I have a home RO system to remove the toxic substances in the water that the EPA says is "acceptable" at certain doses. I want to be the one who says what's acceptable to consume and what's not.

I'm in the water biz so I completely agree with you on how serious all that is...especially here in CO. I feel for the farmers. Seems to me that farming used to be one of those professions where you were as much in control of your own life as possible (aside from weather of course) and over the years that has gotten less and less true. At this point, unless you're a huge operation, I'm not sure why anyone would get into it.

My ultimate goal is to produce as much of my own fruits/vegetables as possible along with some small livestock. I feel a whole lot better when food comes out of my own soil and there's a great satisfaction in that.

[Irving]

Sbgixxer, should we worry if you ever take a position at the EPA?

[D_F]

2% of the country is feeding the rest... and that's a huge problem. Few people think of what they buy, how it was produced, where it came from, etc. That's exactly why it's so wrong to have a former Monsanto VP leading the way at the FDA. People have too much faith in the FDA and what they say is safe actually is. I'm in the water treatment industry and I know what the EPA says is acceptable to drink. That's why I have a home RO system to remove the toxic substances in the water that the EPA says is "acceptable" at certain doses. I want to be the one who says what's acceptable to consume and what's not.

I'm in the water biz so I completely agree with you on how serious all that is...especially here in CO. I feel for the farmers. Seems to me that farming used to be one of those professions where you were as much in control of your own life as possible (aside from weather of course) and over the years that has gotten less and less true. At this point, unless you're a huge operation, I'm not sure why anyone would get into it.

My ultimate goal is to produce as much of my own fruits/vegetables as possible along with some small livestock. I feel a whole lot better when food comes out of my own soil and there's a great satisfaction in that.

We are on the same page. And to be honest, lucky that our water is as good as it is. It's always interesting to see the water report published. Even showering in other parts of the country can make a person wonder.

[SA Friday]

All the anti-GMO talk is silly, humans and nature have been randomly doing genetic "engineering" for thousands (millions, billions?) of years. The only difference is the engineering vs randomness part. They are not inventing new genes, just rearranging them in an intelligent manner(we hope, and so do they).


The process is different. There is a huge difference between old school plant hybridization and laboratory genetic modification.


2% producing our food and the majority of that is controlled via genetic code patent by corporations, and that doesn't scare you? Lol....

[sbgixxer]

Irving - Why would you worry? You'd have someone who cared about what's in the water. I reread what I wrote and maybe I wrote that last bit a little unclear: "I want to be the one who says what's acceptable and what's not..... for MY water". If others want to drink, "acceptable" amounts of haleoacetic acids, trihalomethanes, fluoride, radionuclides, chromium 6, pharmaceuticals, etc, etc, etc, have at it.

D_F - Yes, water is a super heavy subject here but we're in a whole lot better shape than California. I grew up in Santa Barbara and the reservoir we had there is currently at 7% capacity. They're screwed and from what I see, doing too little, too late. When I'm in the Rockies, mountain biking, camping, 4Xing, shooting, or other great activities that are all but banned in CA, I get a lot of satisfaction seeing the raging rivers. It's a great sight and amazing to me how hard they flow in July and August.

[Martinjmpr]

From what I understand, this isn't quite the right story, but is the one that's talked about. The actual original story was something like the farmer was actually doing something unethical, and that story got modified and twisted into a big bad monsanto picking on the little farmer story. And it's only happened one time, but the stories got twisted into the normal urban legend of "father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate" had it happen to them.

If you're talking about the Percy Schmeisser case up in Canada (yes, Schmeisser, like the German submachine gun from WWII [AR15]) I wrote a case note on that when I was in law school. Multiple investigations determined that the roundup-resistant Canola in Schmeisser's fields could NOT have come from "volunteer plants" (seeds and plants transmitted naturally.)

What's odd is that there is no indication that Schmeisser ever used Roundup so he actually gained no benefit from using Roundup resistant canola seed. While Canadian law is somewhat different from US law, in all the major respects it is close enough not to matter in this case.

Schmeisser took his appeals all the way to Canada's equivalent of the Supreme Court and lost at every turn. However, the award he was ordered to pay was reduced to nearly nothing because he did not benefit from the use of the patented seed, so in some ways it was sort of a draw. When I wrote my note (in 2004 or 2005, I can't remember which) Schmeisser's case had become a cause celebre for the anti-GMO crowd.

There may be similar cases in the US where Monsanto has threatened legal action but I don't know if any of them actually went to trial or if they were all settled out of court.

[Martinjmpr]

. Monsanto's genetic manipulation of their seeds prevents the seeds from their plants to be harvested for growing crops/gardens beyond 1 year. This ensures folks will have to buy more seeds next year, etc.

I don't if that's even possible (cue up "Don't know much about biology...." ;) ) but in the Schmeisser case regarding Canola, that was not the situation. Monsanto's roundup-resistant Canola seed DID self-perpetuate, meaning that a farmer could theoretically buy one years' worth of seed and then save enough seed to replant the next year and so on and so on, continuing to benefit even though he only bought one year's worth of seed.

For that very reason, Monsanto made farmers who wanted to use their roundup-resistant canola seed sign a 'seed contract." The contract specified that in exchange for being allowed to buy the seed, they had to agree to use it for a specified number of years (I think it was 5 but not certain) and also had to agree not to save seed for replanting, not to sell seed except to an authorized distributor (who also had a contract with Monsanto), not to give away or sell seed to others, etc. The contract also explicitly allowed Monsanto employees to access the farmer's lands for a period of time after they no longer bought the seed to verify that they were not using it in violation of the agreement.

Now, whether you like GMOs or not, whether you like Monsanto or not (and I can understand there are arguments both ways, though I personally don't have a problem with GMOs) you have to understand that the seed contract was the only way Monsanto could ensure that they would profit from the expenses they had to incur by creating the GMOs in the first place. Without a seed contract, Monsanto would be undercut by farmers growing Monsanto's GMO crops and not paying for them

Furthermore, this was a contract - nobody was obligated to sign it, nobody was obligated to enter into an agreement with Monsanto if they didn't want to. If they didn't want to benefit from Monsanto's R&D, they didn't have to pay for it.

Yes, there were stories of Monsanto employees going to the fields of non-contracted farmers and testing plants just outside the farmer's property line (again, these are called "volunteer plants" where the seeds blow out of the farmers field or are carried by birds or other critters) and if they found that it was a Roundup-resistant strain, they would do further investigation to determine whether a farmer was using Monsanto products without paying for them. Monsanto also had a "tip line" that offered rewards for farmers who turned in other farmers illegally using Monsanto products.

Some of these farmers were threatened with suit by Monsanto but, at least as of the time I wrote my case note, most of them quickly settled out of court. You can draw your own conclusions as to why they might have done that.

[Irving]

Sbgixxer, I was unclear in my post. You pointed out that someone from the seed industry went to work for the FDA and indicated that is a problem. I'm wondering if someone (you) who works within the water industry went to work for the EPA, if that'd be the same problem.

[brutal]

Is there anyone at Monsanto referred to as Alice?

[sbgixxer]

Irving- Gotcha now. No it wouldn't be the same problem because I work for the public (non-profit) where Monsanto is only for profit so lobbying and getting government favors is absolutely wrong especially at the expense of the public's health.

[Bailey Guns]

I hear lots of horror stories from my prog friends...

Whoa! WTF? Progressive friends? Did you mean "enemies"?

[Coffee]