The Monsanto Gen Technique Mafia and its methods!

Yeah, it's dubious. Kind of like claiming private ownership over slices of the Earth's natural land area, but we accept that without question.

 

How negative views emerged and grew

When GMO issues were widely publicized as of late 1996, the confidence in institutions and certain technological advances had decreased. Indeed, public opinion was strongly marked by various issues, especially contaminated blood (HIV), Mad Cow disease, asbestos, and so on. These issues led to strong distrust and caused the public to believe that firms and public authorities sometimes disregarded health risks to protect economic or political interests. Afterwards, debate on GMOs (i.e., authorization, importation, labeling, impact, etc.) was still strongly influenced by food safety issues (i.e., BSE, listeriosis, etc.) that had been widely publicized. Furthermore, a movement grew that criticized excesses of the agricultural and food system when problems of pollution and safety came to the forefront. More and more often the media and the social debate took on a critical view of GMOs. Thus information about GMOs frequently has been and continues to be critical or negative.

The strong influence of associations that focus on risks

Growing attention has been paid to warnings by various organizations and their denunciation campaign against genetic engineering. In France, GMOs have been strongly opposed by various NGOs and associations: environmental organizations, the second-largest farmer�s union, anti-globalisation groups, and other NGOs focusing on economic or development issues. The impact of these organizations has been strong, owing to the dynamism of their action, which gave them extensively publicity: numerous strongly-worded press communiqu�s, the repeated mass dissemination of alerts and warnings, petitions, leaflets, standardized letters for elected representatives or agro-food firms, lawsuits, demonstrations, and so on. In particular, these groups took advantage of new communication technologies. Critics associated the opposition of these NGOs with worthy values: the need for caution when launching new technologies, the environment and public health protection, citizen participation in technological choices, etc. Organizations opposed to GMOs gained legitimacy, whereas companies involved in GM products were often seen as greedy and rapacious.

https://scielo.conicyt.cl/fbpe/img/ejb/v6n1/a04/bip/

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There are also monied interests opposing GMOs. Lots of food producers capitalize on this unreasoning distrust and hatred of GMOs and actively campaign against them in order to sell their own alternative food choices. Monsanto is demonized even as other companies and individuals profit off of that demonization.

 

you are correct about selective herbicides

But collectively they are almost if not just as harmful as roundup

There are creative ways to farm without toxic herbicides but they ususlly cost more money

 

No, not like that at all. Farmers have been sued for the wind causing cross-pollination from a neighboring farm's gmo crops onto their land.

So, who claims sovereignty over the wind?

 

Thats what I have been discussing with the euro guy

But bt is not harmful to humans

 

Blame that on the wacko judges who rule in favor of the patent holder

 

LOL at how you characterize traditional crops that have stood the test of time as "alternative food choices".

 

In that particular case, if that is in fact what happened, then of course the farmer is not responsible for violating any patent. I haven't read the ruling or any other files from that case, so I can't say whether that is, in fact, what happened. Perhaps that argument was rejected. Perhaps that farmer had kept Monsanto's patented seed and used it. The law apparently protects Monsanto in such cases. I suppose it's comparable in a way to how the record and movie industries protect their respective products - you're not allowed to copy and distribute copyrighted music and movies and so on.

Here's a statement from Monsanto about such lawsuits:

https://monsanto.com/company/media/statements/lawsuits-against-farmers/

Statements | April 11, 2017 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Saved Seed and Farmer Lawsuits

Enforcing patent law is not much different from the enforcement of other laws. Most people respect the law. Often, honest citizens will report those who break the law. The same is true for patent infringement involving saved seed. The vast majority of farmers respect patent laws and honor their agreements to abide by that law. When one farmer sees another farmer saving patented seed, they will often report them. Many of the tips Monsanto gets about farmers saving patented seeds come from other farmers in the same community.

Usually, cases come to us when someone reports they believe seed is being saved illegally. Monsanto’s attorneys look into these allegations and may have a licensed private investigator look into the facts. If infringement is a possibility, a Monsanto manager will meet with the individuals involved. There have been farmers who were contacted and provided information that resulted in Monsanto closing the case. The vast majority of farmers who are presented with facts showing infringement admit the violation and pay a settlement.

Since 1997, we have only filed suit against farmers 147 times in the United States. This may sound like a lot, but when you consider that we sell seed to more than 325,000 American farmers a year, it’s really a small number. Of these, we’ve proceeded through trial with only nine farmers. All nine cases were found in Monsanto’s favor.

A very small number of farmers involved in patent infringement cases with Monsanto have sought publicity around their cases, and have characterized the company’s actions in a negative light. In some other situations, outside parties have portrayed particular cases negatively. We take exception to any misleading allegation of wrong-doing. Our employees and contractors respect our customers and their property.

Documents and Info Monsanto Provides to Farmers
Growers are expected to stay informed of up-to-date management practices for Monsanto products. The Technology Use Guide provides a concise overview of Monsanto’s current portfolio of technology products and sets forth the requirements and guidelines for use of these products. Growers who wish to purchase and use our patented seed must have a signed and valid Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement.

Monsanto’s primary reason for enforcing its patents is to ensure a level playing field for the vast majority of honest farmers who abide by their agreements, and to discourage using technology illegally to gain an unfair advantage. This document lays out our commitment to farmers when reviewing, evaluating and investigating potential seed patent infringement matters.

...
--There is also a list of links to info about specific cases following this statement.

 

Monsanto is evil and must be destroyed.

 

From last year:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/tanzania-seed-patents-developmental-aid/228792/

Tanzania Forced To Embrace Seed Patents Or Risk Losing Developmental Aid

Agribusiness companies are taking advantage of Tanzania’s desperate need for aid to push a development plan that will allow them to dominate the country’s agriculture sector and plunge farmers into debt. A similar plan led to a suicide epidemic among Indian farmers in recent years.

MINNEAPOLIS– A “development assistance” initiative launched five years ago by the G8, an inter-governmental political forum of the world’s most industrialized nations that consider themselves democracies, is holding Tanzania hostage to the benefit of agribusiness and the detriment of small-scale Tanzanian farmers.

The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN), founded by the G8 in 2012 to ostensibly end hunger and poverty for 50 million people, has forced the Tanzanian government to amend its laws to drastically favor agribusiness and seed companies if it wishes to continue receiving developmental assistance aid. Monsanto, one of the NAFSN’s partners in Tanzania, is set to benefit from these changes to Tanzania’s laws.

The NAFSN is funded by the EU, the U.S., the UK, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The alliance had secured approximately $3.7 billion in private sector investment in signatory countries in Africa as of June 2012, a figure which is said to have since expanded, though no new figures have been released.

While the NAFSN was supposed to benefit small-scale farmers, local farming organizations were shut out of negotiations, while agribusiness lobbyists had unprecedented access to those drafting the requirements of signatory countries seeking developmental assistance. Tanzania’s government, which administers one of the world’s least developed countries, was desperate for the aid. Due to this economic pressure, the Tanzanian legislature obliged.

Per the new legislation, foreign commercial investors would be given faster and easier access to agricultural land in the African nation, as well as strong protections for “intellectual property rights,” e.g., seed patenting. Patented seeds, largely the products of behemoth seed companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, often pop up in neighboring farms that use traditional seeds via cross-pollination, a phenomenon that has been used by Monsanto and similar companies to sue small-scale farmers for “stealing” their intellectual property.

In addition, seeds that are not patented – i.e., all seeds traditionally used by Tanzanian farmers – are now forbidden from being sold or even given to friends or family, threatening the centuries-old tradition of seed exchanges that have kept costs down for farmers. Michael Farrelly of the Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM) told Mondiaal Nieuws that “Eighty percent of the seeds are being shared and sold in an informal system between neighbors, friends and family. The new law criminalizes the practice in Tanzania.”


An organic seed shop in Morogoro,Tanzania. Shops like this one will soon be outlawed under the terms of a poverty-reduction initiative which critics say helps big agribusiness, and hurts farmers. (Photo: Ebe Daems )

If Tanzanian farmers break the new law barring seed exchange, they face a minimum prison sentence of 12 years, a $230,000 fine, or both. Considering that the average wage in Tanzania is less than $2 a day, the punishment seems rather draconian, considering the nature of the “crime.”

However, the new laws themselves are likely illegal under international law, as Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), also known as the “Seed Treaty,” states that no law should “limit any rights that farmers have to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed/propagating material.” But affected Tanzanian farmers will likely be unable to make a viable court case against the new legislation due to their limited economic resources.

Farrelly argued that these recent actions show that the NAFSN’s lofty promises to help end poverty come with a catch. “In practice, it means that the fifty million people that the New Alliance wants to help can escape from poverty and hunger only if they buy seeds every year from the companies that are standing behind the G8.”

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Rinse and repeat worldwide. With USAid being tied to countries agreeing to use these patented gmo seeds, the profits are guaranteed.

 

Monsanto is a german company now. So ignore him please.

I´m in full support of certain GMO.

 

The downside and evil of capitalism, when you turn over a gov't to the capitalists, and do not manage them as to keep them non destructive upon humanity.

Capitalists want to control as much as they can, for profit. And we have allowed them to do that. DC has allowed it. It is the philosophy of getting out of the way of capitalists, obviously with a misplaced belief that they will always do right and good. ha ha. And never harmful.

And so capitalism has taken over even our media, driven not by accurate factual, objective information, but what kind of info benefits the corporations, and keeps the right people in power who will get out of their way! This has also turned the big bankers into the most powerful entity ever seen, even more powerful than the big corporations.

What we have in actuality is the United States of Elite Capitalism. The self interests of elites, who use capitalism as a john uses a prostitute. All in the interest of the gov't getting out of the way of the elites families of capitalism, who have given us a form of it that only enriches themselves, while shrinking a middle class created by an different form of captialism. Monsanto is the poster child for this brand of capitalism, as are the big banks.

We end up with MNCs, wall street banks, the world bank and the IMF being in almost total control of much of the world, as they work to get it all. In their own self interests and not in the interest of humanity. It is called....progress. ha ha ha

 

Which ones? You do know that Monsanto is the maker of Round-up and the bulk of its gmo creations are "Round-up ready".

It's a sweet scam. Make patented seeds that can withstand your patented herbicide .... win/win!!!

Couple that with getting the US State Department to tie foreign aid to the use of the patented seeds and you've got a guaranteed worldwide market. Triple win!!!

Wonder if that policy will continue now that Monsanto is a German company?

 

It gets even better. Monsanto makes the poison, Bayer the med. Quattro win

 

And now Monsanto is merged with German chemical and drug giant Bayer!!!!!

 

That gets back to the point I made in #19 about ordinary homeowners who aren't aware of the choices out there and farmers who are more aware of them.

When Harry Homeowner walks into a Lowes or Home Depot all he's going to find there is Roundup. If he wants to buy Crossbow he's probably going to have to go to farmer's supply to purchase that herbicide.

Let's face it, most people are pretty apathetic and ignorant when it comes to pesticides and herbicides, and we're doing a terrible job of maintaining biodiversity on the land we're developing and managing. It's little wonder we don't see as honey bees and monarch butterflies as we used to do.

 

Well, that just puts a bow on it.

 

How is it a scam if it works as advertised?

 

I would argue that it would be incredibly difficult for the average American to be an expert on all things, and a 10-minute google of any given topic gives you an extremely rudimentary understanding of said topic, at best.

We should be able to rely on experts. It's why they are called experts. In Monsanto's case, I trust they are experts, but I also know they are liars, so I take whatever they say and assume the exact opposite of what they say is the truth.

 

The government picks winners and losers. They chose Monsanto as a winner. It's criminal. Should you be criminally negligent if a neighbor throws a ball into your yard? That's what the government allows Monsanto to do. If a Monsanto seed blows onto your farm, you can face charges.

 

And the same is true of pesticides.

If people start seeing hornworms on their tomatoes they usually nuke everything with a general pesticide that will kill everything, including honey bees and other beneficial insects, instead of spraying with a selective organic insecticide like Thuricide.

There's a lot we all can do differently to improve our environment. We can't expect pesticide, insecticide and fertilizer manufacturers to do everything. We have to take responsibility for our own lands.

 

I don't think consumer use can account for the 15 fold increase in its (Round-up)use.

Consider that Monsanto makes both Round-up and Round-up ready seeds. With data like this......

The top three GMO crops grown in the U.S. are soy, corn and cotton, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). During the past 12 years, the percentage of acreage planted with GMO crops soared to over 80 percent for each of the top three. (See this graph at Mother Jones.)

.... it becomes especially hard to attribute most of the increase in Round-up use to the average homeowner.

 

That is not the issue I was responding to. Woogs was talking about making Round-Up-resistant GMO crops and selling Round-Up to use on them, calling that scam.

 

But as we speak there is a lawsuit claiming that Round Up caused cancer in some of it's users, so if they win and round up is banned those seeds Monsanto is selling to give a plant immunity from the effects of a herbicide that is no longer available are now useless.
Gonna be one major fight. Peoples health vs. a multinationals profits.
http://fortune.com/2018/07/10/monsanto-roundup-cancer-trial/

 

It's a scam when It's linked to countries receiving foreign aid.

It's scam when the FDA rubberstamps the company's research as to its safety and efficacy.

It's a scam when the US allows these products to be used in our food without the consumer's knowledge despite efforts by consumer groups that the info be provided on food labels.

Edited to change USDA to FDA.