Genetically Modified Showdown: Monsanto Sued by Organic Farmers

Imagine if Apple tried to charge you every time you accidentally glanced at an iPhone on the street. That's basically the policy that Monsanto, an agriculture giant whose patented genes are in 95% of all soybeans and 80% of all corn grown in the U.S, enforces. The company is notorious for suing farmers that the company suspects of violating patents in even inadvertent manners. Monsanto has sued hundreds of farmers and received over $15 million from these patent-violation cases (PDF), which have included incidences of farmers being sued because pollen from nearby farmers' Monsanto-brand genetically modified crops blew over the fence onto their field. Now, finally, organic farmers are fighting back.

Monsanto Will Soon Be Allowed To Police Itself

Monsanto, enemy of organic farmers and anti-GMO advocates alike, will likely be allowed to conduct its own environmental studies as part of a two-year USDA experiment. But there is no good that can possibly come of an experiment where the company behind nearly every genetically modified crop in our daily diets is allowed to decide whether its products are causing any environmental harm. And Monsanto isn't the only biotech company that will be permitted to police itself.

Noam Chomsky: Patenting life and stealing from women

Is Your Favorite Ice Cream Made With Monsanto's Artificial Hormones?

Monsanto has been in the news this week, with a U.S. District Court Judge ruling that the USDA has to at least go through the motions of regulating the company's genetically engineered sugar beets. Monsanto, you may know, is not likely to win any contests for the most popular company. In fact, it has been called the most hated corporation in the world, which is saying something, given the competition from the likes of BP, Halliburton and Goldman Sachs.

This has gotten me thinking about, of all things, ice cream, and of how Monsanto's clammy paws can be found in some of the most widely selling ice cream brands in the country. These brands could break free from Monsanto's clutches. So far they haven't, but maybe this is about to change.

Monsanto is the Worst Company on Earth says farmer

Olney, Ill. —

The Organization for Competitive Markets will hold its annual conference on  August 7 in St. Louis to discuss what it sees as unfairness between farmers and ranchers and the corporations with whom they do business.

OCM Executive Director Fred Stokes, of Mississippi, said the group advocates fairness for farmers and ranchers, who he said have been systematically “short-changed” for a long time.

He said farmers and ranchers have to buy from monopolies, singling out Monsanto in particular, who “gouge” their customers. He said they then have to sell to these large companies based on their corporate edicts.

STOPPING MONSANTO

Dear Friend,

Although it was reported as a wholesale victory for Monsanto¹, the recent Supreme Court decision on "Roundup Ready" alfalfa has actually put food activists in a good position to maintain the ban on Monsanto's genetically engineered GMO seeds.

The court ruled that the planting of GMO alfalfa is still illegal, but it assigned authority to the USDA to determine whether to allow some provisional planting to go forward as soon as next spring. The responsibility for maintaining a total ban on the GMO seeds — and protecting organic crops from likely contamination — falls squarely on the shoulders of USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Tell Secretary Vilsack to stand up to corporate agribusiness and protect organics for future generations. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

The court supported farmers' claims that the USDA illegally allowed Monsanto to sell its seeds before a full environmental review could be completed, but Monsanto knows that it can use its power within the USDA to speed up the review process. The company has already requested that the USDA permit a so-called "partial deregulation" that would allow some plantings of Roundup Ready alfalfa before we know the full risks.

A landmark element of the recent Supreme Court ruling was its recognition that the USDA must take into account economic harms from genetic contamination of conventional seed by genetically engineered seed — things like the loss of export markets or loss of organic certification, as well as the risks to the environment of this "gene flow" effect. Monsanto wants the agency to ignore those risks and let them plant now.

We can't let them. Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman Peter DeFazio delivered a letter signed by over 50 lawmakers demanding that the USDA not legalize GE alfalfa.² Over 83,000 Credo members added their voice by calling on their members of Congress to sign on to the letter.

Click here to automatically sign the petition and tell Secretary Vilsack to maintain the planting ban on GMO alfalfa, now and in the future.

Thank you for standing up for safe and healthy food.

Adam Klaus, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1 The Bite Blog, June 24, 2010
2 Leahy-DeFazio "Dear Colleague" letter

Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds

DYERSBURG, Tenn. — For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.
But not this year.

On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

Super-Weeds and Sub-Par Sollutions: The Case for More Labour in the Fields.

There has been a recent development within agriculture causing a bit of a stir: super-weeds. Super-weeds, "arewild plant that have become a virulent weed as a result of acquiring resistance to herbicides through pollination with a genetically modified plant". Much like the "use of of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant super-germs", American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup--a product of Monsanto Company--has led to the rapid growth of a tenacious new super-weeds. That become harder to kill-off and require an increasingly potent and increasing amount of pesticide. Now, many environmentalists and environmental groups have been warning about this development (which is more accurately described as a counter-to-development) since Monsanto Corporation's introduced the genetic modified roundup-ready-seeds and Roundup Herbicide in 1979 ( as well as Monsanto's AgentOrangein 1969 and rBGH in 1994).

The complaint from many farmers to the super-weeds is of economic concern, strong weeds means weaker crops and less money."To fight them, farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, a farmer who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”

I am not sure if the "problem" is being properly defined. For one, perhaps it is not the super-weed that is the troubling factor, but rather industrial agriculture, as a total system failure. It is not sustainable, in most understandings of the concept, and any use of herbicide is a temporal solution. I am not sure what makes any chemical company think that the next line of more toxic herbicides and more genetically altered seeds will render a future without a subsequent generation of customized super-weeds? However, the lack of foresight and sustainability in this particular philosophy and practice of agriculture is not the purpose of this writing, nor is it the logic in creationing a solution that is very similar to the problem in the first hand. I feel these topics are fairly well laid out by people, much more articulate and informed than I, I also feel that a bit of  personal reflection and reading could convince someone of these points quite easily. Now that I have avoided "beating a dead horse", I wonder why more labour is a bad thing. For one the population of our earth is increasing, despite what Garrett Hardin concludes, we can sustain an earth population with some changes. But, with more people we may need more jobs, if we didn't use Chemical poisons to kills seeds and instead used, fair, labor in the fields that could be a solution, in a holistic sense, to two problems. And on top of the climate of today's recession economy, and the double digit unemployment rate, as high as 20% in some states, more labor many not be a bad things. Less environmental destruction, pollution and consumption and more work, more jobs and better standards of living (if done fairly, of course).

“The biotech industry is taking us into a more pesticide-dependent agriculture when they’ve always promised, and we need to be going in, the opposite direction,” said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety in Washington."

Monsanto, which once argued that resistance would not become a major problem, now cautions against exaggerating its impact. “It’s a serious issue, but it’s manageable,” said Rick Cole, who manages weed resistance issues in the United States for the company.

Tribute to Monsanto

Superweed Outbreak Triggers Arms Race

Hardy superweeds immune to the Farm Belt's most effective weedkiller are invading fields, prompting a counterattack from agribusiness that could leave farmers using greater amounts of harsh old-line herbicides.
The flagging weedkiller is Roundup. Its developer, Monsanto Co., also sells seeds for corn, soybean and cotton plants unaffected by the chemical, enabling farmers to spray it on freely without fear of harming their crops. Farmers now do so en masse, using "Roundup Ready" crop varieties for 90% of the soybeans and 80% of the corn grown across the U.S.

The rise of Roundup, more than a decade ago, sent older herbicides that damage both weeds and crops into deep eclipse. But now, as nasty invaders with names like pigweed, horseweed and Johnsongrass develop immunity to the mighty Roundup, chemical companies are dusting off the potent herbicides of old for an attack on the new superweeds.

Supreme Court Ruling in Monsanto Case is Victory for Center for Food Safety, Farmers (Finally The food Movement wins and Agro biz looses, thanks you CFS)

(small)VICOTRY! 
The Center for Food Safety today celebrated the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Monsanto v. Geerston Farms, the first genetically modified crop case ever brought before the Supreme Court.  Although the High Court decision reverses parts of the lower courts’ rulings, the judgment holds that a vacatur bars the planting of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation occurs.  It is a victory for the Center for Food Safety and the Farmers and Consumers it represents.

“The Justices’ decision today means that the selling and planting of Roundup Ready Alfalfa is illegal.  The ban on the crop will remain in place until a full and adequate EIS is prepared by USDA and they officially deregulate the crop.  This is a year or more away according to the agency, and even then, a deregulation move may be subject to further litigation if the agency’s analysis is not adequate,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “In sum, it’s a significant victory in our ongoing fight to protect farmer and consumer choice, the environment and the organic industry.”

news?

1. Judge with Energy Ties Strikes Down Deepwater Drilling Ban
2. British Envoy to Afghanistan Resigns
3. Evidentiary Hearing Begins in Troy Anthony Davis Case
4. Both Sides Claim Victory in Supreme Court Ruling on Monsanto Crop
5. UN Probes Alleged Abuses in Sri Lanka Fighting
6. Israel Advances East Jerusalem Demolitions, Orders Expulsion of 4 Palestinian Politicians
7. Road Shipments Begin Entering Gaza (but limited)

Fuck Monsanto

The bio-tech company Monsanto can sell genetically modified seeds before safety tests on them are completed, the US Supreme Court has ruled.

A lower court had barred the sale of the modified alfalfa seeds until an environmental impact study could be carried out.
But seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices decided that ruling was unconstitutional.
The seed is modified to be resistant to Monsanto's brand of weedkiller.
The US is the world's largest producer of alfalfa, a grass-like plant used as animal feed.
It is the fourth most valuable crop grown in the country.
Environmentalists had argued that there might be a risk of cross-pollination between genetically modified plants and neighbouring crops.
They also argued over-use of the company's weedkiller Roundup, the chemical treatment the alfalfa is modified to be resistant to, could cause pollution of ground water and lead to resistant "super-weeds".
But Monsanto says claims its products were dangerous amounted to "bad science fiction with no support on the record".

Hatian Farmers Burn Monsanto Seed

“A new earthquake” is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto’s seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation’s presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

In an open letter sent of May 14, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti “a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds…, and on what is left our environment in Haiti.”1 Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to agribusiness imports of seeds and food, which undermines local production with local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
For now, without a law regulating the use of GMOs in Haiti, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected Monsanto’s offer of Roundup Ready GMO seeds. In an email exchange, a Monsanto representative assured the Ministry of Agriculture that the seeds being donated are not GMO.