Unfortunately, there is so much more going on here than meets the eye. It’s not as basic as, “Monsanto doesn’t like organics.” Or, “Monsanto doesn’t want people growing their own food.”
What they like/want is power & control.
Several years ago, laws allowing the patenting of genetics were put into effect. At that time, Monsanto began patenting the genetics of food crops. Monsanto began buying up and patenting the genetics of the food crops of the world, in all its biodiversity, and locking up these seeds in a vault under the arctic circle. 12,000+ food crops, as of this time, that if you or I were to plant without licensing or permission of Monsanto, we would be committing patent infringement.
And don’t think they haven’t enforced this! Subsistence farmers around the world have been sued off their family homes and lands of generations because of accidental “patent infringement.”
That is just one of the issues. The reason Monsanto wants gene-patenting laws (they are who lobbied for and won the rights) is so they can genetically engineer food crops.
Genetic engineering is NOT the same thing as the good ol’ hybridization and general cross-breading with which we are all familiar, and which has been practiced for hundreds of years by generations of farmers and gardeners.
Monsanto engages in genetic engineering of food crops for several reasons. One is to implant a terminator gene - a gene which will not allow the saving of seed from one season for replanting in the next - a practice that has occurred since time began. This forces the farmers of the world to RE-BUY seed every year, increasing Monsanto’s profits. But that is the SMALLEST of the reasons why they engage in this practice.
Monsanto also genetically engineers food crops as a way to splice pesticides INTO the nuclei of the cells of various seeds. The resulting plant that grows from that seed carries that trait with it. As of this moment, every single cell of Monsanto corn is registered as a pesticide. Since they control the market on corn around the world, every corn-related product now on the grocery store shelf contains this pesticide. I’ll resist the urge to go into the human health violation this represents. But I will go into the environmental impact of Monsanto’s BT corn.
When subsistence farmers in third world countries are shopping for cheap corn to plant, they turn to the United States as their supplier. Monsanto offers this product extremely inexpensively to get it out into the world. Subsistence farmers unknowingly plant this corn, as they have done for generations, alongside wild corn belts because they know that cross-pollination from wild corn stands makes their crops acclimatize to their location (longitude, latitude, altitude, weather, etc.) Now, traits of the genetically engineered corn also cross-pollinate with the wild stands of corn. Monsanto then sends researchers into the wild stands to “find their genes.” Because Monsanto owns the patent on these genes, they now “own” the crossed-with-wild-corn, too. Another one for the vault! POWER!
And, in a twist of evil genius, Monsanto also patents the genes of things that are resistant to Monsanto products. A Monsanto researcher found a bacteria growing inside the tanks used to store Round-Up, the most popular herbicide in the world. They genetically engineer this Round-Up resistant bacteria into soy, rape seed (canola oil) and wheat crops. Why? So they can crop dust millions of acres of farmland with Round-Up and kill EVERY LIVING THING except for their intended crop. Millions of acres of farmland are now under Monsanto’s TOTAL CONTROL!
Of course, blow-over from a neighboring farm of Monsanto seeds into YOUR farm occurs. And when Monsanto finds its genes on your land they’ll swoop in and take your home/land/farm, etc, no matter how many generations of your family have lived on it. A farmer in Canada lost 5 generations of family land because Monsanto rapeseed blew over onto his land. He couldn’t kill it, because it was Round-Up resistant. That’s how they found it.
Right now, there is a migration of formerly subsistence farmers occurring in third-world countries. They are now homeless wanderers and refugees, who were once able to take care of themselves and their families, all thanks to Monsanto’s tactics.
So as you can see, backyard farmers, organic/heirloom gardeners, pose no threat to such a giant as Monsanto. They’ll just take away that right by exercising their total domination. He who controls the food controls the world. What they are threatened by is anyone’s ability to feed themselves without Monsanto’s seeds/products. Break their control and you break their power.
That’s the core of this issue. And why we fight.
Again, thank you for this opportunity.
:oops: Bad joke. I know. :roll: