Slashdot Mirror
Monsanto's Harvest of Fear
Cognitive Dissident writes "Intellectual property thuggery is not restricted to the IT and entertainment industries. The May 2008 edition of Vanity Fair carries a major feature article on the mafiaa-like tactics of Monsanto in its pursuit of total domination of various facets of agribusiness. First in GM seeds with its 'Roundup Ready' crops designed to sell more of its Roundup herbicide, and more recently in milk production with rBGH designed to squeeze more milk out of individual cows, Monsanto has been resorting to increasingly over-the-top tactics to prevent what it sees as infringement or misrepresentation of its biotechnology. As with other forms of IP tyranny, the point is not really to help the public but to consolidate corporate power. Quotes: 'Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.' and '"I don't know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base," says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. "It's a very bizarre business strategy." But it's one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it's the dominant vendor in town.' Sound familiar?"
they can keep planting the old garden variety ones
right until the modified crop contaminates their supply and they get sued for keeping the seeds.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-842180934463681887
please take the time to watch this video.
What everyone should know about monsanto and the ill will they do to our world.
I suggest checking out the documentary "King Corn."
The problem is mostly farm policy, which--like Social Security--seems to be too complicated a problem for our legislators to do anything about.
note 4 years for Australian farmers, ten years for EU farmers...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The example you showed is NOT a case of crop contaimination.
If you read the decision, not the various sites put up supporting Mr Schmeiser, you find it came about because Mr. Schmeiser identified the round-up resisant plants, then isolated them so they would increase in strength and then saved those seeds. He was deliberatly breeding seeds he knew were contaminated.
Agreed. Obviously the parent did not have parents who had a farm. There are very few small farmers left. By this I am talking about those farming less than 2,000 acres. The number one rule for small farmers is not to get in bed with these fucks and any other person trying to sell magic products. They control seed prices with a strong arm and the same goes for farmers stuck selling chickens to Tyson.
An excellent resource documenting the myriad evils of Monsanto can be found here.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Your ignorance on this matter is so profound I simply don't have time to disabuse you of it. Please do just a little research before shooting off your mouth like this. I'd suggest:
http://www.psrast.org/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/03/14/gm-foods-part-one.aspx
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/gedanger.htm
as places to start. If you have any real interest in informing yourself about the situation, that is.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The problem is, the parts of your post that aren't just your opinion simply aren't true. The business about monarch butterflies is a myth, an urban legend.
It doesn't even make ecological sense. Butterflies weren't exposed to the bT toxin in corn pollen because they don't eat corn pollen, it's well-known that milkweed is the food source for monarchs.
There's not a single serious entomologist - crop or otherwise - who puts any credence in the "Monsanto is killing teh butterflies!" nonsense. It's been universally discredited.
For those not aware, Monsanto has been avidly continuing to research ways to ensure that crops will die and not reproduce.
Right - as a safety protocol. I mean, it's amazing - the very same post where you complain about the possibilities and dangers of GM genes entering the wild, and Monsanto comes up with a way to allay that concern - and to you, that's just more evidence that they're "evil."
This company is messing around with the very code of life itself.
And so were the meso-American farmers who originally created corn, 7500 years ago. You don't seem to bat an eye when pre-industrial peoples are doing it for profit - or maybe you're just, as is indicated, completely ignorant about the history of crop husbandry and genetics - but the minute modern people are doing it for profit, suddenly that's "evil."
You're a reactionary, ignorant luddite.
An example might be getting rid of Dengue Fever, or the elimination of Malaria, etc.
How about feeding people? Starvation is the root cause of the top five causes of death, worldwide. It kills far, far more people than those two diseases. Combined.
We're talking genetics here.
Well, I am. God only knows what the fuck you're on about, but it certainly has no basis in scientific, genetic reality.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
You really should read the Wikipedia article on this topic. The crop that got Schmeiser sued was 95%+ RoundUp resistant rapeseed. The only way that could have happened was an intentional informed effort to bypass Monsanto's patents. Accidental wind blown contamination does not give anything close to that result.
There is currently a bill in the Missouri (USA) house, obviously written by Monsanto lobbyists, and brought to the floor by their bought-off legislators. The bill specifically prohibits organic milk producers from being able to label their product as BGH-Free, but fails to force any BGH-based milk from labeling their products as being produced with this substance.
Sorry, but that's evil. As a consumer, regardless of whether I like BGH or hate it, I have a right to know. There are enough people concerned about the possible effects of BGH that they want to steer clear. But if Monsanto gets their way with this bill, how will a Missouri consumer be able to know?
This is just one example of Monsanto's evil-ness. There are similar bills in other states in the US that are written by Monsanto lobbyists as well. It needs to be stopped. Yes, I've written my house representatives and told them I am against the bill.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
Your comprehension fails - some farmers don't sign any contract, because the seeds come from plants that have spread out from other fields. So a farmer that hasn't entered into a contract is now unable to use seeds from plants on his own land for fear of being bullied by a huge corporation, because the seed might have come from a neighboring farm that uses their product.
Milkweed grows in weedy areas, such as fencerows around farms. Monsanto engineered corn to be toxic to insects by splicing in DNA for a toxin from a bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis. The pollen in the corn also happens to be toxic, and since corn is wind-pollinated, that pollen ends up all over everything around, including said milkweeds in fencerows. It's been doing a number on butterfly populations. The grandparent is correct, and the parent is just ignorant of the cause of the problem.