Monsanto Executive Wins World Food Prize

sfcrazy writes "A top Monsanto executive has won the prestigious World Food Prize. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the award where Robert T. Fraley, the executive vice president and CTO of Monsanto, won the prize along with two other scientists from Belgium and the US. The award was given for devising a method to insert genes from another organism into plant cells, which could produce new genetic lines with highly favorable traits."

Comments

Ruin the US wheat crop, get a prize!

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week, Monsanto's leak of genetically modified wheat polluted countless acres of US wheat leading to countries around the world banning the import of all US wheat. Today, Monsanto wins the World Food Prize!

Good job Monsanto. Thank goodness no media outlets carried that story. Oh. Except Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-wheat-korea-idUSBRE94U0KW20130531

Re:Ruin the US wheat crop, get a prize!

[arth1]

What is it about GMO that drives people to this sort of hysteria?

That the consequences are irreversible. You can't put the genie back in the bottle again.

It also ups the ante in the arms race of evolution, which isn't universally seen as a good thing.

Calling objection "hysteria" doesn't make it so. Some protesters are quite enlightened and think long term.

Re:Ruin the US wheat crop, get a prize!

[mcmonkey]

I'm not calling objection hysteria. I'm calling statements like "untold acres" when one plot was found hysteria.

They're not telling us how many acres of this stuff is out there. Sounds like "untold acres" to me.

Re:Ruin the US wheat crop, get a prize!

[ChromeAeonium]

It also ups the ante in the arms race of evolution, which isn't universally seen as a good thing.

It certainty is a bad thing, which is why millions of people protested conventional breeding when late blight overcame the conventionally bred resistances in tomato and when hessian flies overcame conventionally bred resistance in wheat. Oh wait, that never happened because it would be absolutely idiotic, yet somehow, when genetic engineering is involved, the same basic facts of population genetics are suddenly terrible and proof that the technique itself is bad. Perhaps it is because the vast vast majority of the opposition to genetic engineering is coming from those with no background in agricultural or plant science and thus due to their complete lack of context it seems reasonable to them.

Calling objection "hysteria" doesn't make it so. Some protesters are quite enlightened and think long term.

And most of the protesters are the agricultural equivalents to the anti-vaccine movement. And when you are doing little in the way of scientifically justifying your concerns, instead preferring to use bunk science, fearmongering, and outright vandalism on non-corporate projects and farmer's fields, you shouldn't be surprised when you get characterized poorly. Hell, there is no small opposition to even things like Golden Rice (biofortified with -carotene) and the Arctic apple (which does not oxidize when cut). I'm sure there is a perfectly good reason as to why that is, if not unscientific hysteria, because this stuff isn't looking good.

Just about everything carries risk (again for context, even conventional breeding conventional breeding carries risk), just about everything has some negatives that come with the positives, there are actual issues, and not every genetically engineered organisms will necessarily turn out to be a good thing. But to paint the anti-GMO movement as a whole as anything even remotely reasonable would be like saying young earth creationists simply have a dispute with the minor details of a few phylogenies.

Fits With Obama Peace Prize

[Bob9113]

Hey, if Obama can win the Nobel Peace Prize for expanding our wars and the war powers assumed by his office, why shouldn't a company that that profiteers on regulatory agriculture monopolies get the World Food Prize? I understand The Pope is being considered for an equally prestigious anthropology prize.

Re:Proofreading?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is Monsanto. "Sell" isn't exactly wrong.

Re:Just like the Nobel

[drinkypoo]

http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/2010/06/green-revolutions-dark-side-effect-disease/
http://newsdesk.org/2008/08/dark_side_of_th/
http://www.hrw.org/news/2005/09/04/dark-side-ethiopia-s-green-revolution

etc etc

At "best" the "Green Revolution" postponed the inevitable and meanwhile increased the number of people who would eventually inevitably die from starvation as the land becomes unable to support farming due to depletion and destruction of soil diversity inherent to these methods.

HTH, HAND

Hmmmm

[DaMattster]

Giving a Monsanto exec a food award is like giving a freedom award to an NSA employee.

Surprise! Monsanto has been paying the WFP

[Camael]

If you look at the website of the World Food Prize org, you will find :-

The World Food Prize sincerely thanks the following sponsors for supporting its annual programs: ...
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation DuPont Pioneer John Deere Foundation
The Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition Monsanto DuPont Pioneer
Ruan Transportation Management Systems Claudia and Paul Schickler....

So, Monsanto is one of the sponsors of WFP. A pretty important one too, as shown by this link which used to exist on the Monsanto website.

The World Food Prize Foundation on Friday accepted a $5 million contribution from Monsanto Company to ensure the continuation of the annual World Food Prize International Symposium -- now known as the "Borlaug Dialogue." The funds support a renewed fundraising campaign to transform the historic Des Moines Public Library building into a public museum to honor Dr. Norman Borlaug and the work of the World Food Prize Laureates.

When you look up the WFP website , you will find that "The World Food Prize is sponsored by businessman and philanthropist John Ruan and is located in Des Moines, Iowa."

Not in itself damning, until you realise that :-

Monsanto has more facilities in Iowa than in any other state in the country

Monsanto has made substantial investments in Iowa

Monsanto actively lobbies to change laws in Iowa

I think its fair to say that Monsanto has a lot of influence in Iowa.

I question the integrity of this "prize".