(Source: climateadaptation)
Still, Mosanto is bound at some point to face diminishing returns from its strategy of putting more and more insect-resistance and herbicide-resistance genes into the same crop, at ever increasing prices. Growth might have to eventually come from new traits, such as a drought-tolerant corn the company hopes to introduce in 2012.
“Technologically, they are still the market leader,” said Laurence Alexander, an analyst at Jefferies & Company. “The main issue going forward is do they get paid for the technology they deliver. The jury is still out on that one. It’s going to take a year or two of data to reassure people.”
Fortunes Turn for Monsanto After Problems With Seeds - NYTimes.com
This article starts with Monsanto’s stock price, as if Wall Street’s concern is the most pressing when discussing the future of crops in America.
This is why corporations should not have the same rights people have under the law.
(via meganwest)
(via krona: atoxique: clingtomymouth: jaeboogie: bembacoloraaa)
Monsanto: Haiti’s “New Earthquake”
“A new earthquake” is what Haitian peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be dumping 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds on Haiti, seeds doused with highly toxic fungicides such as thiram, known to be extremely dangerous to farm workers. Hybrid seeds, like GMO seeds (in contrast to Creole heirloom or organic seeds) require lots of water, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. In addition, if a small farmer tries to save hybrid seeds after harvest, hybrid seeds usually do not “breed true” or grow very well in the second season, forcing the now-indentured peasant to buy seeds from Monsanto or one of the other hybrid/GMO seed monopolies in perpetuity. Monsanto wanted initially to dump GMO seeds on Haiti, but even the corrupt Haitian government knew that this would spark a rebellion, so Monsanto cleverly decided to dump hybrid seeds instead. The Haitian small farmers organization 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.
Source: The Huffington Post
Phillip Geertson is an Idaho alfalfa-seed seller. Today, his case against Monsanto makes its way to the Supreme Court. Monsanto, you see, wants to market a RoundUp Ready alfalfa seed, engineered to withstand their RoundUp brand herbicide. Geertson and his allies at the Center for Food Safety argue that we simply don’t know enough about the environmental, health, cultural, and economic impacts of RoundUp Ready alfalfa to deregulate it as the USDA wants to do. The worry is over genetic drift. Genetically modified alfalfa can contaminate nearby alfalfa fields, leaving the seed pool swamped by patented Monsanto seeds with no conventional or organic alfalfa for sellers like Geertson. Monsanto calls that vision “science fiction.” A federal district court agreed with Geertson in 2007, yanking RoundUp Ready alfalfa from the market.
This isn’t the first time Monsanto has pulled this crap. Here’s hoping Geertson comes out on top of this.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, here’s a case we’ve already lost. Justice Clarence Thomas is refusing to recuse himself in Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, which will hit the Court next month. Thomas, one of the reliable right-wingers on our already conservative-leaning Court, was an employee of
SatanMonsanto from 1976 to 1979. It’s an obvious conflict of interest.The worst part of it? Justice Steven Breyer, a reliable liberal vote on the Court, is recusing himself from ruling on the case, because his brother, Charles Breyer, ruled in the original 2007 case. At issue is (what else?) genetically modified crops:
The court will hear Monsanto’s third appeal in the Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms case, which called for the halt of planting GM alfalfa seeds until an Environmental Impact Statement was completed.
The lawsuit was filed by organizations like the Center for Food Safety, the National Family Farm Coalition, Sierra Club, Dakota Resources Council and other farming groups and environmental associations.
One of the plaintiffs, alfalfa farmer Pat Trask said Monsanto’s biotech alfalfa would ruin his alfalfa seed business because his 9,000 acres would be contaminated by the genetically modified crops.
Remember, this is the same Monsanto that sues farmers when the company’s patented seeds (a concept that, on its own, should make anyone want to throw things) blow from their customers’ land onto those other farmers’ land and take root. This lawsuit would turn the tables, and treat Monsanto’s “intellectual property” like the contaminant it is. Too bad it’s already lost.
