Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company.
They deliver agricultural products that support farmers all around the world.
That's how Monsanto describes itself on its own website which is full of positive words
like empowerment, sharing, and conservation and yet in 2011 they were voted the most evil
corporation in the world by readers of natural news.
Now that might not sound surprising after all Monsanto produce genetically modified
crops, herbicides, and more so they're a natural target for the readers of natural news but
they got 51% of the vote, second was the Federal Reserve with 20 and BP only managed to get
9% even in the year after the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
So why do people think Monsanto is quite so evil?
Let's start with a little history.
Monsanto was founded as a chemical company in 1901, it's first ever product was saccharine,
a sugar substitute that was used by Coca-Cola.
In the 1920s it began to expand producing synthetic goods and chemicals including pesticides
and herbicides.
"Each one carries a thousand gallons of defoliant which is very like ordinary weed killer in
common domestic use in America.
It comes in three main types; Agent Orange, Agent Blue and Agent White."
By the 1960s Monsanto were one of nine contractors producing Agent Orange which was used by the
US military during the Vietnam War.
It was meant to defoliate the thick jungle to reveal Vietnam opposition and it did but
it also killed or maimed 400,000 people and more than half a million children have been
and still are being born with birth defects.
"American officials say it doesn't hurt humans or animals or have any lasting effects on
soil and vegetation."
Monsanto stresses that they were only responsible for producing it not where or how it was used.
In the 1930s they began manufacturing Polychlorine Biphenyls which were used for coolants and
lubricants in electrical equipment.
PCBs were produced until the 1970s when they were banned because they are carcinogenic
and caused problems with the liver, immune systems, reproductive systems, skin, eyes,
brains and endocrine systems.
In fact they're so toxic that they still pollute the environment today.
At least 4 Monsanto factories and one former Monsanto site are now listed as superfun sites
in the US.
That means that the environmental protection agency ranks them as among the worst spots
in the country and as a national priority.
Hazards at the site include PCBs, arsenic, Cadmium, Radium and dioxines which are found
in the components used in the historic manufacture of Agent Orange.
Then there's also the controversy of Times Beach, Missouri which was effectively wiped
off the map after chemical waste mismanagement.
The whole town had to be relocated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Times Beach action group reportedly found evidence of Monsanto's PCBs in the soil around
the town but the company denies that its products had anything to do with the disaster.
But all that stuff's in the past right?
Even the director of public affairs, Brad Mitchell told Organic Lifestyle magazine that
what Monsanto did was wrong but that the company wasn't as environmentally sophisticated then
as it is now.
The company are very keen to point out that that was old Monsanto.
They relaunched in 2001 focusing just on agriculture so why is it that people still think that
they're evil?
Well first up there's the argument over genetically modified crops.
Monsanto were the first company to modify a plant cell in the 1980s and have since produced
many GMCs.
There was a public outcry against GM foods in the 1990s stirred by the press who created
a fear of Frankenfoods that have horrific consequences for the entire food chain.
There's been an ongoing battle ever since between the two sides despite much of the
scientific community saying that there's little evidence to suggest that GM crops are indeed
damaging to human health.
Then again the European Union has been so against GM crops that Monsanto and others
like BSAF have decided to drop plans for GM cultivation there.
Either way a lot of people resent the fact that they're not given the choice.
In the UK and much of the EU, GM foods do have to be labelled but in the US they don't
and if people are really worried about what they're ingesting then perhaps they should
have the right to choose.
Next up there's the herbicides and pesticides.
In 2012 a French farmer won his case against Monsanto after a court ruled that he had been
poisoned by their pesticide, Laso, which is now banned in France following an EU directive
but many activists also question the safety of herbicides like Monsanto's round-up but
Monsanto says that it is safe and it's not just about human health, what about the bees?
Recent research found that pesticides including some produced by Monsanto containing neo-nicotinoids
were increasing something called Nosama Virus in bee colonies and that was contributing
to an increase in what's called colony collapse disorder.
Basically they were killing bees en masse.
Earlier this year the European Union voted to ban the use of pesticides containing neo-nicotinoids
in an attempt to end the dramatic fall in bee populations.
Monsanto has defended its record on bees saying we are committed to supporting honey bee health
and researching solutions for these complex issues.
Next up is the proprietary control of seeds and crops.
Monsanto designs GMCs to be resistant to roundup and roundup alone meaning that it has to be
used on their products.
In the 1970s the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said
"control oil and you control nations.
control food and you control the people."
And Monsanto alongside other multinationals have been repeatedly accused of trying to
control global food supply.
Now the company themselves argue that as the world's population grows exponentially, industrial
farming has to be developed to cope with the strain on natural resources like water.
That their products are simply there to help with the demand for more food, more cotton,
more of pretty much everything.
"By the year 2050 there will be 9 billion people on earth.
9 billion people who must be clothed, fueled, fed and the world is consuming more than it's
producing so we must grow more food in the next 50 years than has been grown in the last
10,000."
But a report by the Center for Food Safety, a campaign group, revealed that 3 companies
Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta control 53% of the world's commercial seed market.
And on top of all that Monsanto have been accused of aggressively targeting farmers
to protect their ownership.
By February this year the company had won more than $23 million from the 142 patent
infringement law suits it filed against 410 farmers and 56 small businesses in the US.
Monsanto says it never targets farmers to have only trace amounts of their patented
crops in their field.
Having said that in 2004 they did sue a Canadian farmer called Percy Schmeiser who claimed
his fields had been accidentally or naturally seeded with Monsanto GMCs.
The Canadian Supreme Court ruled against the farmer.
The company argued that they have to protect their intellectual property in order to innovate
with new products and to pump money into research and in fact they say they invest $2.6 million
dollars every single day into their research.
But looming behind in the background is the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Many fear that these multinationals will be able to gain an even stronger grip on intellectual
property rights.
Now if you don't know what the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is, there's a full explanation
over there, but it's basically a trade agreement which is unprecedented in its size and scope.
The chapter on intellectual property was leaked recently by Wikileaks and it showed that intellectual
property rights are set to be strengthened way beyond anything else that exists at the
moment giving more and more power to corporations.
The Chief Agricultural negotiator for the US at the TPP is a former Monsanto lobbyist
called Islam Sadiq.
And lobbying is yet another point that Monsanto get pulled up on.
In the US at least they spend a vast amount of money on lobbying and employ an army of
lobbyists.
The most infamous example is law HR933 more commonly referred to as the Monsanto Protection
Act.
Critics point to section 735 saying it was written in collosion with Monsanto and that
it effectively stops Federal Courts from being able to prevent the sale of GM crops even
if there are health issues arising.
Now both of those claims are refuted strongly by the company.
But whatever you think about Monsanto, what about this argument from the author Jenna
Wogarich.
She argues that all of this could be a cultural problem.
Westerners expect cheap food, readily available at all times of the year.
Vast modern cultures and genetically modified crops are inherently unnatural but they do
satisfy our insatiable desire to consume.
She argues that we need to start supporting local produce, organic farms, and return to
a seasonal more traditional farming.
And if you can do that maybe you can cut Monsanto and all the other multi nationals out of the
equation.