Corporations Are Stealing the Very Food From Our Mouths

For 10,000 years, human beings have been in control of growing our own food. War or drought or floods may destroy our crops for a season or three, but we have always been able to start again with seeds saved from previous crops.

If worst comes to worst, as long as you have open-pollinated seeds and the tiniest plot of land, you can always feed yourself.

Until now.

Corporations, not satisfied with control the lives of everyone in the country through owning and operating the republican party, state legislatures and capitols, the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidency, are moving close to their ultimate goal of controlling the very means of life itself: seeds of food crops.

Elliott at Firedoglake:

I’ll state straight away, I hate/loathe/despise/abhor Monsanto. They are evil, not metaphorically evil, but actually evil. And as for our politicians who should have protected us from Monsanto; well, there’s a special circle of Hell reserved just for them.

I came across this video in the twitterverse and wanted to share it because it gives you a good idea of what is involved in actually using GM seed and the (hoocoodanode!?) consequences. Farmer to Farmer.

I ask you: What do we do to extricate ourselves from this politico-corporate nightmare?



From the website:

Michael Hart, a conventional livestock family farmer, has been farming in Cornwall for nearly thirty years and has actively campaigned on behalf of family farmers for over fifteen years, traveling extensively in Europe, India, Canada and the USA.

In this short documentary he investigates the reality of farming genetically modified crops in the USA ten years after their introduction. He travels across the US interviewing farmers and other specialists about their experiences of growing GM.

During the making of the film he heard problems of the ever increasing costs of seeds and chemicals to weeds becoming resistant to herbicides.
US farmers told him that a single pass (one herbicide application) is a fallacy and concurred that three or more passes are the norm for GM crops.

As weeds have become more resistant to glyphosate there has been a sharp increase in the use of herbicide tank mixes (most of them patented and owned by the biotech companies). Astonishingly some farmers were now having to resort to hand labor to remove weeds.

Farmers have seen the costs spiral, for example, the price of seed has gone from $40 to over $100 per acre over the last few years.

Farmers referred to co-existence (the ability to grow GM crops next to non-GM and organic crops) as “unsolvable” and say that it does not work.

In summary:
1. A huge “weed” problem.
2. The myth of co-existence.
3. Farmers trapped into the genetically modified biotech system.
4. Huge price increases for seeds and sprays- well beyond the price increases farmers have received for their crops.

In short, the film shows US farmers urging great caution to be exercised by UK and European farmers in adopting this technology.

Farmer to Farmer: The Truth About GM Crops. from Pete Speller.

Don’t look to the federal government to save us:

Down with Tyranny:

Historically, George W. Bush had 3 of the most brazen shills of AgriBusiness as consecutive Secretaries of Agriculture: Ann Veneman, Mike Johanns and Ed Schafer. Each was charged with doing everything Big Ag Business wanted that would keep the money flowing GOP-wise. [Since 1990 Agribusiness has "donated" $350,366,008 in federal elections, almost twice as much to Republicans as to Democrats.] Obama's Agriculture Secretary, conservative former DLC chair and former Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack, seems to be driven by almost identical instincts. If you were concerned about the radiation reported in Tokyo's drinking water, you might also be concerned about the dangers of genetically engineered crops inexorably taking over American agriculture-- and the role of the USDA in this tragedy. Organic farmers and consumers have fought back but, except for a little window dressing here and there, Vilsack rules his fiefdom the same way Veneman, Johanns and Schafer did. Biotech triumphant in the march towards turning the human race into mutants for the sake of short term corporate profits-- kind of like the nuclear energy industry.

Vilsack has been making promises-- with fingers crossed behind his back-- to protect the interests of farmers and consumers who aren't interested in being part of a species-wide genetic experiment and prefer eating real food, "promising something revolutionary: finding a way for organic farms to coexist alongside the modified plants."

But in recent weeks, the administration has announced a trio of decisions that have clouded the future of organics and boosted the position of genetically engineered (GE) crops. Vilsack approved genetically modified alfalfa and a modified corn to be made into ethanol, and he gave limited approval to GE sugar beets.

The announcements were applauded by GE industry executives, who describe their genetically modified organisms as the farming of the future. But organics supporters were furious, saying their hopes that the Obama administration would protect their interests were dashed.

“It was boom, boom boom,” said Walter Robb, co-chief executive of Whole Foods Markets, a major player in organics. “These were deeply disappointing. They were such one-sided decisions.”

To a growing cadre of consumers who pay attention to how their food is produced, the agriculture wars are nothing short of operatic, pitting technology against tradition in a struggle underscored by politics and profits.

No, it is not “technology against tradition.” It is corporate ownership of the means to produce food versus the ability of human beings to feed ourselves.

No place on the planet is safe:

From truthout:

... biosafety activists in South Africa are calling a program funded by the Gates Foundation a "Trojan horse" to open the door for private agribusiness and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, including a drought-resistant corn that Monsanto hopes to have approved in the United States and abroad.

The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) program was launched in 2008 with a $47 million grant from mega-rich philanthropists Warrant Buffet and Bill Gates. The program is supposed to help farmers in several African countries increase their yields with drought- and heat-tolerant corn varieties, but a report released last month by the African Centre for Biosafety claims WEMA is threatening Africa's food sovereignty and opening new markets for agribusiness giants like Monsanto.

The Gates Foundation claims that biotechnology, GE crops and Western agricultural methods are needed to feed the world's growing population and programs like WEMA will help end poverty and hunger in the developing world. Critics say the foundation is using its billions to shape the global food agenda and the motivations behind WEMA were recently called into question when activists discovered the Gates foundation had spent $27.6 million on 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock between April and June 2010.

But farmers are fighting back:

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

You know, it's nice that Bill Clinton was all teary-eyed about the effect his and everyone else's American policies had on poor battered Haiti, but the fact is, the country is still http://www.truth-out.org/haitians-challenge-monsantos-influence/1309446649 colonized by corporations and I don't see him doing a damned thing to stop it:

Hinche, Haiti - Last week, thousands of farmers and supporters of Haitian peasant agriculture marched for hours under the hot Caribbean sun to call for more government support for locally grown seeds and agriculture.

The demonstration was organized by the Peasant Movement of Papay and other farmer associations, human rights and women’s groups, and the Haitian Platform for Alternative Development (PAPDA), the Haitian online agency AlterPresse reported from the march. The official theme of the peaceful demonstration was “Land Grabbing is Endangering Agricultural Sovereignty.”
Singing slogans like “Long Live Haitian Agriculture!” and “Long live local seeds!” the crowd – wearing straw hats and red T-shirts – wound its way on foot, donkeys, and bikes through this dusty provincial capital. The demonstration ended at a square named for farmer Charlemagne Péralte, who lead the “Caco” peasant revolt against the U.S. army occupation from 1916 until 1919, when U.S. Marines assassinated him.

One year ago, thousands of farmers covered the same march route to protest the import of a “gift” of seeds from Monsanto. The farmers burned some of the seeds, calling them a “death plan” for peasant agriculture.

Last spring, in violation of Haitian law, the Minister of Agriculture gave the agribusiness giant Monsanto permission to “donate” 505 tons of seeds to Haiti. The first shipment of 60 tons, reportedly of maize and vegetable seeds, arrived in May 2010. Some of the seeds were coated with a chemical (Thiram)[1] so toxic that the EPA forbids its sale to home gardeners in the U.S.. Monsanto announced its $4 million gift was “to support the reconstruction effort” in Haiti.

Tom Laskawy at Grist:

Genetically modified seed giant Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers [PDF] in defense of its patent claims. But now, a group of dozens of organic farmers and food activists have, with the help of the not-for-profit law center The Public Patent Foundation, sued Monsanto in a case that could forever alter the way genetically modified crops are grown in this country. But before you can understand why, it's worth reviewing an important, but underreported aspect of the fight over GMOs.

One of the many downsides to genetically engineered food is the fact that modified genes are patented by the companies that isolate them. This is not typically part of the story that gets much attention when you read about all those great (but nonexistent) magic seeds that will grow faster, better, cheaper, etc. and seem to forever remain "just around the corner."

SNIP

In my recent Common Ground cover story on GMOs, I referred to the fact that the federal government "insists the food revolution will be genetically modified." Well, what biotech companies want more than anything is for the food revolution to be patented. Why is that? Because, unlike pharmaceuticals, patented genes will never go "generic" after some number of years. Monsanto and its biotech buddies can keep milking that transgenetic cow for decade after decade.

GMO crops have another interesting quality -- you can "use" a patented gene without even knowing it. When you download and share music and movies on peer-to-peer networks or plagiarize blog posts or books, let's face it -- you know what you're doing. But if you're a farmer, GMO seeds can literally blow in to your fields on the breeze or just the pollen from GMO crops can blow in (or buzz in via bees) and contaminate your organic or "conventional" fields. And if that happens, Monsanto or Syngenta or Bayer CropLife maintain the right to sue you as if you had illegally bought their seed and knowingly planted it.

In an appropriately Orwellian twist, the companies even call such accidental contamination by their products "patent infringement." And, in the face of a government more than willing to allow companies to "defend" their "intellectual property" in this way, organic farmers and others have now stepped up and said, in short, "Hell no!":

The case, Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, was filed in federal district court in Manhattan and assigned to Judge Naomi Buchwald. Plaintiffs in the suit represent a broad array of family farmers, small businesses and organizations from within the organic agriculture community who are increasingly threatened by genetically modified seed contamination despite using their best efforts to avoid it. The plaintiff organizations have over 270,000 members, including thousands of certified organic family farmers.

"This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto's transgenic seed should land on their property," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director and Lecturer of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. "It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients."

If the suit is successful, not only will it limit Monsanto's ability to sue farmers, the company will have far greater responsibility for how and where its biotech seeds are planted. The regulatory free ride will be over. While that won’t eliminate GMO crops, it will at least give organic farmers a hope of avoiding contamination.

What I find intriguing about this suit is that it comes on the heels of a set of rulings against biotech companies and in favor of organic farmers.
As I have speculated before, courts have decided that the interests of organic and other non-GMO farmers are now significant enough to require protection. While the USDA and the White House seem happy to do Monsanto's bidding (as they did in recent decisions to allow Roundup Ready beets and alfalfa), the federal courts -- and even the Supreme Court -- do not seem so quick to dismiss the economic harm that might come to unfettered use of GMO seeds. This one, my friends, bears watching.

Monsanto has gone even further: making it impossible for farmers to propagate their own crops.

In June 2007,[35] Monsanto acquired Delta & Pine Land Company, a company that had patented a seed technology nicknamed Terminators. This technology, which was never known to have been used commercially, produces plants that have sterile seeds so they do not flower or grow fruit after the initial planting. This prevents the spread of those seeds into the wild, however it also requires customers to repurchase seed for every planting in which they use Terminator seed varieties. In recent years, widespread opposition from environmental organizations and farmer associations has grown, mainly out of the concerns that hypothetical seeds using this technology could increase farmers' dependency on seed suppliers.

Despite the fact that in 1999, Monsanto pledged not to commercialize Terminator technology,[36] Delta Vice President, Harry Collins, declared at the time in a press interview in the Agra/Industrial Biotechnology Legal Letter, ‘We’ve continued right on with work on the Technology Protection System (TPS or Terminator). We never really slowed down. We’re on target, moving ahead to commercialize it. We never really backed off.’

Details here.

Liberals support sustainable agriculture that produces safe, healthy food, provides a secure living for farmers and preserves healthy, fertile soil and plants