Monsanto: A Corporate Profile

"Monsanto is a global agricultural biotechnology company that specializes in genetically engineered (GE) seeds and herbicides, most notably Roundup herbicide and GE Roundup Ready seed.GE seeds have been altered with inserted genetic material to exhibit traits that repel pests or withstand the application of herbicides. In 2009, in the United States alone, nearly all (93 percent) of soybeans and four-fifths (80 percent) of corn were grown with seeds containing Monsanto-patented genetics.The company’s power and influence affects not only the U.S. agricultural industry, but also political campaigns, regulatory processes and the structure of agriculture systems all over the world."

This link contains a downloadable PDF file.

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!!!

Everyone loves tomatoes - all sizes, shapes, and colors.  For instance, the Cherokee Purple Tomato.  It isn't really purple but more of a beautiful dark maroon with green on top.  That first year I bought four varieties of heirloom tomato plants from Seed Savers Exchange.  A novice at gardening, the space I left between plants in my garden made it very difficult to harvest later.  So many gorgeous tomatoes.  The Cherokee Purple are particularly sweet and juicy, perfect for tomato sandwiches and canned tomato juice.

The first seed I ever tried saving was a tomato seed.  Now several years later we have our own family variety.  I was told that tomato plants do not cross pollinate but I don't believe that's totally true.  Our family variety seems to be a conglomeration of those first four varieties that I purchased and planted so close together.  My friends, the pollinating insects, took care of spreading the pollen around.  Sharing it.

In my email yesterday I received this beautiful blog post on growing tomatoes organically.  Great information altogether in one short article.  Sharing it.

Monsanto's Dirty Dozen

Between 75% to 80% of the processed food you consume every day has GMOs inside, and residues of Monsanto’s RoundUp pesticide outside. But it’s not just processed food—fresh fruit and vegetables are next: genetically engineered sweet corn is already being sold at your local grocer, with apples and a host of other “natural” produce currently in field trials.

When you take a moment to reflect on the history of product development at Monsanto, what do you find? Here are twelve products that Monsanto has brought to market. See if you can spot the pattern…

#1 – Saccharin

Did you know Monsanto got started because of artificial sweetener? John Francisco Queeny founded Monsanto Chemical Works in St. Louis, Missouri with the goal of producing saccharin for Coca-Cola.

#2 – PCBs

During the early 1920s, Monsanto began expanding their chemical production into polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to produce coolant fluids for electrical transformers, capacitors, and electric motors. 

#3 – Polystyrene

In 1941, Monsanto began focusing on plastics and synthetic polystyrene, which is still widely used in food packaging and ranked 5th in the EPA’s 1980s listing of chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste.

#4 – Atom bomb and nuclear weapons

Shortly after acquiring Thomas and Hochwalt Laboratories, Monsanto turned this division into their Central Research Department. Between 1943 to 1945, this department coordinated key production efforts of the Manhattan Project—

#5 – DDT

In 1944, Monsanto became one of the first manufacturers of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. Despite decades of Monsanto propaganda insisting that DDT was safe, the true effects of DDT’s toxicity were at last confirmed through outside research and in 1972, DDT was banned throughout the U.S.

#6 – Dioxin

In 1945, Monsanto began promoting the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture with the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T (one of the precursors to Agent Orange), containing dioxin. 

#7 – Agent Orange

During the early 1960s, Monsanto was one of the two primary manufacturers of Agent Orange, an herbicide / defoliant used for chemical warfare during the Vietnam War. Except Monsanto’s formula had dioxin levels many times higher than the Agent Orange produced by Dow Chemicals

8 – Petroleum-Based Fertilizer

In 1955, Monsanto began manufacturing petroleum-based fertilizer after purchasing a major oil refinery. Petroleum-based fertilizers can kill beneficial soil micro-organisms, sterilizing the soil and creating a dependence, like an addiction, to the synthetic replacements.

#9 – RoundUp

During the early 1970s, Monsanto founded their Agricultural Chemicals division with a focus on herbicides, and one herbicide in particular: RoundUp (glyphosate). 

#10 – Aspartame (NutraSweet / Equal)

An accidental discovery during research on gastrointestinal hormones resulted in a uniquely sweet chemical: aspartame. Twenty years later, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report listing 94 health issues caused by aspartame. (Watch a quick video here.)

#11 – Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)

This genetically modified hormone was developed by Monsanto to be injected into dairy cows to produce more milk. 

#12 – Genetically Modified Crops / GMOs

In the early 1990s, Monsanto began gene-splicing corn, cotton, soy, and canola with DNA from a foreign source to achieve one of two traits: an internally-generated pesticide, or an internal resistance to Monsanto’s weedkiller RoundUp.

A Baker’s Dozen: #13 – Terminator Seeds

In the late 1990s, Monsanto developed the technology to produce sterile grains unable to germinate. These “Terminator Seeds” would force farmers to buy new seeds from Monsanto year after year, rather than save and reuse the seeds from their harvest as they’ve been doing throughout centuries.

Working hand in hand with the U.S. Government through a handful of key people.....

GMOs Create Genetic Problems In People?

Gilles-Eric Seralini says the US should label GMOs and Roundup should be banned.

thanks to Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini, the first scientist to ever complete a full lifetime study on GMO crops, a full two year lifelong assessment as compared to Monsanto's own tests that were always limited to no more than 90 days.

Have you planned more research on GMOs and Roundup?

"Because of all the difficulties and deformations its very difficult to continue without money but we have several projects, we don’t want to put our arms down. We have a lot of projects to do if we can financially continue – I have 4 PHD students. I have to pay them in order to do some research on trans generational effects but also to measure the pollutants inside the brain, inside the tissues of the brain, inside the testes and ovaries and breasts after people or rats have received these products in their food. We will then have definite proof that they enter into the body and that they create genetic problems in people."

How can your followers support and learn about your work?

"Actually there are some interesting web-sites where you can find all the data like GMO Seralini . I have also published some books which I hope will be translated into English soon. The CRIIGEN website is a good source too."

“The Seed Underground”

Janisse Ray writes, “The Seed Underground” is a love letter to the quiet revolutionaries who are saving our food heritage.

"Ray begins The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by explaining how we lost our seeds. Feeding ourselves has always been a burden for humans, she explains. “So when somebody came along and said, ‘I’ll do that cultivating for you. I’ll save the seeds. You do something else,’ most of us jumped at the chance to be free.”

But, according to Ray, when the dwindling number of farmers who stayed on the land gave up on saving seeds and embraced hybridization, genetically modified organisms, and seed patents in order to make money, we became slaves to multinational corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta, which now control our food supply.

In 2007, 10 companies owned 67 percent of the seed market. These corporations control the playing field, because they influence the government regulators. They’ve been known to snatch up little-known varieties of seeds, patent them, and demand royalties from farmers whose ancestors have grown the crops for centuries. The result is that our seeds are disappearing, and we miss out on the exquisite tastes and smells of an enormous variety of fruits and vegetables. More alarmingly, “we strip our crops of the ability to adapt to change and we put the entire food supply at risk,” Ray writes. “The more varieties we lose, the closer we slide to the tipping point of disaster.”

However, The Seed Underground is not a grim story. It’s a story about seeds, after all, which Ray calls “the most hopeful thing in the world.” Moreover, it’s a story about a handful of quirky, charismatic, “quiet, under-the-radar” revolutionaries, who harvest and stow seeds in the back of refrigerators and freezers across America."