Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.’s business practices reveal how the world’s biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.
With Monsanto’s patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family’s dinner table. That’s because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto’s patented genes.
This has long been a No Agenda topic for John and Adam which the Main Stream Media is just now getting around to.
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Did anyone “follow the money”? Who is behind Monsanto, who are the owners, direct and indirect?
The unfathomable depth of capability in this community should be able to uncover that: who runs that company, where are they coming from, who are they associated with, in biz and politics…
I am waiting in anticipation 😉
In case you’ve never watched it, here’s “The World According to Monsanto”:
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/educational/watch/v8968165kYRdfmYC
There used to be a thing called Anti-Trust and the government would use it to break up monopolies. That was before the government was a wholly owned subsidiary of big business. A Wikipedia link for your edification.
Monsanto has had a very interesting history. The way they protected one of the worlds nastiest toxins, PCB, was revealing and prophetic. Any nation capable of permitting a company like this one to become an agricultural giant deserves to eat GM’s till their colons rot.
Anyone who hasn’t seen it should check out “The World According to Monsanto”.
The sooner this evil corporation is taken down the better.
Search for “monsanto” + “aspartame” + “rumsfeld” and you’ll find some interesting stories.
Jesus, it is only food. Not like it is a necessity.
lemme ad some fuel to this fire..
americas favorite patent troll is right on top of this.
You need to watch the *excellent* documentary “Food Inc.” which discusses this and some other related and scary facts about food production in the US. Food Inc is available on Netflix streaming.
The government needs to get back to it’s old trust and monopoly busting ways. The only good monopoly is one run by the government and heavily regulated by it – and I can recall only one at that: the old telephone system, “Ma Bell,” which gave us the best phone system in the world and the best communications in the world. We’d still have the best now if Nixon hadn’t broken it up. But that’s the only one I can think of.
The Bush regime let all this happen, I mean they caused it to happen – for their own financial benefit.
8, Saw it…. was a good documentary. Monsanto also aggressively sues farmers for recycling seeds from crops grown from Monsanto seeds the farmers purchased. It’s considered a violation of Monsanto’s IP. Farmers who don’t buy seeds from Monsanto but get contamination from neighboring farmers using Monsanto seeds, are also pursued for IP violations.
Also worth noting is how a lot of the organic and natural brands are being bought up by big business. Kashi is now Kellogg. Naked Juice is Pepsi. Odwalla & Vitamin Water are Coca-Cola. Stonyfield Farm is now Dannon.
Please read before commenting …
Monsanto debunked all the bad things mentioned about them in Food, Inc. Read their response…it is sickening.
10, Genetically Modified Baby, genetically modified foods were introduced into the U.S. food supply in the early 90s.
13, Randomized, I wouldn’t call that link as “debunking” anything. It’s them denying the allegations and trying to say the documentary doesn’t understand how hard it is to produce food and somehow makes farmers look like bad guys.
First of all, they have to stop issuing patents to living organisms, and they have to revoke to ones already issued. I mean the very idea is just silly, unless your name is Frankenstein.
Next, they have to go after Monsanto’s business practices, which are very similar to those that Microsoft was busted for.
Third, I still don’t understand the hoopla about GM food. Has there been any instances of it actually being a problem ? (I mean physically, not politically).
16, Genetically engineered products are not simply “organisms”. Under the law they have IP rights no different than other engineered products.
Yes, GM foods have been a problem in the past. Cross contamination resulted in Taco Bell using corn that was meant for livestock. The corn was not digestible by humans and Taco Bell was forced to do a massive recall. I don’t recall the year this happened.
> # 2 said: There used to be a thing called Anti-Trust and the government would use it to break up monopolies.
Personally, I agree that GM Foods and especially Monstanto are bad (look up how they got their seeds smuggled ilegally into Brazil, who had anti-GMO laws then got some farmers dependent on them to change the laws). However, how do you, at the same time, argue for “smaller government” and “more rules and control”?
If you need to regulate and verify that people and companies are obeying the regulations, it’s gonna cost money and make government bigger. Frankly, I’d rather have safe food, water, energy, etc. and a bigger government, but there’s a price to pay.
It’s a schism. Often the same “conservative” or “libertarian” folks who claim “small government”+”the market” are a panacea that will make everything a paradise also support more rules and regulations on some areas (e.g. abortion, immigration)… Frankly, I think, because in reality there are many issues who cannot be kept in check unless there’s government involved: general safety, highways, free speech, health care, etc. So they end up just running in circles repeating “it can’t be!”… “small government!”… ad nauseam while things are on a downward spiral.
I second #8 everyone who eats, buys food, or votes in the United States should watch this movie. I bought two copies just to loan out to friends.
Anniston Alabama: Pollution, Contamination, and Betrayal. I have worked in Anniston and have seen for myself the valley of the living dead. We promise this to the food gods of monsanto. (We Will Defeat You.)
[quote=”Uncle Dave”]This has long been a No Agenda topic for John and Adam which the Main Stream Media is just now getting around to.[/quote]
Just the standard courtesy press delay so Monsanto can get it’s ducks in a row.
Monsanto is evil.
@ #17,
It was called Starlink Corn. It happened sometime during the latter half of the Clinton administration.
So, farmers raise their crops the old fashioned ways get seeds blown in from neighboring farms using Monsanto genes. Then Monsanto sues the legacy farmers for using the modified seeds.
Why oh why hasn’t some smart lawfirm sued Monsanto for trespassing or invasion or some such defense?
Not that I would support that case. I am – in general – in favor of genetically modified foods. I am NOT in favor of patenting life. I believe Monsanto should be allowed to patent their techniques for modifying the genetic makeup but not the resulting genome. That strikes me as patenting “4” as the answer to “2 + 2 =” simply because I designed the circuit board in the calculator.
Actually, these dinosaurs are not going to be around for very much longer, and they know it. Outsourcing has distributed their technology and globalisation has diluted their lobbying power. They have failed in and have exited many foreign countries and are struggling to maintain market dominance in their own homeland, against foreign producers.
I only eat Roundup ready foods, when they start spraying the world with roundup I know I’ll be only one who alive!!!!!!!!!!
#24 because of money and they got the hook up in white house.. People had tried.
We need to return to LIMITED PATENTS, in terms of how long any commercial entity has to exploit is exclusive use. Monsanto is hardly a struggling business, that needs decades of agro patent protection to stay profitable. And we’re talking the food supply here. Not some damn song or movie. I think the genetic patents ought to expire into public domain (or whatever) just as soon as patent drugs do. If not much sooner.
But of course when big money talks, law makers listen. So I suspect Monsanto will be allowed to skirt all anti-monopoly, and anti-trust protection laws. Making them the De Beers of seeds. If they’re not already!