monsanto

[mtnlaurel]

Margene - here is a thread with a lot of good info in it too. I had the exact same question you did.....

http://www.simplelivingforum.net/sho...light=monsanto

I have so many balls up in the air right now in my life, I just can't sink into this matter..... and I know it's important.

[ApatheticNoMore]

The firms around here that help convert lawn monocultures back to prairie use Roundup (or other brands of glyphosphate) to nuke existing grass/weeds before planting native species.

If you are impatient. The same thing can be done with cardboard/black plastic etc. Ha, the only way I've ever seen it done actually, so that pesticides wouldn't even have occured to me, but mostly done by individuals.

[Tussiemussies]

Monsanto has created genetically modified foods which right now include corn, sugar beets and I cannot recall what else. But the GMOs have a pesticide built right into the corn or whichever produce, itself. If an insect chews off a piece their stomach will explode killing them. Monsanto claims that by the time the produce gets to the consumer it won't have any effect but not many studies were done. One study done and I am not sure where but it showed that mice developed huge tutors after eating the produce. Many countries have outlawd its use. They are trying to monopolize the food system and telling people that this way we can feed the world. Their seeds from a plant cannot be used the next year. They have bought out many seed companies also, so farmers are forced to purchase seed every year from them. There is more to why but I cannot recall. Whereas the farmers used to save their own seeds. Obama not too long ago appointed one of their vice-presidents to a high position in the FDA. The biggest problem is that Monsanto does not want labeling of GMOs on any grocery product and are spending so much money to try to stop this from happening. Some states have fought to have GMOs labeled in their state but Monsanto has always won out. Monsanto is extremely rich and dangerous they want to monopolize all foods. A recent bill was passed that puts them above the law I believe it was for six months. It is a very serious situation. If you want more information join Occupy Monsanto on Facebook. They have very enlightening information.

Their media ploy is that the world can be fed this way. The world has enough already to feed everyone but it is greed that is preventing that from happening.

There is GMO salmon coming out. Not sure if it has been approved yet. There are many concerns about these much bigger fish effecting the environment..

There is a statewide march against Monsanto on May 25th, with major cities in the states being involved. Again that information I got frm their site on Facebook. If you search around you may find it.

Because of Monsanto's GMO produce bugs are growing immune to the pesticide. Now they want to spray crops with part of what made up Agent Orange.

Crops that grow nearby a crop of the same species p, from what I read they talk about corn, the GMO corn can effect the normal corn so it turns into a GMO variety. Corn as we know it could go extinct since there is no turning back once it happens.

A very serious situation.

I posted on Kellogg's website, isn't your product a GMO product and after that I was denied access on my account to certain groups that I belong to. I cannot say as a fact that it was related since after writing into Facebook they never answered me. But it changed everyday from what I was banned from. Epidemic did receive a message on Facebook from a Kellogg's's representative calling me a hippe and the other people who protested on the site he also referred to them as hippies on the site. The two groups that I was usually always banned from were Hippie Peace Freaks and America Needs A Truthful President. The ban has been lifted after I didn't post for two days. Like I said it may or may not be related but nothing else had happened on Facebook to prompt this. I urge you to read up closely on all of Monsanto's history of late....

Christine


Sorry for all the typos but I am on the iPad and have a very hard time typing on it...

[catherine]

Thanks, Christine. Very interesting.

[redfox]

Monsanto is a large, US based global private company that behaves like every large, US based global private company in a capitalist context: they make products to maximize shareholder value. They operate quite logically within that structure. Their products are not necessary for agriculture (I was a moderate scale farmer), and IMO are very damaging to agriculture; an opinion backed by some emerging science.

They're highly successful at marketing & defending their products. I find their busniess practices & their products to be quite detrimental to a healthy planet. I also find our federal regulatory practices to be severely lacking, and the combo appears to me to be large scale, unintended experiments on the health systems that undergird all of life.

[BayouGirl]

Lately Monsanto has caught my attention for all the wrong reasons.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15825

"Does Monsanto own all future generations of genetically modified seeds that it sells? The Missouri-based agribusiness giant wants farmers to pay a royalty to plant any seed that descended from a patented original. The legal decision has ramifications for other patented "inventions" that reproduce themselves like strands of DNA.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared to side with Monsanto in oral arguments heard this past February in a lawsuit that the world's largest seed company has brought against Vernon Hugh Bowman, a 75 year old farmer in Indiana, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on a small farm of 600 acres (242 hectares)."

I live in a very rural area, where we see many acres, even miles of small farmers crops of soybeans, sugarcane, corn, etc. I would hate to see those small farmers hounded by a multi billion dollar company for years over something like this.

[SteveinMN]

If you are impatient. The same thing can be done with cardboard/black plastic etc.

True. It's a reaction to time being money, I'm sure.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Monsanto is a large, US based global private company that behaves like every large, US based global private company in a capitalist context: they make products to maximize shareholder value. They operate quite logically within that structure.

Yea so? If their products can be shown to cause more harm than the average global private company (which may not have a great record) then they are worse, period. And people choose to work for that company over others etc. - and they could have choosen to find somewhere less sleezy. But there will always be people to fill that role so long as it exists? Oh I'm quite sure of it! Just like there will always be drug smugglers, human trafficers, makers of child porn or whatever there exists some demand for. A maker of child porn operates quite logically within a structure they can make a profit in (global capitalism? well while monsanto has both shareholders and government support and thus is capitalism corporatist form, a child porn maker might just be something far more basic - a marketplace). We aren't so quick to make excuses for them though.

I also find our federal regulatory practices to be severely lacking, and the combo appears to me to be large scale, unintended experiments on the health systems that undergird all of life.

Oh I would happily try to destroy them at the core if I could, end the patentability of life, period. It's probably only such laws PLUS the lack of regulation that keep them in business. And it's not leading anywhere good. They can still make Roundup I guess, it's not a lifeform. Meanwhile, label ...

[ToomuchStuff]

Lately Monsanto has caught my attention for all the wrong reasons.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15825

"Does Monsanto own all future generations of genetically modified seeds that it sells? The Missouri-based agribusiness giant wants farmers to pay a royalty to plant any seed that descended from a patented original. The legal decision has ramifications for other patented "inventions" that reproduce themselves like strands of DNA.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared to side with Monsanto in oral arguments heard this past February in a lawsuit that the world's largest seed company has brought against Vernon Hugh Bowman, a 75 year old farmer in Indiana, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on a small farm of 600 acres (242 hectares)."

I live in a very rural area, where we see many acres, even miles of small farmers crops of soybeans, sugarcane, corn, etc. I would hate to see those small farmers hounded by a multi billion dollar company for years over something like this.

I remember reading about them, on a legal reporting site (Groklaw), where it was being discussed how they were going after a NEIGHBORING farmer to one that bought their seeds, due to some of the seeds the purchaser used, either blowing over, being carried by animals,, and or sprouting roots that produced plants in the neighbors fields. (all acts of god, typically for insurance purposes). That ticks me off.

[redfox]

ApatheticNoMore, do you think my description of Monsanto is making excuses for them?