Monsanto 'may face disaster', 2003
Big Corporations Tighten Grip on World Food Supply , 1999
Brazil GM Crop Plan challenged , 2003
Paul Brown
A report on the prospects for the genetic engineering giant Monsanto, which has
91% of the world's market in GM seeds, says the company "could be another
financial disaster waiting to happen". Innovest, specialists in environmental,
social and strategic governance based in New York, says the company may not be
able to obtain insurance against risks of contamination of food and other farm
products, which might result in big compensation claims.
The report, which was commissioned by Greenpeace, says the company's prospects
for expansion are limited because of increasing rejection of GM. One of
Monsanto's latest products, GM wheat, might be a "costly failure" because of
market rejection and could cost the US large grain exports, the report says.
Monsanto dismissed the report and reacted angrily to being given a CCC
environmental rating, the lowest possible score. It said the report coincided
with an assessment from the Bank of America suggesting Monsanto stock was
undervalued and it was time to buy.
In a statement Monsanto said: "The report is highly biased and cherry-picks
information about plant biotechnology and Monsanto in order to further a
political agenda." Andrew Simms is author of the Christian Aid report,
Selling Suicide, about farming and genetic engineering in developing
countries INSTEAD of a plough, the poorly sketched Indian cow
pulls an upturned bottle of Monsanto's
herbicide in promotional leaflets that are
distributed in Indian villages. In Brazil,
even before legal permission for commercial growing has been given,
farmers are invited to demonstrations of genetically modified soya,
and Monsanto is in court for alleged illegal planting.
In a David and Goliath struggle between
farmers, landless labourers and huge multinational corporations, it
is Goliath who has the lethal weapon. The advent of genetically
modified crops and an emerging international regime that allows
companies to turn public natural resources into private property is
intensifying the balance of power. The top 10
agrochemical companies control 85 per cent of the global agrochemical
market; the top five control virtually the entire market for GM
seeds. Concentration of ownership within the
industry is increasing. Monsanto has bought
stakes in the major national seed companies of both India and Brazil.
Outside China, these are the farming giants
of the developing world. A spate of massive mergers and the tight
control afforded by the new gene technologies, added to the lobbying
and marketing clout of the agro-biotech companies, means enormous
power over the world's food supply has been grabbed by very few
hands. Is the world sleepwalking into a gene trap? Mario Gusson, who
works in Brazil with Christian Aid-backed organisations, thinks so:
transnational corporations will have a
monopoly over price, hence control over food
production and manipulation of the market.
Without a global competition policy or enforceable code of practice
for multinationals, Adam Smith's age-old warning should be heard:
people of the same trade seldom meet together... but the
conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public. Ismail
Serageldin, head of an influential World Bank-funded global network
of agricultural research centres, has questioned whether biotech
advances will be to the public good. Hi-tech farming has always been
like a glass bicycle, it looks good in the showroom, but just try
riding it on the farm tracks of poor countries. One legacy of the
last farming revolution is the permanent loss
of at least 75 per cent of food varieties.
In the heartlands of the so-called green revolution, despite
increases in food supply and even allowing for population increase,
more people were left hungry. Today 70 per
cent of GM crops are engineered not to improve their food value but
to make them dependent on the seed companies' own-brand
agrochemicals. They maximise profit and
market share for the parent company, while tying farmers into tight
contracts.
Environmental impact, too, follows the harmful farm tracks
of the past.
Using herbicide-tolerant crops
is like giving one plant a genetic radiation suit, then dropping a
small nuclear device to wipe out all other plant life in the area as
well as the animal life that depends on it and any hope of
sustainable agriculture.
Battered by
criticism, the agro-biotech firms argue that we need GM crops to feed
a hungry world. Such claims take the debate on hunger and poverty
back to the Dark Ages. We know there is more food than we need to
feed the world, yet more than 800 million people go hungry. Eight out
of 10 children in developing countries live surrounded by food
surpluses. GM crops cannot resolve these paradoxes but, by
concentrating power into fewer hands and continuing the green
revolution trend of farming based on monocrops and dwindling natural
resources, they can make it worse. People go hungry because they are
poor and because they have no land on which to grow food. Poor
farmers stay hungry because they lack access to water and credit, and
lose out in the hustle for government support that rich farmers and
corporations win. GM crops are being promoted
in poor countries before any international agreement on biosafety
measures. The huge soya-growing state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil
is fighting against GM crops and alleged illegal planting of GM soya
by Monsanto's affiliate Monsoy. If they lose, consumers in Brazil and
elsewhere could lose their choice in a wide range of GM-free products
that depend on soya. Their struggle has become every consumer's
struggle.* * FOOTNOTE: Brazil, the world's second largest
producer of soya, has authorised the cultivation and sale of
genetically modified soya crops, the last major producer to do so.
Monsanto 'may face disaster'
The Guardian Weekly 20-3-0508, page 21Big Corporations Tighten Grip on World Food Supply
Date: 11 May 1999, The Guardian Weekly Page 18
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3163522.stm
Date: October 4, 2003
Environmentalists say GM crops will compromise Brazil's integrity.
One of Brazil's most senior lawyers has appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn a government decision which allows farmers to grow genetically modified crops.
Last week, a government decree permitted the planting of genetically modified soy beans for one year in the south of the country. But Procurator-General Claudio Fonteles, a senior official who rules on the legality of government policy, has now joined the Green Party and the Confederation of Rural Labourers in challenging the decision. Mr Fonteles argues that ministers acted unconstitutionally by introducing the policy in the form of a decree - a charge the government rejects.
Test cases
The procurator-general also says the government ignored an earlier court ruling which said there should be an independent study of the issue before planting could begin. In its defence, the government points out that this is a limited measure under which genetically modified soya beans will only be planted in the south of the country and only for one year.
Landless peasants
Brazil's vast agricultural tracts are a tempting prospect for biotech companies The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Sao Paulo says the government's controversial decision has prompted strong criticism from environmental campaigners. But our correspondent says Mr Fonteles' challenge is the most significant of three legal challenges from groups and individuals opposed to the measure. A second comes from the country's Green Party, which says the government has a duty to guard Brazil's environmental integrity. Also seeking to block the move is the Confederation of Rural Labourers. It says the planting of genetically modified crops will adversely affect the working lives of 15 million people. Brazil was one of the last of the world's major agricultural producers to ban GM crops. And even now, correspondents say, many of its soya farmers have simply ignored the ban - smuggling illegal seeds in from neighbouring Argentina for cultivation. Some have estimated that one-third of Brazil's soya fields are given over to illegal GM crops.
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