Tweet
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?
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.
27 Comments
Well said.
Of course prices MUST go up. How else can they have increasing profits every year?
And of course, there’s always more,
From 5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad, (http://raniakhalek.com/2011/06/23/5-wikileaks-revelations-exposing-the-rapidly-growing-corporatism-dominating-american-diplomacy-abroad/)
“2. US diplomats by day — Monsanto henchmen by night. Boeing isn’t the only multi-billion-dollar corporation US diplomats have been shilling for. In a cable from late 2007, former ambassador to France, Craig Stapleton, advised Washington to launch a military-style trade war against any European Union country that opposed genetically modified (GM) crops.
“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory,” he wrote.
Stapleton was reacting to efforts by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety. He specifically asked Washington to punish the EU countries that did not support the use of GM crops.
“Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.”
An embassy cable from 2009 written by the ambassador to Spain directly cites meetings with Monsanto executives, showing that US diplomats were taking orders directly from GM companies.
Monsanto’s director for biotechnology for Spain and Portugal briefed embassy officials about the region, complaining that “Spain is increasingly becoming a target of anti-biotechnology forces within Europe. If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow.”
In a random insult thrown into the cable, the ambassador says, “Within the agriculture sector, only left-wing farmers’ unions have negative opinions of GMOs.”
The cable ends with a dramatic call for intervention by the US government on behalf of Monsanto: ”ACTION REQUESTED: In response to recent urgent requests by [Spanish rural affairs ministry] State Secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain’s science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention.””
Thanks, and home farming has long been exposed to the development of GM seeds that will not produce plants that bear seeds. For that reason, I go to a farm supply here that has locally grown, identified by farmer, seeds from heritage croppers. Also, we share among neighbors.
Had a discussion recently about rumors of GM marijuana, which several folks have told me is purely scare tactics, that by breeding for best product, farmers have modified, but not chemically, medical marijuana.
This is a horrible system and does not even take into account the effects of Roundup and it’s sister products on birth defects and water quality. So, these farmers are not only chained to the Monsanto wheel if they want to farm at all, they are also facing the fact that through their actions, they are poisoning themselves, their neighbors and people downstream.
Look at a farm field with chemicals after the rain no worms pushing up to the surface at all. Worms break down soil so its easier for micro organisms to turn the soil into stuff plants eat. The chemicals also kill many soil micro organisms but you need a microscope and good soil to compare with to see the difference.
Soil micro organisms are like the e coli in our intestines kill that we can’t digest. Chemicals are like an IV line straight to our veins it gives the plants food yes but once you go chemical your plants can’t eat normal anymore.
Also plants like people are meant to eat the normal way chemical raised plants may get bigger but they are not healthier than normal plants.
Think of it this way Lance Armstrong and Arnold never gave up eating despite all the drugs they used to win/get bigger.
Given both of their’s desire to win at all costs if an IV of chemicals would have made them better they would have done it.
thanks!
Rec’d. But another instance of ‘regulators’ becoming captive of the industry they are supposed to regulate.
Outstanding video, terrific diary, thanks Elliott!
Rcc’d, of course.
…bear FERTILe seeds, that should be.
Our dwindling food variety
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/food-ark/food-variety-graphic
I’m a city guy–well, urbanesque. Think the place where Sopranos was filmed. That’s where i grew up. Anyway, fill me in…. Do farmers always wear matching pink shirts?
monocultures, accelerated resistance of weeds and bacteria, climate change and dwindling water sources.
Ain’t AgriCorpoPoliFinGenoDevo grand!
On the bright side, if you’re an enterprising type, you can start now in your efforts to corner the ban-opener market.
Ooops, I meant Can-Opener.
Very sad. Thanks for the information, Elliott. Push this topic…..time and again!
Isn’t most of the soy and corn harvested to feed livestock? Animals we raise for food never suffer, do they? And they’re all slaughtered humanely, aren’t they?
Notice early in the film that the naturally-spread but Monsanto chemically resistant “weeds” are actually another county’s crops– Canadian-grown canola (processed for cooking oil). Monsanto’s solution is that the problem of the “weeds” gets even bigger before Monsanto dumps even more bio-cides on the same North Dakota field (and we haven’t even talked about the effects of the “weed” spreading from that field). Wonder what happens to Canadian crops of canola when the geese eat in that field then fly north across the border? Robert Alexander Dumas‘ excellent series regarding GMO and Monsanto shows comments by Canadians who are already reeling over the implications of GMO alfalfa and its potential to destroy the food supply for livestock and the whole industry. There’s also the increasing toxic load on the food chain including to humans, new organisms spawned that cause livestock illness and death, and hence the prospect of environmental collapse and mass human death in the cascade of system failures. Like nuclear, it’s time to stop GMO and massive chemical poisoning early enough in time and have a mop up operation. IMHO that timing is now.
There’s a difference between “GM crops” and terminator seeds and other dependency products that Monsanto produces. Don’t confuse the two, please.
When one takes a naturally occuring pesticide and uses its source gene in a different host crop, apart from the new host’s pests inevitably gaining resistance to that, the process should logically ACCELERATE resistance to it in THE ORIGINAL FOOD CROPS FROM WHICH IT ORIGINALLY OCCURRED NATURALLY.
So it’s one step forward for two steps backward.
That risks chronic famine world by jeopardizing the original naturally occurring crops.
More immediately of concern: will our altered weather induce grasshoppers to morph?
In a nutshell, as little ole moi sees it, nat gas is cleaner than coal.
We also need fewer politicians pretending they never heard of mass transit.
Change temp / humidity, weather here / there / everywhere
(the more change, the more it compounds itself, and the faster it does so,
and we’re exquisitely adapted to our environment, as is all life)
and toss epidemiologics into a top hat.
Actually, arrogance alone presumes away the existence of the most
basic of possible concerns. There are actually states of matter ‘tween solid, liquid, gas (ice, water, water vapor) where humidity is concerned.
Dr Mercedes Pascual of The University of Michigan talked about current trends in infectious diseases worldwide, and noted how these must be considered in terms of climatic, evolutionary, and socio-economic change.
She referred to the size and frequency of malaria epidemics, which have changed dramatically over the past decade in highland regions like in Kenya. Theories for these changes include drug resistance, increased exposure of non-immune populations, HIV/AIDS, land use changes, and climate change—the latter being “particularly controversial,” Dr Pascual said.
She listed five points of contention relating to climate change:
Is there evidence of significant trends in climate data?
Do such trends result in a significant change in the disease itself?
Do risk maps of suitability indices change over time?
Is drug resistance a more important factor than climate change?
Is climate variability—inter-annual rainfall variation—a major driver of disease dynamics?
Dr Pascual reviewed a study in Kericho (Kenya), Kabale (Uganda), Gikongoro (Rwanda), and Muhanga (Burundi) indicating trends of increasing temperatures between 1950 and 2000. Temperature rise appears to affect mosquito populations, which in turn may correspond to increased malaria cases.
Another study projected malaria infection rates from 1980 to the present by examining temperature change impacts on larvae life cycles in relation to human infection cycles. The study indicated increasing epidemics, but the median projected infection rate relative to temperature was smaller than actual historical observations.
Temperature change could therefore explain a “significant fraction” of malaria increases in African highlands, but other factors exist, according to Dr Pascual. Citing climate change alone would be “unreasonable.” She said drug resistance is often cited as an alternative theory to climate change, but interaction between the two might also be possible.
“If climate change is changing the transmission intensity, then this would also change the rate of evolution in malaria,” she said.
Gas Escaping From Ocean Floor May Drive Global Warming
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara Also, generally associated with Prof. Ira Liefer: positive feedback potential from warmer oceans melting previously precipitated methylhydrate.
https://sites.google.com/site/evernewecon
Oh, there’s just one more thing.
http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Programs/Agriculture_and_the_Environment/Ecosystem_Approaches_to_Human_Health/Pages/EventDetails.aspx?EventID=70
Long before the horrors you describe ever take place, Monsanto will have filed suit against hundreds MORE farmers on whose land Monsanto claims their precious GMOs are growing without permission (“patent infringement”) — even if the seeds were blown onto the farmers’ land by the wind or dropped there in goose poop.
An iota of good news: Percy Schmeiser WON a very favorable out of court settlement against “Man-stunt-o” !
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
Related story:
“The GM Genocide: Thousands of Indian Farmers Committing Suicide After Using Genetically Modified Crops”
http://tinyurl.com/3qwokss
The powerful eat too. I don’t understand how anyone can defend these policies because unless there’s a special repository of food that’s just for them, they eat these toxins too. Perhaps there are secret farms down in Crystal City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_City,_Arlington,_Virginia.
This is just scary and infuriating at the same time.
I try to buy as much of my produce as possible from local and regional farmers.
Some things I can’t get that way, so I end up buying them at the supermarket, but I buy as little produce that way as possible.
It is no exaggeration to to say that Monsanto is guilty of crimes against humanity. Indeed, it is an understatement. They are guilty of crimes against nature. This is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. The sooner this nightmare system collapses, the better. Put an end to this lunacy. The DNA is of plants is a human inheritance. Why kind of Harvard Law School fuckheads have convinced themselves that Monsanto can use hyper vague intellectual property claims to change and then control the worlds food supply??? How fucking stupid are Ivy Leaguers?? How fucking stupid are American lawyers? Are they the stupidest fuckers who have ever?? Dumber than paramecium?
How about this??? Monsanto must immediately pay huge fines for violating the property rights relating to all the DNA they built their modifications upon, property rights held by humanity as a whole. If I piss in the ocean, can I then claim to own the ocean since I have genetically modified it?
Or how about this?? Monsanto is guilty of genetic pollution on epic scale?
This is so stupid. We no longer have a legal system. It is nothing more than a means of exploitation for the demented rich.
That things have gotten this far is a reductio ad absurdum of the American legal system.
Time for neoprogressives to stop shilling for and enabling the Democratic Party. A vote for the Democratic Party is a vote for a world where Monsanto rules. Don’t give me your Tea Party distraction bullshit. Neoprogressivism has no answer for Monsanto’s evil and is enabling it.
The system is way beyond corrupt. Lesser evilism is for fools and shills.
The strongest way to fight back this depraved organization’s onslaughts is to stop the Patent Office from allowing patents on life forms, period, and to roll back any that have been issued. Follow that with the demand that any organization that produces GM products be required to register information and materials that would enable users to completely eliminate that product and any variations from the supply chain, in such a way the organic methods can be instituted as soon as possible… IMHO, for sure.
well that is great news about Percy Schmeiser, thank you for posting that link. I am stunned that Monsanto wins in court all the time, defies sense and logic.
Amen.
Bonnie Faulkner, the host on Guns and Butter, did an extended interview (two shows) with Percy Schmeiser on his battle with monsanto, and one interview with Jeffrey Smith on the dangers of eating GMO foods. The two sections of the Schmeiser interview are here and here. Part of the blurb that introduces the Smith interview says “Jeffrey Smith is author of Seeds of Deception, exposing industry and government lies about the safety of the genetically engineered foods we are eating.” That interview can be found here. These interviews were done back in Oct of last year.
As long as clarence thomas is on the scotus, monsanto will be protected. As the latest decisions coming out of that nest have shown, big biz gets its way on 5-4 votes every time.