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November 17, 2014 3:30 PM Subscribe
In an attempt to combat years of poor public relations, Monsanto has decided to take their case directly to the people through various campaigns. On a new site called The Conversation they are answering questions directly from consumers.
-God created everything perfectly, how is it you think you can outdo HIM
-Why is it that GMO foods are not allowed in Monsanto cafeterias? Is it true that Monsanto is a Bio Weapon to sterilize the public.
-I have 1600 reports on how GMO is dangerous to us humans. How do deal w/ ur role in controlling the population?
-How does it make you feel to be destroying billions of years of evolution to turn a profit?
-You do realize by altering the food you are making people FAT and killing us?
-Is it true that Monsanto makes its GMO seed aluminum resistant due to the Geo-Engineering/Chemtrailing program going on?
-God created everything perfectly, how is it you think you can outdo HIM
-Why is it that GMO foods are not allowed in Monsanto cafeterias? Is it true that Monsanto is a Bio Weapon to sterilize the public.
-I have 1600 reports on how GMO is dangerous to us humans. How do deal w/ ur role in controlling the population?
-How does it make you feel to be destroying billions of years of evolution to turn a profit?
-You do realize by altering the food you are making people FAT and killing us?
-Is it true that Monsanto makes its GMO seed aluminum resistant due to the Geo-Engineering/Chemtrailing program going on?
"When me and my friends are out and one of us gets hurt, the rest of us laugh at him and say 'Looks like you just got Monsantoed!' How does this make you feel?"
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Those seem like soft-ball questions. And the answers seem PR formulaic, which I guess I should have expected since they get to pick what questions they answer.
posted by Phredward at 3:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Phredward at 3:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Man, Phredward, I'd hate to be at the receiving end of one of your questions if "WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION GOD?" is considered "soft-ball".
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:42 PM on November 17, 2014 [37 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:42 PM on November 17, 2014 [37 favorites]
What I find fascinating isn't really the oddball questions, but the oddball questions paired with the totally genuine, informative, PR answers.
Hi Gregg, we have all kinds of food in our cafeterias at work, including food made from GMO crops as well as from non-GMO crops.
~
There is no truth to the bioweapon rumor.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:45 PM on November 17, 2014 [14 favorites]
Hi Gregg, we have all kinds of food in our cafeterias at work, including food made from GMO crops as well as from non-GMO crops.
~
There is no truth to the bioweapon rumor.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:45 PM on November 17, 2014 [14 favorites]
It just doesn't seem like a nuanced question about the role of Monsanto's effects on the global farming economy or food biodiversity. Or their itchy trigger finger for suing farmers. Or any other number of real concerns that people more knowledgable than I have about Monsanto.
posted by Phredward at 3:45 PM on November 17, 2014 [18 favorites]
posted by Phredward at 3:45 PM on November 17, 2014 [18 favorites]
(Part of that is on me, there are plenty of questions on that stuff from people who don't come off as cranks that I didn't link. Obviously, it's a PR effort so the nuance isn't going to be too deep, but they do address it on the site. Okay, enough threadsitting!)
posted by Drinky Die at 3:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Drinky Die at 3:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
Or their itchy trigger finger for suing farmers.
The farmers sued were specifically looking for and saving roundup resistant crops. Farmers were testing crops and specifically saving only that seed. They knew what they were doing, they knew what they were looking for and they did it anyway to get around purchasing the specific seed. They even went to buying soybeans from commodity markets looking for roundup ready plants to end run around the costs and patent restrictions.
Monsato has specifically said it won't go after people with incidental amounts of roundup ready. They're looking for people who are doing things knowingly and deliberately. This was affirmed in Organic Seed Growers & Trade Ass'n v. Monsanto Co where federal courts both binded Monsato to its word and stopped a lawsuit preemptively on standing grounds because of that binding.
posted by Talez at 3:56 PM on November 17, 2014 [17 favorites]
The farmers sued were specifically looking for and saving roundup resistant crops. Farmers were testing crops and specifically saving only that seed. They knew what they were doing, they knew what they were looking for and they did it anyway to get around purchasing the specific seed. They even went to buying soybeans from commodity markets looking for roundup ready plants to end run around the costs and patent restrictions.
Monsato has specifically said it won't go after people with incidental amounts of roundup ready. They're looking for people who are doing things knowingly and deliberately. This was affirmed in Organic Seed Growers & Trade Ass'n v. Monsanto Co where federal courts both binded Monsato to its word and stopped a lawsuit preemptively on standing grounds because of that binding.
posted by Talez at 3:56 PM on November 17, 2014 [17 favorites]
Yes, poor Monsanto has such a heartbreaking history of being bullied by nasty farmers. We should totally believe their non-legally binding promises not to sue whoever they like, at their own discretion.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 4:00 PM on November 17, 2014 [12 favorites]
posted by demonic winged headgear at 4:00 PM on November 17, 2014 [12 favorites]
Twenty crisp American dollars says Monsanto's PR lackeys did a Thursday afternoon spitball session to come up with questions in a fake conversation, which make consumers look like unhinged, born-again, conspiracy-theorizing, liberal pinkos asking the good, reasonable people at Monsanto to stop beaming lizard pollen into their mind-brains.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:01 PM on November 17, 2014 [48 favorites]
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:01 PM on November 17, 2014 [48 favorites]
"Why are you reframing the dialogue on world hunger, which is a problem predicated on the inability or reluctance for agribusiness to distribute food where it is needed, as a purely technological problem related only to production?"
When all you have is gene-splicing, everything looks like a problem with crop yield.
Framing criticism to GMO as only woo-woo black helicopter thinking is fucking weak sauce, and tells you exactly where Monsanto knows they are lying BT omission.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:03 PM on November 17, 2014 [14 favorites]
When all you have is gene-splicing, everything looks like a problem with crop yield.
Framing criticism to GMO as only woo-woo black helicopter thinking is fucking weak sauce, and tells you exactly where Monsanto knows they are lying BT omission.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:03 PM on November 17, 2014 [14 favorites]
Drinky Die has picked some amusingly braindead questions, but a sampling of questions from the site look real and reasonable. The answers on the other hand seem to include a lot of evasions and continual repetition of the same handful of talking points.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:06 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:06 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
[Sorry, did not see Talez's last sentence. Let's see what happens outside the US.]
posted by demonic winged headgear at 4:07 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by demonic winged headgear at 4:07 PM on November 17, 2014
When all you have is gene-splicing, everything looks like a problem with crop yield.
Except for the past fifty years that has been a large majority of the problem. Getting better yield on the ground of the country (rather than importing from outside of it) has seen better food security and higher standards of living in general. The higher the yield, the lower the prices for crops worldwide.
posted by Talez at 4:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Except for the past fifty years that has been a large majority of the problem. Getting better yield on the ground of the country (rather than importing from outside of it) has seen better food security and higher standards of living in general. The higher the yield, the lower the prices for crops worldwide.
posted by Talez at 4:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Twenty crisp American dollars says Monsanto's PR lackeys did a Thursday afternoon spitball session to come up with questions in a fake conversation, which make consumers look like unhinged, born-again, conspiracy-theorizing, liberal pinkos
No need. I work for the government and these are real Americans. The majority of them in fact. They aren't pinko liberals though, no one believes in a good chemtrail, GMO, alien conspiracy like a life time NRA member who goes to church every Sunday. Well, except all the straight up gun nuts from small towns who don't believe in nuthin at all. And the engineers. God, the engineers. Aerospace engineers are particularly conspiracy prone for some reason.
posted by fshgrl at 4:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [31 favorites]
No need. I work for the government and these are real Americans. The majority of them in fact. They aren't pinko liberals though, no one believes in a good chemtrail, GMO, alien conspiracy like a life time NRA member who goes to church every Sunday. Well, except all the straight up gun nuts from small towns who don't believe in nuthin at all. And the engineers. God, the engineers. Aerospace engineers are particularly conspiracy prone for some reason.
posted by fshgrl at 4:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [31 favorites]
(Personally I'm pro-GM in principle but anti- as it's currently practiced. I think absolute control should reside in the public sector, with a panel of independent scientists and bioethicists -- thoroughly vetted for COI -- with final authority on what is and is not to be done at least for a few generations. This is big stuff, with amazing potential, and the way it's being used is complete shit.)
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]
Aerospace engineers are particularly conspiracy prone for some reason.
Well, most of them *have* seen the UFOs, if not worked on the reverse-engineering project.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2014 [13 favorites]
Well, most of them *have* seen the UFOs, if not worked on the reverse-engineering project.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2014 [13 favorites]
If aerospace engineers believe in chemtrails that puts a whole nother spin on things.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:21 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:21 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
There are 2 kinds of softball questions:
1. Guys you are great why are you so great?
2. I'm wearing a tinfoil hat to protect from chemtrails and roundup. why are you destroying solar system?
posted by rainy at 4:29 PM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]
1. Guys you are great why are you so great?
2. I'm wearing a tinfoil hat to protect from chemtrails and roundup. why are you destroying solar system?
posted by rainy at 4:29 PM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]
demonic winged headgear: "We should totally believe their non-legally binding promises not to sue whoever they like, at their own discretion."
Except they haven't sued anyone other than people who were willfully and obviously taking Monsanto tech for themselves without paying for it. Now, if you want to talk IP law reform, I'm right up there with you, but stop propagating this myth that Monsanto sues people who accidentally get GMO plants on their land or anything like that, because it's bullshit and never happened.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:32 PM on November 17, 2014 [12 favorites]
Except they haven't sued anyone other than people who were willfully and obviously taking Monsanto tech for themselves without paying for it. Now, if you want to talk IP law reform, I'm right up there with you, but stop propagating this myth that Monsanto sues people who accidentally get GMO plants on their land or anything like that, because it's bullshit and never happened.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:32 PM on November 17, 2014 [12 favorites]
I'm actually entertained that the "1600 studies" link here is bum, because there are 0 studies proving gmo harm. Anti-gmo loves info dumping hundreds of links. No one untrained person could just pour over that many studies.
Of course Monsanto has PR. Big Organic has PR - they're the ones that picked one company as the face of All the Evil Food. Congrats, you've been PR'd, non-conformists inherently resistant to all things PR.
For example, no one is itchily suing farmers. Maybe step away slowly from the biased documentaries.
There are real and reasonable AND highly educated people working on food that will give rehearsed and thoughtful answers to the inane unoriginal questions they get ALL the time. Those ripping out fields of golden rice, cherry picking questions, leaving death threats on Monsanto's instagram, and littering your fb feed with memes do not have answers. They are the ones calling Roundup a pesticide.
posted by lawliet at 4:33 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Of course Monsanto has PR. Big Organic has PR - they're the ones that picked one company as the face of All the Evil Food. Congrats, you've been PR'd, non-conformists inherently resistant to all things PR.
For example, no one is itchily suing farmers. Maybe step away slowly from the biased documentaries.
There are real and reasonable AND highly educated people working on food that will give rehearsed and thoughtful answers to the inane unoriginal questions they get ALL the time. Those ripping out fields of golden rice, cherry picking questions, leaving death threats on Monsanto's instagram, and littering your fb feed with memes do not have answers. They are the ones calling Roundup a pesticide.
posted by lawliet at 4:33 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Having once long-ago in another life worked for this company, I have seen what is done to the animals and the humans in the name of science and progress. No thanks.
Also, having recently visited my alma mater, I saw that the nuclear reactor has been renamed the Monsanto Life Sciences Incubator. So that's not sketchy.
posted by riverlife at 4:35 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Also, having recently visited my alma mater, I saw that the nuclear reactor has been renamed the Monsanto Life Sciences Incubator. So that's not sketchy.
posted by riverlife at 4:35 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
The format doesn't make it easily searchable, but I'd like to see their response to questions about patenting conventionally bred seed and even preexisting genomes. I don't see anything related there.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
I haven't been PR'd. I just find it a little odd that farmers were growing crops for thousands of years and then using some of the seeds to plant the next crop, and now they can't. And now they have to buy both the seeds and expensive insecticide from one convenient place.
posted by rainy at 4:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by rainy at 4:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [10 favorites]
(Oops, contacted mods to fix 1600 link.)
posted by Drinky Die at 4:39 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by Drinky Die at 4:39 PM on November 17, 2014
(There's actually a pretty good search, hit the magnifying glass above "view mode.")
posted by Drinky Die at 4:41 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by Drinky Die at 4:41 PM on November 17, 2014
chemtrails. lol.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:47 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:47 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
I am literally on the edge of my seat as I await your FPP on aerospace conspiracy theories.
I know two engineers who works on spacecraft of various types and both believe the world is only 6000 years old and the bible is literal. I've never had the sense they were the only ones.
posted by fshgrl at 4:51 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
I know two engineers who works on spacecraft of various types and both believe the world is only 6000 years old and the bible is literal. I've never had the sense they were the only ones.
posted by fshgrl at 4:51 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
Farmers were growing for their families and communities for thousands of years. Now they are growing for the world. It's more complex than one method, which is all organic is. It's really really difficult to cultivate conformity in food and losing crops is gut-wrenching. Practically eliminating those two worries is worth a lot.
If they are entrepreneurs and economical (hint: they are) , farmers will appreciate the BT seed when applicable since it means they will spend less or nothing on insecticide. (Roundup isn't insecticide.) BT works on stomach pH, and even if BT was in the finished product, human pH is vastly different than insects. We should be happy were not like insects. I'm pretty tickled about it.
Farmers will happily buy fresh seed as 2nd Gen hybrid would be wonky. Force is a weird spin on this.
posted by lawliet at 4:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
If they are entrepreneurs and economical (hint: they are) , farmers will appreciate the BT seed when applicable since it means they will spend less or nothing on insecticide. (Roundup isn't insecticide.) BT works on stomach pH, and even if BT was in the finished product, human pH is vastly different than insects. We should be happy were not like insects. I'm pretty tickled about it.
Farmers will happily buy fresh seed as 2nd Gen hybrid would be wonky. Force is a weird spin on this.
posted by lawliet at 4:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
There is no truth to the bioweapon rumor.
Is that PR speak for it is no rumor and is true? ;-) If so, when did you stop beating your wife?
calling Roundup a pesticide.
Meanwhile:
A landmark study indicates that seven pesticides, some widely used, may be causing clinical depression in farmers. Will the government step in and start regulating these chemical tools?
How long and what studies would be acceptable to the there are 0 studies proving gmo harm crowd?
posted by rough ashlar at 4:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Is that PR speak for it is no rumor and is true? ;-) If so, when did you stop beating your wife?
calling Roundup a pesticide.
Meanwhile:
A landmark study indicates that seven pesticides, some widely used, may be causing clinical depression in farmers. Will the government step in and start regulating these chemical tools?
How long and what studies would be acceptable to the there are 0 studies proving gmo harm crowd?
posted by rough ashlar at 4:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
God created everything perfectly, how is it you think you can outdo HIM
He isn't above manipulating the yield Himself, y'know. Jesus could never have fed the multitude with seven loaves and two fishes if they'd been conventionally grown.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:05 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
He isn't above manipulating the yield Himself, y'know. Jesus could never have fed the multitude with seven loaves and two fishes if they'd been conventionally grown.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:05 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
My question:
"What are the worst human health effects you've found Roundup to cause?"
I just bought a reverse osmosis water filter so that my infant daughter has a little more protection against the Roundup that my corn-farming neighbor pours onto his crops (and by extension into our groundwater) by the hundreds of gallons. It would be nice to have a candid answer to this, but it's PR, so I'm not expecting much.
posted by wormwood23 at 5:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
"What are the worst human health effects you've found Roundup to cause?"
I just bought a reverse osmosis water filter so that my infant daughter has a little more protection against the Roundup that my corn-farming neighbor pours onto his crops (and by extension into our groundwater) by the hundreds of gallons. It would be nice to have a candid answer to this, but it's PR, so I'm not expecting much.
posted by wormwood23 at 5:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
Do you know of any bourbon made with GM corn? I've been trying to come up with a mixed drink that I can justify calling a Monsanto.
posted by pyramid termite at 5:17 PM on November 17, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 5:17 PM on November 17, 2014 [10 favorites]
lawliet, sorry you're right - not an insecticide.
Farmers and their communities were the world, so they were growing for the world.
The thing is that I don't mind advances in technology and even limited use of GMO, but it's not up to farmers anymore. Your argument is that if they're smart, they'll like it, and if they don't like it, they must be dumb. I think they're just thinking in more of a long term. Right now a foreign company (for most of them) suddenly has a huge amount of control over them. The way it's always worked is that a company comes up with a new product and sells it and then it's buyer's product. Why does Monsanto get to suddenly change the rules of what it means to buy and sell something?
It's like, if Dell sells a server to Monsanto, maybe Dell wants to say they own the work created on that server? Oh, I forgot, Monsanto is dealing with millions of farmers close to poverty, that's why they can invent new rules.
posted by rainy at 5:24 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Farmers and their communities were the world, so they were growing for the world.
The thing is that I don't mind advances in technology and even limited use of GMO, but it's not up to farmers anymore. Your argument is that if they're smart, they'll like it, and if they don't like it, they must be dumb. I think they're just thinking in more of a long term. Right now a foreign company (for most of them) suddenly has a huge amount of control over them. The way it's always worked is that a company comes up with a new product and sells it and then it's buyer's product. Why does Monsanto get to suddenly change the rules of what it means to buy and sell something?
It's like, if Dell sells a server to Monsanto, maybe Dell wants to say they own the work created on that server? Oh, I forgot, Monsanto is dealing with millions of farmers close to poverty, that's why they can invent new rules.
posted by rainy at 5:24 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Do you know of any bourbon made with GM corn? I've been trying to come up with a mixed drink that I can justify calling a Monsanto.
Looks like most of it will have GM corn, though a few brands hold out to appease foreign markets where there is more GM fear.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:24 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Looks like most of it will have GM corn, though a few brands hold out to appease foreign markets where there is more GM fear.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:24 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's really really difficult to cultivate conformity in food...
It's really difficult because it's charging headfirst against ecology.
posted by werkzeuger at 5:30 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
It's really difficult because it's charging headfirst against ecology.
posted by werkzeuger at 5:30 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
lawliet: "They are the ones calling Roundup a pesticide."
Roundup is a pesticide, by the way. Pesticides include insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:38 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
Roundup is a pesticide, by the way. Pesticides include insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:38 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
rough ashlar: "A landmark study indicates that seven pesticides, some widely used, may be causing clinical depression in farmers. Will the government step in and start regulating these chemical tools?
How long and what studies would be acceptable to the there are 0 studies proving gmo harm crowd?"
RoundUp, the only pesticide remotely related to GMOs, is not one of those. I guess you could count Bt toxin as well, but that's not one of those either.
There are literally zero studies proving GMO harm. Whether the people who tell you that are a "crowd" or not has no bearing on that fact.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
How long and what studies would be acceptable to the there are 0 studies proving gmo harm crowd?"
RoundUp, the only pesticide remotely related to GMOs, is not one of those. I guess you could count Bt toxin as well, but that's not one of those either.
There are literally zero studies proving GMO harm. Whether the people who tell you that are a "crowd" or not has no bearing on that fact.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
As a newish farmer, I've changed my stance on GMO over the years (experiences with organic farming, and reading stuff on the interwebs). However, I have not changed my stance much on Monsanto. The "sues any farmer that has Monsanto seeds" myth is indeed bullshit, but that doesn't make them a nice company.
posted by snwod at 5:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by snwod at 5:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
rainy: "It's like, if Dell sells a server to Monsanto, maybe Dell wants to say they own the work created on that server? Oh, I forgot, Monsanto is dealing with millions of farmers close to poverty, that's why they can invent new rules."
It's not "buying and selling", it's licensing. Which is nothing new, it's not done for servers, but it is most definitely done for software running on servers.
Now, again, if you want to talk IP law reform, I'm with you, but let's not pretend Monsanto is "redefining" anything here, or is the only company doing stuff like this. Licensing of hybrid seeds has been done for decades, and by many other companies apart from Monsanto.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:44 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
It's not "buying and selling", it's licensing. Which is nothing new, it's not done for servers, but it is most definitely done for software running on servers.
Now, again, if you want to talk IP law reform, I'm with you, but let's not pretend Monsanto is "redefining" anything here, or is the only company doing stuff like this. Licensing of hybrid seeds has been done for decades, and by many other companies apart from Monsanto.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:44 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
This issue, like no other to me, seems like it's right out of a sci-fi novel. In any realm other than reality, the idea that science (we love science remember) can improve plants and animals in ways that they are no longer susceptible to pests and diseases, in order to better feed the world, would be embraced as the 'best possible future' by most; but...of course, the wielders of this power are not simply benevolent white coats prepared to bequeath this gift to humanity for free, but rather, black hat corporate types bent on ending the human race forever (through food!).
I agree that Monsanto hasn't done itself any favors over the years by some of their strong-arm tactics, and that agencies like the FDA should be given real power to regulate in order to insure the safety of our food, but the products themselves...they honestly seem like a pretty good thing to me in the big picture of things.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:46 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
I agree that Monsanto hasn't done itself any favors over the years by some of their strong-arm tactics, and that agencies like the FDA should be given real power to regulate in order to insure the safety of our food, but the products themselves...they honestly seem like a pretty good thing to me in the big picture of things.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:46 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Monsato has specifically said it won't go after people with incidental amounts of roundup ready. They're looking for people who are doing things knowingly and deliberately. This was affirmed in Organic Seed Growers & Trade Ass'n v. Monsanto Co where federal courts both binded Monsato to its word and stopped a lawsuit preemptively on standing grounds because of that binding.
Sorry if I'm reading this wrong. This paragraph seems to say that Monsanto promised they wouldn't sue any farmers planting things incidentally, and this was proven because when they did sue for that a federal court rejected the lawsuit?
posted by one_bean at 5:51 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Sorry if I'm reading this wrong. This paragraph seems to say that Monsanto promised they wouldn't sue any farmers planting things incidentally, and this was proven because when they did sue for that a federal court rejected the lawsuit?
posted by one_bean at 5:51 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
one_bean: "Sorry if I'm reading this wrong. This paragraph seems to say that Monsanto promised they wouldn't sue any farmers planting things incidentally, and this was proven because when they did sue for that a federal court rejected the lawsuit?"
No, that lawsuit was brought by the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Ass'n, seeking a declaratory judgment saying they were not liable for accidental contamination. Monsanto pointed out that it had never been their policy, nor did they intend to hold anyone liable for accidental infringement, and the court for that reason found that the Association did not have standing.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:56 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
No, that lawsuit was brought by the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Ass'n, seeking a declaratory judgment saying they were not liable for accidental contamination. Monsanto pointed out that it had never been their policy, nor did they intend to hold anyone liable for accidental infringement, and the court for that reason found that the Association did not have standing.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:56 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
(It's worth noticing that during that lawsuit, the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association was asked to provide examples of Monsanto suing anyone for accidental contamination/unintentional infringement, and they were unable to come up with a single example.)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:01 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:01 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Joakim Ziegler: if I understand right, they take a bit out of genome not created by them and put in another bit from genome also not created by them. How do you go from that to millions of farmers having a greater level of dependence on them than serfs did to their masters?
posted by rainy at 6:10 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by rainy at 6:10 PM on November 17, 2014
rainy: "Joakim Ziegler: if I understand right, they take a bit out of genome not created by them and put in another bit from genome also not created by them. How do you go from that to millions of farmers having a greater level of dependence on them than serfs did to their masters?"
I'm not sure they have a greater level of dependence, so I'm assuming you're being hyperbolic. If farmers don't want their seed, they can just not use it. Of course, this is not just the case with GMO seeds, it's also the case with hybrids, and has been the case for much longer than GMO seeds have existed.
Now, just note that even farmers who don't use licensed (GMO or hybrid) seeds usually don't save seed. It's easier and cheaper (because of the work and conditions required to store the seed) to just buy new seed each year anyway.
Now, IP law currently allows patenting both GMO and hybrid seeds. I'm all for a discussion of reforming the patent (and copyright) system, but patents don't last all that long anyway, and are probably not a huge problem.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:30 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure they have a greater level of dependence, so I'm assuming you're being hyperbolic. If farmers don't want their seed, they can just not use it. Of course, this is not just the case with GMO seeds, it's also the case with hybrids, and has been the case for much longer than GMO seeds have existed.
Now, just note that even farmers who don't use licensed (GMO or hybrid) seeds usually don't save seed. It's easier and cheaper (because of the work and conditions required to store the seed) to just buy new seed each year anyway.
Now, IP law currently allows patenting both GMO and hybrid seeds. I'm all for a discussion of reforming the patent (and copyright) system, but patents don't last all that long anyway, and are probably not a huge problem.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:30 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
.. but let's not pretend Monsanto is "redefining" anything here, or is the only company doing stuff like this.
Sure, but they are one of the biggest players in this and certainly the most prominent. The schoolyard logic of "but everyone is doing it" doesn't cut it here.
posted by deadwax at 6:42 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sure, but they are one of the biggest players in this and certainly the most prominent. The schoolyard logic of "but everyone is doing it" doesn't cut it here.
posted by deadwax at 6:42 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
deadwax: "Sure, but they are one of the biggest players in this and certainly the most prominent. The schoolyard logic of "but everyone is doing it" doesn't cut it here."
That's not what this is about, and your suggestion is disingenuous. It's not just "all the seed companies are doing it", it's "this model for licensing intellectual property is common across a bunch of industries and has been for the last 100 years". Licensing of hybrid seeds is many decades old, licensing of software and whatnot too. Nothing is being "redefined".
Monsanto is not the most prominent company that does IP licensing, Microsoft might be more relevant. Or pharmaceutical companies. A huge part of industry works on this kind of model. Monsanto has 23% of the global seed market, DuPont has 15%, Syngenta 9%.
As I've said several times, I'm open to discussing IP law reform (although I think copyright is a much bigger problem than patents, at least if we could make the patent review process a bit stricter, and maybe differentiate the patent period for different types of patents), but this is not about Monsanto, or about GMO seeds, or even about seeds in general.
I'm not saying Monsanto is pure good, they're probably about as shitty as most companies that size. But they're nothing out of the ordinary, and a lot of the shit they get is undeserved, based on untruths, or based on anti-science woo (like the anti-GMO stuff). The vast majority of criticism of Monsanto, even in this thread, is not of what they actually do, but what people imagine they do, or of imaginary negative effects of their products, mainly GMO seeds. And that's bullshit.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:58 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
That's not what this is about, and your suggestion is disingenuous. It's not just "all the seed companies are doing it", it's "this model for licensing intellectual property is common across a bunch of industries and has been for the last 100 years". Licensing of hybrid seeds is many decades old, licensing of software and whatnot too. Nothing is being "redefined".
Monsanto is not the most prominent company that does IP licensing, Microsoft might be more relevant. Or pharmaceutical companies. A huge part of industry works on this kind of model. Monsanto has 23% of the global seed market, DuPont has 15%, Syngenta 9%.
As I've said several times, I'm open to discussing IP law reform (although I think copyright is a much bigger problem than patents, at least if we could make the patent review process a bit stricter, and maybe differentiate the patent period for different types of patents), but this is not about Monsanto, or about GMO seeds, or even about seeds in general.
I'm not saying Monsanto is pure good, they're probably about as shitty as most companies that size. But they're nothing out of the ordinary, and a lot of the shit they get is undeserved, based on untruths, or based on anti-science woo (like the anti-GMO stuff). The vast majority of criticism of Monsanto, even in this thread, is not of what they actually do, but what people imagine they do, or of imaginary negative effects of their products, mainly GMO seeds. And that's bullshit.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:58 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
Preventing seed saving is a core business strategy. This is less of an issue in the US than it is for small-scale farmers internationally (i.e.: still the majority of the world). I just found this paper that seems to sum up some of the ethical issues pretty even-handedly. A key point raised: changing the current standards around seed saving could be justified if there is a greater good (not just rich Monsanto execs). But that greater good has not yet been demonstrated.
This is a good summary:
Ethically, Monsanto has a primary obligation—even above profitability—
to make sure that their products and their value capture strategies—at
minimum—do not harm others, do not harm the environment, do not harm
important human relationships and practices, and do not disrupt economic
arrangements that may be more beneficial to farmers than the alternatives
entailed by Monsanto’s strategies. They should also ensure that the relationships
developed with farmers and companies as a result of implementing any
contracting strategy be one of truly valid, informed consent, with each party
freely and competently entering into agreements with full knowledge of risks,
harms, and benefits.
posted by latkes at 7:03 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
This is a good summary:
Ethically, Monsanto has a primary obligation—even above profitability—
to make sure that their products and their value capture strategies—at
minimum—do not harm others, do not harm the environment, do not harm
important human relationships and practices, and do not disrupt economic
arrangements that may be more beneficial to farmers than the alternatives
entailed by Monsanto’s strategies. They should also ensure that the relationships
developed with farmers and companies as a result of implementing any
contracting strategy be one of truly valid, informed consent, with each party
freely and competently entering into agreements with full knowledge of risks,
harms, and benefits.
posted by latkes at 7:03 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
That paper is very obviously written by a philosopher, and spends unnecessary time talking about terminator technology (which was never commercialized, and would none the less have been less of a problem than people would have you believe, for various reasons), and also claims there are uncertainties about risks to human health and the environment, which is plain untrue. So yeah, interesting as a philosophical discussion of ethics, I suppose, but not very interesting in practical terms.
I do agree that it's important that farmers enter into licensing agreements with fully informed consent. I don't see anything to indicate that they don't, though, and if you don't want to license seeds and abide by the licensing agreement, you can just choose not to. Organic farmers do, for instance. Of course, organic farming is more expensive, because it's less efficient, uses more resources, and taxes the environment more, which is why organic produce is more expensive, despite not being better quality, more nutritious, or using less pesticides.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:18 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
I do agree that it's important that farmers enter into licensing agreements with fully informed consent. I don't see anything to indicate that they don't, though, and if you don't want to license seeds and abide by the licensing agreement, you can just choose not to. Organic farmers do, for instance. Of course, organic farming is more expensive, because it's less efficient, uses more resources, and taxes the environment more, which is why organic produce is more expensive, despite not being better quality, more nutritious, or using less pesticides.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:18 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
By the way, hybrid seeds, which have been common for some 80 years, and often have no patent restrictions, are often unsuitable for seed saving, because the hybrid traits that make them desirable are not well inherited from one generation to the next. They need to be re-hybridized to create new seeds for each year.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
And the engineers. God, the engineers. Aerospace engineers are particularly conspiracy prone for some reason.
I am literally on the edge of my seat as I await your FPP on aerospace conspiracy theories.
Just to add to this particular derail...
I knew a guy. Worked on ICBMs, helped put folks in orbit. A genuine rocket scientist if ever there was one. Thought relativity was part of the Intenational Jewish Conspiracy. Spent his sunset years trying to figure a way to debunk the Michelson–Morley experiment and demonstrate that the luminiferous aether was real. Ironically,his ancestry was more than half Jewish, so maybe he'd know?
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 7:28 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
I am literally on the edge of my seat as I await your FPP on aerospace conspiracy theories.
Just to add to this particular derail...
I knew a guy. Worked on ICBMs, helped put folks in orbit. A genuine rocket scientist if ever there was one. Thought relativity was part of the Intenational Jewish Conspiracy. Spent his sunset years trying to figure a way to debunk the Michelson–Morley experiment and demonstrate that the luminiferous aether was real. Ironically,his ancestry was more than half Jewish, so maybe he'd know?
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 7:28 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
I'm not overly surprised that aerospace engineers "swing that way", as it were. They're almost exclusively employed by the military-industrial complex, much of their work is dual-use, as you mentioned, "worked on ICBMs, helped put folks in orbit". It's pretty easy to go full right-wing nut, and once you're there, weird conspiracy theories abound.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:34 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:34 PM on November 17, 2014
they take a bit out of genome not created by them and put in another bit from genome also not created by them. How do you go from that to millions of farmers having a greater level of dependence on them than serfs did to their masters?
I don't know how Joakim Ziegler can stand to answer this in a way I saw as calm and confident. It reads like something that ought to be appended directly to the questions quoted in the main post. Joakim, you have some steady nerves.
posted by timfinnie at 7:36 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
I don't know how Joakim Ziegler can stand to answer this in a way I saw as calm and confident. It reads like something that ought to be appended directly to the questions quoted in the main post. Joakim, you have some steady nerves.
posted by timfinnie at 7:36 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
helped put folks in orbit. A genuine rocket scientist if ever there was one. Thought relativity was part of the Intenational Jewish Conspiracy.
Da fuh? You can't do orbits without special relativity. The math will never quite work.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
Da fuh? You can't do orbits without special relativity. The math will never quite work.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
I do agree that it's important that farmers enter into licensing agreements with fully informed consent. I don't see anything to indicate that they don't, though, and if you don't want to license seeds and abide by the licensing agreement, you can just choose not to.
It sounds like you know a fair amount about Monsanto in general, and I'm interested to hear more information that is new to me (you opened my eyes on the specifics of the actual lawsuits for example), however, this quote is either naive or deliberately wrong. Poor, third world farmers do not have fully informed consent nor do they have the real choice you imply. From what I understand, Monsanto controls more than 90% of the cotton seed market in India. How is there any choice in such a concentrated market? Especially if you are in poverty, as most farmers are?
I mean, if you're going to be the big defender of Monsanto, and prize science and research so much, it seems worthwhile to research how their business practices are actually impacting real people today. Why would poor farmers, from South America to South Asia, be making these same complaints about Monsanto? Just because they're irrational and anti-science?
posted by latkes at 7:38 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'd hate to be at the receiving end of one of your questions if "WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION GOD?" is considered "soft-ball".
Are you kidding? That's any PR person's dream question. You can respond with the blandest of non-answers and look patient, gracious, and reasonable.
posted by straight at 7:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Are you kidding? That's any PR person's dream question. You can respond with the blandest of non-answers and look patient, gracious, and reasonable.
posted by straight at 7:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
(you opened my eyes on the specifics of the actual lawsuits for example)
Somebody ends up confronting that in pretty much every Monsanto related thread. What you should do before moving forward is ask yourself if the rest of your opinions about Monsanto are influenced at all by the same people who put out deceptive information about the lawsuits.
This is what Monsanto links to about Indian cotton, I don't claim any knowledge on if they are really right about this. Just linking the point of view they prefer, which I would paraphrase as, "Farmers choose to plant it because it's better.":
Chinthi Reddy, a farmer in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, who cultivates cotton with Bt seeds on his five-acre land, says: “Life has never been so good.” Reddy has installed drip irrigation in his field at an investment of Rs. 70,000 and sent his son to the UK for MS studies in 2008. What's more, earning Rs. 20,000 per acre in his cotton fields and saving Rs. 7,500 per acre on account of less pesticide use has given him the added financial muscle to purchase more land for farming.
Reddy's story resonates with that of 60 lakh farmers who plant cotton with insect-protection technologies across India. This is a story of the transformation of cotton farming in India since 2002.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Somebody ends up confronting that in pretty much every Monsanto related thread. What you should do before moving forward is ask yourself if the rest of your opinions about Monsanto are influenced at all by the same people who put out deceptive information about the lawsuits.
This is what Monsanto links to about Indian cotton, I don't claim any knowledge on if they are really right about this. Just linking the point of view they prefer, which I would paraphrase as, "Farmers choose to plant it because it's better.":
Chinthi Reddy, a farmer in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, who cultivates cotton with Bt seeds on his five-acre land, says: “Life has never been so good.” Reddy has installed drip irrigation in his field at an investment of Rs. 70,000 and sent his son to the UK for MS studies in 2008. What's more, earning Rs. 20,000 per acre in his cotton fields and saving Rs. 7,500 per acre on account of less pesticide use has given him the added financial muscle to purchase more land for farming.
Reddy's story resonates with that of 60 lakh farmers who plant cotton with insect-protection technologies across India. This is a story of the transformation of cotton farming in India since 2002.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Well if any institution can question God, surely it's going to be one called "Monsanto".
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
latkes: "Poor, third world farmers do not have fully informed consent nor do they have the real choice you imply. From what I understand, Monsanto controls more than 90% of the cotton seed market in India. How is there any choice in such a concentrated market? Especially if you are in poverty, as most farmers are?
I mean, if you're going to be the big defender of Monsanto, and prize science and research so much, it seems worthwhile to research how their business practices are actually impacting real people today. Why would poor farmers, from South America to South Asia, be making these same complaints about Monsanto? Just because they're irrational and anti-science?"
This is interesting, because now we're actually getting at stuff that I think it might well be worthwhile to criticize Monsanto for. It's problematic that any one company has a monopoly. Although, I thought 90% seemed high, so I googled, and found this article from an Indian business newspaper, which says:
Of course, this might mean that farmers who don't want to or can't afford to license the technology can't compete, but that's sort of proving that the technology in itself is beneficial.
I'd be all for agrotech development and GMO development to be more in public hands, honestly, I think it would be beneficial for everyone. Unfortunately, the anti-GMO movement makes that even more difficult, even in areas that are usually fairly open to this kind of public investment, like Europe and India.
(I do think that a large part of the global resistance to Monsanto is not caused by actual experiences, but rather the highly globalized anti-GMO movement. People like Vandana Shiva (who is legit nuts, by the way, and constantly lies about things like farmer suicide and golden rice) lead a very internationally coordinated campaign, so it's not that suprising that we hear the same arguments from different parts of the world.)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:12 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
I mean, if you're going to be the big defender of Monsanto, and prize science and research so much, it seems worthwhile to research how their business practices are actually impacting real people today. Why would poor farmers, from South America to South Asia, be making these same complaints about Monsanto? Just because they're irrational and anti-science?"
This is interesting, because now we're actually getting at stuff that I think it might well be worthwhile to criticize Monsanto for. It's problematic that any one company has a monopoly. Although, I thought 90% seemed high, so I googled, and found this article from an Indian business newspaper, which says:
Monsanto has a four per cent market share of the estimated 45 million-packets-a-year Indian cotton hybrids seeds market.So it's not quite Monsanto that has 90% of the market, although their technology is used in a lot of the market. But yes, this could be problematic. Now, the first generation of this technology is from 1996, and the second generation is from 2003, so it's not that far from the patents expiring. I don't know enough about these pests and how big a problem they are for cotton farming, but given the dominance in the market, I assume the pest resistance is useful enough that it's worth the licensing cost.
The main players in this ₹3,700-crore segment are Nuziveedu Seeds, Kaveri Seeds, Mahyco, Ajeet Seeds, Ankur Seeds, DCM Shriram Bioseed and Rasi Seeds.
All these companies, nevertheless, use Monsanto’s proprietary ‘Bollgard’ insect pest resistance technology in their hybrids.
For this, they pay a trait fee amounting to roughly 20 per cent of the maximum retail price.
Of course, this might mean that farmers who don't want to or can't afford to license the technology can't compete, but that's sort of proving that the technology in itself is beneficial.
I'd be all for agrotech development and GMO development to be more in public hands, honestly, I think it would be beneficial for everyone. Unfortunately, the anti-GMO movement makes that even more difficult, even in areas that are usually fairly open to this kind of public investment, like Europe and India.
(I do think that a large part of the global resistance to Monsanto is not caused by actual experiences, but rather the highly globalized anti-GMO movement. People like Vandana Shiva (who is legit nuts, by the way, and constantly lies about things like farmer suicide and golden rice) lead a very internationally coordinated campaign, so it's not that suprising that we hear the same arguments from different parts of the world.)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:12 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]
Your search - site:discover.monsanto.com "colony collapse disorder" - did not match any documents.
posted by basicchannel at 8:37 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by basicchannel at 8:37 PM on November 17, 2014
basicchannel: "Your search - site:discover.monsanto.com "colony collapse disorder" - did not match any documents."
Monsanto doesn't make neonicotinoids, the insecticide most commonly suspected to be associated with CCD (although it seems lately the insecticide possibility has been discredited).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:39 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
Monsanto doesn't make neonicotinoids, the insecticide most commonly suspected to be associated with CCD (although it seems lately the insecticide possibility has been discredited).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:39 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
Monsanto doesn't make neonicotinoids, the insecticide most commonly suspected to be associated with CCD (although it seems lately the insecticide possibility has been discredited).
If by "discredited" you mean a single study published in an online only, open access journal, funded by Bayer, that had only five replicates, and those treatments applied for two weeks, off season, yes, I guess it does seem like pesticides have been discredited.
posted by one_bean at 9:45 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
If by "discredited" you mean a single study published in an online only, open access journal, funded by Bayer, that had only five replicates, and those treatments applied for two weeks, off season, yes, I guess it does seem like pesticides have been discredited.
posted by one_bean at 9:45 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
one_bean: "If by "discredited" you mean a single study published in an online only, open access journal, funded by Bayer, that had only five replicates, and those treatments applied for two weeks, off season, yes, I guess it does seem like pesticides have been discredited."
My understanding is that a number of possibilities are considered more likely now, including fungicides (for unknown reasons), nosema, varroa mites, etc. It's of course possible that it's a combination of factors. I'm in no way an expert on CCD, but I've seen nothing that indicates that a smoking gun has been found.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:09 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
My understanding is that a number of possibilities are considered more likely now, including fungicides (for unknown reasons), nosema, varroa mites, etc. It's of course possible that it's a combination of factors. I'm in no way an expert on CCD, but I've seen nothing that indicates that a smoking gun has been found.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:09 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
(All attempts to implicate Monsanto in CCD that I've seen have been along the lines of "GMOs! Thus, all the bees die!", though, so I feel fairly confident in saying that CCD is not Monsanto's fault.)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:11 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:11 PM on November 17, 2014
Pretty much every single Monsanto thread on MetaFilter makes me trust Monsanto more. You can only take so much of "I know they're evil but I'm not sure why, somebody else who is more knowledgable will come along and justify my beliefs for me," before one begins to question prevailing wisdom.
Also, having grown up in farm country, the ignorance of "sure it's all safe but what about the larger econmic effects of Monsanto," is pretty hard to reconcile. I mean, if you're going to talk about the market, at least talk about the realities of the market, where Monsanto is just one player of many, and exerts "force" on farmers by being a better economic deal rather by some sort of monopolistic force or network effects of a traditional monopoly.
So I've come to think that Monsanto is just shorthand for not Monsanto the company or any of its actions, as much as "Monsanto" is equated to the vagaries of capitalism in agriculture. Which, if you're going to make an argument about that, it would be far stronger to talk about reality rather than trying to lay the blame at the foot of a single company because that's not going to survive a simple fact check.
So I guess this is the thread where I realize that I think Monsanto is no worse than Nike or Apple. And maybe better for the world than Exxon or a company that makes cars and is fueling the destruction of our climate. Thanks, MetaFilter, I think? Please correct me ASAP if anybody has, you know, information about this rather than speculation and rumors.
posted by Llama-Lime at 10:49 PM on November 17, 2014 [13 favorites]
Also, having grown up in farm country, the ignorance of "sure it's all safe but what about the larger econmic effects of Monsanto," is pretty hard to reconcile. I mean, if you're going to talk about the market, at least talk about the realities of the market, where Monsanto is just one player of many, and exerts "force" on farmers by being a better economic deal rather by some sort of monopolistic force or network effects of a traditional monopoly.
So I've come to think that Monsanto is just shorthand for not Monsanto the company or any of its actions, as much as "Monsanto" is equated to the vagaries of capitalism in agriculture. Which, if you're going to make an argument about that, it would be far stronger to talk about reality rather than trying to lay the blame at the foot of a single company because that's not going to survive a simple fact check.
So I guess this is the thread where I realize that I think Monsanto is no worse than Nike or Apple. And maybe better for the world than Exxon or a company that makes cars and is fueling the destruction of our climate. Thanks, MetaFilter, I think? Please correct me ASAP if anybody has, you know, information about this rather than speculation and rumors.
posted by Llama-Lime at 10:49 PM on November 17, 2014 [13 favorites]
Come on, really? This corporation, in its 100+-year history, has lurched from environmental disaster to environmental disaster, all in the service of profit, and never learning from its long history of mistakes.
Because inventing and foisting PCBs on the world was not a mistake, it was a profitable enterprise. Producing Agent Orange, with its fellow traveler dioxin, during the Vietnam War was not a mistake but rather a good deal. Creating over 40 Superfund toxic waste sites that taxpayers paid/are paying most of the freight for, another great deal for the company. Doing everything possible to hide, minimize, whitewash, and legally obfuscate its past with an amazing legal team, yet another good deal for the company.
An organization with this kind of track record and aggressive legal modus operandi is the last group to whom we should be entrusting anything to do with our fundamental food supply and security, let alone everything.
posted by riverlife at 11:29 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
Because inventing and foisting PCBs on the world was not a mistake, it was a profitable enterprise. Producing Agent Orange, with its fellow traveler dioxin, during the Vietnam War was not a mistake but rather a good deal. Creating over 40 Superfund toxic waste sites that taxpayers paid/are paying most of the freight for, another great deal for the company. Doing everything possible to hide, minimize, whitewash, and legally obfuscate its past with an amazing legal team, yet another good deal for the company.
An organization with this kind of track record and aggressive legal modus operandi is the last group to whom we should be entrusting anything to do with our fundamental food supply and security, let alone everything.
posted by riverlife at 11:29 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
A) Excuse me, Monsanto purchased the original inventor of PCBs in the 1920s, then was the exclusive purveyor of PCBs for over 50 years domestically.
B) These things, which are merely the tip of a very toxic iceberg, are easily searchable. Despite Monsanto's best efforts to the contrary one can quickly discover what this company has consistently been throughout its history, and why it is naive, to say the least, to imagine that it has suddenly changed course with respect to GMO.
posted by riverlife at 11:50 PM on November 17, 2014
B) These things, which are merely the tip of a very toxic iceberg, are easily searchable. Despite Monsanto's best efforts to the contrary one can quickly discover what this company has consistently been throughout its history, and why it is naive, to say the least, to imagine that it has suddenly changed course with respect to GMO.
posted by riverlife at 11:50 PM on November 17, 2014
Da fuh? You can't do orbits without special relativity. The math will never quite work.
People who are good at seeing patterns, see patterns. Not all of them are real. Training in science is a good way to help weed out which are real but highly technical people without it get pretty out there.
I'm pretty sure Monsanato is actually engaged in several evil conspiracies, although not necessarily the ones highlighted in this FPP. As noted above they give the same bland answers to legit questions as they do to RU the illuminati? B trthfl! Kind of genius really.
posted by fshgrl at 11:51 PM on November 17, 2014
People who are good at seeing patterns, see patterns. Not all of them are real. Training in science is a good way to help weed out which are real but highly technical people without it get pretty out there.
I'm pretty sure Monsanato is actually engaged in several evil conspiracies, although not necessarily the ones highlighted in this FPP. As noted above they give the same bland answers to legit questions as they do to RU the illuminati? B trthfl! Kind of genius really.
posted by fshgrl at 11:51 PM on November 17, 2014
Because inventing and foisting PCBs on the world was not a mistake, it was a profitable enterprise. Producing Agent Orange, with its fellow traveler dioxin, during the Vietnam War was not a mistake but rather a good deal. Creating over 40 Superfund toxic waste sites that taxpayers paid/are paying most of the freight for, another great deal for the company. Doing everything possible to hide, minimize, whitewash, and legally obfuscate its past with an amazing legal team, yet another good deal for the company.
I'm fairly pro-GMO myself in theory but yes, there are *tons* of good reasons Monsanto has a bad reputation. We're talking the Union Carbide or Ethyl Corporation sort of disregard for pubic safety and ducking responsibility.
posted by atoxyl at 12:04 AM on November 18, 2014 [4 favorites]
I'm fairly pro-GMO myself in theory but yes, there are *tons* of good reasons Monsanto has a bad reputation. We're talking the Union Carbide or Ethyl Corporation sort of disregard for pubic safety and ducking responsibility.
posted by atoxyl at 12:04 AM on November 18, 2014 [4 favorites]
I live next to Silicon Valley, which could pretty much be called Superfund Valley for the amount of toxic dumping that went on and for the density of superfund sites. But I don't hear similar complaints about Intel or HP, and I'm presuming because the irresponsible dumping of PCBs and other electronics and semiconductors wastes was not done knowing the harm that would come. And the evils of agent orange that I know about are attributable to the US government, not Monsanto. So I guess I'm looking for more evidence of intentional malfeasance rather than of-the-times irresponsibility, which would be evidenced in cover ups, lawsuits, etc., that go beyond typical liability limitation that Nike and Apple do. This is a difficult thing for me to find, due to the prevalence of unreliable narrators in Google searches. The Wikipedia page sounds scary if numbers are scary things by themselves, and there are lawsuit results ($700M for a $12B company is quite sizeable) but nothing that is a smoking gun to me. So yes PCB and industrial pollution is a lot worse than any of the GMO or agriculturally related stuff, but I'm definitely not seeing atypical levels of corporate evil in Monsanto. As always, corrections welcomed, moreso with specific instances and links.
posted by Llama-Lime at 12:28 AM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by Llama-Lime at 12:28 AM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]
metafilter: definitely not seeing atypical levels of corporate evil
posted by el io at 12:34 AM on November 18, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by el io at 12:34 AM on November 18, 2014 [7 favorites]
And the evils of agent orange that I know about are attributable to the US government, not Monsanto.
Manufacturers of Agent Orange were aware of dioxin contamination several years before anyone else. The danger of dioxin was not as well known or understood as it is today but it's not as if the people producing it were investing a lot of effort in understanding or publicizing it - dioxin was documented as a matter of internal concern for suppliers, they intentionally postponed notifying the government, and they ultimately settled a lawsuit by veterans in 1984 with Monsanto ordered to pay 45 percent of $180 million.
I'm presuming because the irresponsible dumping of PCBs and other electronics and semiconductors wastes was not done knowing the harm that would come
Why on Earth would you presume that? Toxicity of PCBs was known and warned of in the 1930s and 40s. As with (the similar) dioxins their extreme persistence and bioaccumulation was not fully understood until later but the best that you can possibly give Monsanto here is that it was not uncommon practice for chemical companies at the time to keep mum about poisonings and dump whatever wherever, but that isn't "not knowing the harm that would come" it's just not giving two shits. It's true that other companies did similar things. That doesn't mean Monsanto doesn't deserve their infamy - it mean other companies got lucky and escaped their own.
posted by atoxyl at 1:28 AM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]
Manufacturers of Agent Orange were aware of dioxin contamination several years before anyone else. The danger of dioxin was not as well known or understood as it is today but it's not as if the people producing it were investing a lot of effort in understanding or publicizing it - dioxin was documented as a matter of internal concern for suppliers, they intentionally postponed notifying the government, and they ultimately settled a lawsuit by veterans in 1984 with Monsanto ordered to pay 45 percent of $180 million.
I'm presuming because the irresponsible dumping of PCBs and other electronics and semiconductors wastes was not done knowing the harm that would come
Why on Earth would you presume that? Toxicity of PCBs was known and warned of in the 1930s and 40s. As with (the similar) dioxins their extreme persistence and bioaccumulation was not fully understood until later but the best that you can possibly give Monsanto here is that it was not uncommon practice for chemical companies at the time to keep mum about poisonings and dump whatever wherever, but that isn't "not knowing the harm that would come" it's just not giving two shits. It's true that other companies did similar things. That doesn't mean Monsanto doesn't deserve their infamy - it mean other companies got lucky and escaped their own.
posted by atoxyl at 1:28 AM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]
One of the reasons that seed saving isn't a big deal in modern industrial agriculture is that seeds don't cost very much. I'm sure it varies, but there are numbers for corn production in this USDA paper.
The cost of seeds is only 16% of the total production cost of corn in the low cost farm group (less than 10% in the high cost group). It's only about 10% of the production value minus costs.
Saving seeds requires holding back a percentage of your production from the market, separating out the seeds, and preserving them in such a way that they're still viable when you plant next year. None of that is free.
Even in the absence of F1 hybrids not breeding true (nb. these are not GMOs) seed saving might well not be worth it for commercial farmers.
posted by atrazine at 3:35 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
The cost of seeds is only 16% of the total production cost of corn in the low cost farm group (less than 10% in the high cost group). It's only about 10% of the production value minus costs.
Saving seeds requires holding back a percentage of your production from the market, separating out the seeds, and preserving them in such a way that they're still viable when you plant next year. None of that is free.
Even in the absence of F1 hybrids not breeding true (nb. these are not GMOs) seed saving might well not be worth it for commercial farmers.
posted by atrazine at 3:35 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
"Poor, third world farmers do not have fully informed consent nor do they have the real choice you imply. From what I understand, Monsanto controls more than 90% of the cotton seed market in India. How is there any choice in such a concentrated market? Especially if you are in poverty, as most farmers are?This is in fact something that has been pretty thoroughly addressed with research, just asking better questions than the ones that Vandana Shiva pulls out of her ass,
I mean, if you're going to be the big defender of Monsanto, and prize science and research so much, it seems worthwhile to research how their business practices are actually impacting real people today. Why would poor farmers, from South America to South Asia, be making these same complaints about Monsanto? Just because they're irrational and anti-science?"
Genetically Modified Crops and Food SecurityThe idea of GMOs being somehow linked to farmer suicides does not come from poor farmers in either South America or South Asia, but was manufactured wholesale by a bullshit artist from a rich family who has never sold a crop in her life, lies about her academic qualifications, conspicuously lacks the fundamental kinds of knowledge to even coherently interrogate the things she attacks, and has become quite wealthy selling green flavored eschatology to gullible westerners.
The role of genetically modified (GM) crops for food security is the subject of public controversy. GM crops could contribute to food production increases and higher food availability. There may also be impacts on food quality and nutrient composition. Finally, growing GM crops may influence farmers’ income and thus their economic access to food. Smallholder farmers make up a large proportion of the undernourished people worldwide. Our study focuses on this latter aspect and provides the first ex post analysis of food security impacts of GM crops at the micro level. We use comprehensive panel data collected over several years from farm households in India, where insect-resistant GM cotton has been widely adopted. Controlling for other factors, the adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food insecurity by 15–20% among cotton-producing households. GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be an important component in a broader food security strategy.
Michael Specter of The New Yorker profiles and critiques prominent anti-Genetically Modified crops activist (and purported leading physicist) Vandana Shiva: "her statements are rarely supported by data, and her positions often seem more like those of an end-of-days mystic than like those of a scientist."
For additional context, read the Genetic Literacy Project’s backgrounder on Vandana Shiva–a complete history of her campaigns and views. Also check out the GLP’s in-depth profile of Shiva: Who is Vandana Shiva and why is she saying such awful things about GMOs?"
posted by Blasdelb at 3:48 AM on November 18, 2014 [10 favorites]
It's not just Agent Orange, of course, though it is clearly horrible to knowingly sell a product contaminated with a known carcinogen. One can point to chromosome damage from glyphosate exposure, Monsanto Canada's abusive patent lawsuit against Percy Schmeiser, flooding global political systems with money to buy the government and policies they want, outright lying in publicity campaigns (and not just the one linked in this post), etc. Despite a long and obvious history of sociopathic corporate behavior, it's amazing that lazy contrarianism on MetaFilter can somehow rear its ugly head to support a company like Monsanto.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:54 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:54 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
"I'm fairly pro-GMO myself in theory but yes, there are *tons* of good reasons Monsanto has a bad reputation. We're talking the Union Carbide or Ethyl Corporation sort of disregard for pubic safety and ducking responsibility."...But can you actually point to any of it in a way thats actually convincing? There seems to be this overwhelming need to see Monsanto as being inherently evil in some other way to gain credibility when people with specialized knowledge talk about how Monsanto is actually pretty great in their area of real expertise.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:57 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
Despite a long and obvious history of sociopathic corporate behavior, it's amazing that lazy contrarianism on MetaFilter can somehow rear its ugly head to support a company like Monsanto.
It's a useful corrective to the lazy bien-pensant received 'wisdom' nonsense that characterises discussions about Monsanto the rest of the time.
Monsanto is a synecdoche for modern agriculture in particular and for the whole of modernity in general and most people's feelings towards it are driven by a profound sense of unease with the whole modern world rather anything in particular that's unique to Monsanto.
That's why when people's 'reasons' for hating Monsanto are debunked, it doesn't have any effect on their general feelings towards the company.
Seen this way, the argument about seed saving has nothing to do with the economics of farming and everything to do with a feeling of alienation from production of basic goods such as food.
posted by atrazine at 5:12 AM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]
It's a useful corrective to the lazy bien-pensant received 'wisdom' nonsense that characterises discussions about Monsanto the rest of the time.
Monsanto is a synecdoche for modern agriculture in particular and for the whole of modernity in general and most people's feelings towards it are driven by a profound sense of unease with the whole modern world rather anything in particular that's unique to Monsanto.
That's why when people's 'reasons' for hating Monsanto are debunked, it doesn't have any effect on their general feelings towards the company.
Seen this way, the argument about seed saving has nothing to do with the economics of farming and everything to do with a feeling of alienation from production of basic goods such as food.
posted by atrazine at 5:12 AM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]
wormwood23: My question:I can actually answer this for them, the worst human health effect Roundup has been known to cause. In a morbid way I suppose we can thank glyphosate's fearsome but largely undeserved reputation for the failure of quite a few suicides, as well as for the data those attempts provided. A small proportion ended up succeeding, and the damage left behind by the more dedicated failures was horrific, but its important to keep in mind that those involved would have had more success consuming the same amount of salt, which is significantly more toxic to humans both acutely and chronically.
"What are the worst human health effects you've found Roundup to cause?"
I just bought a reverse osmosis water filter so that my infant daughter has a little more protection against the Roundup that my corn-farming neighbor pours onto his crops (and by extension into our groundwater) by the hundreds of gallons. It would be nice to have a candid answer to this, but it's PR, so I'm not expecting much."
Glyphosate, bless us, now has one of the better studied toxicities of any mass produced chemical compound despite there having never been much reason at all to suspect it of any meaningful harm other than what is intended with its use. The important concerns underlying your question can be addressed by anyone with the chemical education to interpret an MSDS sheet. That is a link to the sheet for the original formulation of Round-Up, though glyphosate went off patent almost 15 years ago and if your neighbor even uses it at all they will likely use a competing generic formulation that will have its own sheet. These two studies also very convincingly demonstrate the safety of glyphosate to agricultural communities, and cite quite a bit of additional work between them,
The Agricultural Health Study.The world looks very different when you start listening to people who are employed by you to have specialized knowledge of things rather than people whose paycheck comes from scaring you as effectively as possible. For example, did you know that the USDA run a program to annually test potable water well near farms to test their assumptions about what could actually end up there?
The Agricultural Health Study, a large prospective cohort study has been initiated in North Carolina and Iowa. The objectives of this study are to: 1) identify and quantify cancer risks among men, women, whites, and minorities associated with direct exposure to pesticides and other agricultural agents; 2) evaluate noncancer health risks including neurotoxicity reproductive effects, immunologic effects, nonmalignant respiratory disease, kidney disease, and growth and development among children; 3) evaluate disease risks among spouses and children of farmers that may arise from direct contact with pesticides and agricultural chemicals used in the home lawns and gardens, and from indirect contact, such as spray drift, laundering work clothes, or contaminated food or water; 4) assess current and past occupational and nonoccupational agricultural exposures using periodic interviews and environmental and biologic monitoring; 5) study the relationship between agricultural exposures, biomarkers of exposure, biologic effect, and genetic susceptibility factors relevant to carcinogenesis; and 6) identify and quantify cancer and other disease risks associated with lifestyle factors such as diet, cooking practices, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption, and hair dye use. In the first year of a 3-year enrollment period, 26,235 people have been enrolled in the study, including 19,776 registered pesticide applicators and 6,459 spouses of registered farmer applicators. It is estimated that when the total cohort is assembled in 1997 it will include approximately 75,000 adult study subjects. Farmers, the largest group of registered pesticide applicators comprise 77% of the target population enrolled in the study. This experience compares favorably with enrollment rates of previous prospective studies.
Cancer Incidence among Glyphosate-Exposed Pesticide Applicators in the Agricultural Health Study
Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide that is one of the most frequently applied pesticides in the world. Although there has been little consistent evidence of genotoxicity or carcinogenicity from in vitro and animal studies, a few epidemiologic reports have indicated potential health effects of glyphosate. We evaluated associations between glyphosate exposure and cancer incidence in the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), a prospective cohort study of 57,311 licensed pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina. Detailed information on pesticide use and other factors was obtained from a self-administered questionnaire completed at time of enrollment (1993–1997). Among private and commercial applicators, 75.5% reported having ever used glyphosate, of which > 97% were men. In this analysis, glyphosate exposure was defined as a) ever personally mixed or applied products containing glyphosate; b) cumulative lifetime days of use, or “cumulative exposure days” (years of use × days/year); and c) intensity-weighted cumulative exposure days (years of use × days/year × estimated intensity level). Poisson regression was used to estimate exposure–response relations between glyphosate and incidence of all cancers combined and 12 relatively common cancer subtypes. Glyphosate exposure was not associated with cancer incidence overall or with most of the cancer subtypes we studied. There was a suggested association with multiple myeloma incidence that should be followed up as more cases occur in the AHS. Given the widespread use of glyphosate, future analyses of the AHS will allow further examination of long-term health effects, including less common cancers.
posted by Blasdelb at 5:27 AM on November 18, 2014 [8 favorites]
"Monsanto's weird here in St Louis because they try to drum up positive publicity by sponsoring educational/fun things for the public, like at the zoo! Which, if you're already wary of Monsanto as a corporation, makes everything seem really dystopian, 'cause the signs are like:Monsanto shelling out cash as well as donating pretty ridiculous amounts of their employees' highly specialized time to do awesome things, and in largely invisible ways, might seem really weird but it really does make a lot of its own kind of sense for them. Unlike the other much more economically significant corporate players in the seed business, Monsanto is dominated by scientists, it really is a R&D company that just happens to manage its own sales and marketing to avoid getting ripped off. They also are really acutely aware of how, as atrazine is acutely noting, they've been somehow been transmuted in the public's eye into this bizarre fact-free avatar of callously capitalistic modernity.
MONSANTO PRESENTS
THE BUTTERFLIES"
Think of how incredibly demoralizing it is to spend your whole life becoming a liberal academic studying agricultural diseases, or industrial safety processes, or molecular genetics, or plant pathology, or insect anatomy and suddenly having all of your liberal friends think you've sold out to the devil because you want your work to actually go towards directly contributing to society. Monsanto can't address that with increased salaries, people don't study science to get rich to begin with. These are people who are working at Monsanto because they have the deep kinds of knowledge that can interrogate Séralini's statistical fraud, find Vandana Shiva's crackpot nuttery shallow and irrelevant, but still - imagine wearing a Monsanto hat into your local co-op meeting?
This, and just how important it is to employees, allows them to justify spending pretty silly amounts of corporate money and time on things like science education and aid to the third world.
posted by Blasdelb at 6:15 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
Joachim Ziegler: I'd be all for agrotech development and GMO development to be more in public hands, honestly, I think it would be beneficial for everyone.
What George_Spiggott said earlier as well. Do we realistically expect big biotech companies to have a transparent relationship with the public when some portion of their continued profitability depends on private IP/science knowledge remaining private, avoiding regulation, and a business model for agriculture in which the corporation is almost entirely responsible for next year's production? Yes, farmers choose this system because it's cheaper and their neighbours are doing it and that's the best way for them to succeed, but at the same time they become dependent on this branded system. To me, this looks like corporate enclosure of agriculture.
More and more these discussions are happening in a context where corporate capture of regulators is a serious issue, and where companies are capable of generating the science they need to promote their interests. The controversies around Monsanto's and Bayer's pesticide systems seem emblematic of these difficulties. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't use science to support their claims, but the ability to use uncertainties in the science to delay or derail regulatory processes has great strategic value in a world where regulation is a bad word, and the public is being told that all this environmental stuff is nonsense promoted by hippies. Which is an easier sell because of the endless fake controversies about GMO foods and outright lying to promote nutty conspiracy theories about Monsanto et al.
It's probably not politically possible to bring agrotech and GMO development into public hands, but we could spend more time and money ensuring that regulation is actually getting done.
posted by sneebler at 9:18 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
What George_Spiggott said earlier as well. Do we realistically expect big biotech companies to have a transparent relationship with the public when some portion of their continued profitability depends on private IP/science knowledge remaining private, avoiding regulation, and a business model for agriculture in which the corporation is almost entirely responsible for next year's production? Yes, farmers choose this system because it's cheaper and their neighbours are doing it and that's the best way for them to succeed, but at the same time they become dependent on this branded system. To me, this looks like corporate enclosure of agriculture.
More and more these discussions are happening in a context where corporate capture of regulators is a serious issue, and where companies are capable of generating the science they need to promote their interests. The controversies around Monsanto's and Bayer's pesticide systems seem emblematic of these difficulties. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't use science to support their claims, but the ability to use uncertainties in the science to delay or derail regulatory processes has great strategic value in a world where regulation is a bad word, and the public is being told that all this environmental stuff is nonsense promoted by hippies. Which is an easier sell because of the endless fake controversies about GMO foods and outright lying to promote nutty conspiracy theories about Monsanto et al.
It's probably not politically possible to bring agrotech and GMO development into public hands, but we could spend more time and money ensuring that regulation is actually getting done.
posted by sneebler at 9:18 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
sneebler: " The controversies around Monsanto's and Bayer's pesticide systems seem emblematic of these difficulties."
I haven't seen any real controversies around this, just manufactured ones, but I'm open to them existing. Thing is, I'd rather see GMO and other agrotech stuff being done by public institutions, but that doesn't mean I think Monsanto does more harm than good, rather the contrary.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:32 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
I haven't seen any real controversies around this, just manufactured ones, but I'm open to them existing. Thing is, I'd rather see GMO and other agrotech stuff being done by public institutions, but that doesn't mean I think Monsanto does more harm than good, rather the contrary.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:32 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
a lungful of dragon: "Monsanto Canada's abusive patent lawsuit against Percy Schmeiser"
Percy Schmeiser deliberately grew Monsanto patented plants without licensing them. He had some accidental contamination, and then he sprayed RoundUp to separate the RoundUp Ready plants from the rest, then had his farmhands harvest the surviving plants, and saved that seed for planting the next year. I see no problem with this, given the current patent system and so on. A lot of people misunderstand the Schmeiser case to be about accidental contamination, it's not. It's about a guy who deliberately used Monsanto patented technology without licensing it.
You can read the Wikipedia overview of the case yourself, it's quite exhaustive.
Now, again, if you want to argue for patent reform, I'm listening, but this is not some innocent farmer who got accidentally contaminated and then sued by Monsanto.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:40 AM on November 18, 2014
Percy Schmeiser deliberately grew Monsanto patented plants without licensing them. He had some accidental contamination, and then he sprayed RoundUp to separate the RoundUp Ready plants from the rest, then had his farmhands harvest the surviving plants, and saved that seed for planting the next year. I see no problem with this, given the current patent system and so on. A lot of people misunderstand the Schmeiser case to be about accidental contamination, it's not. It's about a guy who deliberately used Monsanto patented technology without licensing it.
You can read the Wikipedia overview of the case yourself, it's quite exhaustive.
Now, again, if you want to argue for patent reform, I'm listening, but this is not some innocent farmer who got accidentally contaminated and then sued by Monsanto.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:40 AM on November 18, 2014
...But can you actually point to any of it in a way thats actually convincing?
I'm more on your side than not about the particulars of GMOs and Roundup, but as far as a history of malfeasance do you not like the examples I already gave? They colluded with other suppliers in failing to disclose dioxin contamination in Agent Orange for years while it was being sprayed on people. They hemmed and hawed about the toxicity of PCBs for years while dumping them all over the place, until they were forced to take them off the market, then resumed hemming and hawing and pleading total ignorance when people started to sue them. Maybe you and I have different ideas about what the public health responsibilities of a corporation ought to be but they sure look to me farther from Thomas Midgely pioneering the wonderfully useful and non-toxic CFCs only for them later to be implicated in destroying the ozone layer, and closer to Thomas Midgely publicly insisting on the harmlessness of tetraethyllead while his employees were literally dying making the stuff. Comparing Monsanto to more infamous examples was and is probably a bad idea because I don't mean to argue about who was the least responsible chemical company of the first three-quarters of the 20th century. There are many competitors for that prize. But I don't think it's unfair that *some* of those companies ended up with a bad reputation and I will continue to think so unless you want to convince me that their corporate culture is totally different now. And it would be nice if they stopped evading responsibility too.
posted by atoxyl at 11:09 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
I'm more on your side than not about the particulars of GMOs and Roundup, but as far as a history of malfeasance do you not like the examples I already gave? They colluded with other suppliers in failing to disclose dioxin contamination in Agent Orange for years while it was being sprayed on people. They hemmed and hawed about the toxicity of PCBs for years while dumping them all over the place, until they were forced to take them off the market, then resumed hemming and hawing and pleading total ignorance when people started to sue them. Maybe you and I have different ideas about what the public health responsibilities of a corporation ought to be but they sure look to me farther from Thomas Midgely pioneering the wonderfully useful and non-toxic CFCs only for them later to be implicated in destroying the ozone layer, and closer to Thomas Midgely publicly insisting on the harmlessness of tetraethyllead while his employees were literally dying making the stuff. Comparing Monsanto to more infamous examples was and is probably a bad idea because I don't mean to argue about who was the least responsible chemical company of the first three-quarters of the 20th century. There are many competitors for that prize. But I don't think it's unfair that *some* of those companies ended up with a bad reputation and I will continue to think so unless you want to convince me that their corporate culture is totally different now. And it would be nice if they stopped evading responsibility too.
posted by atoxyl at 11:09 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
I was on a drive south, beautiful road, windows open, springtime. A smell was irritating, my eyes running off and on for an hour. Come up over the hill, I am behind the herbicide truck, spraying along the length of I15. We have to get a choice in how stuff gets done, and if it is needed. I this state I hear of lethal lung cancer cases in young non smoking athletes, all along the poison bike paths and roads they go...No farm bureau meets without Monsanto creating need. I read the worst article yesterday about the harvesting of wheat. They spray roundup a few days before harvest to kill and dry out the plants, makes for an easier harvest. Then that mileage is fed to livestock. Monsanto works for the other side.
posted by Oyéah at 11:10 AM on November 18, 2014
posted by Oyéah at 11:10 AM on November 18, 2014
The bully wants to be liked, no, they just want to maintain the continuous control they currently enjoy. They are not sad and misunderstood.
posted by Oyéah at 11:14 AM on November 18, 2014
posted by Oyéah at 11:14 AM on November 18, 2014
Again, I've spent time inside this company's culture as an employee. There is no doubt that a large percentage of its scientists are truly there for the science, the love of science. They do not, however, very often set the executive course of the organization. Management, especially via its copious legal and PR reserves, does. And management is driven by short-term revenue and power, as it always has been. It (ab)uses the hard and noble work of the scientists it employs.
In my view.
posted by riverlife at 11:15 AM on November 18, 2014
In my view.
posted by riverlife at 11:15 AM on November 18, 2014
Look, I grew up around molecular biology and chemistry people who worked for one of the US's premier agricultural research universities. I'm not against agriscience. And I don't actually expect people on the business side to self-regulate - I expect them to be regulated. But, well, that's the whole point - I don't trust them and I *will* judge them on what they try to get away with. I'm not even making claims about current Monsanto controversies at the moment, only suggesting that the bad name did not come from thin air.
posted by atoxyl at 11:27 AM on November 18, 2014
posted by atoxyl at 11:27 AM on November 18, 2014
atoxyl: " They colluded with other suppliers in failing to disclose dioxin contamination in Agent Orange for years while it was being sprayed on people. "
According to Wikipedia, that's incorrect:
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:58 PM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
According to Wikipedia, that's incorrect:
Internal memoranda revealed that Monsanto (a major manufacturer of 2,4,5-T) had informed the U.S. government in 1952 that its 2,4,5-T was contaminated.[15] In the manufacture of 2,4,5-T, accidental overheating of the reaction mixture easily causes the product to condense into the toxic self-condensation product TCDD. At the time, precautions were not taken against this unintended side reaction, which caused also the Seveso disaster in Italy in 1976.The source for this is this book, which seems to confirm that Monsanto did tell army officials in 1952, long before Agent Orange was used in warfare, that it was contaminated with a (then unknown) toxin. This is 10 years before the warning from Dow Chemical in your sources. So, it seems that as opposed to Dow Chemical, which wanted to keep it quiet, Monsanto actually informed the military, and the military kept on using Agent Orange anyway.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:58 PM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
Oyéah: "They spray roundup a few days before harvest to kill and dry out the plants, makes for an easier harvest. Then that mileage is fed to livestock. Monsanto works for the other side."
I saw this too, and it's untrue. Snopes has debunked it.
Here's one of many good quotes from that link:
In short, wheat ready for harvest is already dead, and has begun to dry out. In some cases, wheat is sprayed with a desiccant, which makes it dry out faster, but this desiccant is not RoundUp, because RoundUp is not a desiccant, it's a herbicide, which would do nothing, because the plants are already dead.
It seems this particular piece of misinformation comes from Stephanie Seneff, another unqualified "expert", who's actually in computer science at MIT, and abuses her position as "MIT professor" to speak about things she has no expertise in. You can read more about her here. The money quote is:
I saw this too, and it's untrue. Snopes has debunked it.
Here's one of many good quotes from that link:
I'm a journalist covering agriculture in the heart of wheat country. I have never, ever seen or heard of a wheat farmer spraying his fields with glyphosate as a desiccant. Wheat's natural life cycle allows for it to ripen in the heat of the summer so it naturally dries to an acceptable moisture level for harvest. Who was your source for the agriculture information you shared? I don't know of any agronomist who would recommend the application of glyphosate 7 to 10 days before harvest.
In short, wheat ready for harvest is already dead, and has begun to dry out. In some cases, wheat is sprayed with a desiccant, which makes it dry out faster, but this desiccant is not RoundUp, because RoundUp is not a desiccant, it's a herbicide, which would do nothing, because the plants are already dead.
It seems this particular piece of misinformation comes from Stephanie Seneff, another unqualified "expert", who's actually in computer science at MIT, and abuses her position as "MIT professor" to speak about things she has no expertise in. You can read more about her here. The money quote is:
Samsel and Seneff didn't conduct any studies. They don't seem interested in the levels at which humans are actually exposed to glyphosate. They simply speculated that, if anyone, anywhere, found that glyphosate could do anything in any organism, that thing must also be happening in humans everywhere. I'd like to meet the "peers" who "reviewed" this.posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:06 PM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]
The source for this is this book, which seems to confirm that Monsanto did tell army officials in 1952, long before Agent Orange was used in warfare, that it was contaminated with a (then unknown) toxin. This is 10 years before the warning from Dow Chemical in your sources. So, it seems that as opposed to Dow Chemical, which wanted to keep it quiet, Monsanto actually informed the military, and the military kept on using Agent Orange anyway.
Huh, good catch. That's almost a decade before the Vietnam-era herbicide program even started. I'm not sure that makes them look *less* negligent in selling contaminated 2,4,5-T for years but it does absolve them of conspiracy.
posted by atoxyl at 5:07 PM on November 18, 2014
Huh, good catch. That's almost a decade before the Vietnam-era herbicide program even started. I'm not sure that makes them look *less* negligent in selling contaminated 2,4,5-T for years but it does absolve them of conspiracy.
posted by atoxyl at 5:07 PM on November 18, 2014
It wasn't an unknown toxin. More Bad Science.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:52 PM on November 18, 2014
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:52 PM on November 18, 2014
It was known dioxin was a problem after industrial accidents in the 1940s, and Monsanto wouldn't have bothered to mention their product was contaminated unless it was a problem. Bad Science, and Wrong History.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:59 PM on November 18, 2014
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:59 PM on November 18, 2014
I am starting to believe that almost every mefi submission can be succinctly responded to by stating, "Bring out the pitchforks!" Strikingly similar to how every New Yorker cartoon caption is, " Christ, what an asshole!"
posted by lemonjel at 9:07 PM on November 18, 2014
posted by lemonjel at 9:07 PM on November 18, 2014
a lungful of dragon: "It wasn't an unknown toxin. More Bad Science."
As I understand it, when they told the military that their Agent Orange was contaminated with something toxic (thus why they told the military about it), they didn't yet know what the contaminant was, thus "unknown toxin". That doesn't mean they didn't know TCDD was toxic, it just means they didn't know at that point that TCDD was what the toxin that was in the Agent Orange.
Look, if you want to argue with a Harvard University Press book specifically about Agent Orange and the liabilities of the chemical industry in its use and effects, that's fine, but you're going to have to come up with something a bit more substantial than just saying "Bad Science".
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:09 PM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
As I understand it, when they told the military that their Agent Orange was contaminated with something toxic (thus why they told the military about it), they didn't yet know what the contaminant was, thus "unknown toxin". That doesn't mean they didn't know TCDD was toxic, it just means they didn't know at that point that TCDD was what the toxin that was in the Agent Orange.
Look, if you want to argue with a Harvard University Press book specifically about Agent Orange and the liabilities of the chemical industry in its use and effects, that's fine, but you're going to have to come up with something a bit more substantial than just saying "Bad Science".
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:09 PM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
The Next Green Revolution: "Modern supercrops will be a big help. But agriculture can't be fixed by biotech alone."
-Black Swans, Frankenfoods and Disaster Fairy Tales
-How Genetically Engineered Gardens Could Replace Airport Security Checkpoints: "Plants are being increasingly seen as having the potential to replace sensors and electronic devices, which sounds completely insane at first brush."
posted by kliuless at 5:58 PM on November 28, 2014
“We do feel a bit betrayed by the environmental movement, I can tell you that. If you want to have a conversation about what the role of large corporations should be in our food supply, we can have that conversation—it’s really important. But it’s not the same conversation about whether we should use these tools of genetics to improve our crops. They’re both important, but let’s not confound them...”also btw...
In Africa, as elsewhere, people fear GM crops, even though there’s little scientific evidence to justify the fear. There’s a stronger argument that high-tech plant breeds are not a panacea and maybe not even what African farmers need most. Even in the United States some farmers are having problems with them.
A paper published last March, for instance, documented an unsettling trend: Corn rootworms are evolving resistance to the bacterial toxins in Bt corn. “I was surprised when I saw the data, because I knew what it meant—that this technology was starting to fail,” says Aaron Gassmann, an entomologist at Iowa State University and co-author of the report...
Unlike the farmers in Bagamoyo, Kibwana and her neighbors raise a variety of crops: Bananas, avocados, and passion fruit are in season now. Soon they’ll be planting carrots, spinach, and other leafy vegetables, all for local consumption. The mix provides a backup in case one crop fails; it also helps cut down on pests. The farmers here are learning to plant strategically, setting out rows of Tithonia diversifolia, a wild sunflower that whiteflies prefer, to draw the pests away from the cassavas. The use of compost instead of synthetic fertilizers has improved the soil so much that one of the farmers, Pius Paulini, has doubled his spinach production. Runoff from his fields no longer contaminates streams that supply Morogoro’s water.
Perhaps the most life-altering result of organic farming has been the liberation from debt. Even with government subsidies, it costs 500,000 Tanzanian shillings, more than $300, to buy enough fertilizer and pesticide to treat a single acre—a crippling expense in a country where the annual per capita income is less than $1,600. “Before, when we had to buy fertilizer, we had no money left over to send our children to school,” says Kibwana. Her oldest daughter has now finished high school.
And the farms are more productive too. “Most of the food in our markets is from small farmers,” says Maro. “They feed our nation.”
-Black Swans, Frankenfoods and Disaster Fairy Tales
-How Genetically Engineered Gardens Could Replace Airport Security Checkpoints: "Plants are being increasingly seen as having the potential to replace sensors and electronic devices, which sounds completely insane at first brush."
posted by kliuless at 5:58 PM on November 28, 2014
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posted by Greg_Ace at 3:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]