Imagine A World Without Monsanto

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-06/21hepburn.cfm
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ZNet Commentary

ImagineTM.

June 21, 2004
By John Hepburn

Monsanto's global website says "Imagine innovative agriculture that
creates 'incredible' things today." Actually, I think most of us are more
interested in 'credible' things when it comes to agriculture. Like food
that people can trust is safe. And crops that meet the needs of the
farmers that grow them.

The monsanto slogan used to be "food, health, hope". As if this wasn't
absurd enough, it has now been changed to "ImagineTM". John Lennon must be
turning in his grave.

Imagine a world with vast monocultures of patented, genetically engineered
crops, producing foods with inbuilt pesticides. Imagine the world's staple
food crops engineered with genes from bacteria and then released into our
food chain without any real understanding of the health impacts. Imagine...

The Monsanto website states boldly that "Integrity is the foundation of
all that we do. Integrity includes honesty, decency, consistency and courage."

I suppose 'courage' isn't that far fetched. But 'audacity' would probably
be a more accurate word.

Imagine trying to introduce a new product into the market place when most
people don't want it, and when it is effectively impossible to keep it
separate from other similar products. Imagine being able to insist that
the cost of keeping this product separate be passed onto the users of the
other, existing products. It's kind of like insisting that your neighbour
to pay for the new fence when you bring home a pit bull terrier for a pet.
Imagine not only trying to pull off such an audacious scheme but actually
succeeding!

'Consistency' is also plausible. Although I suspect the appropriate
agricultural term is 'monoculture'.

As for "honesty' and 'decency', I'm not sure how the victims of Agent
Orange would feel about that. Or the thousands of people who have been
affected by PCB's - another one of Monsanto's brilliant and 'safe'
inventions. Or the 70 odd farmers in the US who have been sued by Monsanto
for saving seeds and breaching Monsanto's intellectual property?

I for one, imagine a world where Monsanto doesn't exist. Where I don't
have to spend my days struggling to stop possibly one of the most
irresponsible organisations in human history from involving all of us in
an uncontrolled experiment without our consent.

Monsanto are on the back foot. Millions of people have been rejecting
their foods. Thousands upon thousands of farmers have been rejecting their
seeds. In the face of this, they have 'voluntarily' withdrawn GE wheat in
North America, and GE canola in Australia. We can only hope that
'voluntary' liquidation is the next step.

Imagine food without pesticides. Imagine diversity in agriculture. Imagine
seeds without patents. Imagine a future without Monsanto...

John Hepburn Australia. johnhepburn@hushmail.com