Monsanto’s Greenwashing More Outrageous than Ever

It’s a dubious honor, but one that Monsanto doesn’t seem too eager to refuse. The world’s most hated corporation has been aggressively greenwashing its reputation for years and has recently stepped up its efforts to claim that its earth- and people-unfriendly practices are “sustainable”.

In fact, Monsanto’s website is packed full of sickeningly misleading claims about how their iron grip on the world’s food supply is actually good for us and for the environment. There are dozens of different ways in which this is just plain wrong – but The Guardian has focused on one in particular: Monsanto’s thirst for water.

Monsanto trumpets its patented water-efficient seeds, so one would expect the company to be sensitive about its own water usage. However, on the Hawaiian island of Molokai – where Monsanto is the largest employer and does a lot of reseach into genetically modified crops – this corporate giant has caused water shortages.

From The Guardian:

Nature on Molokai has suffered badly from the invasion of Monsanto and other big-farm companies. In recompense, Monsanto puts money into a Nature Conservancy programme on the island to “preserve biodiversity and protect water sources”.

The company has nonetheless gained a bad reputation there as a water bully. As a local journalist wrote there last year in the Molokai Dispatch, “Monsanto’s thirst for more water” threatens its future on the island. “Like most large corporations, Monsanto’s number one priority is to maximise profits. In this case it means planting as many acres as possible, and using a lot of water,” wrote Todd Yamashita.

Recently, during a drought that emptied reservoirs and forced the local irrigation company to demand 20% water cutbacks from local farmers, Monsanto insisted on the right to take more water and lobbied for a new aquifer to be tapped.

Of course, this is only one small example of Monsanto’s jaw-dropping offenses. The capacity for evil that this company has is seemingly endless. Learn more:

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Millions Against Monsanto Campaign
Monsanto – SourceWatch
MonsantoWatch
The World According to Monsanto (Documentary)

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: Greenpeace

Green Upgrader Takes on Monsanto ‘Facts’

The documentary ‘Food Inc.’ is taking the world by storm, unveiling the truth about industrial food production in America. Filmmaker Robert Kenner actually set out to tell the story from the points of view of both organic farmers and industrial food growers, but the big companies like Perdue, Tyson and of course Monsanto wouldn’t talk to him or let their production practices be filmed.

Ironically, Monsanto is now railing against the ‘biased, one-sided’ nature of the documentary with a list of supposed ‘facts’ on their website.

From Monsanto via Green Upgrader:

“Food, Inc. is a one-sided, biased film that the creators claim will “lift the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer.” Unfortunately, Food, Inc. is counter-productive to the serious dialogue surrounding the critical topic of our nation’s food supply.

“Throughout this film, Food, Inc.:

• Demonizes American farmers and the agriculture system responsible for feeding over 300 million people in the United States.
• Presents an unrealistic view of how to feed a growing nation while ignoring the practical demands of the American consumer and the fundamental needs of consumers around the world.
• Disregards the fact that multiple agriculture systems should – and do – coexist.  ”

GreenUpgrader takes issue with these claims:

“Food, Inc. demonizes American farmers.”  Not once in the movie do they vilify, demonize or wag their finger at a single farmer.  They interview a number of famers and illustrate how corperations like Monsanto, Perdue and Cargill have systematically victimized and bullied farmers large and small.  They go on to say “The film, Food. Inc, suggests the food supply is dominated by corporate farms.”  Also not true, the film suggests that corperations, like Monsanto dominate the food supply, in a large part becasue of the dominion they hold over family farms.

“Food, Inc. presents an unrealistic view of how to feed a growing nation.”  Monsanto would like everyone to believe that there is a shortage of food but that simply isn’t the case.  In fact we produce enough food to put it in our car’s gas tanks, have the most obese people in the world and be one of the largest agricultural exporters in the world.  Furthermore, sustainable agriculture does not mean every farm has to be a tiny backyard garden.  Large commercial farms can farm sustainably and efficiently.

Read the rest over at GreenUpgrader.

Food, Inc. is now playing in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Link [GreenUpgrader]

The World According to Monsanto

If this trailer doesn’t creep you out about genetically modified food, I don’t know what will. “The World According to Monsanto” is a french documentary directed by Marie-Monique Robin that paints a grim picture of a company with a long track record of environmental crimes and health scandals.

According to the YouTube description,

Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as one of the most controversial corporations in industrial history. This century-old empire has created some of the most toxic products ever sold, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the herbicide Agent Orange. Based on a painstaking investigation, The World According to Monsanto puts together the pieces of the company’s history, calling on hitherto unpublished documents and numerous first-hand accounts.

Today, Monsanto likes to style itself as a “life sciences” company. The leader in genetically modified seeds, engineered to resist its herbicide Roundup, claims it wants to solve world hunger while protecting the environment.

In the light of its troubling past, can we really believe these noble intentions? Misleading reports, collusion, pressure tactics and attempts at corruption: the history of Monsanto is filled with disturbing episodes. Behind its clean, green image, Monsanto is tightening its grasp on the world seed market, striving for market supremacy to the detriment of food security and the global environment.

Seed Savers Exchange: Saving and Sharing Non-GMO Heirloom Seeds

Corporate giant Monsanto is quietly and stealthily acquiring variety after variety of vegetable, fruit and other crop seeds, effectively taking control of agriculture across the world. Chances are, if you buy fruits and vegetables from a grocery store, you’re eating Monsanto products on a daily basis. Monsanto acquired the world’s largest vegetable seed company, Seminis, back in 2005 and Seminis supplies the genetics for 55% of the lettuce, 75% of the tomatoes and 85% of the peppers on supermarket shelves. And, surprise, Seminis seeds are used by a large number of organic farmers as well.

What does this mean? Well, among a number of other consequences, Monsanto’s growth comes at the expense of agricultural diversity. And, as Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide patent nears its expiration date, it will be increasingly turning toward biotechnology for profits.

Luckily, there are organizations like the Seed Savers Exchange to ensure that our entire food supply isn’t homogenized. Seed Savers Exchange saves and shares heirloom seeds to form a living legacy to be passed down through generations. Thanks to this non-profit organization’s work, thousands of varieties that might have otherwise disappeared are being preserved.

From the Seed Savers Exchange website:

Seed Savers Exchange exists to serve its members, and the public, through its charitable mission to (1) save the world’s diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations; (2) build a network of people committed to collecting, conserving and sharing heirloom seeds and plants; and (3) educate people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity.

If you’re looking to start an organic garden, the Seed Savers Exchange is an excellent source of high-quality varieties of practically any fruit, vegetable or herb you can think of. Flower seeds are also available. You can purchase seeds on the website or join the Seed Savers Exchange as a member and get access to an additional 11,000 rare varieties of vegetables, fruit and grains.

Get more info about the Seed Savers Exchange and view the seeds available at the Seed Savers Exchange website.

Link [Seed Savers Exchange]

Be Wary: Corporations Have Big Plans to Profit from Global Warming

It’s time to go on greenwashing high alert.  Companies are getting the message that they’re not going to continue making profits if they’re seen as being bad for the environment, as the public becomes more educated and passionate about the fight against global warming. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that all of those companies are starting to do the right thing and clean up their acts.  Some are choosing to present themselves as eco-friendly even as they pollute the earth, eager to cash in on the green movement.

From Alternet:

For example, proponents of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), an artificial hormone that boosts a cow’s milk production, now cite a study published at Cornell University “proving” that using rBGH is green. When the study came out, newspapers wrote clever headlines about reducing cows’ carbon “hoofprint.” Yet the basis of the study (that cows treated with rBGH eat the same amount as cows not treated with the hormone) was flawed, and the study was written by a group including Dale Bauman (who has received funding from Monsanto, the company then behind rBGH, in the past) and a Monsanto consultant. (Monsanto owned rBGH and marketed it under the brand name Posilac until it sold the product to Eli Lilly and Company last month.)

In reality, the way to reduce a dairy cow’s carbon hoofprint is to allow her to graze on pasture to reduce the amount of grain in her diet. As a perennial, grass does not require annual planting. Nor does it require fertilizer (beyond the manure fertilizer the cows apply to the pasture themselves). The cows also replace the machinery to harvest, process and transport their food that would be required for a diet of grain. But a cow receiving rBGH cannot enjoy a diet of mostly grass; she simply cannot take in enough calories a day via grazing to support increased milk production. Only a higher-calorie grain diet — one that makes cows sick — can support the metabolism of a cow on drugs.

Alternet points out that companies like Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer are pushing the lie that genetically modified crops are going to get us through the climate crisis, and that many people won’t dig deep enough into the science behind it to learn the truth.

It’s clear that even as the oil industry finally dies a slow, long overdue death, other greedy, unscrupulous industries will step in to take its place. We’ll always be battling money-hungry corporations that will do anything to gain the sort of power that the oil industry has attained, and we definitely can’t give up.  Let’s not allow Monsanto et al to get us off track.

Link [Alternet]
Photo credit: Flickr user gina pina

Monsanto Says Hormone-Pumped Cows are Good for the Environment

Cornell University researchers, along with Monsanto, have said that injecting dairy cows with Monsanto’s recombitant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is good for the environment. They claim that rBGH makes each cow produce more milk, so we would then need fewer cows, therefore we’d need less land and resources to raise dairy cows. In effect, according to the researchers, for every 1 million cows supplemented with the hormone, the reduction in carbon footprint would be equivalent to removing about 400,000 cars from the road or planting 300 million trees.

The Daily Kos has, er, beef with that argument, and has explained it thusly:

Why It’s a Load of Bull: Their entire argument assumes that you need to feed cows corn. You don’t. You actually shouldn’t. Cows evolved to eat GRASS. They evolved to graze. Grazing requires very little resources and energy. Here’s why:

First, grass is a perennial. You don’t need to plant it every year like you do with corn and soy. You plant it once, it grows, the cow eats it, it grows back. Planting stuff takes energy. Less planting = less energy.

Second of all, when cows graze, they harvest their own food. Harvesting food requires energy. You must harvest corn. You also have to process it and transport it before the cows can eat it. That takes energy too.

From what I’ve read, feeding cows grass or grain isn’t entirely an either/or. You can feed them a mix of both. What is important is not whether they eat any grain, but how much grain they eat. With a diet of mostly grass, the cows can tolerate some grain and stay healthy.

Ok, well, why not switch to feeding cows grass instead of grain, so they’re healthier and require less antibiotics, and we can cut out the need for growth hormone all together? Oh, wait. That’s right. Cows fed hormones need more calories than grass alone provides – they need grain. Monsanto produces grain. Patented grain that has been genetically engineered not to self-seed so that farmers have to buy new seeds from Monsanto every year to produce more grain. More grain, which is fed to all of these cows that will then need Monsanto’s growth hormone in order to produce more milk to supposedly help the environment. Because Monsanto’s all about helping the environment, right?

Link [The Daily Kos] via [Groovy Green]
Photo credit: Flickr user joi