Monsanto El Veneno Del Diablo Soja Argentina
The Monsanto Company is a
multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation which is particularly
famous for its genetically modified products and herbicides. It is also notable
for its involvement in high profile lawsuits, where fines and damages have run
into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Most of them were related to health
damage caused by Monsanto’s products.
Monsanto is one of the most powerful and
controversial Agricultural and Biotechnology Corporation on the globe. Monsanto
allegedly controls 90% of the world wide food market and is a key promoter of
genetic modified food products as well as lead producer of pesticides.
Given the fact that Argentina is a major
agricultural producer and exporter, the strong presence of Monsanto in
Argentina must raise concerns, for the corporation is known for its lack of
moral and controversial use of Biotechnology especially in genetic manipulated food
products and chemicals used for pesticides. Most of the lawsuits are related to
health problems connected to genetically manipulated food products and side
effects of pesticides.
Currently Monsanto is engaged in countless legal
battles and controversies around the globe, a frightening fact, given the power
and political influence the corporation has. Some of the current controversies
and lawsuits involving Monsanto are:
MONSANTO
GUILTY OF CHEMICAL POISONING
Via
Reuters
A French court ruled that a
controversial US biotech company Monsanto is guilty of unintentional chemical
poisoning of a French farmer. The verdict sets a French precedent for
pesticide-poisoning and more cases are expected to follow.
Grain farmer Paul Francois, says he
suffered a number of neurological problems, including memory loss, stammering
and headaches, after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weed killer in 2004. He blamed
the company for failing to provide adequate warning labels on its products.
The present case is not the first of
its kind. All previous health claims have reportedly failed because of the
difficulties with proving the links between health issues and exposure to
pesticides and other chemicals. Francois’s claims appeared to be easier to
substantiate because he could describe a particular incident – the inhaling of
a particular pesticide while cleaning the tank of his crop sprayer. The man was
only able to obtain his work invalidity status after a court appeal.
300K
FARMERS HOPE FOR LAWSUIT AGAINST MONSANTO
Via RT
Around 300,000 organic farmers think that Monsanto, the biotech giant known
for genetically modifying Mother Nature’s handwork for profit and pushing over
the little guys all the while, is pretty seedy. Now a judge in New York is debating if Monsanto’s questionable methods will go before a jury.
FOGGY PATENT CLAIM ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEED
Last year, 270,000 organic farmers from around 60 family farms tried to take Monsanto to court over issues pertaining to a genetically-modified seed masterminded by the corporation. Not only were the smaller farms concerned over how the manufactured seeds had been carried by wind and creature alike onto their own plantations, but the biggest problem perhaps was that Monsanto was filing lawsuits themselves against farmers. Monsanto went after hundreds of farmers for infringing on their patented seed after audits revealed that their farms had contained their product as a result of routine pollination by animals and acts of nature.
SMALL FARM GRABBING TACTICS BY MONSANTO
Unable to afford a proper defense, competing small farms have been bought out by the company in droves. As a result, Monsanto saw their profits increase by the hundreds of millions over the last few years as a result. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto tackled 144 organic farms with lawsuits and investigated roughly 500 plantations annually during that span with a so-called “seed police.”
MONSANTO’S INCREASING REIGN OVER THE WORLD’S AGRICULTURE WILL SURPASS ANYTHING IMAGINABLE
Farmers have been concerned that unless Monsanto is stopped, their reign over the world’s agriculture will surpass anything imaginable. They are seeking pre-emptive protection from those questionable lawsuits and next month Judge Buchwald will weigh in on if the matter should go to trial. Her honor recently listened to oral arguments on Monsanto’s Motion to Dismiss, which the corporation hopes to win to cease the charges being brought by a total of 83 plaintiffs representing now over 300,000 organic farm-affiliated businesses. The legal team for the small-time farmers also offered their arguments.
ARGENTINA SAYS MONSANTO CONTRACTOR ABUSES WORKERS
The Associated
Press January 16, 2012
Argentina's tax
agency has raided a Monsanto Co. contractor and found what it calls slave-like
conditions among workers in its cornfields.
The AFIP tax
agency says Rural Power SA hired all its farmhands illegally, prevented them
from leaving the fields and withheld their salaries. They had to de-tassel corn
14 hours a day and buy their food at inflated prices from the company store. AFIP
says it will hold the American agro-giant responsible for its contractor's
slave-like labor conditions.
Monsanto didn't
immediately respond to calls Monday to its headquarters in Buenos Aires and in
St. Louis, which was closed for the Martin Luther King holiday. Argentina's congress
last month gave farmhands an 8-hour day and other benefits long denied under a
dictatorship-era law.
Thursday,July 8th 2010
EU
COURT RULING FAVOURS ARGENTINA IN DISPUTE WITH MONSANTO OVER SOY-SEED PATENT
MONSANTO’S HARVEST OF FEAR
Monsanto already
dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has
targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s
tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long
history of toxic contamination.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805MONSANTO VS. CANADA
After an 8 year review, Canada rejected Monsanto's request for the approval of their genetically modified milk hormone, rBGH. This drug has been shown to make dairy cows produce 10% more milk than normal. This rejection was a major setback for the GE Giant because it was Monsanto's first GE product, and Monsanto had hoped that it's international exceptance would help lead the way to the approval of their other genetically engineered products, most notably crops like cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, rice, corn , and soybeans.
Canada dissaproved of the rBGH drug because, as the
product label acknowledges, it can cause udder infections, very painful,
debilitating foot disorders, and reduced life span in treated cows. There is no
doubt that bigger issues of genetic engineering in general also played a big
role in the final decision.
ARGENTINA
BE WARY OF MONSANTO
ROUNDUP READY SOYA IN ARGENTINA
The GM
soya, Round Up Ready (“RR”), which is resistant to spraying of Monsanto’s weed
killer Round Up, took only a few years to become established in Argentina. This
crop swept onto the market as financial crisis hit Argentina in 2001.
While
soya cultivation represented only 3700 hectares in 1971, it had risen to 8.3
million hectares in 2000, 9.3m by 2001, 11.6m by 2002 and by 2007 had reached
16 million hectares or 60% of the land in cultivation, giving rise to the
phrase “SOYISATION OF THE COUNTRY”. Of the total, 14 million hectares were sown
with GM soya, representing a 37 million tone harvest, of which 90% was
exported, mainly to Europe and China.
ARGENTINE
LAND GRABBING - MONSANTO STYLE
Due to
the economic crisis in 2001, land prices had shot up in value, encouraging
small landowners to sell up and concentrating land ownership. In the course of
a decade the average landholding in the Pampas grew from 250 to 538 hectares
while the number of farms fell by 30%. What’s more 16 million hectares of cultivable land were
owned by foreign agribusinesses. This caused a profound
reorganisation from what had been a diverse and self-sufficient agriculture, to
a model of virtual monoculture.
Argentina’s
leaders preferred to substitute an intensive industrial model of agriculture,
open to exploitative practices, for traditional family farms. As Argentina’s
Secretary of Agriculture remarked, soya was seen at the time as a lifebelt for
an Argentine economy in danger of drowning. The State was raising taxes of 20%
on oils and 23% on grains, representing 10 billion dollars a year, or 30% of
the national revenue. Another boost to
the growing of GM soya was that Argentina had refused to grant Monsanto a
patent for the GM seeds, so the small farmers were able to replant RR seeds
without having to pay the firm from St Louis to use them. To make sure they
grabbed the whole market, Monsanto didn’t hesitate to sell its seed three times
cheaper than in the US.
The new
seed was seen as a “miracle” by many Argentine farmers allowing them to save on
weed killers but also to spare the soil from too frequent spraying. After a few years of using RR soya however
many of them were disillusioned by the reality.
THE
GREAT LET-DOWN: THE HIDDEN FACE OF GM SOYA
The
surge in GM soya, and what experts casually refer to as “the rush for green gold” drove
down production of crops that were needed to feed Argentineans. Thus from
1996-7 to 2001-2, the number of dairy holdings dropped by 27% and for the first
time in its history Argentina had to
import milk from Uruguay. In the same period, Argentina recorded a decline
of 44% in rice production, 44% in sunflowers and 36% in pork. This was accompanied by a rise in the price
of basic foodstuffs, so that in 2003 flour rose by 162%, lentils by 272% and
rice by 130%. The irony of this situation is that Argentinians were being
encouraged to substitute soya milk and soya steaks for the traditional milk and
meat that had always formed part of the culinary heritage of their country.
“VOLUNTEER”
SOYA: TOWARDS A STERILE SOIL
Before
the advent of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready (“RR”) soya, Argentine farmers used four or five different
herbicides on the same land, including very toxic ones like 2-4D (an ingredient
of “Agent Orange”), atrazine or paraquat (all banned in the European
Union). But alternation of the different products stopped the weeds from
developing resistance to any one of them.
Now, the
exclusive use of Roundup had caused biotypes to appear. At first these were
“tolerant” of glyphosate and farmers had to increase the doses of Roundup to
get rid of them. But tolerance was followed by resistance and the appearance of
“volunteer” soya which became ever more widespread in the Pampas. Before the arrival of RR, Argentina used on
average a million litres of glyphosate a year, but by 2005 that had grown to
150 million, with a considerable financial boost in consequence for Monsanto.
Increasing
spraying with Roundup was weakening soils because it destroys the microbial
flora that it is essential to their fertility. As the soil becomes
progressively more sterile, it becomes less productive, farmers are forced to
use more fertilizer and so their costs of production rise. The claim that using GMOs will increase profits is therefore somewhat
in doubt.
CONSEQUENCES
FOR HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Rural
populations are the first to be affected by the damage to their environment
from massive use of Roundup. Twice a
year, crop dusters or “mosquitos” spray the herbicide across the whole
countryside right up to people’s doorsteps. No precautions are taken in
Argentina to reduce the impact of contamination by glyphosate, which affects
the environment, the air and the ground water and in turn the population.
According
to Dario Gianfelici, an Argentine doctor working in the countryside, “Along
with several other colleagues in the region, we have recorded a significant
increase in birth abnormalities, like miscarriages or early fetal death, thyroid dysfunction, respiratory dysfunction - like
pulmonary oedema – kidney and endocrine dysfunction, liver and skin diseases
and serious sight problems”.1 These are direct observations from the ground and
not scientific proof.
Furthermore
the increase in land area given over to growing soya has had an associated
effect on deforestation which has increased to provide new terrain. The region
of SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO has shown one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world with an average of
0.81% of the forest torn away each year, against a global rate of 0.23%.
According to Jorge Menendez, Director for Forests with the Environment
Ministry, between 1998 and 2002, that represented 800,000 hectares of forest in
this region gone up in smoke to make way for soya. In the same period, 118,000
hectares were lost in the CHACO and 170,000 in SALTA. This is a veritable
ecological tragedy for the primitive forests which shelter a biodiversity found
here and nowhere else on the planet.
MONSANTO VERSES ARGENTINA
In order
to dominate the market for GM soya, Monsanto hasn’t hesitated to extend a
number of privileges in Argentina, like the bargain prices for RR soya seed,
the lack of a patent and its undertaking not to sue farmers who replant part of
their harvested seed.
However Monsanto is in dispute with the
Argentine government at the moment because the firm is claiming royalties on
the sale and export of its GM soya. The firm is demanding three dollars per tonne of soya grain or flour leaving
Argentine ports or 15 dollars on arrival of the cargoes in European ports.
That represents a potential financial boost of 160 million dollars a year for Monsanto
simply from Argentine soya exports destined for the EU. Currently no agreement
has been reached between Monsanto and the Argentine government.
MONSANTO
TARGETS LATIN AMERICA FOR SEED BUSINESS GROWTH
Via Dow Jones Newswires 12/22/2011
Monsanto
claims more than 40% of Brazil's GMO seed market and more than half of
Argentina's.
The big farms of Brazil and
Argentina have become a key battleground
for Monsanto Co. (MON) as the agribusiness heavyweight seeks to maintain its
market leadership in genetically modified seeds in Latin America.
As growth of Monsanto's GMO seeds
outside the U.S. is expected to outpace the domestic market for the first time
during the upcoming crop season, Latin
America has taken on new importance for Monsanto. The momentum is
expected to accelerate in 2012 in Latin America. Furthermore it is expected the
ramp-up of the corn opportunity in Brazil and Argentina will be one of the
single largest sources of new growth in the next few years according to
Monsanto.
While the U.S.
has a finite amount of cultivatable crop lands, there are still massive amounts
of land available to expand production in Brazil and Argentina. (http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com/2012/01/latam-economic-downgrading-tactics-by.html
)
Moreover,
the benefits of GMO seeds -- including increased resistance to pests and
herbicides -- have won them increased usage by farmers in those nations. Monsanto claims
more than 40% of Brazil's GMO seed market and more than half of Argentina's.
Last year, the company's sales to Argentina totaled over $600 million out of
Monsanto's overall global seed sales of $10.5 billion.
Brazil and
Argentina are primed to boost Monsanto's top line as farmers adopt biotech seeds
and trade up to more advanced and higher-margin seeds.
With 120 million
acres of soybeans in South America versus 75 million in the U.S. it is a
significant growth opportunity for Monsanto and the next blockbuster product,
with a big opportunity for investors in South America.
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