Tag Archives: agriculture

The March Against Monsanto : Who is Monsanto and why should you care?

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This coming Saturday, May 25, the March Against Monsanto gets underway in 36 countries around the globe. Yes, 36. I am excited and worried and hopeful.

In my circle of experience, I take for granted that most people know who Monsanto is and why they’re bad news. I realized this week that I shouldn’t.

So.

First of all, let’s get a look at the lay of the land, so to speak.

What are GMO’s?

GMO’s are Genetically Modified Organisms. You might also sometimes see them referred to as GE’s or Genetically Engineered organisms.

Traditionally, variations of food species were created over time by selective breeding by farmers. They watched their crops and saved the seeds of plants that exhibited desirable traits; this plant survived the drought, this one resists mildew, this one has the best yield, this one the best taste. Each year the seeds were saved, they became more perfectly adapted to their place and the needs and desires of the people who grew them.

GMO’s are touted as a better, sped-up, technologically advanced version of selective breeding. This, frankly, is a load of crock.

Instead, GMO’s allow genes from plants and animals and bacteria and most alarmingly – toxins, to be inserted into the genes of a plant or animal that would never mix in nature. Two of the more common versions are plants that have been created to produce their own pesticides, as in Bt corn, or are created to resist herbicides as in Roundup Ready corn or soybeans.

What is the difference between GMO’s and hybrids?

There is a lot of confusion about the difference between a hybrid seed and a GMO. Hybrids are created by cross-breeding related species through sexual reproduction.

This can be done with animals – think the Labradoodle, or with plants – on purpose or accidentally like when you try to save seeds from your pumpkin and next year get some crazy pumpkin / squash cross because the bees have cross-pollinated them for you.

GMO seeds cannot be saved for legal reasons. Hybrid seeds cannot be saved because the plant produced from the seed will not reliably “come true” – meaning it will not be the exact same as it’s parent.

What you are not going to get is genes from a totally unrelated species or some crazy bacteria spliced into an existing gene. Although I personally prefer to use open-pollinated and heirloom seeds for a variety of reasons, there is nothing wrong with using hybrid seeds (usually labeled F1) in your garden, in my opinion. We are growing F1 broccoli this year because we’ve had poor success with the open-pollinated varieties carried by our favourite seed supplier. We just won’t be able to save the seeds, that’s all.

A snapshot of the Biotechnology Industry:

  • in the US, as of 2009 genetically modified (GM) soybeans accounted for 91 percent of the soybean market. Eighty-five percent of all corn grown was GM, as well as 88 percent of all cotton.
  • As much as 70% of the food on grocery store shelves contain some form of GMO-based products.
  • Genetically modified seeds are owned and controlled by the companies who produced them by way of patents. This means farmers cannot save their seeds from year to year and must buy new seed each year. Some seeds, known as Terminator Seeds, cannot reproduce themselves at all.
  • In many areas, farmers do not have easy access to non-gmo animal feed or seed. Simply not buying these products is not an option for many farmers, because the companies have such a stranglehold on the market.
  • Five large biotechnologies currently control the world seed market. These companies are Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer and Dow.

So, who the heck is this Monsanto we’re marching against?

Monsanto began in 1901 as Monsanto Company, a chemical company and remained one from 1901 to 1997. During this time Monsanto produced products like Agent Orange. In 1997 they spun off the chemical portion of their business to become a “100% agricultural company”. (Only natural that they’d go into agriculture with a history like that, right?)

Monsanto’s website describes the company thusly:

Producing More Conserving More Improving Lives. That’s sustainable agriculture and that’s what Monsanto is all about. [...] The Challenge : Meeting the needs of today while preserving the planet for tomorrow.

Reading this, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking, well heck, what’s wrong with that?

Unfortunately, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Monsanto is the producer of both household name herbicides like Roundup as well as lesser known seed products like Roundup-Ready Soybeans, for example. Roundup has been linked to a number of serious diseases in people and heavy use of it and herbicides like it is associated with the spread of superweeds (weeds that are evolving to resist herbicides).

Monsanto defends their methods with a complicated (and I believe misleading) version of the-end-justifies-the-means. Their main message is that without the technology they provide, we will never be able to feed the world. The argument goes that we can’t rely on organic agriculture, because the yields are not as high and as a result we would need to turn even more wild spaces over to agriculture to meet demand.

In short, without Monsanto, we’re all gonna starve.

{Whether or not that is true is a topic for a whole other series of blog posts, some of which I’ve touched on when talking about GMO’s before. Let’s just say I don’t believe that’s the whole truth, and is missing some pretty important pieces to the puzzle.}

Another item up for debate is whether or not Monsanto’s products are safe. Monsanto has said this to the New York Times about the safety of their products:

“Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food,” said Phil Angell, Monsanto’s director of corporate communications. “Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

Awesome.

Why should I care?

Well, I’ll tell you why I care, and you can decide for yourself.

Monsanto holds a powerful monopoly over our food system.

Monsanto’s business model is to completely control the food system, from seed to supermarket. Monsanto’s business model is one of vertical integration, meaning they want to control (and profit from) every step in the process of the creation of our food. This is an effective model and is serving them well.

Monopolies typically don’t benefit the consumer very well. And when the “consumer” is anyone who eats, well . . . that’s kind of a big deal. Do we really want the security and vitality of our food left in the hands of a huge corporation that doesn’t even believe it’s their responsibility to ensure their products are safe??? Do we want a handful of corporations deciding what’s for dinner, based on their needs and bottom line?

Monsanto has an aggressive, open policy of actively suing farmers, seed-savers and seed-cleaning businesses.

Monsanto sets out its rationale for suing farmers here.

Monsanto aggressively pursues anyone who they suspect of infringing on their patents. This has even included farmer’s whose fields have been contaminated by pollen from neighbours GMO crops.

Now, the argument is – it’s their property, and they have the right to profit from their intellectual property as well as protect it.

This argument completely misses the question as to whether they ought to have the right to “own” these things at all. This right has been bestowed on Monsanto by the courts, who shouldn’t have had the power to give it in the first place. Surely the right to profit is not the almighty rule of life. Surely somewhere in there the Greater Good has to come out on top. Right? Right??

The seeds of life do not belong to the Supreme Courts. The seeds of life belong to the people.

You can read about why I believe it’s important to keep seeds in the public domain here.

And remember . . .

“An unjust law is no law at all.” – St. Augustine

Monsanto has a tight-knit, extremely influential relationship with government.

This goes beyond the usual money-for-votes we’re all so familiar with.

Many former Monsanto employees and allies hold powerful positions within the US government, even the United States Supreme Court. Notions of conflict of interest seem to be lost and forgotten, like the time this former Monsanto lawyer become Supreme Court Justice wrote the majority opinion in this landmark legal decision that favourably impacted Monsanto’s business.

Here is a list of former Monsanto employees and associates and their government rolls:

NAME
MONSANTO JOB
GOVERNMENT JOB
ADMIN
Toby Moffett Monsanto Consultant US Congessman D-CT
Dennis DeConcini Monsanto
Legal Counsel		 US Senator D-AZ
Margaret Miller Chemical Lab Supervisor Dep. Dir. FDA,
HFS		 Bush Sr,
Clinton
Marcia Hale Director, Int’l
Govt. Affairs		 White House
Senior Staff		 Clinton
Mickey Kantor Board Member Sec. of Commerce Clinton
Virginia Weldon VP, Public Policy WH-Appt to CSA, Gore’s SDR Clinton
Josh King Director, Int’l
Govt. Affairs		 White House Communications Clinton
David Beler VP, Gov’t & Public Affairs Gore’s Chief Dom.
Polcy Advisor		 Clinton
Carol Tucker-Foreman Monsanto Lobbyist WH-Appointed Consumer Adv Clinton
Linda Fisher VP, Gov’t & Public Affairs Deputy Admin
EPA		 Clinton,
Bush
Lidia Watrud Manager, New Technologies USDA, EPA Clinton,
Bush, Obama
Michael Taylor VP, Public Policy Dep. Commiss. FDA Obama
Hilary Clinton Rose Law Firm, Monsanto Counsel US Senator,
Secretary of State		 D-NY
Obama
Roger Beachy Director, Monsanto Danforth Center Director USDA NIFA Obama
Islam Siddiqui Monsanto Lobbyist Ag Negotiator
Trade Rep		 Obama

Despite this cozy relationship with the government, the people have had little chance to have our voices heard. No one asked us if we think it’s appropriate, moral or just for a private company to patent life. No one asked us if we’re comfortable with contaminated genes being released into the wild.

Doesn’t that seem like something we should be having a public discussion about? Shouldn’t someone have asked us first?

If they can’t just block our voices, they throw huge amounts of money at convincing us that we’re wrong. When California was set to vote on Prop 37, which would require labelling of most GMO products, Monsanto spent $8.1 million dollars to help defeat it. Together with their allies in agri-business, industry spent 45 million dollars to defeat the Prop 37. How can democracy function in this sort of environment? And why on earth are they so reluctant for us to know what is actually in our food? If their products are safe, why do they care?

When the people DO speak, as they have been right now in Vermont where they are in the process of trying to pass law that will require the labelling of GMO products, Monsanto is threatening to sue the ENTIRE STATE.

Perhaps in response to this, an amendment to the 2013 Farm Bill would revoke State’s rights to pass laws requiring labelling of GMO foods.

Recent wiki-leaks documents also show that Monsanto is influencing the government to use tax dollars to push their agenda abroad via US public policy.

And the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act” that was recently signed in to law by President Obama was allegedly WRITTEN WITH MONSANTO and brought forward by Republican Senator Roy Blunt, who has received $64, 250 from the company for his campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

The act gives companies who produce and sell GMO seeds immunity from Federal prosecution, EVEN IF their product is later PROVEN to be harmful. This means even if future research proves GMO foods CAUSE CANCER, the federal government will have no power to stop their sale or use.

Monsanto’s monopoly has a devastating effect on farmers around the world.

In India, a farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes, often by drinking the pesticides they can no longer afford. Many have either bought into the promises of the big biotech companies, or can no longer access traditional seed varieties.

Here is a first-hand account of the situation in India. I also found the documentary Bitter Seeds a heart-wrenching illustration of the impact of GMO cotton on Indian farm families. It tells the story of a young woman who lost her father to suicide. I sobbed through the whole thing, be warned.

GMO seed technology cannot be contained

We have opened a pandora’s box of unintended consequences by releasing these genes into the wild. While many agri-industry wonks would convince themselves that agriculture is not a part of nature, the fact is – it is. We don’t farm in a bubble, and as that lovely line from the cheesy cautionary tale Jurassic Park goes – Life will find a way.

We have no idea how these toxin-laced plants will eventually affect insect populations, or how the altered genes might interact with the genes of other food crops or wild species. We fancy ourselves able to understand and foresee the implications of this technology, but that’s just hubris. We don’t know. We can’t know. We might not know for sure until it’s way too late.

Isn’t it better to just – not? Do we really need plants that can be sprayed with poisons and not die?? Should be we pouring poison onto our food at all? This kind of technology, and the agriculture it represents is killing the goose to get the golden egg. We are depleting our future ability to produce food in exchange for short-term monetary benefits for a chosen few. It’s suicidal.

So, to sum up, why should you care . . .

If you believe no one should have the right to patent life, you should care. If you believe seeds belong in the hands of family farmers and backyard gardeners, you should care. If you value genetic diversity, you should care. If you know how important pollinators are to our survival, you should care. If you don’t want to see increasing amounts of poison poured into our soil and water, you should care. If you think there’s even a slim chance this technology could go wrong, you should care. If you believe huge multi-national companies shouldn’t have so much power and influence over our food or our government, you should care.

If you eat, you should care.

I care because I love my son and my unborn daughter.

. . . .

Now, like anything, this is a complex issue that cannot be succinctly summed up in one blog post (albeit a long one.) Monsanto might be one of the biggest and baddest bad guys to blame, but there is plenty of blame to go around. World government, non-governmental agencies like the World Trade Organization, foreign policy, social injustice, predatory lending, greed, commodification of food, land-grabbing by huge corporate interests, food-industry lobbyists, domestic agricultural policy, and yes – you and I.

In the end, I can tell you from my extensive experience in the garden, growing food organically – seeds are about life. They are firmly rooted in a paradigm of plenty. In our current culture of corporate coups over our democracy, sharing really is rebellious. The best thing we can all do is plant seeds, save seeds and share seeds.

Life begets life and the bounty grows by sharing; it is not diminished by it.

This is a basic truth of life. No amount of PR spin or scare tactics will convince me otherwise. I hold tight to this knowledge and it gives me hope for my son and the daughter dancing in my belly, that they will have access to food and seeds that are good, clean and fair. That they will have a future as abundant as the one we enjoy now.

It’s just like a magic penny, hold it tight and you won’t have any. Lend it, spend it, you’ll have so many, they’ll roll all over the floor! Love is somethin’ if you give it away, you end up havin’ more.

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feed the soil

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Out this morning at dawn before the boys woke up, watering, planting, spreading straw. Such rare moments these days, quiet time by myself in the garden. Moments like that I can forget about everything else, set aside the busyness, not have to keep one ear and eye open for the kid and dog and other critters, actually lose myself in the work of my hands and my thoughts . . . what a gift.

This morning as I spread the straw I got thinking about one of the simplest, but most profound shifts in our thinking about growing food since we began our inquiry into organic gardening.

For me, the idea that we should feed the soil instead of the plants completely changed my outlook and actions in the garden. Industrial / conventional agriculture largely views the soil merely as something to hold the roots, not as an integral component, a living being. Agri-industry spends most of its time depleting soil, it certainly doesn’t seem too concerned about nourishing it.

I often think we’ll one day look at this attitude towards soil the same way we look at the “flower pot” theory of human reproduction. (There was a time when it was believed that the woman contributed nothing to the equation, she was simply the “flower pot” for the man’s seed. Nice, hey?)

Soil is our most precious resource and we are losing it by the ton. In North America, soil is lost at a rate of 5 to 10 TONS PER ACRE every year.  Take into consideration that it can take 1000 years for nature to create just one inch of topsoil and you realize how staggering this is. What soil remains to us is being poisoned under the guise of saving it. Industrial “no-till” agriculture relies heavily on herbicides to be effective. We are Solomon splitting the baby and calling it success.

If you are interested in soil loss and what we can do about it, I would suggest checking out Wes Jackson and the Land Institute. His recent book Consulting the Genius of the Place is an eye opening account of this history of soil loss and what he believes can be done about it.

Here’s what I do to feed my soil:

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reflection and renewal

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It has been a long winter here on Coghlan Cottage Farm.

We have had not one, but two, Pineapple Expresses in the last few weeks. Seems to me they’d be a lot more fun if they involved more pineapple, less rain. All told the two storms, one week apart, brought us nearly 12 inches of rain, on top of “regular” storms that have been regularly leaving us with 2-5 inches each.

Even for a native “Wet” Coaster like me, that’s a lot to take.

We’ve also had something like 60% less sunshine than normal this winter. Gah.

Add to that a lovely bout of morning sickness and a boy heading solidly into the terrible twos . . . Oh yes. It has been a long winter.

However.

Here we are, the end of March, and I’m sitting on the lawn in a tank top with my pant legs rolled up, dog asleep under my chair, listening to Bob Dylan and nursing the last of my latte, watching my son getting more and more filthy by the minute.

Suddenly overflowing rain-gauges and weeks without sun seem a distant memory.

Instead of writing this winter, I’ve taken a break to read. Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Masanobu Fukuoka have been filling me with inspiration and encouragement and reassurance that I am not mad and I am on the right path.

Since moving to the country, holding the seed of what will become our farm in the palm of my hand, has required me to face the reality that faces so many others in our position. Although we hold the dream of what farming can be in our mind’s eye, the reality is, we are facing HUGE challenges. Agriculture as it is would rather not make room for us.

From ridiculously expensive quota systems, unwieldy rules and regulations and a food system that is not designed to accomodate small cottage-industries like the one we dream of, the stakes are stacked against us.

Our neighbours see themselves as hobby farmers, and so does most of the agricultural system. I don’t know why but that moniker rubs me the wrong way. That’s not what I want to do here, but in the eyes of the agri-industry, that’s all that’s possible on five acres like ours.

It pisses me off.

The lack of vision, the lack of imagination that permeates our food system drives me crazy, but I have to remember that in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

My lack of formal “agricultural” training, is what allows me to look at this lovely bit of land, love it, and know that by loving it and using it well, I can and will make a farm here. And a living, god dammit!

Anyway . . . I’ve been feeling admittedly down about the state of affairs and the challenges facing us, but its funny how just a little sun can change your perspective.

We have lots of friends and family, friends of friends and neighbours who support what we’re trying to do. Although it seems like a humungous task now, we will get this farm back on track. We’ll win the war against the blackberries, one day the stream will end in a flourishing pond full of fish, we’ll nurse the soil back to health, mend the fences, and tackle the seemingly endless list of things to do, one by one.

As the silly saying goes – you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

I guess we have to look at the state of our food systems the same way we look at the farm. It’s a mess, but we’ll get there. One step at a time.

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the agricultural fair and why I’m not a capital F farmer

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So we hit the biggest ag fair in Western Canada last weekend. What a jaw dropper.

You know, it’s something to intellectually understand that there’s a reason farmers don’t consider me to be one of them, and it’s another thing to stand next to a farming machine as big as my house that probably costs about the same.

Puts things in perspective.

The agricultural fair was full of boys and their dads, with equally wide grins, clambering all over all type of farm machinery imaginable. It was lovely, and my boy and his dad were no exception . . . but . .

In truth, I found the entire thing sort of sad.

In between tractors and harvesters and gigantic machines of mysterious purpose were chemical companies and all sorts of things that, for me, have no place in food production. Machines with weight and wheels that I can’t imagine allowing on soil . . . I went into a little panic thinking about the compaction they must cause. Who would let that on their precious soil?

And then I got thinking about the size of fields that demand machines that size . . . I duno. It was all very strange.

I also realized that there is very little space for people like me in this industry, as it stands. I found my favourite seed company and a tiny booth containing the organic certification folks, other than that  . . . holy smokes.

Eye opening.

Talking to one government agency just trying to figure out where our tiny farm will fit in terms of regulation and all that, and as soon as I mentioned pastured poultry – Ooooh you have to talk to Dr. So-and-so. You’ll have WAY more health and illness problems if they’re outside. (As opposed to a gazillion birds crammed together in their own poop? What?)

Reading some of the literature we picked up, there are conversations about “elitist organic farmers” being “selfish” in trying to block GMO’s.

Sigh.

Made me realize that I will never be a Farmer-farmer. It’s not in me.

I’m not sure what we will call what we do here, or if the Farmers will ever recognize it as farming. I don’t want to call myself a “hobby” farmer like most of my neighbours do . . . Surely there’s a space between stamp-collecting and producing nourishing food.

Maybe we’ll have to come up with an entirely different term to define ourselves.

Maybe it’s good that there’s no place for us in the capital-F farming world. Maybe it’s better to start fresh.

 

 

GMO food dialogues : AKA sh*t that makes me crazy

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Ok – fair warning. I feel a rant post coming on.

So, a while back I find myself supposed to be working, but I check in to twitter for the first time in ages and see a #FoodD hashtag with some interesting tweets.

Now, I’m totally out of the loop regarding the goings-on in agriculture in the great wide world at the moment. Usually I work hard to stay informed; right now I’m too busy trying to actually farm to keep up on arguments about farming. Apparently there’s a big panel discussion going on and they’re getting my goat.

You can watch the dialogue at Food Dialogues website here.

Gah.

What the heck is the matter with people???? Seriously.

Next thing I know I’m madly tweeting my frustration to the world. Yep. I was one of those people.

Double GAH.

Here’s the thing. Prop 37 was defeated. I haven’t had the heart to read about the details why. It’s too depressing.

And here these folks are, saying GMO’s are safe, it’s just a personal choice, it’s too expensive to label and separate GMO’s from seed to table blah-blabbty-blah.

Here’s the problem with the dialogue about GMO’s.

I’m not going to get into all the gobbly-gook science and B.S. comparison measures they use. Let’s get to the core of it.

This whole “Food Dialogue” carried an overwhelming patronizing tone towards consumers who choose non-GMO foods. Like knowing parents tolerating a petulant child at the dinner table. It infuriates me.

The assumption (which I don’t think is actually their assumption, I think they know the truth, but this is a convenient position for them to take) is that we are only against GMO’s because we have this (mistaken) view that GMO’s are bad for our health if we eat them.

Not a single soul addressed the two real issues at the core of the GMO debate:

1) Should any private corporation, or ANYONE have the right to OWN genetic material?

2) These genes CANNOT be contained.

One tweep, clearly from the mainstream ag world, said us Non-GMO folks shouldn’t push our personal preferences on farmers or other consumers.

To which I replied – What about GMO crops contaminating farmer’s fields??? How is that not “pushing personal choice” on others??? And then turn around and sue him for patent infringement? I mean WTF????

The fact that neither of these issues even came up, despite the twitterverse hollering at the moderator at the top of our lungs, says a lot about the conversation and who controls it.

The whole paradigm held by the pro-GMO troop underlines for me the problems with GMO and modern ag in general – the main pro-GMO guy said: Agriculture is not nature.

Except that it is.

Although we fancy everything related to human existence as apart from nature, we know that is hubris. (I hope we know that is hubris, maybe we don’t.) We don’t live and farm in a bubble. These choices have implications which we cannot even begin to fathom.

We might be able to increase the production of certain crops for the short-term. We might also inadvertently reduce our long-term capacity to produce food by permanently depleting and contaminating the genetic code of our food crops.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how we shift the conversation to the real issues. I think in the long-run, the best thing we can do is demonstrate that small-scale organic farming can be productive, build soil, sequester carbon and maintain genetic biodiversity all while feeding the world.

The only way to get rid of these guys is to prove them unnecessary.

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