Friday, September 14, 2012




#6 American farmers vs. Corporate farmers

 

         When I was asked by my English 102 professor to write a post about genetically engineered food, in particular Monsanto (The Multinational Agricultural Biotechnology Corporation), I knew I would have someone to discuss the topic with. My girlfriend (Elizabeth) is a vegetarian and is very much against any type of genetically engineered products, especially when it comes to food. All of the vegetables we eat either comes from our own garden or comes from the organic farmers at the farmers market. Even the meat that she buys for me comes from organic farmers that don’t use any growth hormones. So, even before I started this assignment I’d already had many long and in depth conversations at the dinner table about genetically engineered crops.
             As I read up on the Monsanto Corporation and dug deeper into the things Elizabeth has been saying for years, I was outraged about what I found out. This Corporation tries to convey their image as being for the small American farmer when in fact they are destroying the American farmer. They push there genetically engineered and herbicide resistance seeds on to the farmers. The farmers who use these seeds are then forced to buy them every year, because Monsanto seeds are engineered to be infertile. The farmers who don’t buy from Monsanto and wish to plant organic crops find themselves in court because these patented seeds spread from neighboring farms and end up in their crops. These farmers then go bankrupt battling an army of Monsanto lawyers for having these seeds in their crops, the very seeds the farmer wanted nothing to do with in the first place. It angers me that the Monsanto Corporation is destroying the American farmers, but it angers me more that the courts and our legal system are allowing it to happen.
 I was also shocked to learn there is basically no regulations are research going on involving genetically engineered crops. In the video “The World According to Monsanto”, author Jeffrey Smith stated “the reason GM crops are here is based on a deception that occurred in the FDA”. The FDA came up with the term (G.R.A.S) for GM crops, meaning “generally recognized as safe”. Smith basically said to label something as G.R.A.S, typically takes years of studies and the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, which smith states “The FDA had neither”. The FDA and other government regulatory agencies pushed Monsanto’s products through the system as quick as possible, without any regard to consumer health and safety. James Maryanski, biotechnology coordinator at the FDA from 1985 to 2006, admitted that the GM regulations were based on politics rather than science. It sounds to me like the public’s health and safety was put into the hands of politicians rather than highly trained, highly skilled, independent scientists.

The fact that these GM foods are not required to be labeled says a lot. They don’t want us to have a choice. It amazes me how the united states government can over regulate just about everything a person can think of, but when it comes to something as vital and important as consumer health and safety, the government can turn their cheek and basically have no over sight or regulation. The fact is Monsanto has too much power and influence in the top levels of our government. This has a lot to do with the term revolving door. There have been dozens of people in the last few decades who either worked for Monsanto and left to go work for a government agency are who left a government agency to go work for Monsanto. According to redicecreations.com, Margaret Miller, one of Monsanto's researchers, wrote a report to the FDA about Monsanto's growth hormones, so the FDA could determine if they were safe or not. Shortly before the report was submitted, miller was hired by the FDA and her first job was to approve the very same report that she had written. This is a huge conflict of interest!
 We should do away with all of the genetically engineered crops and all the companies who produce them, starting with the Monsanto Corporation. We have the right to know if our food came naturally from Mother Nature or was engineered in a lab by scientists. Farmers have grown crops and have supplied us with food for centuries, without the need for genetically engineered crops and they can still do it today. We should all think a little harder about the food we consume and decide if we want American farmers to supply our food are do we want corporate farmers in suits to do it? We all have a vote and we cast that vote every time we go grocery shopping. Who will you vote for?
 
                                         Work Cited

 

Smith, Jeffrey. “The World According to Monsanto” wed. 12. Sept. 2012 (Canada/France/Germany: Marie-Monique Robin, 2008: 108 mins)
 
Maryanski, James. The World According to Monsanto” wed. 12. Sept. 2012 (Canada/France/Germany: Marie-Monique Robin, 2008: 108 mins)
 
Red Ice Creations. “Monsanto’s Government Ties” wed. 12. Sept. 2012
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                     
 

 


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