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Are Monsanto’s Worst Fears Coming True?
Are Monsanto’s Worst Fears Coming True?
The decision of the Chipotle restaurant chain to make its product lines GMO-free is not most people’s idea of a world-historic event. Especially since Chipotle, by US standards, is not a huge operation. A clear sign that the move is significant, however, is that Chipotle’s decision was met with a tidal-wave of establishment media abuse. Chipotle has been called irresponsible, anti-science, irrational, and much more by the Washington Post, Time Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and many others. A business deciding to give consumers what they want was surely never so contentious.
The media lynching of Chipotle has an explanation that is important to the future of GMOs. The cause of it is that there has long been an incipient crack in the solid public front that the food industry has presented on the GMO issue. The crack originates from the fact that while agribusiness sees GMOs as central to their business future, the brand-oriented and customer-sensitive ends of the food supply chain do not.
The brands who sell to the public, such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, Kraft, etc., are therefore much less committed to GMOs. They have gone along with their use, probably because they wish to maintain good relations with agribusiness, who are their allies and their suppliers. Possibly also they see a potential for novel products in a GMO future.
However, over the last five years, as the reputation of GMOs has come under increasing pressure in the US, the cost to food brands of ignoring the growing consumer demand for GMO-free products has increased. They might not say so in public, but the sellers of top brands have little incentive to take the flack for selling GMOs.
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Lobbyist claims Monsanto weed killer is safe to drink, then bolts when TV host offers him a glass
Lobbyist claims Monsanto weed killer is safe to drink, then bolts when TV host offers him a glass
A controversial lobbyist who claimed that the chemical in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer was safe for humans refused to drink his own words when a French television journalist offered him a glass.
In a preview of an upcoming documentary on French TV, Dr. Patrick Moore tells a Canal+ interviewer that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, was not increasing the rate of cancer in Argentina.
“You can drink a whole quart of it and it won’t hurt you,” Moore insists.
“You want to drink some?” the interviewer asks. “We have some here.”
“I’d be happy to, actually,” Moore replies, adding, “Not really. But I know it wouldn’t hurt me.”
“If you say so, I have some,” the interviewer presses.
“I’m not stupid,” Moore declares.
“So, it’s dangerous?” the interviewer concludes.
But Moore claims that Roundup is so safe that “people try to commit suicide” by drinking it, and they “fail regularly.”
“Tell the truth, it’s dangerous,” the interviewer says.
“It’s not dangerous to humans,” Moore remarks. “No, it’s not.”
“So, are you ready to drink one glass?” the interviewer continues to press.
“No, I’m not an idiot,” Moore says defiantly. “Interview me about golden rice, that’s what I’m talking about.”
At that point, Moore declares that the “interview is finished.”
“That’s a good way to solve things,” the interviewer quips.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
In Global Food War, Monsanto Trips Over Mexican Judge
In Global Food War, Monsanto Trips Over Mexican Judge
The global food wars are heating up. As I reported last September, Mexico is on the frontline of one of the most important global battles – the battle for the control and ownership of seed stocks.
In 2013 a collective of 53 scientists and 22 civil rights organizations and NGOs brought a lawsuit against some of the biggest players in the biotech industry. To everyone’s surprise the presiding judge in the case – a man by the name of Jaime Manuel Marroquín Zaleta – ruled in the litigants’ favor, suspending the granting of licenses for GMO field trials sought by Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, Pionner-Dupont, and Mexico’s Environment and Natural Resources Ministry (Semarnat).
In defending his ruling, Zaleta cited the potential risks to the environment posed by GM corn. If the biotech industry got its way, he argued, more than 7000 years of indigenous maize cultivation in Mexico could be endangered, with the country’s 60 varieties of corn directly threatened by cross-pollination from transgenic strands.
In a world in which Monsanto is long-accustomed to pushing its weight and getting its own way, especially in Washington, Zaleta’s ruling represents a rare snub. Because of the ruling’s judicial nature, Mexico’s unashamedly pro-GMO government has little choice but to grudgingly respect Zaleta’s decision, writes Antonio Torrent Fernández, the president of Mexico’s Union of Scientists Committed to Society (ACCS), one of the organizations that brought the original lawsuit against Monsanto & Co:
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