{"id":29678,"date":"2018-01-13T10:51:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-13T15:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29678"},"modified":"2018-01-13T10:51:03","modified_gmt":"2018-01-13T15:51:03","slug":"monsanto-bayer-and-neoliberalism-a-case-of-hobsons-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29678","title":{"rendered":"Monsanto, Bayer and Neoliberalism: A Case of Hobson\u2019s Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monsanto, Bayer and Neoliberalism: A Case of Hobson\u2019s Choice<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n
\n
A Bayer marketing professional recently stated on Twitter that critics of GMOs deny choice to farmers. It\u2019s a common accusation by the pro-GMO lobby. In a\u00a0previous article<\/a>, I noted the idea that GMOs offer increased choice is erroneous and that, by implication, corporations like Bayer or Monsanto restrict options. Much evidence suggests that GMOs provide a false choice.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

However, to get drawn into endless debates about the whys and wherefores of GMOs tends to overlook the fact that GMOs belong to a particular model of agriculture which is increasingly being challenged. To quote Charles Eisenstein from a\u00a0recent piece<\/a>, what we should be talking about is the \u201cchoice between two very different systems of food production, two visions of society, and two fundamentally different ways to relate to plants, animals, and soil\u201d (the table\u00a0featured here<\/a>\u00a0provides concise insight into these visions).<\/p>\n

The fact that someone chooses to market for a giant transnational company says much about a person\u2019s allegiance to and belief in corporate power, let alone the prevailing economic system that company benefits from and the model of agriculture it promotes. Corporate-inspired visions of the world tend to define choice \u2013 and indeed how the world should be \u2013 within strict parameters.<\/p>\n

Choice, development and the future of agriculture in India\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If current trends in India continue, it could mean dozens of mega-cities with\u00a0up to 40 million inhabitants<\/a>\u00a0and just 15-20% of the population (as opposed to around the current 60% or more) left in an\u00a0emptied-out countryside<\/a>. It could also mean\u00a0hundreds of millions<\/a>\u00a0of former rural dwellers without any work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monsanto, Bayer and Neoliberalism: A Case of Hobson\u2019s Choice A Bayer marketing professional recently stated on Twitter that critics of GMOs deny choice to farmers. It\u2019s a common accusation by the pro-GMO lobby. In a\u00a0previous article, I noted the idea that GMOs offer increased choice is erroneous and that, by implication, corporations like Bayer or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,12141,13900,5608,373,17899,4131,6996],"class_list":["post-29678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-agriculture","tag-bayer","tag-colin-todhunter","tag-genetically-modified-organisms","tag-gmos","tag-hobsons-choice","tag-monsanto","tag-neoliberalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29679,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29678\/revisions\/29679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}