It works like this.  Traditionally, farmers cross-pollinate or graft different varieties of a plant to combine desirable (for them) features (like withstanding trucking across the nation, or big & pretty, or pest-resistant).  These features are often undesirable for consumers (b/c they're at the expense of nutrition, which goes hand-in-hand with taste, as well).  This wasn't enough for Monsanto. 

Rather than hybridizing traditional foods, biotech companies began to alter them at the genetic level by introducing genes from other species, such as splicing fish or fruit fly genes into tomatoes.  Corn, soy, canola, & cottonseed (Crisco) are the most commonly GM foods in the US. 

Here's the catch: when you grow these plants, Monsanto holds a patent on the seeds.  That means you can't save seeds from your current crop and use them next year - you must buy more seeds, or pay a royalty for re-use.  (Farmers have been sued out of business for saving seeds from GM canola that blew into their fields from nearby.)  Monsanto has even patented seeds that have been GM'd so that they *won't reproduce at all.* 

In a GM world, no farmer can be self-reliant.  As a serf to Monsanto, he must pay yearly for the privilege of growing his crops.  THIS Is the big problem that supports Prince Charles' argument.  It is wholly unsustainable & will bankrupt small family farmers the world over, even w/o considering the health effects of genetically engineered food.  Only corporations can sustain this kind of business model.

When government or businesses are mismanaging all the supplies, only locally based, individual farmers have any chance to feed those around them.  How can they do it if every seed belongs to Monsanto?

And what happens when that GM variety encounters an insurmountable obstacle?  Like the great boll weevil catastrophe of the American South, relying on only one variety of crop creates serious problems.  If all seeds, or even most, are GM, natural checks and balances and backups aren't there.  Biodiversity is dealt a death blow.

Another problem is that GM plants aren't confined to GM fields.  They blow, just like other seeds.  So if an organic farmer has a GM farmer move nearby, he must constantly fight GM contamination. 

Guess what else Monsanto makes?  Round-Up.  So they ingeniously created Roundup Ready crops - you can nuke the whole field with Roundup, but the corn & soy survives!  Wow, feed me some of *that* corn!  Yum! 

What unintended consequences can that bring?  How about throwing the entire local ecology off as all weeds, natural seeds, & quite probably soil bacteria & small animals are obliterated by the Roundup poison?  The thought of a biotech company flying over & roundup-ing a farmer's crops, leaving only GM crops, thus forcing him to pay royalties for new GM seeds is a little conspiratorially far-fetched for me, but it has occurred to others.

Monsanto intends to apply its seed monopoly techniques to animal breeding - they do the cloning, you pay for the resulting embryo and every succeeding generation.  The cow you breed contains Monsanto's patented genes and you do NOT have permission to breed it w/o paying again.  Since artificial insemination is already so prevalent in animal breeding, the door is wide open for them.  Greenpeace claims they have already claimed ownership of all pigs bred with a certain technique they have patented.


I'm not anti-corporation or anti-capitalism or anything of the sort.  That does not, however, prevent me from honestly evaluating Monsanto as perhaps one of the most corrupt businesses on the planet.  They create products that cause disease & death, create dependencies on them for more of the same, & are audaciously dishonest, putting up front groups like American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology.  If you care to learn more, check out Seeds of Deception & Seeds of Destruction.  Or view the video The World According to Monsanto & decide for yourself.

Some of the products Monsanto has invented or manufactured: saccharine, vanillin, Agent Orange, aspartame (Nutrasweet), bovine growth hormone, Celebrex, rBST (milk hormones), Roundup.  They also own the largest vegetable seed producer in the world. 

When you read the arguments of the "Agricultural Biotechnology Council" (which admits it is a group of biotech corporations), keep all this in mind: Monsanto's actions imply that they intend to make sure that no food is grown that they don't own.  Plants, animals, all of it.