{"id":27498,"date":"2013-04-08T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=27498"},"modified":"2013-04-06T20:02:19","modified_gmt":"2013-04-06T19:02:19","slug":"monsanto-a-corporate-profile-sheds-light-on-ge-seed-giants-dark-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/04\/monsanto-a-corporate-profile-sheds-light-on-ge-seed-giants-dark-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Monsanto: A Corporate Profile Sheds Light on GE Seed Giant\u2019s Dark History"},"content":{"rendered":"

From its beginnings as a small chemical company in 1901, Monsanto has grown into the largest biotechnology seed company in the world with net sales of $11.8 billion, 404 facilities in 66 countries across six continents and products grown on more than 282 million acres worldwide. Today, the consumer advocacy nonprofit Food & Water Watch<\/a> released its report, Monsanto: A Corporate Profile<\/em><\/a>. \"monsanto<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a growing movement of people around the country who want to take on Monsanto\u2019s undue influence over lawmakers, regulators and the food supply,\u201d said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and author of the book Foodopoly<\/em><\/a>. \u201cPeople need to know about Monsanto\u2019s history as a heavy industrial chemical manufacturer; a reality at odds with the environmentally friendly, feed-the-world image that the company spends millions trying to convey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of March, the American public saw first hand the unjustifiable power that Monsanto holds over our elected officials when an unprecedented rider, dubbed the \u2018Monsanto Protection Act<\/a>,\u2019 was tacked onto the spending bill to fund the federal government,\u201d said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!<\/a> \u201cThis is an outrageous interference with our courts and separation of powers and we cannot sit back and allow our elected officials to continue to take orders from Monsanto at the expense of family farmers and consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report offers a timeline of milestones in the company\u2019s history including chemical disasters, mergers and acquisitions, and the first genetically modified plant cell.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite its various marketing incarnations over the years, Monsanto is a chemical company that got its start selling saccharin to Coca-Cola, then Agent Orange to the U.S. military, and, in recent years, seeds genetically engineered to contain and withstand massive amounts of Monsanto herbicides and pesticides,\u201d said Ronnie Cummins<\/a>, executive director of Organic Consumers Association<\/a>. \u201cMonsanto has become synonymous with the corporatization and industrialization of our food supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report concludes with recommended actions for the federal government to take to temper Monsanto\u2019s anti-competitive practices and control over agricultural research and government policies. It also suggests steps that regulators should take to better protect consumers and the environment from the potentially harmful effects of genetically engineered<\/a> (GE) crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though you won\u2019t find the Monsanto brand on a food or beverage container at your local grocery store, the company holds vast power over our food supply,\u201d said Rebecca Spector, west coast director of Center for Food Safety<\/a>. \u201cThis power is largely responsible for something else we cannot find on our grocery store shelves\u2014labels on genetically engineered food. Not only has Monsanto\u2019s and other agribusinesses\u2019 efforts prevented the labeling of GE foods, but they spend millions to block grassroots efforts like California\u2019s Prop 37 in order to keep consumers in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chemical pesticide industry, with Monsanto leading the way, took over U.S. seed industry and engineered bacterial genes into food crops with the primary purpose of selling more weed killer that contaminates our food, water and bodies,\u201d said David Bronner, the CEO of Dr. Bronner\u2019s Magic Soaps<\/a> and leader in GE food labeling campaigns across the country.\u201d Just like the citizens of Europe, Japan and China, Americans deserve the right to opt out of the genetically engineered food science experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visit EcoWatch\u2019s GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM<\/a> page for more related news on this topic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ecowatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From its beginnings as a small chemical company in 1901, Monsanto has grown into the largest biotechnology seed company in the world with net sales of $11.8 billion, 404 facilities in 66 countries across six continents and products grown on more than 282 million acres worldwide. Today, the consumer advocacy nonprofit Food & Water Watch released its report, Monsanto: A Corporate Profile<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organic-gmo-genetic-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}