[Likely controversial?] Why does people consider Monsanto the face of GMO?

[RainDreamer]

For some reasons, I find that people really, really like to portray Monsanto as the sole evil overlord behind all the bad things related to GMO. I looked a little deeper into it, and I wondered...why?

Now I am not going to touch on the matter whether GMO itself is good or bad - that is something we can discuss intelligently over science lab with academic sources and such. I am talking about the social phenomenon that is Monsanto the GMO boogeyman, which is harder to discuss academically and thus placed here.

For some reason, despite being only one company that use GMO seeds, along with Dupont, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, and some others, Monsanto has been the one company under such heavy fire for all these recent years when others barely get a spark.

I feel like there is some sort of conspiracy theory lovers that like to paint this image of a megacorporation (they are smaller than Starbucks) that control the world's agriculture economy through GMO (they only have like 35% market share compare to other top plant biotech patent holders, see figure 5 in link).

I don't think I am going to defend them on whether they are evil or not either. I think they are just as evil as other corporations doing sometimes dubious things to make profit. And that is not right. But I feel like tagging the whole GMO concept behind a company then have a whole Anti-GMO movement that basically use that one company as strawman to burn for all the evils of GMO feels...too convenient. Like there is something wrong here, something that people skip over to just have something to angry about, a conspiracy to gossip over.

What do you think about all this?

Reminder again : Not discussing about what GMO is, or its effect. We are talking about Monsanto, and why it is being the most "evil" corporation for using GMO when there are others doing basically the same thing. Its business practices are bad and we don't need to defend it. I am just wondering if this whole "Mosanto = GMO overlord" on the same level with conspiracy theories. If we want to hate on some entities, at least we should hate it for the right reasons.

Edited March 25, 2015 by RainDreamer

[Robotengineer]

There have been a few cases in which Monsanto has gone after farmers for intellectual property reasons, I believe that is one of the reasons people get upset. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page on Monsanto legal issues.

[Cydonian Monk]

Roundup. And Roundup-resistant crops. Sure, Monsanto isn't the only "evil" in the world, but they've managed to be one of the most visible. And one that's very aggressive in protecting their "IP." They've rubbed many farmers the wrong way (because the Monsanto business model disagrees with several thousand years of standard practices), and seemingly try to suppress the negative press through "crop blackmail."

I also suspect much of their negative attention is carried over from the Vietnam War. Agent Orange.

That said, I'm old enough to recognize Monsanto is just a corporation, and is just out to protect its income. That income feeds the people that work for them, the vast majority of which aren't evil incarnate and are just normal, common, hard-working people. And "GMO" and the roundup-resistent naturally-occuring-plants-that-shouldn't-be-patentable are actually quite beneficial.

[RainDreamer]

Sure, Monsanto isn't the only "evil" in the world, but they've managed to be one of the most visible.

Yeah, I am reading more, and apparently they had some bad PR in the past too, along with stupid business decisions: http://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/monsantos-good-bad-pr-problem/

Apparently they tried to enter UK market back in the 90s when people there were already suspicious of GMO. Got Prince Charles (not exactly scientifically-minded) involved and wrote some strongly worded letter. Monsanto kept on trying anyway, and one anonymous (take it what you will) source from inside Monsanto says the idea was basically "If they block it we can sue them" for how they run things. And there it gets problematic.

Some scuffle with Greenpeace later and failed PR campaigns, they just became a primed target for unproportional hate. Their own fault, I guess.

I also suspect much of their negative attention is carried over from the Vietnam War. Agent Orange.

Monsanto that deal with Agent orange was a different Monsanto, dealing in chemical business, got bought by Pfizer in 2002. The current one was an agriculture business that got merged later on somewhere during 1997 and then got spun off when Pfizer get the chemical company. They weren't interested in the agriculture stuff.

Also, even Monsanto the chem company wasn't the inventor or the only producer of Agent Orange. Agent orange was developed by the military, thanks to the work of Arthur W. Galston (who was a vocal opponent against using it in Vietnam), the producers were Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Diamond Shamrock, Uniroyal, and T.H. Agriculture and Nutrition (formerly Thompson-Hayward). ((sorry for not able to link sources here. I used my university account to access some old news on The New York Times from 1980s on ProQuest.))

Makes me wonder why they are the only one that get pinned with Agent Orange nowadays though.

Edited March 24, 2015 by RainDreamer

[LordFerret]

... portray Monsanto as the sole evil overlord behind all the bad things related to GMO. ...

California has a lot to do with this, starting back in the 70's.

As for 'GMO's, man has been genetically modifying plant life for thousands of years through selective breeding ... I'll give corn as the perfect example.

Agent Orange isn't pretty. I personally know too many who suffer from exposure, and a few whom have passed because of it. I think Roundup only exists because of people's laziness.

[vger]

Roundup. And Roundup-resistant crops. Sure, Monsanto isn't the only "evil" in the world, but they've managed to be one of the most visible. And one that's very aggressive in protecting their "IP." They've rubbed many farmers the wrong way (because the Monsanto business model disagrees with several thousand years of standard practices), and seemingly try to suppress the negative press through "crop blackmail."

Well yeah... you can't really do much to stop cross pollination, unless every farmer builds a freaking dome over their property. So what happens if Monsanto crops end up in your field even if you didn't put it there? You're automatically a thief waiting to be sued for every cent you own.

And also to add to this list, tied in with Roundup. Bee-genocide.

Which actually may have a solution, but it would also be a classic case of creating the virus and then selling the cure (which they're already doing with the whole Roundup-resistant crops fiasco).

1. Monsanto engineers Roundup-resistant bees.

2. Monsanto patents the bee 'design.'

3. All other bee species die out lacking Roundup resistance.

4. Monsanto starts charging everyone for its patented bees which are the only thing keeping the ecosystem alive.

[ZedNova]

I used to work for Monsanto as a test crop pollinator/detassler/thinner. I think the main reason people don't like them is because they patent all of their GMOs and restrict farmers from keeping seeds from their crops for their next year of planting. Instead farmers have to buy the same seed again from Monsanto if they want to plant again. Which kinda screws over the farmer, but prevents Monsanto's seeds from being slightly modified and resold for a cheaper price. Also it puts extra money in their pockets.

[Camacha]

I used to work for Monsanto as a test crop pollinator/detassler/thinner. I think the main reason people don't like them is because they patent all of their GMOs and restrict farmers from keeping seeds from their crops for their next year of planting. Instead farmers have to buy the same seed again from Monsanto if they want to plant again. Which kinda screws over the farmer, but prevents Monsanto's seeds from being slightly modified and resold for a cheaper price. Also it puts extra money in their pockets.

The problem seems to be they also screw over farmers that never wanted to have anything to do with Monsanto in the first place, and try to limit and chain practises that have been free for thousands of years. Any company that tries to gain full control over all customers and anyone around them is going to be perceived as evil. With good reason, I would think.

[Cydonian Monk]

Agent Orange isn't pretty. I personally know too many who suffer from exposure, and a few whom have passed because of it.

Same here. The manager of the grocery store I worked at in college was a scout of some sort in Vietnam. (To hear him tell it he was part of a sniper/spotter team.) He was up in a tree when they got Orange'd, and managed to cover everything except his right leg. Somehow, and I'll never understand how, he got to keep his leg. It wasn't anything more than skin, bone, and chemical burns, about 1/3rd the size of his left leg. It eventually killed him.

Not many people draw a distinction between Monsanto the Rainbow Defoliant chemical giant and Monsanto the Agricultural entity. They see the name, Monsanto, and remember the horrors that came out of the late 1960s. Sometimes it's better to ditch a name or bury it under mergers.

And believe me - the folks that protested those other companies haven't forgotten about them. Neither have the anti-Carbiders that went nuts in my hometown after Bhopal. (Because they made, and still make, MIC there. Of course now it's part of Bayer AG... and the rest of Union Carbide is owned by the enemy Dow.) They may not march around with signs and pitchforks anymore, but they'll still curse at you in public.

I do wonder - does broccoli count as a GMO food? While there wasn't any chromosonal-level modification being done (as with some GMOs) it was certainly the result of selective breeding. (Which Wikipedia counts as genetic manipulation.) Would "Organic Broccoli" then be an impossible juxtaposition?

[Kryten]

Well yeah... you can't really do much to stop cross pollination, unless every farmer builds a freaking dome over their property. So what happens if Monsanto crops end up in your field even if you didn't put it there? You're automatically a thief waiting to be sued for every cent you own.

Blatant strawman. The sued farmer had deliberately used roundup to select for resistant plants. The crop was over 95% GMO-you don't get that by accident.

[Cydonian Monk]

I think the main reason people don't like them is because they patent all of their GMOs and restrict farmers from keeping seeds from their crops for their next year of planting.

Absolutely. I didn't spell it out above, but that's specifically what I meant when I said their business model disagrees with thousands of years of standard practices.

And to charge farmers at neighboring farms for cross-pollinated or windblown seeds is simply abuse. (Though, after reviewing that high-profile case a few years back, I was left with the distinct impression that Monsanto was in the right and the accused farmer _was_ actually being deceptive. Sorry, I don't recall the specifics of why. That should be an exception though and not the rule.)

Edit ^^ Ninjas

[LordFerret]

... And also to add to this list, tied in with Roundup. Bee-genocide. ...

With regard to the Bees going away: In all the research I've read so far on this subject, I've seen no direct tie to Roundup, and only questionable ties to pesticides in general. I more wonder about the climate swing to things getting cooler tied to the sunspot minimum trend. I also wonder about the validity of such statements I've heard about all the crops dying if the bees go; Bees aren't the only insect which pollinate.

[xcorps]

Evil? Certainly some of the crap Monsanto pulls is evil, but those decisions are made by certain individuals. A corporation cannot be evil or good. It's run by people who can make really evil decisions.

Monsanto is not a good corporate citizen. At all. They spend a lot of money to skew information and manipulate legislation in order to prevent consumers from making informed decisions. Monsanto is associated with over 40 superfund sites (A Superfund site is an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people.) They manufactured 99% of PCB's used in US industry until 1977, and they knew about hazards associated with PCB's and actively and purposely behaved in a manner inconsistent with safe and responsible manufacture of such a dangerous chemical. That is established fact.

Bt cotton seed sale in India may have been a significant contribution to a very large number of suicides by farmers. That is arguable, but there is a link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_suicides_in_India

There is a very special relationship between the EPA, the FDA, the SCOTUS, and Monsanto that in the opinion of many people is counterproductive to public health and safety and inappropriate. I share that opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#U.S._public_officials.27_connections_to_Monsanto

Personally, I'd take Big Pharma and Big Oil over a corporation like Monsanto any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Edited March 24, 2015 by xcorps

[Camacha]

Evil? Certainly some of the crap Monsanto pulls is evil, but those decisions are made by certain individuals. A corporation cannot be evil or good. It's run by people who can make really evil decisions.

I strongly disagree there. Company culture and management can and will breed terrible (or evil, if you wish) policy and behaviour. Yes, that behaviour is decided by individuals, but those individuals placed inside a bad culture are much more likely to do things they would not do otherwise. That does not exempt them from personal accountability, but also means companies can indeed be evil.

Let us remember that companies are nothing more than a group of individuals that decided to achieve a goal together. As soon as the resulting behaviour is different than that of individuals would be, you could say the company/group is evil itself. Again, that does not detract from the personal responsibilities people have, but that is another discussion.

[xcorps]

I strongly disagree there. Company culture and management can and will breed terrible (or evil, if you wish) policy and behaviour. Yes, that behaviour is decided by individuals, but those individuals placed inside a bad culture are much more likely to do things they would not do otherwise. That does not exempt them from personal accountability, but also means companies can indeed be evil.

Let us remember that companies are nothing more than a group of individuals that decided to achieve a goal together. As soon as the resulting behaviour is different than that of individuals would be, you could say the company/group is evil itself. Again, that does not detract from the personal responsibilities people have, but that is another discussion.

I understand and respect your argument, but I reject it. An accountant who is a perfect citizen is as much a part of a corporation as a manager who decides to dump mercury into an aquifer.

[Camacha]

I understand and respect your argument, but I reject it. An accountant who is a perfect citizen is as much a part of a corporation as a manager who decides to dump mercury into an aquifer.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. Could you elaborate?

Some organisations are banned, often for good reason. If it really were just up to individuals, that would not be necessary. The culture breeds behaviour.

[xcorps]

A corporation is just a legal entity. It doesn't have a will or mind of it's own. It is a legal personality, not a person and the purpose for corporate existence is to limit the exposure and risk of the owners (the shareholders) to their investment. While I agree with your statements about corporate cultures creating an environment where wrongdoing is rewarded, that doesn't make the corporation itself evil. I think that the majority of upper management of Monsanto has for decades met the definition of "evil", I don't for one second believe that every person employed by Monsanto meets that definition. Nor do I think the shareholders would support a whole hell of a lot of the things that Monsanto has done.

[vger]

A corporation is just a legal entity. It doesn't have a will or mind of it's own. It is a legal personality, not a person and the purpose for corporate existence is to limit the exposure and risk of the owners (the shareholders) to their investment.

Typically, it's the leaders of any 'group' who are held responsible for the actions of their 'minions.'

Honestly, when talking about an "evil corporation," I think everyone has a good idea as to what individuals that refers to. There's little point in arguing that to say "a corporation is evil" is to unfairly smear the names of the people who push mops, maintain machines, stuff envelopes, etc. Don't include them as being part of the "evil corporation." Upper management certainly doesn't include them.

[xcorps]

Typically, it's the leaders of any 'group' who are held responsible for the actions of their 'minions.'

Honestly, when talking about an "evil corporation," I think everyone has a good idea as to what individuals that refers to. There's little point in arguing that to say "a corporation is evil" is to unfairly smear the names of the people who push mops, maintain machines, stuff envelopes, etc. Don't include them as being part of the "evil corporation." Upper management certainly doesn't include them.

Blatantly untrue. Suppose you were at a party at mentioned that you worked at Enron. Would the looks of distaste be aimed at upper management or you? Suppose you told a stranger that you worked for BP? They automatically associate you with oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Camacha]

While I agree with your statements about corporate cultures creating an environment where wrongdoing is rewarded

I intended to say something somewhat different. Without wanting to say all cooperations are evil, I was trying to say that some have weird and messed up internal cultures. These cultures breed and probably reward behaviour that in any other situation would be considered bad. You could compare it somewhat to a cult - by finding yourself inside a group of people that accept weird and wonderful notions, you start accepting them too, lose part of your critical thinking and more. It has a lot to do with mass psychology, peer pressure, feelings of belonging, taking it for the team, etcetera.

If what you are saying would be true, there would be no criminal organisations, no terrorist groups, no bad cults. Nothing like that.

I don't for one second believe that every person employed by Monsanto meets that definition.

They do not have to be for the corporation to be evil. Were Stalin's arms and toes evil? No, just a few relevant bits were evil If all parts need to be evil to call something evil, then pretty much nothing is evil by definition.

- - - Updated - - -

A corporation is just a legal entity. It doesn't have a will or mind of it's own.

I contest this. Due to company culture, it could replace its entire work force and still continue the same practices and strategies. Especially in large companies, people are assimilated and ousted without their presence having much influence on the general course of things. They are, for all intents and purposes, entities that are independent of their constituent parts, much like our own bodies are.

[Cydonian Monk]

Suppose you were at a party at mentioned that you worked at Enron. Would the looks of distaste be aimed at upper management or you?

Here in Houston it's hard to walk around in your own house without bumping into somebody that worked for Enron. Looks of distaste? Hardly. Unless you're also a Cowboys fan, in which case you should probably move back to South Oklahoma. If anybody at a party takes offense because of who you worked for a decade ago then it's a pretty dreadful party.

[LordFerret]

Talking of toxic super fund sites... we have so many of them here in my state it isn't funny. Some of the worst in our nation have been (still are) right here. The biggest joke/shame of it, is that after the alleged clean up, the sites are built upon again ... homes, schools, shopping malls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_New_Jersey

What surprises me about that Wiki list is that Givaudan isn't on it anymore (it was one of the worst)... it's since been cleaned up and homes built there. Givaudan, a perfume manufacturer, used to release Toluene gas under the cover of night, in a residential neighborhood no less ... the gas would collect at low points in the terrain (near the railroad station underpass), and would all but asphyxiate you as you drove by (I used to work in the area for a short time).

Hoffman La Roche was another nasty place. Driving by the place on my way into NYC, you could tell what they were manufacturing just by the smell. I did some on-site work there in their computer center, and had a few friends who worked there... some great tales they had. That place is still toxic, and now they're planning on building a medical school there lol.

There are places I know of out in the Meadowlands, near the sports arena, where you can dig down into the muck of the marshes and still see mercury pooling. In the 1920's and 30's, manufacturing plants along Skyler (bordered the meadows) used to dump their waste mercury into the marsh. I don't know if any of you remember, but there was a brief period of time where there was some controversy over the safety of the entire Meadowlands area due to football players in Giants Stadium coming down with cancer.

Because of my line of work, traveling all over NJ and the east coast as a computer consultant, I've seen nearly every manner of super fund site there is here (mostly big pharmaceuticals, when they were still here that is). I can tell you this - their view: the ends justifies their means.

[vger]

I can tell you this - their view: the ends justifies their means.

That quote was playing in my mind earlier while this discussion was going on.

That way of thinking is a classic route for "evil."

[Guest]

California has a lot to do with this, starting back in the 70's.

As for 'GMO's, man has been genetically modifying plant life for thousands of years through selective breeding ... I'll give corn as the perfect example.

Agent Orange isn't pretty. I personally know too many who suffer from exposure, and a few whom have passed because of it. I think Roundup only exists because of people's laziness.

While it is true that man has been modifying plant life for thousands of years through selective breeding, man only recently started directly engineering genetic code by injecting specifically designed virus into the cell nucleus. This is how Monsanto is able to achieve the death of all the "weeds" while allowing the modified corn to survive. This also encourages the planting of only one type of corn. Round-up ready corn. If we loose lose crop variety, we also loose lose our "safety net". See Irish potato famine as an example.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Otis
lose, not loose. good greif.

[Robotengineer]

The primary issue I have with Monsanto are the patents it holds on living organisms. They did not actually engineer genetic material AFAIK, they only selected genetic material from other organisms that had a natural resistance to RoundUp, then 'pasted' that genetic material into the crop. This is basically like a programmer copying bits of code, or even entire classes, from someone's project, and pasting them into his/her project, then claiming that they engineered that piece of software.