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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Genetically Modfied Seeds: Monsanto is Putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach
  • Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:37:02 -0700


However... they only sell seed for field crops like cotton, soy, corn, etc,
not veggies or other garden varieties. NOBODY can control what we save from
millions of home gardens.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
------------------------------------------

Genetically Modfied Seeds: Monsanto is Putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12309
by Linn Cohen-Cole
February 14, 2009

People say if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, just don’t buy
their GMO seeds.

Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days?
How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops?
How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or
Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?

Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples
and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then
sue, saying they own the crop. It’s a way to make money since farmers
can’t fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice.

And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep farmers
and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and
saving of NORMAL seeds.

1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the Midwest.

2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them
through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in
terms of fees and paperwork and testing and tracking every variety and
being subject to fines, that having normal seed becomes almost impossible
(an NAIS approach to wiping out normal seeds). Does your state have such a
seed law? Before they existed, farmers just collected the seeds and put
them in sacks in the shed and used them the next year, sharing whatever
they wished with friends and neighbors, selling some if they wanted.
That’s been killed.

In Illinois, which has such a seed law, Madigan, the Speaker of the House,
his staff is Monsanto lobbyists.

3. Monsanto is pushing anti-democracy laws (Vilsack’s brainchild,
actually) that remove community’ control over their own counties so
farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if they
can contaminate other crops. So if you don’t want a GM-crop that grows
industrial chemicals or drugs or a rice growing with human DNA in it, in
your area and mixing with your crops, tough luck.

Check the map of just where the Monsanto/Vilsack laws are and see if your
state is still a democracy or is Monsanto’s. A farmer in Illinois told me
he heard that Bush had pushed through some regulation that made this true
in every state. People need to check on that.

4. For sure there are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA right now
that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal (another way to
leave nothing but GM-seeds) because it’s now considered a “source of
seed contamination.” Farmer can still seed clean but the equipment now
has to be certified and a farmer said it would require a million to a
million and half dollar building and equipment … for EACH line of seed.
Seed storage facilities are also listed (another million?) and harvesting
and transport equipment. And manure. Something that can contaminate seed.
Notice that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not mentioned.

You could eat manure and be okay (a little grossed out but okay). Try that
with pesticides and fertilizers. Indian farmers have. Their top choice for
how to commit suicide to escape the debt they have been left in is to drink
Monsanto pesticides.

5. Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners across the Midwest. In Pilot
Grove, Missouri, in Indiana (Maurice Parr), and now in southern Illinois
(Steve Hixon). And they are using US marshals and state troopers and county
police to show up in three cars to serve the poor farmers who had used
Hixon as their seed cleaner, telling them that he or their neighbors turned
them in, so across that 6 county areas, no one talking to neighbors and
people are living in fear and those farming communities are falling apart
from the suspicion Monsanto sowed. Hixon’s office got broken into and he
thinks someone put a GPS tracking device on his equipment and that’s how
Monsanto found between 200-400 customers in very scattered and remote
areas, and threatened them all and destroyed his business within 2 days.

So, after demanding that seed cleaners somehow be able to tell one seed
from another (or be sued to kingdom come) or corrupting legislatures to put
in laws about labeling of seeds that are so onerous no one can cope with
them, what is Monsanto’s attitude about labeling their own stuff? You
guessed it - they’re out there pushing laws against ANY labeling of their
own GM-food and animals and of any exports to other countries. Why?

We know and they know why.

As Norman Braksick, the president of Asgrow Seed Co. (now owned by
Monsanto) predicted in the Kansas City Star (3/7/94) seven years ago, “If
you put a label on a genetically engineered food, you might as well put a
skull and crossbones on it.”

And they’ve sued dairy farmers for telling the truth about their milk
being rBGH-free, though rBGH is associated with an increased risk of
breast, colon and prostate cancers.

I just heard that some seed dealers urge farmers to buy the seed under the
seed dealer’s name, telling the farmers it helps the dealer get a
discount on seed to buy a lot under their own name. Then Monsanto sues the
poor farmer for buying their seed without a contract and extorts huge sums
from them.

Here’s a youtube video that is worth your time. Vandana Shiva is one of
the leading anti-Monsanto people in the world. In this video, she says (and
this video is old), Monsanto had sued 1500 farmers whose fields had simply
been contaminated by GM-crops. Listen to all the ways Monsanto goes after
farmers.

Do you know the story of Gandhi in India and how the British had salt laws
that taxed salt? The British claimed it as theirs. Gandhi had what was
called a Salt Satyagraha, in which people were asked to break the laws and
march to the sea and collect the salt without paying the British. A kind
of Boston tea party, I guess.

Thousands of people marched 240 miles to the ocean where the British were
waiting. As people moved forward to collect the salt, the British soldiers
clubbed them but the people kept coming. The non-violent protest exposed
the British behavior, which was so revolting to the world that it helped
end British control in India.

Vandana Shiva has started a Seed Satyagraha - nonviolent non-cooperation
around seed laws - has gotten millions of farmers to sign a pledge to break
those laws.

American farmers and cattlemen might appreciate what Gandhi fought for and
what Shiva is bringing back and how much it is about what we are all so
angry about - loss of basic freedoms. [The highlighting is mine.]



The Seed Satyagraha is the name for the nonviolent, noncooperative movement
that Dr. Shiva has organized to stand against seed monopolies. According to
Dr. Shiva, the name was inspired by Gandhi’s famous walk to the Dandi
Beach, where he picked up salt and said, “You can’t monopolize this
which we need for life.” But it’s not just the noncooperation aspect of
the movement that is influenced by Gandhi. The creative side saving seeds,
trading seeds, farming without corporate dependence–without their
chemicals, without their seed.

” All this is talked about in the language that Gandhi left us as a
legacy. We work with three key concepts.”

” (One) Swadeshi…which means the capacity to do your own
thing–produce your own food, produce your own goods….”

“(Two) Swaraj–to govern yourself. And we fight on three fronts–water,
food, and seed. JalSwaraj is water independence–water freedom and water
sovereignty. Anna Swaraj is food freedom, food sovereignty. And Bija Swaraj
is seed freedom and seed sovereignty. Swa means self–that which rises
from the self and is very, very much a deep notion of freedom.

“I believe that these concepts, which are deep, deep, deep in Indian
civilization, Gandhi resurrected them to fight for freedom. They are very
important for today’s world because so far what we’ve had is
centralized state rule, giving way now to centralized corporate control,
and we need a third alternate. That third alternate is, in part, citizens
being able to tell their state, ‘This is what your function is. This is
what your obligations are,’ and being able to have their states act on
corporations to say, ‘This is something you cannot do.’”

” (Three) Satyagraha, non-cooperation, basically saying, ‘We will do
our thing and any law that tries to say that (our freedom) is illegal… we
will have to not cooperate with it. We will defend our freedoms to have
access to water, access to seed, access to food, access to medicine.’”





  • [Livingontheland] Genetically Modfied Seeds: Monsanto is Putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach, Tradingpost, 02/16/2009

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