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  • From: "Marc Winterburn" <marcw AT oceanbroadband.net>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Monsanto Boycott
  • Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 14:36:06 +0800

The August 2009 Issue of Scientific American, a highly respected American Scientific monthly magazine  contains an editorial titled ”Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research”.

The article states that one of the great mysteries surrounding the spread of GMO’s has been the absence of independent scientific studies of possible long term effects on humans or even rats.

 The mystery has been solved.

The GMO Agribusiness companies prohibit independent research.

I Quote” 

 Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers.

To purchase genetically modified seeds, a customer must sign an agreement that limits what can be done with them. (If you have installed software recently, you will recognize the concept of the end-user agreement.) Agreements are considered necessary to protect a company’s intellectual property, and they justifiably preclude the replication of the genetic enhancements that make the seeds unique. But agritech companies such as Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta go further. For a decade their user agreements have explicitly forbidden the use of the seeds for any independent research. Under the threat of litigation, scientists cannot test a seed to explore the different conditions under which it thrives or fails. They cannot compare seeds from one company against those from another company. And perhaps most important, they cannot examine whether the genetically modified crops lead to unintended environmental side effects.

Research on genetically modified seeds is still published, of course. But only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal. In a number of cases, experiments that had the implicit go-ahead from the seed company were later blocked from publication because the results were not flattering. “It is important to understand that it is not always simply a matter of blanket denial of all research requests, which is bad enough,” wrote Elson J. Shields, an entomologist at Cornell University, in a letter to an official at the Environmental Protection Agency (the body tasked with regulating the environmental consequences of genetically modified crops), “but selective denials and permissions based on industry perceptions of how ‘friendly’ or ‘hostile’ a particular scientist may be toward [seed-enhancement] technology.”

Shields is the spokesperson for a group of 24 corn insect scientists that opposes these practices. Because the scientists rely on the cooperation of the companies for their research—they must, after all, gain access to the seeds for studies—most have chosen to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. The group has submitted a statement to the EPA protesting that “as a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the tech­nol­ogy.”

It would be chilling enough if any other type of company were able to prevent independent researchers from testing its wares and reporting what they find—imagine car companies trying to quash head-to-head model comparisons done by Consumer Reports, for example. But when scientists are prevented from examining the raw ingredients in our nation’s food supply or from testing the plant material that covers a large portion of the country’s agricultural land, the restrictions on free inquiry become dangerous.

Although we appreciate the need to protect the intellectual property rights that have spurred the investments into research and development that have led to agritech’s successes, we also believe food safety and environmental protection depend on making plant products available to regular scientific scrutiny. Agricultural technology companies should therefore immediately remove the restriction on research from their end-user agreements. Going forward, the EPA should also require, as a condition of approving the sale of new seeds, that independent researchers have unfettered access to all products currently on the market. The agricultural revolution is too important to keep locked behind closed doors.

 

References.  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-seed-companies-control-gm-crop-research

 

Marc Winterburn

Gingin West Australia

 

From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Road's End Farm
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 8:23 AM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Monsanto Boycott

 


On Sep 6, 2009, at 7:39 PM, MAsteveINE wrote:


So, if Monsanto bought Seminis what would be wrong with buying Marketmore
76 cucumber (and others) seeds from usual sources. I have no grudge with
Monsanto,


I think it is dangerous to have a very large proportion of the seed production of the planet in the hands of any one company; and therefore wise to act in such a fashion as to encourage decentralization.

We are most likely to be able to get seed suited to our very different farms, growing practices, and marketplaces if there are a lot of small seed producers. The increasing centralization of the seed production industry into a few very large companies raises the very real risk that they will not want to bother continuing to produce seed for relatively small markets.

Monsanto is the company that most often gets into the news for actively discouraging seed saving and small scale seed distribution by individual growers. I don't know whether other large seed production companies have less of this attitude, or whether they are just less likely to get into the news for it. I prefer, when possible, to buy from companies that encourage small growers to be involved in seed production and distribution. (This does, by the way, include Johnny's.)

I'm not sure what you mean by "from usual sources" in your email quoted above -- a given variety may be carried by dozens of retail seed companies, but all of it may be produced by the same production company; if that company stops producing it, the variety will disappear from all of those dozens of catalogues more or less at once (more or less, because some may have seed in storage that they may continue to sell for a couple of years). If Monsanto now owns all the production facilities for Northstar pepper, then even if I buy it from Johnny's, then I am also buying it from Monsanto; because that's who Johnny's had to get it from. As Northstar is a hybrid, even if it isn't patented nobody else is likely to be producing it, as no one else will have or know the parent lines for the hybrid.

Balancing the needs of the particular farm against this sort of consideration, especially in cases where a specific hybrid is the only thing that does really well in that location, is a difficulty for many growers. Of course it always makes me uneasy anyway when only one variety is doing well for me in a category, if it's a hybrid or something that for other reasons it's difficult to save my own seed for; because my experience has been that varieties often disappear from the market without warning; so in cases like that I'm always at least trialing additional possibilities in the hope of finding a good backup.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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