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From Health Treatment to Food
Supply
When it comes to long term
health concerns in America
and the world we are inundated with controversy over two principal issues, the
health care system in America
and the food production system in America.
The first was supposed to
be resolved by passage of Obamacare yet nothing has been resolved to date as
implementation of the massive federal law, after it was approved by Congress
and signed by the president, has been, well, about as effective as Congress.
Far more activity took
place in the food production business far from the front pages of newspapers
and harking of political pundits. Obama
has clearly done a lot in this area but to date the principal beneficiary is
not the public, or middle class, but the six giant agrichemical companies that
control the growing of food in the world.
As Obama looks forward to
his last 3 years in office perhaps he will be more concerned that his legacy is
shaping up as a stark reminder of his abandonment of the very people he claimed
to be championing.
Political talk has always
been cheap. Political action has always
been lacking. The Obama administration
has given us more talk and less action on these issues than any president in
recent history and his legacy may be as the first president to guarantee
liberty and justice for some but certainly not all Americans.
These areas are complex,
the players are muddled and the public interest is secondary to corporate greed
and unfortunately the opposition is fragmented, prone to lack facts and
figures, and far too easily seduced by the sensational when cold, hard facts
tell us all we need to know.
World hunger drives the
production of genetically engineered seeds.
The estimates for deaths from hunger each year are all over the place
ranging from 1.5 million to 15 million children worldwide and maybe 5 million
others. While no deaths should be
allowed, the extent of hunger is massive and millions surely die every year.
The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people, or one
in eight people in the world, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in
2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing
countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties.
There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries.
The number of
undernourished people decreased nearly 30 percent in Asia
and the Pacific, from 739 million to 563 million, largely due to socio-economic
progress in many countries in the region. The prevalence of undernourishment in
the region decreased from 23.7 percent to 13.9 percent.
Latin America and the Caribbean also made progress, falling from 65 million
hungry in 1990-1992 to 49 million in 2010-2012, while the prevalence of
undernourishment dipped from 14.6 percent to 8.3 percent. But the rate of
progress has slowed recently.
The number of hungry grew
in Africa over the period, from 175 million to
239 million, with nearly 20 million added in the last few years. Nearly
one in four are hungry. And in sub-Saharan Africa,
the modest progress achieved in recent years up to 2007 was reversed, with
hunger rising 2 percent per year since then.
In order to meet the vast
and tragic food needs of the world we have the producers of genetically
engineered seeds.
And this is where our
president faces a quagmire with grave consequences because in March he signed
an appropriations bill which included seemingly innocuous language regarding the
Farmer Assurance Provision.
The "Monsanto
Protection Act" is the name opponents of the Farmer Assurance Provision
have given to this terrifying piece of policy, and it's a fitting moniker given
its shocking content.
President Barack
Obama signed a spending bill, HR 933, into law on March 26, 2013
that includes language that has food and consumer advocates and organic farmers
up in arms over their contention that the so-called "Monsanto Protection
Act" is a giveaway to corporations that was passed under the cover of
darkness.
There's a lot being said
about it, but here are five terrifying facts about the Farmer Assurance
Provision -- Section 735 of the spending bill -- to get you acquainted with the
reasons behind the ongoing uproar:
1.) The "Monsanto
Protection Act" effectively bars federal courts from being able to
halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified (aka GMO) or
genetically engineered (GE) seeds, no matter what health issues may arise
concerning GMOs in the future. The advent of genetically modified seeds --
which has been driven by the massive Monsanto Company --
and their exploding use in farms across America came on fast and has proved
a huge boon for Monsanto's profits.
But many anti-GMO folks
argue there have not been enough studies into the potential health risks of
this new class of crop. Well, now it appears that even if those studies are
completed and they end up revealing severe adverse health effects related to
the consumption of genetically modified foods, the courts will have no ability
to stop the spread of the seeds and the crops they bear.
2.) The provision's
language was apparently written in collusion with Monsanto. Lawmakers and
companies working together to craft legislation is by no means a rare
occurrence in this day and age. But the fact that Sen. Roy Blunt, Republican of
Missouri, actually worked with Monsanto on
a provision that in effect allows them to keep selling seeds, which can then go
on to be planted, even if it is found to be harmful to consumers, is stunning.
It's just another example of corporations bending Congress
to their will, and it's one that could have dire risks for public health in America.
3.) Many members of
Congress were apparently unaware that the "Monsanto Protection Act"
even existed within the bill they were voting on. HR 933 was a spending bill
aimed at averting a government shutdown and ensuring that the federal
government would continue to be able to pay its bills. But the Center for Food Safety
maintains that many Democrats in Congress were not even aware
that the provision was in the legislation:
“In this hidden backroom
deal, Sen. [Barbara] Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental and
farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as
Monsanto,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, said in a
statement. “This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has
come to expect from Sen. Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.”
4.) The President did
nothing to stop it, either. Obama signed HR 933 while the rest of the nation
was fixated on gay marriage, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument
concerning California's
Proposition 8. But just because most of the nation and the media were paying
attention to gay marriage doesn't mean that others were not doing their best to
express their opposition to the "Monsanto Protection Act." In fact,
more than 250,000 voters signed a petition opposing
the provision He signed it anyway.
5.) It sets a terrible
precedent. Though it will only remain in effect for six months until the
government finds another way to fund its operations, the message it sends is
that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get
Congress on their side. Furthermore, it sets a precedent that suggests that
court challenges are a privilege, not a right.
And this takes us to the
role of agrichemical drug companies in our food production business. Who are these companies and what do they
do? For one thing they hold a worldwide
monopoly on seed production.
For the record those six
agrichemical businesses are chemical giants Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow
Agrosciences, BASF, Bayer, and Pioneer (DuPont).
In practically every case
the company rose to become multi-billion dollar behemoths by supplying the
pesticides used to fertilize our vast agricultural economy. For decades these companies supplied the
sometimes deadly chemicals used to control bugs, droughts, weeds and other
obstacles to increased crop production.
But in the last 20 years,
as it became more and more obvious that some of these very chemicals were
causing dangerous side effects, the chemical companies began to take over the
seed production and agricultural research businesses and used them to create
seeds resistant to the very chemicals they supplied.
Now they were in a
position to dominate both the seed production and chemical business. For example, Monsanto is the world's largest
seed company and 5th largest agrichemical company. Syngenta is the world's third largest seed
company and second largest agrichemical company.
Here is what they stand
for!
Top Ten Seed Companies in
World
1. Monsanto
USA $7.3 billion annual sales
2. DuPont (Pioneer) USA $4.6 billion annual sales
3. Syngenta
Switzerland $2.6 billion
annual sales
4. Groupe Limagrain France $1.2 billion annual sales
5. Land O' Lakes/Winfield Solutions USA
$1.1 billion sales
6. KWS AG
Germany $997 million annual
sales
7. Bayer CropScience Germany $700 million annual sales
8. Dow AgroSciences USA
$635 million annual sales
9. Sakata
Japan $491 million annual
sales
10. DLF-Trifolium A/S Denmark
$385 million
The Big Six (agrichemical)
companies generate $50 billion a year in sales of seeds and agrichemicals.
They spend $4.7 billion on
agricultural research and development.
They cross license between
each other to eliminate competition.
They control 76% of the
world's private sector R & D spending for seeds and chemicals.
The top ten seed companies
control 73% of the world's commercial seed market.
The top three companies control
over 50% of the proprietary seed market and 75% of all patents issued between
1982 and 2007.
Of the $22.9 billion spent
on seeds annually, $16.8 billion goes to chemical companies and $6.1 billion to
farmer saved seeds.
1.4 billion people still
depend on farmer saved seeds.
Part 2 of this series seeks
the truth behind the myths for and against this type of activity.
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