Politicians Paid Off By Monsanto! (Full Congressional List)

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Agent Orange, Congress, dark money, Democrats, dirty politics, GMO labeling, GMOs, greed, laws, lobbyists, money, Monsanto, Monsanto Protection Act, politicians, public health hazards, Republicans, Roy Blunt, Senate, slavery, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate

Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. As long as you can help Monsanto slide its icy tentacles into the food chain, then there’s some financial tip available to you. Thankfully, many such ties can be exposed through some data digging, and thanks to diligent readers who send comprehensive news tips and other researchers out there, we now have an extensive list of politicians getting paid cold hard cash from GMO juggernaut Monsanto.

Keep in mind these are the figures we know, which means that behind the scenes expect these numbers to multiply extensively. But what is most amazing is that these politicians just don’t care that you know they’re receiving thousands of dollars from Monsanto! They sweep it under the carpet, but they are openly taking money from this corporation that has been caught running ‘slave-like’ rings and disregarding public health. We’re talking about a corporation that primarily aided in the creation of Agent Orange — the Vietnam-era chemical weapon that killed over 400,000 people and led to 500,000 plus birth defects.

Looking at these figures, over $260,000 was openly pumped into the House, and $122,000 was pumped into the Senate. And again, this is openly. I’m speculating, but I would imagine the real number to easily be in the millions. Can you imagine how much they must pay these politicians to shoot down GMO labeling bills that 90 plus percent of the entire country wants?

Or how about the nice chunk of cash that Monsanto paid Senator Roy Blunt to ‘help write’ the Monsanto Protection Act that grants Monsanto immunity from federal courts? Roy’s cash payment is not included in this list, however RT reports he received $64,250 towards his campaign (*It turned out to be more than double that at about $168,000!) from the company. Surely they expected nothing in return.

Politicians Paid By Monsanto

House of Representatives:

Total paid by Monsanto to Democrats: $72,000
Total paid by Monsanto to Republicans: $190,500

Barrow, John (D-GA) $2,500

Bishop, Sanford (D-GA) $5,000

Boehner, John (R-OH) $10,000

Braley, Bruce (D-IA) $5,000

Camp, Dave (R-MI) $5,000

Cantor, Eric (R-VA) $10,000

Clay, William L Jr (D-MO)$10,000

Cleaver, Emanuel (D-MO) $5,000

Conaway, Mike (R-TX) $2,000

Courtney, Joe (D-CT) $4,500

Crawford, Rick (R-AR) $2,500

Fincher, Steve (R-TN) $8,000

Gardner, Cory (R-CO) $7,500

Goodlatte, Bob (R-VA) $4,500

Graves, Sam (R-MO) $5,000

Griffin, Tim (R-AR) $1,000

Guthrie, Brett (R-KY) $1,000

Hanabusa, Colleen (D-HI)$5,000

Hannemann, Mufi (D-HI) $1,000

Hartzler, Vicky (R-MO) $3,000

Holden, Tim (D-PA) $1,000

Huelskamp, Tim (R-KS) $2,500

Hultgren, Randy (R-IL) $2,500

Jenkins, Lynn (R-KS) $2,500

Johnson, Timothy (R-IL) $3,000

King, Steven A (R-IA) $2,500

Kingston, Jack (R-GA) $7,000

Kinzinger, Adam (R-IL) $3,500

Kissell, Larry (D-NC) $5,000

Labrador, Raul (R-ID) $2,000

LaMalfa, Doug (R-CA) $1,000

Landry, Jeff (R-LA) $1,000

Latham, Tom (R-IA) $10,000

Loebsack, David (D-IA) $5,000

Long, Billy (R-MO) $2,500

Lucas, Frank D (R-OK) $10,000

Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R-MO)$5,000

Lungren, Dan (R-CA) $1,000

McIntyre, Mike (D-NC) $1,000

Neugebauer, Randy (R-TX)$1,000

Noem, Kristi (R-SD) $1,000

Nunes, Devin (R-CA) $3,500

Owens, Bill (D-NY) $2,000

Peterson, Collin (D-MN) $10,000

Rogers, Hal (R-KY) $7,500

Rokita, Todd (R-IN) $5,000

Roskam, Peter (R-IL) $1,000

Schilling, Bobby (R-IL) $3,000

Schock, Aaron (R-IL) $5,000

Shimkus, John M (R-IL) $5,000

Simpson, Mike (R-ID) $10,000

Smith, Adrian (R-NE) $5,000

Stutzman, Marlin (R-IN) $5,000

Thompson, Bennie G (D-MS)$10,000

Thompson, Glenn (R-PA) $1,000

Upton, Fred (R-MI) $5,000

Valadao, David (R-CA) $2,500

Wagner, Ann L (R-MO) $10,000

Walden, Greg (R-OR) $1,000

Walorski, Jackie (R-IN) $2,500

Womack, Steve (R-AR) $1,000

Senate:

Total paid by Monsanto to Democrats: $37,500
Total  paid by Monsanto to Republicans: $85,000

Akin, Todd (R-MO) $3,500

Baucus, Max (D-MT) $1,000

Berg, Rick (R-ND) $10,000

Blunt, Roy (R-MO) $10,000

Boozman, John (R-AR) $5,000

Casey, Bob (D-PA) $2,500

Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA) $5,000

Fischer, Deb (R-NE) $5,000

Gillibrand, Kirsten (D-NY)$1,000

Grassley, Chuck (R-IA) $2,000

Hirono, Mazie K (D-HI) $1,000

Johanns, Mike (R-NE) $1,000

Klobuchar, Amy (D-MN) $5,000

Landrieu, Mary L (D-LA) $1,000

McCaskill, Claire (D-MO)$5,000

McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $10,000

Moran, Jerry (R-KS) $2,500

Nelson, Ben (D-NE) $13,000

Rehberg, Denny (R-MT) $2,000

Risch, James E (R-ID) $3,500

Roberts, Pat (R-KS) $9,000

Stabenow, Debbie (D-MI) $8,000

Thompson, Tommy G (R-WI)$5,000

Wicker, Roger (R-MS) $1,000

Wilson, Heather A (R-NM)$2,500

Source:  http://naturalsociety.com/list-politicians-paid-off-by-monsanto/?utm_source=Natural+Society&utm_campaign=89f19637e9-Email+168%3A+5%2F28%2F2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f20e6f9c84-89f19637e9-323137773

 

Breaking: Monsanto, Dow’s New GM Crops in U.S. Halted!

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Agent Orange, biotech industry, Center for Food Safety, corruption, crops, Deadly, Dicamba, dioxin, Dow Chemical, Environmental Assessment, environmental disaster, Environmental Impact Statement, farmers, food supply, frankenfood, Genetic engineering, Genetically Modified Organisms, Glyphosate, GM crops, GM food, GMO toxicity, GMOs, greed, health hazards, Health Problems, herbicides, Lawsuits, Monsanto, pesticides, poisonous, power-hungry, Roundup, scientific evidence, scientists, super weeds, Toxic, Toxic Chemicals, U.S, United States, USDA

The bad news: Both Monsanto and Dow have developed—and have applied for USDA approval on—new crops that have increased resis­tance to even dead­lier pes­ti­cides. The good news: Thanks to con­sis­tent pres­sure from the Center for Food Safety (CFS), this approval has been halted for sev­eral years and will prob­a­bly be stopped altogether.

“Need” for Deadlier Pesticides

Some of the ear­li­est genet­i­cally engi­neered crops were devel­oped to be resis­tant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide—so-called Roundup Ready crops. Now, years down the road, we’re see­ing the results of what was promised to be decreased her­bi­cide use.

“It’s ironic that one of the big early claims about GMOs was that they were sup­posed to reduce pes­ti­cide use,” Bill Freese, CFS sci­ence pol­icy ana­lyst, told Organic Connections. “That’s sim­ply not true; it’s just the opposite.

“Soybeans, corn, cot­ton and canola have been genet­i­cally engi­neered to with­stand spray­ing with Roundup her­bi­cide. They’re grown on about 150 mil­lion acres in the United States. They’ve had some really adverse impacts. We have a whole epi­demic now of weeds that have become resis­tant to Roundup, on the same prin­ci­ple by which bac­te­ria become resis­tant to antibi­otics when they are overused.”

The biotech indus­try has arrived at a “solu­tion” for this prob­lem. “It turns out that if you’re Monsanto and Dow, the solu­tion is to engi­neer crops for resis­tance to more toxic her­bi­cides,” Freese said. “That’s where these new crops come in. They’re being mar­keted as the sup­posed solu­tion to Roundup-resistant weeds.”

Increased Toxicity

For CFS, the heart of this issue lies in the dan­ger of the pes­ti­cides these pro­posed crops will resist.

“The new crops up for approval include sev­eral vari­eties of corn and soy­beans resis­tant to Dow Chemical’s 2,4-D,” Freese explained. “2,4-D is one of the old­est her­bi­cides, first intro­duced in 1945. It became most famous as part of Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam War. It’s a very potent her­bi­cide. It’s been asso­ci­ated with a num­ber of dif­fer­ent human health issues includ­ing increased rates of can­cer, espe­cially in farm­ers who use this herbicide.

“We’ve all come to note com­pounds called diox­ins, very highly toxic sub­stances that are in the envi­ron­ment. It turns out that 2,4-D is con­t­a­m­i­nated with diox­ins. If 2,4-D-resistant corn and soy­beans are intro­duced, we’ll have a really big increase in the use of this toxic her­bi­cide. That’s not good for peo­ple, not good for the envi­ron­ment, and ulti­mately not good for farm­ers either.”

Also on the approval line are crops resis­tant to Monsanto’s Dicamba her­bi­cide, which has like­wise been linked to severe health hazards.

“Pretty soon the weeds will be resis­tant to not only Roundup but 2,4-D and Dicamba as well,” Freese pointed out. “Then the com­pa­nies will come out with new crops resis­tant to mul­ti­ple her­bi­cides. It’s what I like to call the ‘toxic spi­ral’ of increas­ing toxic her­bi­cide use and resis­tance in weeds. These herbicide-resistant crops are what spur that toxic spi­ral, which is why we have to stop them.”

Drift

An addi­tional dan­ger such crops bring is pes­ti­cide drift into other farm­ers’ fields.

“Drift is another seri­ous issue,” Freese con­tin­ued. “Both those two herbicides—2,4-D and Dicamba—are very volatile and tend to drift an awful lot. If a farmer next to you is grow­ing those crops and spray­ing those her­bi­cides, you could get a drift onto your crops and have some severe dam­age from even low lev­els of drift. It can cause sig­nif­i­cant yield loss. You can actu­ally see the impacts—your crop could start to shrivel up. Or it could be more sub­tle and you don’t see too many effects, but down the line your yield goes way down.”

GE Approval Progress Ground to a Halt

From the first moment these new crops were sub­mit­ted for USDA approval, CFS was on the line mak­ing its voice heard. “We’ve been fol­low­ing the admin­is­tra­tive process very closely,” Freese related. “The USDA has the pri­mary author­ity over these crops, so we’ve sub­mit­ted very detailed com­pre­hen­sive science-based com­ments to the USDA explain­ing why they shouldn’t approve them.

“The USDA doesn’t like to lis­ten to us very much, but we’ve sued them and we’ve won before, so they real­ize that they have to take us seriously.”

And lis­ten they indeed did.

“Just this morn­ing it came out that the USDA has agreed to do Environmental Impact Statements on the 2,4-D- and Dicamba-resistant crops that are pend­ing approval,” said Freese. “What does that mean? The USDA nor­mally does a cur­sory kind of an assess­ment called an Environmental Assessment, after which they always rec­om­mend approval. This time they’ve agreed to do a full Environmental Impact Statement, which is a much more in-depth review of the crops. It will prob­a­bly take a cou­ple of years.

“Originally Dow said that they were going to intro­duce their 2,4-D-resistant corn this year. Then a few months ago they said, ‘We’re not going to be able to do it this year, so next year.’ Now it’s clear that it won’t be intro­duced sooner than 2015—if even then—because this process has to take place.”

A Win

The fact that the USDA is con­duct­ing the EIS vol­un­tar­ily con­sti­tutes a win for CFS. “The only two Environmental Impact Statements that have been done in the past have been under court order because of our law­suits,” Freese indi­cated. “We sued the USDA on approv­ing Roundup Ready Alfalfa and Roundup Ready Sugar Beets. In both cases we won those law­suits, and the judge in both instances said, ‘You know you shouldn’t have approved these crops.’ They reversed the approval for each of those crops and said, ‘You have to do an Environmental Impact Statement and really con­sider the issues that CFS raised.’ This is the first time that they’ve done an EIS voluntarily.”

This vic­tory is most def­i­nitely not the end of the story. “Our goal is to stop these crops, to pre­vent them from being introduced—not just to delay but to pre­vent them,” Freese con­cluded. “These EISs give us some breath­ing room to do that.”

For the lat­est from CFS, please visit the Food Safety Action Center on the Organic Connections web­site.

Or visit the Center for Food Safety at www.centerforfoodsafety.org.

Source:  http://organicconnectmag.com/wp/center-for-food-safety-halts-new-ge-crops/#.UZn_W6LVB8E

 

READER ALERT! Monsanto and Congress Move to Stomp on States’ GMO Labeling Rights!

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2013, Agent Orange, agriculture, Amendments, Americans, Biotech Rider, California, Civil Rights, Congress, consumers, corruption, cover-ups, covert operations, crops, Deadly, dirty politics, Dow Chemical, EPA, EU, European Union, farm bill, farmers, food supply, Genetically modified food, Genetically Modified Organisms, GMO, GMO Ban, GMOs, greed, Grocery Manufacturers Association, Health Problems, herbicides, Human Rights, human rights violations, I-522, Iowa, King Amendment, lobbyists, Monsanto, Monsanto Protection Act, Occupy Monsanto, Organic Consumers Association, poison, power grab, Proposition 37, Rep. Steve King, Roundup, scientific evidence, scientists, Toxic, U.S. citizens, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Unconstitutional, United States Environmental Protection Agency, violations, Washington, Washington D.C.

Reliable sources in Washington D.C. have informed the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) that Monsanto has begun secretly lobbying its Congressional allies to attach one or more “Monsanto Riders” or amendments to the 2013 Farm Bill that would preempt or prohibit states from requiring labels on genetically engineered (GE) foods.

Let’s put every member of Congress on notice: If you support any Farm Bill amendment that would nullify states’ rights to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we’ll vote – or throw – you out of office!

On Wednesday, May 15, an amendment to the House version of the Farm Bill, inserted under the guise of protecting interstate commerce, passed out of the House Agricultural Committee. If the King Amendment makes it into the final Farm Bill, it would take away states’ rights to pass laws governing the production or manufacture of any agricultural product, including food and animals raised for food, that is involved in interstate commerce. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), largely in response to a California law stating that by 2015, California will allow only eggs to be sold from hens housed in cages specified by California.  But policy analysts emphasize that the amendment, broadly and ambiguously written, could be used to prohibit or preempt any state GMO labeling or food safety law.

Will the King Amendment survive the Senate? No one can be sure, say analysts. However few doubt that Monsanto will give up. We can expect that more amendments and riders will be introduced into the Farm Bill–even if the King Amendment fails—over the next month in an attempt to stop the wave of state GMO labeling laws and initiatives moving forward in states like Washington, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and others.

Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have admitted privately that they’ve “lost the battle” to stop GE food labeling at the state level, now that states are aggressively moving forward on labeling laws. On May 14, Maine’s House Ag Committee passed a GMO labeling law. On May 10, the Vermont House passed a labeling bill, 99-42, despite massive lobbying by Monsanto and threats to sue the state. And though Monsanto won a razor-thin victory (51 percent to 49 percent) in a costly, hard fought California GMO labeling ballot initiative last November, biotech and Big Food now realize that Washington State voters will likely pass I-522, an upcoming ballot initiative to label GE foods, on November 5.

If Monsanto can’t stop states from passing laws, then the next step is a national preemptive measure.  And all signs point to just such a power grab.  Earlier this year, Monsanto slipped its extremely unpopular “Monsanto Protection Act,” an act that gives biotech immunity from federal prosecution for planting illegally approved GE crops, into the 2013 Federal Appropriations Bill.  During the June 2012 Farm Bill debate, 73 U.S. Senators voted against the right of states to pass mandatory GE food labeling laws. Emboldened by these votes, and now the House Ag Committee’s vote on the King Amendment, Monsanto has every reason to believe Congress would support a potential nullification of states’ rights to label.

The million-strong OCA and its allies in the organic and natural health movement are warning incumbent Senators and House members, Democrats and Republicans alike, that thousands of health and environmental-minded constituents in their Congressional districts or states will work to recall them or drive them out of office if they fail to heed the will of the people and to respect the time-honored traditions of shared state sovereignty over food labels, food safety laws, and consumers’ right to know.

Trouble in Monsanto Nation.
Over the past 20 years Monsanto and the biotech industry, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and corporate agribusiness, have begun seizing control over the global food and farming system, including the legislative, patent, trade, judicial and regulatory bodies that are supposed to safeguard the public interest.

In the U.S., despite mounting evidence of the damage GE crops inflict on human health and the environment, approximately 170 million acres of GE crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, and squash, are currently under cultivation. These crops, untested and unlabeled, comprise 41 percent of all cultivated cropland, or 17 percent of all cropland and pastureland combined. According to the GMA, at least 70 percent of non-organic grocery store processed foods contain GMOs. And GE grains and mill byproducts now supply the overwhelming majority of animal feed on the factory farms that supply 90 percent to 95 percent of the meat, eggs and dairy products that Americans consume.

Yet despite their marketplace dominance, record profits and enormous political clout in Washington D.C., Monsanto and the biotech industry are in deep trouble. Evidence is mounting that Monsanto’s top-selling herbicide, Roundup, is a deadly poison, destroying important human gut bacteria and likely contributing to the rapid increase of food allergies and serious human diseases including cancer, autism, neurological disorders , Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), dementia, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those most susceptible to poisoning by Monsanto’s Roundup are children and the elderly.

Scientists aren’t the only ones raising new questions about Roundup. Farmers are complaining that they’re being forced to spray more and more chemicals on crops increasingly under siege from a growing army of herbicide-resistant weeds.  The situation is so bad that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just raised the limits of Roundup residue allowed on grains and vegetables to even more dangerous levels. But just in case the EPA someday stops raising the limits, Monsanto, Dow and the biotech industry are working on a new “solution” to the onslaught of herbicide-resistant Superweeds: They’ve applied  for approval of a new and highly controversial generation of super toxic herbicide-resistant GE crops, including “Agent Orange”  (2,4-D and dicamba-resistant) corn, soybeans and cotton.

As a recent widely-circulated article points out,

• “The use of 2,4-D is not new; it’s actually one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. What is new is that farmers will now ‘carpet bomb’ staple food crops like soy and corn with this chemical at a previously unprecedented scale—just the way glyphosate has been indiscriminately applied as a result of Roundup Ready crops. In fact, if 2,4-D resistant crops receive approval and eventually come to replace Monsanto’s failing Roundup-resistant crops as Dow intends, it is likely that billions of pounds will be needed, on top of the already insane levels of Roundup being used (1.6 billion lbs were used in 2007 in the US alone).”

In addition to these Agent Orange crops, an expanded menu of genetically engineered organisms are awaiting approval. Next on the menu?  GE apples, trees, and salmon.

State Labeling Laws: The ‘skull and crossbones’ that terrify Monsanto
Monsanto’s greatest fear isn’t a federal government charged with protecting the health and safety of its citizens.  Congress and the White House seem only too happy to oblige the biotech industry’s unquenchable thirst for growth, power and dominance. No, it’s the massive, unstoppable (so far) grassroots movement of Millions Against Monsanto that strikes fear in the heart of the Biotech Bully. U.S. citizens are waking up. They’re demanding labels on genetically engineered foods, similar to those already required in the European Union. They’re calling for serious independent safety-testing of GE crops and animals, both those already approved (especially Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant crops) and those awaiting approval.

The anti-GMO movement has finally figured out, after 20 years of fruitlessly lobbying Congress, the FDA and the White House, that the federal government is not going to require labels on GE foods. Instead the movement has shifted the battleground on GMO labeling from Monsanto and Big Food’s turf in Washington D.C. to the more favorable terrain of state ballot initiatives and state legislative action—publicizing the fact that a state GMO labeling law will have the same marketplace impact as a national labeling law.

State laws spell doom for Monsanto. Companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Pepsi/Frito-Lay, Dean Foods, Unilever, Con-Agra, Safeway, Wal-Mart and Smuckers are not going to label in just one or two states.  Monsanto knows that U.S. food companies will go GMO-free in the entire U.S., rather than admit to consumers that their products contain GMOs.

As Monsanto itself has pointed out, labels on genetically engineered foods are like putting a “skull and crossbones” on food packages. This is why Monsanto and their allies poured $46 million into defeating a California ballot initiative last year that would have required labels on GMO foods. This is why Monsanto has lobbied strenuously in 30 states this year to prevent, or at least delay, state mandatory labeling laws from being passed. This is why Monsanto has threatened to file federal lawsuits against Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Washington if they dare grant citizens the right to know whether or not their food has been genetically engineered or not.

And this is why Monsanto’s minions are trying to insert amendments or riders into the Farm Bill that will make it nearly impossible, even illegal, for states to pass GMO labeling laws. And there’s nothing to stop them when Congress is filled with pro-biotech cheerleaders who could care less that 90 percent of U.S. consumers want mandatory labels and proper safety testing of genetically engineered crops and foods.

Countering Monsanto’s Final Offensive: Throw the Bums Out!
Only a massive grassroots resistance will deter the U.S. Senate and House from stomping on our rights. Only an unprecedented campaign of public education, petition-gathering and grassroots pressure will be able to convince the ever-more corrupt and indentured politicians in Washington D.C. to back off.

Eighteen state constitutions have century-old provisions for state registered voters to collect petitions and recall state and local officials, forcing them to either resign or stand for reelection. But what very few Americans, and even members of Congress, realize is that 11 states have constitutional provisions to recall U.S. Senators and House of Representative members, as well as state elected officials.

It’s time we exercise the full power of direct democracy, not just state and municipal ballot initiatives. We must continue to support efforts like the current state ballot initiative to label GMOs in Washington state, and county ballot initiatives to ban GMOs, factory farms and other corporate crimes, in the 24 states and hundreds of counties and municipalities where these are allowed.  But we also need to use the power we have to recall and throw out of office our out-of-control Congressional Senators and Representatives as well.

If our elected officials in Congress continue to represent Monsanto and big corporations, rather than their constituents, then let’s throw the bums out! If the Washington political Establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, continue to trample on our inalienable constitutional rights and contemptuously disregard the 225-year principle of a shared balance of power between the federal government, the states and local government, then we have no choice but to recall them or throw them out of office.

Please join the nation’s organic consumers and natural health advocates in this strategic battle, the Food Fight of Our Lives. Please join this campaign to save, not only our right to choose what’s in our food, but our basic right to democratic representation and self-determination as well.

Tell your Congressmen and women, especially the 73 incumbents who voted last year to eliminate states rights’ to legislate on GMO labels, and those in the House this week who voted to support the King Amendment that “enough is enough!”  Power to the People!

Find Your Representative:  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Find Your Senator:  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Sign OCA’s & MoveOn.org’s petition here:  http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-dont-pass-a?source=c.url&r_by=5382364

Source:  http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27540.cfm

 

Monsanto’s Monstrous History!

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How Monsanto Went From Selling Aspirin to Controlling Our Food Supply

Monsanto controls our food, poisons our land, and influences all three branches of government.

Forty percent of the crops grown in the United States contain their genes. They produce the world’s top selling herbicide. Several of their factories are now toxic Superfund sites. They spend millions lobbying the government each year. It’s time we take a closer look at who’s controlling our food, poisoning our land, and influencing all three branches of government. To do that, the watchdog group Food and Water Watch recently published a corporate profile of Monsanto.

Patty Lovera, Food and Water Watch assistant director, says they decided to focus on Monsanto because they felt a need to “put together a piece where people can see all of the aspects of this company.”

“It really strikes us when we talk about how clear it is that this is a chemical company that wanted to expand its reach,” she says. “A chemical company that started buying up seed companies.” She feels it’s important “for food activists to understand all of the ties between the seeds and the chemicals.”

Monsanto the Chemical Company

Monsanto was founded as a chemical company in 1901, named for the maiden name of its founder’s wife. Its first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company’s own telling of its history emphasizes its agricultural products, skipping forward from its founding to 1945, when it began manufacturing agrochemicals like the herbicide 2,4-D.

Prior to its entry into the agricultural market, Monsanto produced some harmless – even beneficial! – products like aspirin. It also made plastics, synthetic rubber, caffeine, and vanillin, an artificial vanilla flavoring. On the not-so-harmless side, it began producing toxic PCBs in the 1930s.

According to the new report, a whopping 99 percent of all PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, used in the U.S. were produced at a single Monsanto plant in Sauget, IL. The plant churned out toxic PCBs from the 1930s until they were banned in 1976. Used as coolants and lubricants in electronics, PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to the liver, endocrine system, immune system, reproductive system, developmental system, skin, eye, and brain.

Even after the initial 1982 cleanup of this plant, Sauget is still home to two Superfund sites. (A Superfund site is defined by the EPA as “an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people.”) This is just one of several Monsanto facilities that became Superfund sites.

Monsanto’s Shift to Agriculture

Despite its modern-day emphasis on agriculture, Monsanto did not even create an agricultural division within the company until 1960. It soon began churning out new pesticides, each colorfully named under a rugged Western theme: Lasso, Roundup, Warrant, Lariat, Bullet, Harness, etc.

Left out of Monsanto’s version of its historical highlights is an herbicide called Agent Orange. The defoliant, a mix of herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, was used extensively during the war in Vietnam. The nearly 19 million gallons sprayed in that country between 1962 and 1971 were contaminated with dioxin, a carcinogen so potent that it is measured and regulated at concentrations of parts per trillion. Dioxin was created as a byproduct of Agent Orange’s manufacturing process, and both American veterans and Vietnamese people suffered health problems from the herbicide’s use.

Monsanto’s fortunes changed forever in 1982, when it genetically engineered a plant cell. The team responsible, led by Ernest Jaworski, consisted of Robb Fraley, Stephen Rogers, and Robert Horsch. Today, Fraley is Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer. Horsch also rose to the level of vice president at Monsanto, but he left after 25 years to join the Gates Foundation. There, he works on increasing crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa. Together, the team received the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 1998.

The company did not shift its focus from chemicals to genetically engineered seeds overnight. In fact, it was another 12 years before it commercialized the first genetically engineered product, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), a controversial hormone used to make dairy cows produce more milk. And it was not until 1996 that it first brought genetically engineered seeds, Roundup Ready soybeans, onto the market.

By 2000, the company had undergone such a sea change from its founding a century before that it claims it is almost a different company. In Monsanto’s telling of its own history, it emphasizes a split between the “original” Monsanto Company and the Monsanto Company of today. In 2000, the Monsanto Company entered a merger and changed its name to Pharmacia. The newly formed Pharmacia then spun off its agricultural division as an independent company named Monsanto Company.

Do the mergers and spinoffs excuse Monsanto for the sins of the past committed by the company bearing the same name? Lovera does not think so. “I’m sure there’s some liability issues they have to deal with – their various production plants that are now superfund sites,” she responds. “So I’m sure there was legal thinking about which balance sheet you put those liabilities on” when the company split. She adds that the notion that today’s Monsanto is not the same as the historical Monsanto that made PCBs is “a nice PR bullet for them.”

But, she adds, “even taking that at face value, that they are an agriculture company now, they are still producing seeds that are made to be used with chemicals they produce.” For example, Roundup herbicide alone made up more than a quarter of their sales in 2011. The proportion of their business devoted to chemicals is by no means insignificant.

Monsanto’s pesticide product line includes a number of chemicals named as Bad Actors by Pesticide Action Network. They include Alachlor (a carcinogen, water contaminant, developmental/reproductive toxin, and a suspected endocrine disruptor), Acetochlor (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Atrazine (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Clopyralid (high acute toxicity), Dicamba (developmental/reproductive toxin), and Thiodicarb (a carcinogen and cholinesterase inhibitor).

Roundup: The Benign Herbicide?

Defenders of Monsanto might reply to the charge that Roundup is no Agent Orange. In fact, the herbicide is viewed as so benign and yet effective that its inventor, John E. Franz, won the National Medal of Technology. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, kills everything green and growing, but according to Monsanto, it only affects a metabolic pathway in plants, so it does not harm animals. It’s also said to break down quickly in the soil, leaving few traces on the environment after its done its job.

Asked about the harmlessness of Roundup, Lovera replies, “That’s the PR behind Roundup – how benign it was and you can drink it and there’s nothing to worry about here. There are people who dispute that.” For example there is an accusation that Roundup causes birth defects. “We don’t buy the benign theory,” continues Lovera, “But what’s really interesting is that we aren’t going to be having this conversation pretty soon because Roundup isn’t working anymore.”

Lovera is referring to “Roundup-resistant weeds,” weeds that have evolved in the past decade and a half to survive being sprayed by Roundup. Nearly all soybeans grown in the United States is Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready variety, as are 80 percent of cotton and 73 percent of corn. Farmers spray entire fields with Roundup, killing only the weeds while the Roundup Ready crops survive. With such heavy use of Roundup on America’s farmfields, any weed – maybe one in a million – with an ability to survive in that environment would survive and pass on its genes in its seeds.

By 1998, just two years after the introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans, scientists documented the first Roundup-resistant weed. A second was found in 2000, and three more popped up in 2004. To date, there are 24 different weedsthat have evolved resistance to Roundup worldwide. And once they invade a farmer’s field, it doesn’t matter if his crops are Roundup-resistant, because Roundup won’t work anymore. Either the weeds get to stay, or the farmer needs to find a new chemical, pull the weeds by hand, or find some other way to deal with the problem.

“We’ve wasted Roundup by overusing it,” says Lovera. She and other food activists worry about the harsher chemicals that farmers are switching to, and the genetically engineered crops companies like Monsanto are developing to use with them.

Currently, there are genetically engineered crops waiting for government approval that are made to tolerate the herbicides 2,4-D, Dicamba and Isoxaflutole. (These are not all from Monsanto – some are from their competitors.) None of these chemicals are as “benign” as Roundup. Isoxaflutole is, in fact, a carcinogen. Let’s spray that on our food!

Corporate Control of Seeds

No discussion of Monsanto is complete without a mention of the immense amount of control it exerts on the seed industry.

“What it boils down to is between them buying seed companies outright, their incredible aggressive legal maneuvering, their patenting of everything, and their enforcement of those patents, they really have locked up a huge part of the seed supply,” notes Lovera. “So they just exercise an unprecedented control over the entire seed sector. Monsanto products constitute 40 percent of all crop acres in the country.”

Monsanto began buying seed companies as far back as 1982. (One can see an infographic of seed industry consolidation here.) Some of Monsanto’s most significant purchases were Asgrow (soybeans), Delta and Pine Land (cotton), DeKalb (corn), and Seminis (vegetables). One that deserves special mention is their purchase of Holden’s Foundation Seeds in 1997.

George Naylor, an Iowa farmer who grows corn and soybeans, calls Holden’s “The independent source of germplasm for corn.” Small seed companies could buy inbred lines from Holden’s to cross them and produce their own hybrids. Large seed companies like Pioneer did their own breeding, but small operations relied on Holden’s or Iowa State University. But Iowa State got out of the game and Monsanto bought Holden’s.

Monsanto’s tactics for squashing its competition are perhaps unrivaled. They use their power to get seed dealers to not to stock many of their competitors products, for example. When licensing their patented genetically engineered traits to seed companies, they restrict the seed companies’ ability to combine Monsanto’s traits with those of their competitors. And, famously, farmers who plant Monsanto’s patented seeds sign contracts prohibiting them from saving and replanting their seeds. Yet, to date, U.S. antitrust laws have not clamped down on these practices.

With the concentrated control of the seed industry, farmers already complain of lack of options. For example, Naylor says he’s had a hard time finding non-genetically engineered soybean seeds. Most corn seeds are now pre-treated with pesticides, so farmers wishing to find untreated seeds will have a tough time finding any. Once a company or a handful of companies control an entire market, then they can choose what to sell and at what price to sell it.

Furthermore, if our crops are too genetically homogenous, then they are vulnerable to a single disease or pest that can wipe them out. When farmers grow genetically diverse crops, then there is a greater chance that one variety or another will have resistance to new diseases. In that way, growing genetically diverse crops is like having insurance, or like diversifying your risk within your stock portfolio.

Food and Water Watch Recommendations

At the end of its report, Food and Water Watch lists several recommendations. “There are a lot of ways that government policy could address the Monsanto hold on the food supply,” explains Lovera. “The most important thing is that it’s time to stop approval of genetically engineered crops to stop this arms race of the next crop and the next chemical.”

She also calls Monsanto “the poster child for the need for antitrust enforcement” – something that the Justice Department has yet to successfully deliver up. In fact, last November the government ended a three-year antitrust investigation of Monsanto.

A third recommendation Lovera hopes becomes a reality is mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. “If we had that label and we put that information in consumers’ hands, they could do more to avoid this company in their day-to-day lives,” she says.

In the meantime, all consumers can do to avoid genetically engineered foods is to buy organic for the handful of crops that are genetically engineered: corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, papaya, sugar beets, and alfalfa.

Source:  http://www.alternet.org/food/how-monsanto-went-selling-aspirin-controlling-our-food-supply?paging=off