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Monsanto, the GMO Goliath


by
Sandy Krebs | Krebs is head chef of the Regency Room at Hotel Roanoke.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013


Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are so wrong on so many levels we need the help of everyone we can enlist to rid the world of this monster: God, Gaia, Ganesh, whoever.

The list of issues is by no means exhaustive.

The board of Monsanto has such deep ties to the federal government that, for all intents and purposes, its members are the government.

In some cases, the fields of small farmers growing non-GMO crops were contaminated by pollen from neighboring farms, so, in effect, they were growing the GMOs. Monsanto sued them for “stealing” technology and won.

Farmers want GMOs, for the most part. I am not talking about the very small farmer who is trying to preserve a way of life. I am talking about the medium-sized and mega farmers who produce the vast majority of what we see in the grocery stores. Other than water, weeds and pests are the bane of their existence.

Unless and until members of the public speak with their purchasing power, GMOs will not go away. For companies like Kellogg, Kraft, Nestle, General Mills, Dole and Pepsi Co., the bottom line is the bottom line. Until it makes financial sense for them to use non-GMO food stuffs, they won’t make the change. They are going to keep doing what they have always done, attend to the bottom line.

The vast majority of consumers in the U.S. are not in a financial position to double or triple what they spend on food to keep their families fed. When faced with a giant box of corn flakes for less than $2 or a non-GMO granola for $6, how many people, even when they know the difference, choose the granola?

Several years ago in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe and his government seized the farms of people of European descent (even people who’s families had been there for hundreds of years) and gave the land to members of the African-descent majority. The problem was, the people he turned the land over to had no experience in growing crops on a large scale. The farms failed, and people started starving. Charities sent humanitarian relief in the form of food. Mugabe, amazingly, would not let the food enter Zimbabwe, stating that he would not allow GMOs in the country. It’s laughable, right? What Mugabe knew was that when you control who eats and who starves, you have real control.

To me, the most frightening characteristic of GMO crops of wheat, rice and corn is, unlike traditional crops, you cannot save some of the seed to replant your fields the next year. You have to buy new seed every year. What do you think would happen if all of a sudden Monsanto decided (and let’s remember that for all intents and purposes, Monsanto is the government) not to sell seed to farmers? Just like the maniacal Mugabe, it can control who eats and who starves.

I have been a long-time supporter of Slow Food. Two of the goals in our stated mission are: preserve heirloom varieties of food, and make sure all farm workers are treated humanely and compensated fairly.

If I were able to wave a magic wand and make those things happen tomorrow, one of the results would be better, healthier food. But most assuredly another result would be run-away inflation in food cost. Food in grocery stores would cost two, three, four times what it costs right now, just like my example of $2  corn flakes and $6 granola. Are we ready for that? Are we willing or able to pay the price? Until and unless we become the maniacal dictators of our own destiny, at any cost, GMOs and Monsanto are not going away.

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