Monsanto is also by far the leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed, holding 70%–100% market share for various crops. Agracetus, owned by Monsanto, exclusively produces Roundup Ready soybean seed for the commercial market.

In March 2005, it finalized the purchase of Seminis Inc, making it also the largest conventional seed company in the world. It has over 16,000 employees worldwide, and an annual revenue of US$7.344 billion reported for 2006.

Monsanto's development and marketing of genetically engineered seed and bovine growth hormone, as well as its aggressive litigation and political lobbying practices, have made the company controversial around the world and a primary target of the anti-globalization movement and environmental activists. While other chemical and biotech multinationals face similar criticisms, Monsanto tends to be targeted more routinely and more strongly. Some activists have referred to Monsanto's products as frankenfoods.

 

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WATCH THE CBS "60 MINUTE" SPECIAL, "PATENTED GENES"!

CLICK HERE

HEALTH SCANDAL - MONSANTO'S

GMO PERVERSION OF FOOD

 

By Byron J. Richards, CCN
January 20, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

In the 2010 growing season Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public, a new version of genetically mutated corn with eight abnormal gene traits called Genuity SmartStax corn. It is the culmination of an astonishing scandal that has been steadily building over the past decade. During this time Monsanto’s mutated seeds have grown to 90% of the U.S. soy crop and 85% of the corn crop – and wheat is next on their agenda. Their efforts have been marked by corporate bullying and have drawn the attention of the Justice Department who is conducting an antitrust investigation. All the while they have been spending millions on lobbying to fast track their agenda before the American public even realizes what hit them. Monsanto is making an ominous power play to corner the worldwide market on food and seeds. In the process they are adversely altering the very nature of food itself.

Few people would eat Monsanto’s “food” if they understood what it was or knew that they were eating it. President Obama and his family won’t eat it. Neither did the Bush family. Even a Monsanto employee cafeteria rejects it. This is no laughing matter. Your health and the health of your children and grandchildren are at stake. It seems more like a scene from a horror flick than something happening in modern day America. Imagine your digestive tract turned into a Roundup Ready herbicide factory and other warped genetic signals slowly and progressively rotting away your health. Unlike acute food poisoning from infectious E.coli, it is a slow and insidious poisoning.

Why GMO Food is Dangerous

Monsanto’s GMO (genetically modified organism) technology inserts non-food genes, genes from other species, into the DNA of food, altering the very nature of food itself. In some cases these genes make the crops more tolerant to the Roundup Ready herbicide made by Monsanto and in other cases the genes abnormally cause the DNA of food cells to produce toxic proteins that act as pesticides.

Most people are not comfortable with the concept of altering the nature of food in a grand genetic experiment with unknown consequences. The idea of food producing its own internal toxin is equally abhorrent. After all, who wants to eat toxic food? Even fewer trust this technology in the hands of Monsanto, a company with a history of blatant disregard for human health. It was Monsanto that knowingly poisoned the planet with toxic PCBs.

The process of making GMO seeds also poses health risks. Viral promoter genes are used during this production process and become part of the DNA mix, posing a risk for new types of viral disease. An unintended side-effect of this production technology is chronic activation or suppression of normal genes in the modified plants. This alters the actual nutrient structure of food and the function of the proteins within that food – a very serious matter.

The entire process of producing GMO seeds is also unpredictable. It creates multiple random genetic events in every food cell invaded by the mutant genes. Because each gene doesn’t just do one thing and is highly interactive with other genes, the production of GMO food is not consistent and therefore safety cannot be guaranteed – especially when you understand that our scientific knowledge of gene interdependencies is in its infancy.

Eating food that is mutated by other non-food species is a grand experiment to say the least. GMO mutants can transfer to the living bacteria in your digestive tract, as has been shown in animal experiments. This can adversely change the way your gut bacteria behave so that they create pesticides and become more resistant to your immune system and medical treatments. If the GMO mutants were to transfer to an existing infection in your digestive tract then it could create your own superbug.

Because the proteins in GMO food are structurally different than normal food they significantly increase the risk for allergy. Allergy is one form of inflammation that is likely to result from GMO food, but there are many other potential sources. These include the mis-metabolism of the food, the inherent toxicity of the food, and the pesticide residues on the food. These inflammatory problems of GMO food will additively contribute to other forms of inflammation such as pollution and stress and add to the total inflammation burden sets the stage for many diseases. It is likely that GMO food will have a significant impact on pregnancy problems and developmental problems in children. At this time nobody can rule out GMO as a possible causative factor in Autism, as the rates of both have risen together. A recent re-evaluation of data provided by Monsanto showed that various types of GMO corn caused significant inflammatory organ damage to rats.

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It has now been shown that the health consequence of eating high amounts of Roundup Ready residue that is being sprayed in ever-higher amounts on GMO crops is the disruption of your endocrine system. A recent study shows that these residues of Roundup Ready are highly interactive with sex hormones and significantly disrupt their function.

A 2008 Austrian government study showed that feeding GMO corn to mice for multiple generations resulted in fertility issues and weakened kidneys, as well as changes in metabolic pathways involved with inflammation, cholesterol, and protein...

GMO crops are also drastically and adversely altering soil quality. In fact, soil animals such as earthworms are now found to have incorporated GMO mutant corn genes into their cells. This finding is of extreme importance to potential human health problems. There is certainly nothing preventing this from happening to humans.

For more information on the devastating health consequences of consuming GMO foods read Jeffrey Smith’s books, Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette.”

You may be wondering the obvious; if GMOs are so dangerous to eat then why are they allowed in the food supply?

Corporate Cronyism - A Corrupt FDA Places the Public in Danger

We now know that FDA scientists originally working on the issue of the safety of GMO food had considerable concerns that included allergies, toxins, adverse nutritional effects, and new diseases. They urged long-term studies but were ignored by FDA management who instead decided that GMO food was “substantially equivalent” to normal food. In 1992 these managers issued the following policy statement in the Federal Register, “The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.” In retrospect, that policy, which stands to this day, was a flat out lie and a treasonous betrayal of the public trust.

Court cases have forced into public view the documents expressing the concerns of the FDA scientists. You can read them all at this link to the BioIntegrity.Org website. In fact, rushing GMO foods to market also represents a serious breach of scientific integrity by the overall research community.

Today, the FDA is a world leader in proteomic technology, the advanced analysis of protein structure and function. Italian researchers using proteomics have already proven beyond any question that GMO food is so genetically different from normal food that it cannot possibly be considered substantially equivalent. Certainly the FDA could discover this fact for themselves in a matter of hours. Why are FDA scientists in handcuffs and not taking action?

Part of the FDA management team’s culture of corruption is a revolving door with the various companies they are supposed to be regulating, the very definition of corporate cronyism. These shenanigans have had the net effect of the FDA acting primarily as a police force bully representing various powerful lobbies that buy protection and marketing favors, while stomping on the rights of the little guys like organic family farms and consumers. In the case of food, Monsanto wins the gold medal for influence peddling at the expense of human health.

One of the more egregious examples of cronyism is Michael Taylor. He was an FDA staff lawyer and Executive Assistant to the FDA Commissioner from 1976 to 1981. From 1981 to 1991 he worked at the law firm of King and Spaulding, acting as Monsanto’s lawyer and lobbyist. He was a major proponent for overturning the Delaney Clause, a 1958 law prohibiting the introduction of known carcinogens to processed foods, a law Monsanto hated and which was eventually overturned by Clinton in 1996. His main responsibility during this time was gaining regulatory approval of Monsanto’s genetically modified cancer-causing bovine growth hormone (rBGH).

To complete his efforts on the bovine growth hormone issue Taylor went back to work for the FDA in 1991 with the title Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the Food and Drug Administration. He was directly responsible for writing the FDA policy on “substantial equivalence” which initially ushered in the rBGH era and to this day enables Monsanto to market its GMO mutated food with no appropriate oversight by the FDA as to safety. He also formulated policy that prevented milk producers from informing consumers that their milk was free of bovine growth hormone – intentionally preventing consumers from being able to tell what was in the milk product they were consuming.

After accomplishing his dirty work, he left the FDA in 1994 and went to work for Monsanto as Vice President for Public Policy, working on Monsanto’s long range plans. More recently, he became a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) and Director of the Risk, Resources and Environmental Management division. In this role, he strategized how to get Monsanto’s GMO crops into Africa, working closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He also worked closely with the Bush Administration, and is the point man in helping an elite agenda to spread GMO seeds and biotech dependence around the world.

You guessed it – now he is back at the FDA in a new position the Obama Administration created – Senior Advisor to the Commissioner, working primarily on issues of food safety! “I am pleased to welcome Mike Taylor back to the FDA,” Commissioner of Food and Drugs Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., said in announcing Taylor’s appointment. “His expertise and leadership on food safety issues will help the agency to develop and implement the prevention based strategy we need to ensure the safety of the food we eat.”

As Monsanto, in anti-competitive collusion with Dow, takes their new GMO toxic and mutated corn to market, stacked with eight genes, it should come as no surprise that absolutely no safety testing is being required by the FDA. Never before have there been eight genes altered simultaneously within the cells of food. One gene is bad enough. Three is horrendous. But eight?

The fact that the FDA is not requiring extensive safety testing by independent sources of this highly unpredictable and dangerous technology is unthinkable. It is a grim day when the fox is in charge of the henhouse.

There Is No Good Reason for Monsanto’s GMOs

If you listen to Monsanto and their business cohorts such as Cargill, they state they are trying to feed the world. In reality, the world could eliminate Monsanto’s mutated food tomorrow and it would be a better place. It could also do without Cargill acting as an unregulated food banker, profiting on the manipulation of food sales at the expense of farmers in a way that is every bit as bad as the worst of Wall Street. There is no need for Monsanto’s GMO mutated seeds. They offer no advantages. It is an industry being propped up by unelected bureaucrats and elected officials on the receiving end of Monsanto’s multi-million dollar lobbying operation.

Michael Taylor is one example of corporate crony influence, there are many others. The USDA is profiting from Monsanto’s seeds that cannot be used the next growing season (the Terminator aspect of the problem). The EPA’s failure to regulate the amounts of Roundup Ready used on food is yet another scandal. It’s all about profits and control – while undermining the world’s farmers and the biodiversity and sustainability of crops.

Contrary to the Monsanto and Cargill propaganda, GMO technology does not increase crop yields, as has been fully documented in the Union of Concerned Scientists report titled Failure to Yield. And GMO crops are very bad for the carbon footprint.

The fact that the Obama administration is actively forwarding Monsanto’s efforts should be a grave concern to every American. Of course, the last 16 years of Clinton and Bush also did everything in their power to help Monsanto. No wonder Americans are fed up. Politicians in both parties are beholden to the golden idol, not the best health interests of its citizens.

Take Back Our Food – Join the Fight

We the people can have a huge impact and we can change this serious threat to human health. Don’t buy GMOs food. GMOs permeate corn and soy products, beet sugar is now mutated, and wheat is next in line. If you aren’t sure how to avoid GMO foods and brands then follow the advice given on Jeffrey Smith’s Non-GMO shopping guide. Demand from your political representatives that all GMO food be labeled as containing GMOs. This isn’t just a political issue – this is about your personal health and the future of food.

Watch this humorous and informative animation and pass it on to your friends: Larry Leptin & Family in Invasion of the Frankenfoods.

© 2010 Wellness Resources, Inc. - All Rights Reserved

http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron189.htm

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By Brynn Jacobs on October 26th, 2009

The Monsanto monster

Monsanto has been a target for many years.  They have a terrible environmental and health record, they have harassed small farmers for years, they’ve bribed officials in Indonesia, and they’ve joked about performing “rural cleansing” (a play on the words “ethnic cleansing”, i.e. genocide), and told small seed cleaners that rather than buy them out, “We’d rather put you out of business, it’s more fun that way.”  All this from the company that brought  Agent Orange to Vietnam, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, as well as 500,000 children born with birth defects.

Group of handicapped children, most of them victims of Agent Orange. Via Wikipedia (commons)

However, in the world of corporate PR, no sin is too big.  Monsanto has sought to remake its image as the company that’s helping to feed the world.  Their website claims that “We apply innovation and technology to help farmers around the world produce more while conserving more. We help farmers grow yield sustainably so they can be successful, produce healthier foods, better animal feeds and more fiber, while also reducing agriculture’s impact on our environment.”  High claims, to be sure.  Too bad we don’t know if they hold up to scrutiny.

A new article by the editors of Scientific American explains the situation:

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.”

So their claims that their seeds boost yield or are less environmentally damaging may be supported by science, but only if that science is friendly to their interests.  Science that indicates potential problems or disproves company claims are quashed by invocation of their patent rights.  Similarly, Monsanto sued a small dairy producer in 2003 that advertised that its milk contained no artificial growth hormones. From Democracy Now:

Monsanto claims the advertisements give the public the impression artificial growth hormones are not safe. And Monsanto claims that by doing this Okhurst [sic] is directly disparaging Monsanto’s product Posilac, the only artificial growth hormone on the market.

Monsanto boasts the hormones help cows produce up to 15 percent [more] milk, but there are concerns of the effect on the hormones on both the cows and humans. The president of Oakhurst responded by saying, “We ought to have the right to let people know what is and is not in our milk.”

You can read more about the Posilac controversy here, if interested.

For what it’s worth, this article claims that genetically modified crops do not increase yield.  Of course, since the author cannot legally study these crops to prove it, he resorts to simple logic.  Genetically modified crops usually have an added gene that makes them tolerant of herbicides (usually Roundup– conveniently also manufactured by Monsanto).  So Monsanto’s claim that GM crops improve yields is comparing the yield of a field planted with GM crops and treated with Roundup to the yield of a field planted with conventional crops and left untreated by any herbicide. Obviously, the yields are greater in the field that does not have to compete with weeds, but that doesn’t mean that the genetically modified crops are responsible.  Similar results could presumably be found using any commercial herbicide.

The Union of Concerned Scientists maintains this list of genetically engineered foods which are currently allowed on the market in the U.S.  There are no special labeling requirements for genetically engineered foods.  So who’s responsible to make sure the food is safe?  Foodsafety.gov (a project of the FDA) says “The food industry is responsible for producing safe food.” Monsanto says “Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA’s job.”  The issue is further clouded when foods have been modified to include pesticides– then who’s responsible to regulate their safety?  Depending on who you ask, or maybe what time of day you ask them, it’s either the FDA, the USDA, or the EPA.  Now are you confident in their safety?

• 

Related posts:

1. Food, Inc.: Taking a closer look at the food you eat
2. Hormones + antibiotics + no pasture = “Organic”?
3. Why eating meat is bad for the environment
4. Diversion of crops for fuel use is “criminal”
5. Plants have rights too!

http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/10/26/the-monsanto-monster/

May 5, 2009

German court rejects Monsanto plea to end GMO maize ban

HAMBURG  (Reuters) - A German court on Tuesday rejected an urgent application from U.S. biotech company Monsanto to end Germany's ban on cultivation of Monsanto maize containing

genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, had requested an urgent decision to lift the ban imposed on April 14 by German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner stopping cultivation and commercial sale of Monanto's MON 810 GMO maize which prevented it being sown for this year's harvest.

The court in Braunschweig in north Germany rejected an application for an emergency ruling to overturn Aigner's decision so as to allow sowings for the 2009 crop.

Monsanto now has the option of taking normal legal action against the decision, the court said. But there was no indication of when a decision on such action could be made.

A statement from the court said Germany's law on GMOs laid down that a ban on a new plant variety did not need to be justified by proven scientific research which showed without doubt the crop to be dangerous.

It was enough when research showed there were indications that the crop could be dangerous, the court said....

MON 810 GMO maize is resistant to the corn borer, a moth whose caterpillars damage maize plantings, reducing yields.

The court statement added: "There is no proven scientific evidence that the genetic maize could lead to increased danger to the environment."

"But new studies could indicate that the poisonous substance (generated by genetic mutation) could not only have an impact on the pests which it is aimed at combating, but also on other insects."

On April 27, Aigner allowed open air test cultivation of a potato containing GMOs developed by German chemicals group BASF, saying trials presented no threat to public health or the environment.

(Reporting by Michael Hogan; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL558166220090505?sp=true

 

* * *

WATCH FOX NEWS WHISTLEBLOWERS

It’ll blow your mind!

 

FRANKENFOODS

by Liane Clorfene-Casten

Like a Celtic sea monster emerging from the depths of a brackish Scottish lake, the footprints of bio-engineered and sterile seeds populating the world have become the focus of international debates, lawsuits, and activist campaigns that will not disappear very soon. The bio- engineering story could become the agricultural issue of the next decade.

In the center of it all is multinational giant Monsanto, the biggest player in the field right now.

But Monsanto is not alone in its efforts to spread bio-engineered and sterile seeds across the globe. It is aided by the White House, the Department of Commerce, the Secretary of State, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshevsky and an economic policy that puts free trade and corporate control ahead of all other concerns.

The FrankenFood Method

Genetic engineering is an artificial laboratory technique that allows scientists to cut, join, and transfer genes between totally unrelated living things. Scientists can transfer genetic material from a species of plant, bacteria, virus, animal, or fish into another species with which it will not naturally breed.

Unlike normal methods of reproduction or traditional crossbreeding, genetic engineers can create combinations of genes that would never occur naturally. Some crops have been engineered to make them resistant to weed killers; others produce their own pesticide.

Those who work in the industry insist genetically-engineered (G-E) foods are safe; that G-E foods can increase yields and profits, enhance nutritional value, reduce waste and improve flavor and shelf life. Monsanto claims their products will help eradicate world hunger by making farming easier, more reliable, and thus cheaper.

Some farmers in the U.S. swear by their new Monsanto G-E seeds. Once a farmer plants them, the only weed control that group of crops will need is one produced by Monsanto. Thanks to a bit of gene splicing, soybean, cotton, and canola seeds will grow in spite of that herbicide while weeds all around it will die. The crops are engineered to tolerate Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, also known as glyphosate.

There are problems; glyphosate is the third most commonly reported cause of pesticide illness among farm workers.

According to the Journal of Pesticide Reform, glyphosate is "Acutely toxic to animals, including humans.... Glyphosate-containing products have caused genetic damage in human blood cells, fruit flies, and onion cells; it causes reduced sperm counts in male rats, lengthened estrous cycle in female rats, decreased birth weights in offspring.... Residues in the soil have persisted over a year; damaging or reducing the population of beneficial insects, fish, birds, and earthworms."

Scientists at an American Association for the Advancement of Science forum in May, 1998 warned of the potential risks of agricultural G-E crops. "I've come to believe that the potential power of G-E dwarfs that of nuclear power," said Liebe Cavalieri, professor of Environmental Science at State University of New York at Purchase. "Society should not be carried away with fantasies promised by the biotech promoters."

Ohio State University scientists have found that G-E crops can pass their traits on to nearby weeds via hybridization. These hybrid, transgenic weeds resist the herbicides that were designed to kill them.

What's perhaps more fundamental is that New York scientists have learned that genetically engineered Bt may accumulate in soil. Bt bacteria occurs naturally in some plants, offering them protection from certain insect predators. But natural Bt becomes inactive in soil. Thus, its toxic effects are limited. Genetically engineered Bt binds with clay and humic acid soil particles and does not lose its capacity to kill insects.

The gene beans also contain potential allergens, microbial genes, new proteins and increased chemical residues. Currently, "gene beans" are grown separately from others but are mixed after harvest with conventional soybeans; the company and the U.S. government aggressively refuse to keep them separate.

So far, there are insufficient long-term tests of these products, but if the general public continues to be as unaware as it is, the consequences to public health can be serious.

G-E products interfere with the natural order of nature.

When these products are introduced at random into the food supply of an unknowing public, there is no certain cause-and-effect relationship, no identifiable way anyone can say "My allergies are the result of the food I'm eating." (There is no control group.)

Thus, the manufacturer of these products will take no responsibility for their effects.

In fact, the U.S. has been accused of "bullying" foreign governments in order to protect Monsanto's global ambitions. But Monsanto itself is far from clean. One alarming tale is the story of Dr. Arpad Pusztai, a Hungarian-born research scientist now in Aberdeen, Scotland. Front-page headlines in the U.K. told of Dr. Pusztai's suspension from his research post at Rowett Research Institute in August, 1998, ending a distinguished career.

Pusztai found, to his own surprise, that consumption by rats of G-E potatoes had a "profound physiological effect" on their growth and development. Dr Pusztai, a research scientist with a world reputation, has published over 200 papers on lectin, a protein which is a natural insecticide found in the snowdrop flower.

In his 1998 experiments, he fed lectin to rats. The rats who ate potatoes mixed together with lectin suffered no ill effects. But the rats who ate potatoes into which lectin had been genetically engineered became ill.

Pusztai sums up the situation as follows: two harmless substances, potato and lectin, were found to become toxic after genetic modification.

Pusztai is the first world-renowned scientist whose research findings question the use of genetic engineering as a whole, and it is significant that he is, at heart, an advocate of genetic engineering. His experiment had not been done to see if the potatoes were safe as human food, but to devise a way of testing for safety in general, as part of a project set up by the government. The findings surprised Dr Pusztai as much as anyone else.

"I was totally taken aback," Pusztai told the press. "I was absolutely confident that I would not find anything, but the longer I spent on the experiment the more uneasy I became. I believe in the technology. But it is too new for us to be absolutely sure that what we are doing is right."

Pusztai was attacked by "Britain's most august Fellows of the Royal Society," his computers were "sealed," and all data from his experiments was confiscated.

While Pusztai's findings were subsequently duplicated by a panel of 20 other international scientists, he is deeply bitter that he took a fall as the result of corporate pressure. "His firing and the ensuing scientific cover-up by the U.K. government were a direct consequence of ongoing White House pressure on Tony Blair to keep the door open to Monsanto and other biotech companies," said Ronnie Cummins of the Pure Food Campaign.

Dr. Pusztai added, "If anyone dares to say anything even slightly contraindicative, they are vilified and totally destroyed."

Reaction is taking hold -- slowly -- across North America. Lawsuits are being filed, as Monsanto's altered form of Bt (along with Roundup,) has been used in growing cotton with negative results. One U.S. farmer nearly lost his whole crop and is suing Monsanto for $250,000. Almost 200 cotton farmers in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina are suing Monsanto for damages after crop failures on both Monsanto's Bt and Roundup Ready cotton seeds.

Twenty-five Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana farmers are suing Monsanto for fraud and misrepresentation -- thanks to Bt cotton failures. Monsanto and Delta and Pine Land Company were forced through legal proceedings to pay more than $1.9 million to three Mississippi cotton farmers who planted Roundup Ready cotton seed that was defective. Other Mississippi farmers settled privately.

On February 18, an international coalition of public interest organizations, led by attorneys from the Center for Food Safety, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. to have all Bt crops taken off the market, citing hazards to the environment and public health.

Last May, the CFS sued the FDA to have all G-E foods taken off the market on the grounds that they are neither properly labeled nor safety-tested. Lack of mandatory labeling illegally restricts the freedom of choice of those who would choose, on religious or ethical grounds, to avoid G-E foods.

But Monsanto is fighting back. Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer who has been farming his fertile acres his whole life, is being sued by Monsanto for what the company calls "seed piracy." It's a landmark case; the outcome could influence how much control biotech companies will have over the world's food supply for years.

Schmeiser is one of hundreds of farmers in the U.S. and Canada who are accused by Monsanto of replanting the company's patented gene-altered seeds in violation of a three-year-old company rule requiring that farmers buy the seeds fresh every year.

He denies having bought Monsanto seeds, saying pollen or seeds must have blown onto his farm. He accuses the company of harassment.

Why? Pinkerton detectives are sent into farmers' fields, and the company sponsors a toll-free "tip-line" to help farmers blow the whistle on their neighbors. It places radio ads broadcasting the names of non-compliant growers caught planting the company's seeds. Critics say these tactics are fraying the social fabric that holds farming communities together.

(UPDATE: Not surprising when a small farmer climbs a Genetically-Engineered beanstalk and takes on a giant corporation in court: Monsanto won the lawsuit!)

Schmesier's story is the tip of the iceberg. A bill has been introduced in the Ohio state legislature that would require registration and state-level regulation of any farmer who cleans or conditions self-pollinated seed. According to the Rural Advancement Foundation International, the proposed legislation is part of Monsanto's aggressive corporate strategy to police rural communities and intimidate seed-saving farmers.

The proposal to amend Ohio's seed law originated with Monsanto in 1998. Under U.S. patent law, it is illegal for farmers to save patented seed. To enforce its exclusive monopoly, Monsanto has aggressively prosecuted farmers for "seed piracy." Usually the seed saving is illegal only if the farmer is saving or re-using patented seed.

If this bill becomes law, it would require seed cleaners to keep detailed records on every seed cleaning transaction, to document the name of the farmer, seed variety names, and whether or not the seed is protected by patents or breeders' rights. Thus, the bill discriminates against farmers who are lawfully saving and re-planting their own non-patented seeds. And the bill would shift expenses and the burden of policing rural communities to the seed cleaners and state governments.

Currently, it's estimated that

60 to 70 percent of the foods in U.S. stores contain G-E components.

The FDA projects that 100-150 new G-E products will hit the market by the year 2000. These foods have not been subjected to thorough, pre-market safety testing, nor are they labeled.

(FDA has worked with Monsanto and other G-E companies in keeping consumers in the dark about what is in their foods.)

Soybeans, cotton, canola, corn (ten varieties), potatoes, yellow crookneck squash, radicchio, and tomatoes (five varieties) are already on the list of G-E products which unknowing consumers eat.

Big name products such as Coca-Cola (corn syrup or Aspartame), Fritos, Green Giant Harvest Burgers (soy), McDonald's French fries (potatoes), Nestle's chocolate (soy), Karo corn syrup (corn), NutraSweet (Aspartame), Kraft salad dressings(canola oil), Fleishmann's margarine (soy), Similac infant formula (soy), Land O'Lakes butter (rBGH), and Cabot Creamery Butter (rBGH) - all include G-E ingredients.

G-E foods represent 30 percent of all soy grown in the U.S and over a quarter of the maize. G-E cotton crops now comprise 45 percent of all cotton.

Monsanto now controls ten percent of the global seed supply and its share is growing rapidly.

Monsanto has been in the process of buying up as many seed companies as it can afford. So far, it has bought Holden's Foundation Seeds, Asgrow Agronomics, De Kalb, Delta, Pine Land, and Cargill (joint venture.)

The company owns 85 percent of all the U.S. cottonseed market alone.

Acquisition price so far: $8 billion in the last two years. So far, the Justice Department has closed a blind eye to this chemical monopoly.

Monsanto predicts that by the year 2000, nearly

100 percent of U.S. soybeans (60 million acres) will be genetically modified.

If the corporation and the U.S. have their way, there's every reason to suggest that over a period of time, every crop in the world can and will be altered and patented.