Please take the time to do this for you and your families future health.

[VictorCharlie]

Food crop diversity is diminishing and seed distribution has become largely monopolised by a handful of corporations and I mean that in particular reference to the US. There are plenty of seeds, but they are frankenstein seeds and provided by only a few corporations and in particular Monsanto. Farmers are sued if their crop is infected with these strands and once they buy seeds from these companies they are not allowed to retain them. It is highly unethical and seemingly supported by US law. A basic Google search will supply you with data that you know already. Corporations like Monsanta have practically unchecked control over food markets and unchecked in the way that too many things are unchecked in America.

Your article says Monsanto's biggest competitor (Dow Chemical) is claiming that Monsanto has a monopoly. Well color me shocked that one massive agri-business wants the government to help its market share against another massive agri-business. Hell the article also states that there are over 4k different corn variations and 2k soy in the market. That sounds like there are a lot of options out there just not of the drought/herbicide resistant kind. There's 100% freedom. No one is forced to buy Monsanto soybeans. You can buy from another company. You can save soybean seed from a non-patented variety. You can go to your local university and get seed from a publicly-developed or heirloom variety and start your own freaking company. Monsanto has a monopoly on herbicide resistant soy and some other specific staple crops b/c their patented seed allows farmers to plant almost twice as much per acre. Spend some time at a grain elevator or coop and you will see there are plenty of options they just aren't as good as the resistant strains. Now your portion about farmers being sued b/c Monsanto seeds blew into their fields is totally false.
There is no record of this every happening but there is a record of farmers using this as a defense once they were found growing Monsanto plant w/o paying for the seeds. Hell Monsanto has flat stated they won't sue for this. PUBPAT > Appeals Court Binds Monsanto To Promise Not To Sue Organic Farmers Monstanto's price increases are also having a negative effect on their market share. More US farmers planting non-GMO soybeans this year

Again with regard to food prices, if you follow the news as I am sure you do, then you will know that food prices are rampant. It's there in the news and I am sure most have experienced it. I certainly have, so it is definitely not a news conspiracy. 2008 was a bumper year for harvests and yet hey presto prices went up massively. You always hear about the weather etc, but food commodities markets were a significant factor. They have been for over a decade now. Food increases have been above inflation for a long time and over half a decade have gone up around 35% for the average Brit. Once the prices go up, they don't come down. Pick a year and it is easy to find articles such as this.

Your article says nothing about a GMO monopoly causing the price increase but strangely enough does mention weather patterns and inflation.

It is no coincidence that monopolisation of the seed also resulted in record busting increases in the cost of new seeds. It is market control both at the distribution level and then when you factor in heavy speculation, what you end up with is very expensive food and food that isn't statistically reducing global hunger in the slightest. It is making a few very rich and creating havoc in the ordinary lives of hundreds of millions. In fact more Americans are going hungry than at any stage in decades, so it isn't even just a problem having to be faced by the global poor.

You would think with genetically superior products that weather would be a fading excuse, but surprisingly it only ever gets worse and costs never stop rising and farmers and consumers alike suffer at the hands of insidious monopolistic corporations. It is because it isn't just down to the weather, it is other factors equally significant and they get downplayed by a biased mainstream media.

So again you are drawing false conclusions that you can't seem to support and then claiming causation when you are actually struggling to even show causation. Stick to Korea buddy, as usual you aren't nearly as smart on the US as you think you are.

[Andre]

That side of their legal battle is very tough to fight and defend on a %. If they own and plant side by side in set crop areas you cant stop a delivery or a mass of workers because of wind.

I dont know about US practices,but we used to have super phosphate dropped on our roof by crop dusters so that went straight into our water tanks you could hear the pellets hitting the roof like bullets, they were ment to spread it out on the grass next door not near us, but wind etc. Thats the stuff we could hear, when they came across spraying chemicals thats worse, (not knowing what next door ordered in while you were at work etc).
Automation and chemicals has had its down sides, if it gets into your dna your whole line will pay.

[VictorCharlie]

Andre, when I first heard about farmers being sued due to monsanto seeds being accidentally grown I was pretty shocked but as it turned out Monsanto has never sued any b/c of unintentional growth. It is just an urban myth floated by groups that want to demonize the group. Monsanto is a huge corporation and I don't doubt they do some shady shit. Just like anyone they are going to do what is in their best interest but I just don't believe and the fact don't really bear out this reptilian overlord bit. I'm with you on the chemicals though man. We make every effort to do organic. Hell we recently donated all of our pot/pans and went all cast iron to avoid cooking on non-stick chemicals.

[Gandalf]

VC, there might be 'thousands' of seeds, but when a few companies control the vast majority of seed distribution and then impose stringent rules on things that can and do grow naturally thus seed, then you are into dangerous territory. I don't understand why you are so defensive about monopoly control.

As for farmers being given a rough time by Monsanta. Again, there are articles all over the place saying that this is indeed what they do.

Also when it comes to commodities markets, again you seem to be putting your head in the sand a bit. Clinton deregulated the markets and thus financial players started playing games. Goldman Sachs and many other notorious financial institutions have made a lot of money from playing games with food. Again, on the record. Commodities markets are prey to rampant speculation that didn't exist for much of this century.

Weather will always be a factor, but as I keep stating, it is amazing how these companies are making exorbitant profits on 'superproducts' that are seemingly not so super after all. The seed prices are rampant and the markets more volatile than ever. However, anyone who says so is always anti America it couldn't be that the corporations involved are American and it was the US government that deregulated markets that were working well.

[VictorCharlie]

Miles,

If your posts are just "The U.S. Agriculture per Miles" then fine but you are making some statements as fact that at a minimum I'm not familiar with the supporting references (I'm not just trying to be contrary either. If you have some facts I'm not aware of then I genuinely would like to read them). There is no shortage of options for farmers it is just that Monsanto's products have changed the way agri-business in the US is run. There are a lot of legal issues between farmers and Monsanto but much of that stems from Monsanto protecting their patent which as I said expires in 2014. Speculation does play a role and while I'm familiar with Clinton's deregulation of the financial sector by repealing Glass Steagal I'm not familiar with it in the agriculture sector. So please inform me. All that being said we had pretty stellar job growth under Clinton in the 90s. If the products weren't superior then farmers wouldn't buy them and as I showed earlier Monsanto's price increases have pushed farmers away from them versus simply extorting them. I'm not accusing you of being anti-american....in this instance but I think you just aren't as informed on American specific issues as you think you are.

[Gandalf]

Miles,

If your posts are just "The U.S. Agriculture per Miles" then fine but you are making some statements as fact that at a minimum I'm not familiar with the supporting references (I'm not just trying to be contrary either. If you have some facts I'm not aware of then I genuinely would like to read them). There is no shortage of options for farmers it is just that Monsanto's products have changed the way agri-business in the US is run. There are a lot of legal issues between farmers and Monsanto but much of that stems from Monsanto protecting their patent which as I said expires in 2014. Speculation does play a role and while I'm familiar with Clinton's deregulation of the financial sector by repealing Glass Steagal I'm not familiar with it in the agriculture sector. So please inform me. All that being said we had pretty stellar job growth under Clinton in the 90s. If the products weren't superior then farmers wouldn't buy them and as I showed earlier Monsanto's price increases have pushed farmers away from them versus simply extorting them. I'm not accusing you of being anti-american....in this instance but I think you just aren't as informed on American specific issues as you think you are.

With deregulation the food commodities markets have grown exponentially. They were small pretty well controlled markets prior to Clinton, but since have ballooned and swollen to horrible degrees. Some of the people who I wouldn't trust will argue that you cannot prove the link between prices and speculation, but others will say quite the opposite and that it is perhaps a leading factor.

I'm not an expert on agriculture and don't know that much, but it is something I became interested in a few months ago in a couple of documentaries looking at seeds and farmers in America. I then did a little bit of reading for myself and that is all I know. I think I was in the same boat as most until the documentary in that most are simply not aware about the food and practices that go on in providing food. The same goes for a lot of areas in life. Most live in quiet ignorance and just hope someone is looking out for them, but seemingly nobody really is and that is why Andre is cool for starting this thread. It is something constructive.

This article outlines some of the issues with deregulation and commodities markets, but again I am not a super expert. I read news stories for about an hour everyday and don't bookmark every interesting thing I read. My field is the work I do and news and posts about politics are just a hobby horse. I put forth what I know, but find it hard to post links and stuff sometimes and especially in the final week of a semester when even this post has me putting down 30 papers that should really be getting graded.

UN Pleads for Curbing Speculation in Food Commodities

And sure, if people would seperate the corporatism and the politics which I do always bang on about, then they would see I'm not all that anti-American. If we are talking literature and music, I am into America a lot, but when it comes to old farts and their war rhetoric and lies. Well, I am not so enamoured.

[Andre]

Interesting conversation too.

Got off track slightly though,this was about closing off loopholes in old laws in Europe allowing people with huge resources to gain ownership of popular grown natural seed types not gm ones. Which would force the market in a way that would make those seed types eventually untouchable and if you had your own stock and seed already, eventually you would still have to prove it legally against them and we know who would win so thats not defensible against their lawyers.

Mansanto in 2005 took over the majority of USa grown produce by buying Seminis group.

Seminis then controlled 40 percent of the U.S. vegetable seed market and 20 percent of the world market—supplying the genetics for 55 percent of the lettuce on U.S. supermarket shelves, 75 percent of the tomatoes, and 85 percent of the peppers, with strong holdings in beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and peas. The company’s biggest revenue source comes from tomato and peppers seeds, followed by cucumbers and beans.


That sort of forced many organic growers into niche markets and away from the more popular varieties (which has other benefits for them and us as consumers, theres no denying that).

Still, the cornering of the market legally by such giants has its obvious mass product benefits and affordability to the masses but in the long run we'll all pay (my belief is we'll pay in health via their chemical practices in addition but we'll save in the pocket).

Be nice to able to choose which type of veg as well as organic or gm instead of being forced out into the rarer types at more expense and the reverse occurring where people cant afford choice.

Also these mass companies using their own chemicals: they know the use is accumulative in animals and our human system and drops our natural immunity levels until eventually the weaker part of the natural system becomes a cancer risk (I buy into that belief).
Im not linking chemicals to growing for any reason other than its their business practice for profit.

[VictorCharlie]

I say grow your own. We have a pretty vibrant herb garden and tomato harvest. When we lived in the home we own we had a pretty big garden. That is something I miss now that we rent again.

[Andre]

I say grow your own. We have a pretty vibrant herb garden and tomato harvest. When we lived in the home we own we had a pretty big garden. That is something I miss now that we rent again.

We are lucky here, we do that.

[Andre]

Its funny though down the road is a large commercial grower they are on the high ground side of the road ,over the road a guy rented a block and sold organic veg, turned out it got a bit tainted just on the water run off. So he went back to his other area away from them. (they also use chemically treated sewage water just to water the stuff).
We have to watch out for Chinese produce for similar reasons they are a step or more further behind us in regulations and yet we are ripping out and burning our fruit trees because of cheaper imports. Soon those prices will soar.The Chinese had pollinate their pear trees with people and brushes because the bees are all dead from their over use of chemicals.Fuck and we lost thousands of acres of trees last week.

Its madness,governments all over the show trade off imports for export rights and shake hands on deals that cross over from industry to mining to agriculture without balancing the future of the middle men. Big business stocks and shares its all it is about.

[VictorCharlie]

Miles,

This has been entirely too congenial discussion. Surely one of us should call the other a cunt to maintain the status quo.