Click on image to enlargeMonsanto and Co is under the media spotlight once more at US ABC News in a four-page article AP IMPACT: Monsanto Seed Business Role Revealed which looks at how this biotech company is determined to create a global seed monopoly.
Something Australian farmers and consumers should consider carefully, given government's almost uncritical acceptance of gene technology, the very narrow profit margins of many family farms and those comfortable margins jealously defended by the dominant retail grocery companies.
"We now believe that Monsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable," said Neil Harl, agricultural economist at Iowa State University who has studied the seed industry for decades. "The upshot of that is that it's tightening Monsanto's control, and makes it possible for them to increase their prices long term. And we've seen this happening the last five years, and the end is not in sight."
Monsanto is rather upset about the claims made in this and other similar articles and, as usual, has gone into print itself with a quick muddy of the waters over at its own blog Beyond The Rows.
I'm sure that everyone is relieved to know that, according to its corporate blogger Mica, the biotech giant really doesn't control 90 per cent of seed genetics because; we licensed the technology to hundreds of seed companies, including our major competitors, and no one has offered a better product to these seed companies or to growers.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
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