Monday 26 October 2009
Monsanto: St. Lois we have a problem
Despite its market dominance Monsanto & Co. is continuing to show financial loss according to the St. Lois Business Journal this month:
Monsanto Co. reported Wednesday a wider fourth-quarter loss on charges from recent layoffs and the sale of its sunflower operations. Monsanto lost $233 million in the quarter ended Aug. 31, compared with a loss of $172 million a year earlier. Results reflected restructuring charges that included the costs of staff reductions, streamlining brands, and office and facility consolidations. Monsanto recently cut 1,800 jobs, including 300 in St. Louis.
Monsanto's woes do not stop there however, because there is growing unease among government regulators around the world who suspect that anti-competitive practices abound in the global seed industry, not least in the multinational's home country America.
Here are the opening paragraphs of 23 October 2009 of The American Antitrust Institute white paper discussing the issue Transgenic Seed Platforms:
Competition Between a Rock and a Hard Place?:
With the widespread adoption by farmers of corn, cotton, and soybean seed containing transgenic technology, the U.S. seed industry has changed rapidly in the past twenty years. The largest changes include the creation of strongholds of patented technology and the gradual elimination of the numerous regional independent seed companies through consolidation. Resulting increases in concentration in affected markets has been driven largely by the industry’s dominant firm, Monsanto.
A threshold question to consider is whether Monsanto has exercised its market power to foreclose rivals from market access, harming competition and thereby slowing the pace of innovation and adversely affecting prices, quality, and choice for farmers and consumers of seed products. If the answer to this question is yes, remedying the intractable competitive situation that prevails in the transgenic seed industry may require antitrust enforcement, legislative relief, or both. The problem highlights both the importance of competition policy and the security and diversity of a key agricultural sector.
White Paper PDF download here.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Sunday 18 October 2009
What's in that icecream you are eating?
What's in that icream you are eating that wasn't there in your grandmother's day?
In Australia the Federal Government has in total eight pages listing foods using gene technology and approved for sale under the Food Standards Australian New Zealand Act 1991.
Including nine versions of New Leaf potato, canola seed/oil/flour/syrup, corn/flour/oil/syrup/food grade ethanol, cotton oils/cottonseed oils, glucose made from fungus, soy foods/oil/protein meal, pectin, baker's yeast/yeast, icestructuring protein made from fish, food processing enzyme made from a bacteria, and sugar beet.
Genetically modified organisms can now form part of the production process or ingredients in foods - from takeaway foods like fish & chips/meat pies, frozen convenience food such as lasagna/pizza, to staples like bread through to traditional desserts that your grandmother used to make.
GM products approved as food, food additives and processing aids (PDF 79 KB)GM products approved as therapeutics (PDF 19 KB)
GM products approved as pesticides or veterinary medicines (PDF 9 KB)
List of applications and licences for Dealings involving Intentional Release (DIR) of GMOs into the environment on behalf of CSIRO, BSES Ltd, Florigene P/L, Dept of Primary Industry (Vic), Bayer Crop Science P/L, Monsanto Australia Ltd, Queensland UT, University of Queensland, University of Adelaide, Hexima Ltd, Dept. of Primary Industries & Fisheries (Qld), Imugene Ltd, Dow AgroSciences Australia P/L, Syngenta Seeds P/L, Dept of Primary Industries, Aventis CropScience P/L.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Wednesday 7 October 2009
First Dog On The Moon takes the mickey out of Monsanto with Canolabees
5 October 2009
Click on image to enlarge
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Tuesday 11 August 2009
The faces behind "Mr. Monsanto"
I've been told in no uncertain terms that it's my turn to do a post on Monsanto & Co., so here it is - a view of some of the faces behind Monsanto's media monitor, Mr. Monsanto.
PHOTO: Mica Veihman, head of Monsanto’s social media team (seated), with Chris Paton and Kathleen Manning, is tapping into Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. From the St. Lois Business Journal on 8th August 2009.
Regular readers will remember Kathleen for the noteworty line that no blog is too big or small for Monsanto to monitor.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Sunday 26 July 2009
Bless their cute curly heads! Monsanto blogs on morality
Leaving aside the ungainly stretch inherent in likening perpetual seed patents to music copyright, the irony of Monsanto blogging about morals is readily apparent.
This is the same company which spent years happily spreading dioxin/PCB contamination across the world. Here is a brief potted history of its recent transgressions and another about heavy metal contamination due to Monsanto mining operations.
Sadly Monsanto does not appear to see that its recalcitrant past concerning environmental degradation and denial of human rights makes a mockery of its current claim that; The law is the law.
Picture from Google Images
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Sunday 5 July 2009
If it's July it must be time to mention Monsanto again....
Each month that passes highlights Monsanto & Co's abysmal safety record.
From the Idaho Business Review, June 29 2009:
Federal regulators say an Idaho mine that Monsanto uses to make Roundup weed killer has violated federal and state water quality laws almost since it opened, sending selenium and other heavy metals into the region's streams. The Environmental Protection Agency says problems at the St. Louis-based company's mine near the Idaho-Wyoming border were documented starting in April 2002, 15 months after it won Bureau of Land Management approval.
The mine recently has failed to halt metals-laden water seeping from a waste dump.
Eva DeMaria, an EPA enforcement official in Seattle, says, "The measures they have implemented aren't working.''
The disclosure comes as Monsanto Co. wants federal officials to approve a new mine in the region.
Monsanto lobbyist Trent Clark says his company has remedied some EPA concerns and continues to work to fix violations at the waste dump.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Wednesday 3 June 2009
Monsanto can Twitter but it can't hide
Not long back I added MonsantoCo to my Twitter list.
It has been fascinating to watch the parallel universe in which its public relations employees live.
Equally fascinating is that this urge to tweet appears to follow on from its earlier advertising campaign which was apparently based around the concept of 'sustainability'.
One has to suspect that the campaign in print and radio was not the success Monsanto hoped for, hence the back-up.
Of course Monsanto & Co is not alone in pushing the GMO cause - its clones are out there doing their bit as well.
The Mid America Croplife Association apparently wrote to Michelle Obama trying to head that new White House vegetable garden off at the pass and, Croplife Australia is still plugging way.
Needless to say SourceWatch cites BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, FMC, Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta as key funders for the Croplife group.
Such is Monsanto's chutzpah that through Croplife International (of which it is a member) the company attempted to hijack the U.N. sponsored International Day for Biological Diversity this month which had as its theme Invasive Alien Species.
Invasive alien species are plants, animals, pathogens and other organisms that are non-native to an ecosystem, and which may cause economic or environmental harm or adversely affect human health. In particular, they impact adversely upon biodiversity, including decline or elimination of native species - through competition, predation, or transmission of pathogens - and the disruption of local ecosystems and ecosystem functions.
If you believed Croplife, the international day was actually all about the pesticides/herbicides, genetically modified seed etc., supplied by its member companies.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Wednesday 13 May 2009
More GM lobby machinations?
Times Higher Education earlier this year:
A charity has come under fire for failing to declare all industry affiliations of the experts it enlisted to compile a booklet explaining genetic modification to the public.
The pamphlet was produced by Sense About Science (SAS), a charity that claims to promote scientific reasoning in public discussions.
According to anti-genetic modification campaigners and academics, it failed to mention links between some of the experts who wrote the booklet and GM firms.
For example, the guide's biography of Vivian Moses, emeritus professor of microbiology at Queen Mary, University of London, and visiting professor of biotechnology at King's College London, does not mention that he is also chairman of CropGen, a GM lobby group that receives funding from the biotechnology industry.
It says only that he has been "a full-time researcher in biochemistry and microbiology" and is now "primarily concerned with communicating science to the public".
Critics also argued that the guide should have noted that the John Innes Centre, where eight of its 28 contributors are based, received funding from biotechnology companies.
Michael Antoniou, a geneticist at King's College London, described the omissions as "outrageous".
He said: "GM is a sensitive issue. People have been extremely suspicious because of its industrial connections. So it is imperative that they declare these in this context, as in a journal publication."
Dr Antoniou, who himself provides technical advice to anti-GM campaign group GM Watch, speculated that SAS had not disclosed Professor Moses' directorship because it was afraid of arousing public suspicion.
GM Watch tells us that there are even more 'scientists' hidden in the woodpile:
The pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science (SAS) has been caught with its pants down by Private Eye. The famous satirical magazine has obtained a confidential draft copy of SAS's recently published GM guide which shows it had a "ghost writer" that SAS failed to declare. Here's the article.
Private Eye No. 1232, 20 March - 2 April 2009, Books and Bookmen (p.26)
A spat has broken out over a Times Higher Education article highlighting the failure of a new guide to GM food, 'Making Sense of GM', to disclose its industry connections. Tracey Brown of Sense About Science, publisher of the guide, condemned the T.H.E. article as "mischievous" and "rude" and claimed it relied on "tortuously indirect links" between the authors and the GM industry.
But the Eye has a copy of an unpublished draft of the guide - and it seems it wasn't just the industry links of some of its authors that didn't appear in the final published version. One of the guide's listed authors, Andrew Cockburn, is also missing. Who he? None other than GM giant, Monsanto's former director of scientific affairs, and a figure so controversial that when former PM Tony Blair invited him to author part of the government's official GM Science Review, it led to questions being raised in the House and the resignation of one of the expert panellists. No wonder Sense About Science felt erasure was the better form of valour.
*Sense about Science issued a statement to the effect that in the end Cockburn did not review its GM guide.
In addition,this month MADGE blew the whistle on Graincorp:
AUSTRALIANS will soon be eating genetically modified food whether they like it or not.
The nation's major grain handler, Graincorp, announced this week that genetically modified canola will be mixed in with the main crop in this year's harvest.
Anti-GM groups say the decision means canola oil and a large amount of commonly bought processed food made with canola will now be genetically modified.
They say staples that will become genetically modified include baby food, potato chips, biscuits, frozen vegetables, crackers and pre-prepared meals.
They claim the move is premature because GM food has yet to be tested properly.
"All GM food has been created randomly. The DNA of these plants has been altered and no one really knows where it will go," said Madeleine Love, spokeswoman for Mothers Are Demystifying Genetic Engineering (MADGE).....
Graincorp corporate affairs manager David Ginn confirmed the two streams of canola will be mixed together this year after the October harvest.
Meanwhile, GMO bananas are being trialled in Queensland and can be now added to North Coast Voices' March 2009 GMO watch list.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Tuesday 21 April 2009
Biotech: the unmet promise of genetically engineered crops?
And if you are a large multinational corporation like Monsanto, with lobbyist tentacles reaching into so many national or state governments around the world, I expect that it really is business as usual.
So usual that it is thinking of starting yet another court case in its pursuit of the 'golden' apex of a global agricultural food chain.
Still it doesn't hurt if you also create a slice of corporate propaganda like this:
View and Download this Ad
from Monsanto website
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Thursday 26 February 2009
Monsanto According To Monsanto: no blog is too big or small, we read all of them
On the first post by Kathleen our blog North Coast Voices gets not one but two links within the text.
So if all blogs are read - does someone also go out on behalf of Monsanto and take notes at any protest rally or town meeting?
Spin Watch tells us a little about corporate strategy in relation to the Internet.
Source Watch tells a similar story and Gene Watch records Monsanto's alleged attempts to deceive as well as quotes a section of the book Don't Worry, It's Safe to Eat .
Kathleen may like to think that she is the 'nice' face of a 'good' company.
Sadly for Kathleen I am too old to for fall for the froth and spin, when court transcripts and research papers (some discussed elsewhere on North Coast Voices) tell of a socially and environmentally irresponsible, destructive multinational who doesn't give a toss about the rest of the world.
Graphic is Kathleen's avatar
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Monday 23 February 2009
Walking on the wildside: GMO transgenes found in wild maize
Evidence of the irresponsible nature of the biotechnology industry in general and Monsanto in particular.
A possible consequence of planting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in centres of crop origin is unintended gene flow into traditional landraces.
In 2001, a study reported the presence of the transgenic 35S promoter in maize landraces sampled in 2000 from the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Analysis of a large sample taken from the same region in 2003 and 2004 could not confirm the existence of transgenes, thereby casting doubt on the earlier results.
These two studies were based on different sampling and analytical procedures and are thus hard to compare. Here, we present new molecular data for this region that confirm the presence of transgenes in three of 23 localities sampled in 2001.
Transgene sequences were not detected in samples taken in 2002 from nine localities, while directed samples taken in 2004 from two of the positive 2001 localities were again found to contain transgenic sequences.
These findings suggest the persistence or re-introduction of transgenes up until 2004 in this area.
We address variability in recombinant sequence detection by analyzing the consistency of current molecular assays.
We also present theoretical results on the limitations of estimating the probability of transgene detection in samples taken from landraces.
The inclusion of a limited number of female gametes and, more importantly, aggregated transgene distributions may significantly lower detection probabilities.
Our analytical and sampling considerations help explain discrepancies among different detection efforts, including the one presented here, and provide considerations for the establishment of monitoring protocols to detect the presence of transgenes among structured populations of landraces.
This is not the first time transgenes have been found in the wild as GMO seed dispersal also leads to engineered seed establishing itself amid original species and cross-pollinating, as appears to be the case in relation to certain grasses.
Thanks to Balneus for pointing me in the direction of this information.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Thursday 19 February 2009
Monsanto related environmental and health risks lead to court case - again
According to The Madison St Clair Record last week:
A group of Illinois residents who live in or near Sauget have filed a class-action lawsuit over the release of various hazardous substances that they claim has created a severe health risk and has contaminated their properties.
Lead class plaintiffs Vernon Lee Anderson Sr., Ernestine Lawrence, Katie Burnett-Smith, Martha Emily Young, Marcella Phillips and Bernice Laverne Collins argue that three release sites - a 90-acre landfill operated by Sauget and Co., a 314-acre W.G. Krummrich Plant and property owned by Cerro Flow Products - have released PCBs and other various substances, including dioxins and furans, into the atmosphere for more than 70 years.
Residents fear they will develop a deadly disease from the PCBs, which have been shown to result in toxic effects in the brain and nervous system and in low birth rates and birth defects.
"According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a lifetime dose of one milligram of PCBs is sufficient to cause cancer and other serious and life-threatening diseases," the suit filed Feb. 10 in St. Clair County Circuit Court states. "According to the World Health Organization, there is not safe level of exposure to PCBs."
Dioxins and furans are also known to be dangerous and to create significant health problems through inhalation, ingestion, dermal absorption and ingestion of homegrown produce.
In addition to the health risk, the residents claim the PCBs have contaminated property within a two-mile radius of the release sites, waterways and groundwater, the suit states.
The releases began after the W.G. Krummrich Plant, which is also referred to as the Monsanto Facility in the complaint, began producing, storing and disposing of PCBs at its facility, the residents claim.
In fact, "more PCBs were produced at the Monsanto Facility than at any other site in the United States, and perhaps even the free world," the suit states.
This Sauget flood plain region is well-known to the US Environmental Protection Agency and Monsanto had previously entered a negotiated settlement with the State of illinois.
Fox River Watch has a history of PCB health problems in the US here.
And with a corporate history like that Monsanto (along with the other biotech multinationals now operating here) expects Australians to take its word that the genetically modified crop types it is pushing onto often unwilling communities will do no harm?
Show us the longitudinal studies which scientifically demonstrate this, Monsanto.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Monsanto propaganda rules! Or does it?
Here is Monsanto's spin laced with alternative images:
Monsanto's research program centers on increasing yields for three key crops used for food, feed, fiber and fuel - corn, soybeans and cotton. The company's research pipeline uses more precise breeding techniques to develop higher-yielding germplasm. Other technologies result in plant traits that provide better protection against pests and better weed control. Monsanto's objective under this new commitment is to double yield for these three crops by 2030 in countries where farmers have access to current and anticipated new seed choices offered by the company.
{Genetically Modified Crops Implicated in Honey Bee Collapse Disorder}
This would mean, for example, that corn production in the prominent agricultural markets of Argentina, Brazil and the United States would reach a weighted average of 220 bushels per acre by 2030, compared to 109.1 bushels per acre in 2000. Soybean production in those countries would rise from a weighted average of 39.5 bushels per acre in 2000 to 79 bushels per acre in 2030. Cotton would increase from 1.4 bales (672 pounds) per acre to 2.8 bales (1,344 pounds) per acre.
{GM crops have failed and Canola yeild stoush}
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Wednesday 4 February 2009
Monsanto fruit?
Sunday 1 February 2009
Australian genetically modified foods update
ABC News reported last week:
When New South Wales and Victoria dropped their bans on genetically modified canola crops, GM supporters claimed farmers would have greater yielding crops as a result.
However recent trials showed there was little difference between the two.
So why bother growing GM canola if you can't get anything extra out of it?....
Chris Preston is associate professor at the School of Agriculture at the University of Adelaide.
He says trial results depend on region and climate, and the drought hampered the GM canola trails.
He says the trials do give an indication how canola performs in drought conditions, and if that's where it's being grown it's probably not worth growing GM canola variety. xxxx
WA Business News also ran this short article on 16 January:
Genetically modified canola crops in Victoria have performed no better than their non-genetically modified counterparts as Western Australia prepares to hold trials later this year.
Results from Grains Research and Development Council showed the yields, from the first independent trial crops in Horsham and Forbes in Victoria, were 0.7 tonne per hectare for GM and 0.8t/ha ha for non-GM.
The results are not good news for those wanting to farm GM canola, as to break even with the technology, profits must increase by up to 16 per cent.
Comment on the Business News article:
This article talks of yields, but what about sales? Thanks to this environmentally toxic rubbish being foisted on us Australians I simply boycott everything with Canola in it now because no-one can quickly prove to me it's GM free.
I'm not going to waste my time trying to find out either as you either encounter people who don't have a clue or spin doctors.
I'm becoming more aggressive with fish shops etc too, if they are using canola or cottonseed oil, the food could be GM contaminated.
We Can't Eat A Scorched Earth! Climate change and food security
5.45 pm for 6.00 pm talk start, concluding 7.15pm
NSW Teachers Federation
GM products approved as food, food additives and processing aids (PDF 79 KB)
GM products approved as therapeutics (PDF 19 KB)
OGTR current list of applications and licences to release GMO into the environment, laboratory trials and low risk dealings.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Monsanto, I presume........
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Wednesday 7 January 2009
We haven't forgotten you, Mr. Monsanto
Here are some recent items:
Gene-altered crop studies grow
Monsanto Co. has claimed responsibility and pledged "to take appropriate actions," to prevent experimental cotton and cottonseed from entering the marketplace as either fiber, livestock feed or oil products.
We advocate on behalf of consumers for the right to know what is in our food. We promote information on natural foods and healthy farming practices.
Click here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Wednesday 3 December 2008
There are now 220 lobbyists on the Australian Government register
Edelman Public Relations Worldwide Pty Ltd registered on 17 November.
Edelman has a small but seemingly innocuous client list named for the register.
However, it must be remembered that the Edelman group also acts for GM seed giant Monsanto.
It has taken Edelman's over two months to decide to register after North Coast Voices mentioned its absence from this register.
I wonder how long it will take before it decides to fully list its client base in Australia?
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Friday 28 November 2008
True Food Network releases GM-free food guide
Thursday 30 October 2008
Should GM food be adequately labelled so that the consumer has a real choice?
Should GMO food be adequately labelled so that the consumer has a real choice in the matter of what they purchase to eat?
Farm Online's Stock and Land asked a similar question on Monday:
(88.1%)
(10.4%)
(1.5%)
Poll Date: 27/10/2008