Vegan Forum

Organic v. Monsanto

by Danielle Magnuson

More than 270,000 organic farmers are taking on corporate agriculture giant Monsanto in a lawsuit filed March 30. Led by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, the family farmers are fighting for the right to keep a portion of the world food supply organic—and preemptively protecting themselves from accusations of stealing genetically modified seeds that drift on to their pristine crop fields.

Consumers are powerful. For more than a decade, a cultural shift has seen shoppers renounce the faster-fatter-bigger-cheaper mindset of factory farms, exposéd in the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. From heirloom tomatoes to heritage chickens, we want our food slow, sustainable, and local—healthy for the earth, healthy for animals, and healthy for our bodies.

But with patented seeds infiltrating the environment so fully, organic itself is at risk. Monsanto’s widely used Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola seed has already turned heirloom canola oil into an extinct species. The suing farmers are seeking to prevent similar contamination of organic corn, soybeans, and a host of other crops. What’s more, they’re seeking to prevent Monsanto from accusing them of unlawfully using the very seeds they’re trying to avoid.

“It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement,” says Public Patent Foundation director Dan Ravicher in a Cornucopia Institute article about the farmers’ lawsuit (May 30, 2011), “but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement.”

Even as the megacorporation enjoys soaring stock, the U.S. justice department continues to look into allegations of its fraudulent antitrust practices (The Street, June 29, 2011):

Monsanto, which has acquired more than 20 of the nation’s biggest seed producers and sellers over the last decade, has long pursued a strict policy with its customers, obligating them to buy its bioengineered seeds every year rather than use them in multiple planting seasons. Farmers who disobey are blacklisted forever.

It’s a wide net Monsanto has cast over the agricultural landscape. As Ravicher points out, “it’s actually in Monsanto’s financial interest to eliminate organic seed so that they can have a total monopoly over our food supply.”

Imagine a world devoid of naturally vigorous traditional crops and controlled by a single business with a appetite for intellectual property. Did anyone else feel a cold wind pass through them? Now imagine a world where thousands of family farmers fight the good fight to continue giving consumers a choice in their food—and win.

via Organic v. Monsanto – Environment – Utne Reader.

Thanks to Charles Councill for this story.

August 13, 2011 Update from OSGATA

Dacite wrote:Organic v. Monsanto

by Danielle Magnuson

More than 270,000 organic farmers are taking on corporate agriculture giant Monsanto in a lawsuit filed March 30.

Good for them. Monsanto needs to be stopped. It is an amoral corporation aggressively vying to control the global seed market (food itself). According to the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), Monsanto already owns 96% of the world's GM seeds.

CBAN has been trying to keep GMOs out of Canada for years. See: http://www.cban.ca

Dacite wrote:Organic v. Monsanto

by Danielle Magnuson



Now imagine a world where thousands of family farmers fight the good fight to continue giving consumers a choice in their food—and win.

This is a nice thought and I'm 100% behind these good farmers; but unless they are backed up by good government, they won't win. Corporations, like Monsanto, have deep pockets and they will continue to harass farmers who oppose them.

In Canada, this strategy is known as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).

You are right Wude.

However people with everyday choices can make a big difference in the system.

Dacite wrote:You are right Wude.

However people with everyday choices can make a big difference in the system.

I hope in that too. The consumer still wields a lot of power. It's nice to talk to someone that is on the same page for a change.

Consumers have all the power! Unfortunately most of them are undereducated and misinformed today and cannot think critically.

As it is said: Going green means using the brain!

Dacite wrote:Consumers have all the power! Unfortunately most of them are undereducated and misinformed today and cannot think critically.

As it is said: Going green means using the brain!

I agree. I think that it is very important to convey to consumers the honest truth about the content of the food that they consume. Mainstream advertising often distorts these facts in order to sell their products, but I think that a lot of people are beginning to catch on; especially to the deceit espoused by advertisers representing corporations such as McDonald's or Coca-Cola. There seems to be a mini-food revolution going on. Let's hope that it keeps growing.

boy am i hoping they at least get somewhere with this lawsuit. people want truly organic food and we have the right to have it! the farmers have the right to continue their business without being picked on by the big guy. so far no one has been able to take them down but i hope that such a large number of people could at least knock them off their feet a little