ANH ~ Monsanto “Goes Organic” and Wins “Sustainability Award” –Right!

Thanks for taking that 1984 Doublespeak just a bit too far! The following article has accomplished what months of my own warnings and alarm soundings have failed to do: convinced some locals that “sustainability” does not always mean what they assume it means. We need to peek “Behind the Green Mask,” and write our own definitions and protections, lest our “Sustainable City” and “Responsible Regionalism” usher in an entire fleet of Trojan Horses.

UPDATE: I’ve just learned that Monsanto is now an official backer of Agenda 21!

Monsanto “Goes Organic” and Wins “Sustainability Award” –Right!
ANH-USA.org

This isn’t a spoof. In addition to this story, we’ll provide you with a round-up of GMO-related news, including why your neighbor may shortly be planting GMO grass right next to you. Action Alerts!

We won’t spend time in this article reiterating past research on why genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are dangerous—you probably already know that they can randomly produce toxic effects; introduce alarming levels of chemicals into our ecosystems and diet; and have been shown to cause serious health problems—but there have been some recent developments in GMO politics, science, and regulation that we want to share with you.

Here are the news items we’ll cover:

Monsanto Wins Award for…“Sustainability”?
GMOs Aren’t Enough—Monsanto Wants to Monopolize Conventional and Organic Crops, Too. Action Alert!
Is Someone Growing Unregulated GMO Grass Right Next to You? Action Alert!
All Eyes on New Global Precedent for GMO Contamination
Industrial Herbicides Are Even More Toxic Than We Thought
Is Industry Persuading Scientists to Quash Chilling Scientific Findings?

Monsanto Wins Award for…“Sustainability”?

When most of us think of sustainability, we think of environmental practices that will allow current and future generations to enjoy nutritious, locally farmed foods, clean water, pure air, and a non-toxic, natural world. As the concept has developed, it’s also become applicable to other realms, including economics and healthcare. For example, ANH-USA advocates for sustainable healthcare—practices that allow you to naturally maintain your health and extend your lifespan.

To the EPA, sustainability “creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.”

Taking these definitions into account, it may surprise you to learn that last month, Monsanto—yes, the same Monsanto whose expensive seeds caused an estimated 125,000 Indian farmers to commit suicide —was recognized as one of 2014’s Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World.

Monsanto was ranked 37th on overall sustainability, 5th among American companies, and 5th globally in the materials industry by an organization called Corporate Knights (CK), a media and investment advisory company whose flagship magazine has one of the world’s largest circulations and is published quarterly as inserts in the Washington Post and the Globe and Mail (UK).

Ubiquitous as CK is, we find their criteria for “sustainability” —also called their “key performance indicators”—more than a little absurd:

Energy productivity
Carbon productivity
Water productivity
Waste productivity
Innovation capacity
Percent tax paid
CEO to Average Employee Pay
Pension fund status
Safety performance
Employee turnover
Leadership diversity
“Clean capitalism” pay link (rewards “companies that have set up mechanisms to link the remuneration of senior executives with the achievement of clean capitalism goals or targets”)

As one University of Toronto business ethics professor noted, “Only the first four actually have something to do with what most of us mean by ‘sustainability.’ The rest are…not relevant to the question of sustainable use of resources, or to the notion of sustainable economic growth that is compatible with environmental conservation.”

And even the first four have nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with profits. After all, the award-givers define “energy productivity” as how much revenue companies can squeeze out of one unit of energy. The health of the environment literally has nothing to do with it.

For the countless natural health practitioners, organic farmers, consumers, and activists who unceasingly fight and sacrifice to “walk the walk” of sustainability, the bastardization of this important term is not a joke. It is offensive.

Perhaps “excellence in sustainability” is CK’s code for “excellence in propaganda.” As we’ve consistently reported, there is nothing sustainable about Monsanto and their GMO seeds.

For example, GMOs do not increase crop yields. A 2009 Union of Concerned Scientists report found that GMO soybeans do not produce increased yields, that GMO corn only marginally increases yields, and that no GMO crop has even been found to have intrinsic yield (meaning, yield in “real life,” and not laboratory, conditions).

We’re not quite sure who CK thinks they’re fooling, or what they get out of this nonsense. A more interesting question is why Monsanto is trying so hard to “greenwash” its image. Fonts inconsistent.

Meanwhile the Geneva-based Covalence group placed Monsanto dead last on a list of 581 global companies ranked by their reputation for ethics. For more on this, see chapter 11 of Crony Capitalism in America 2008–12, a book recently published by ANH-USA’s board president, Hunter Lewis.

GMOs Aren’t Enough—Monsanto Wants to Monopolize Conventional and Organic Crops, Too. Action Alert!

Since it purchased the company in 2008, Monsanto has been quietly cultivating its Seminis brand, as well as several other semi-anonymous brands, to breed and sell seeds that aren’t GMO.

To create these seeds, Monsanto and its minions are claiming to use nothing more than traditional crossbreeding (where plants with desirable qualities are laboriously “mated” until they yield progeny with the targeted traits). This process takes quite a bit of “time, land, and patience.”

Don’t be fooled: Monsanto isn’t using your grandparents’ crossbreeding. They’re engaging in a highly technical process that appears to takes place in a lab, not a field, and also appears to involve manipulation on the genetic level.

Worse yet, they don’t seem to want to make foods healthier. For example, Monsanto is attempting to breed fruits and vegetables that taste sweeter than their traditional counterparts. Read: they’re engineering a way to add more sugar than nature intended. The last thing that most people need is more sugar or fructose in their diet.

Is this a blatant attempt to win back the “hearts and minds” of consumers? According to one Monsanto official, “There isn’t a reputation silver bullet, but it helps.”

There is another important question to ask here: If Monsanto truly believes that GMOs are the future, why are they investing in conventional crops?

There’s no way to know for sure, but it’s possible that Monsanto doesn’t have faith in its own product: the company is already facing consumer pressure and emerging long-term health problems associated with GMOs.

For this reason, they could simply be hedging their bets. What if, in the future, the scientific consensus is that GMOs are harmful, or there’s a GMO-sparked environmental disaster, or the government decides to intervene? They may think they have to prepare for the possibility that GMOs may eventually fail. Seminis and its sister subsidies are Monsanto’s “insurance:” if GMOs crash and burn, they have a conventional cash cow to fall back on.

Action Alert! Please write to national grocery chains, and tell them you don’t want any Monsanto products—not “organic,” not conventional, and certainly not under any other name!

[Laura again: How interesting and yet not surprising that the Action Alert! page comes up but then I immediately get a Yahoo notification that the page cannot be found, refusing to allow connection to the page. You might need to speak directly to your grocery store and co-op buyers to let them know of the Monsanto deception with Seminis. I, personally, would not trust anything from these lying thugs, whether they slap an organic label on it or — perhaps more appropriately — a skull and cross bones. Actually, I would trust a poison label on anything Monsanto touches.]

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