I have a few things to get to, but most involve photos that I don't currently have access to. So I'll start with this.

Have you heard the new commercial about farmers being the stewards of our land? The ad is sponsored by Monsanto, an agricultural seed producer. This ad is quite tricky, in my opinion. It evokes a sense of the average American farmer as a good steward of our land, when in fact, many aren't.

The ad mentions that today's farmers produce more food per farmer than in the past. What they don't tell us is this is because many small farms have been run out of business by larger, corporate farms, and genetically modified (GM) seed products. These larger farms have the ability to create more corn each year yes, but at what cost? Many times these large agricultural sites do not rotate crops or naturally enhance the soil the way smaller farmers do. They simply fertilize the hell out of the land once the product has been harvested, in hopes that there will be enough nutrient content to grow as much, or more, product next year. Many small farmers get priced out of the market because it takes more money to farm in an environmentally sustainable way, thus raising the price of the product. These farms go under, and large corporate farms simply buy up the land.

As I mentioned, this ad is sponsored by Monsanto, who produces seed. You may have heard of "Roundup Ready" seed in the past. This is GM seed that allow a higher use of other herbicide/pesticide products while functioning properly. In the past, high use of pesticides/herbicides would damage the crop, but this product allows a farmer to spray a much higher concentration of pesticide/herbicide to kill off competitors. This photo shows Roundup Ready canola.



This obviously encourages much greater use of these chemicals on the land and is essentially the opposite of organic, or even natural, farming. I'm not even going to mention the effects of all these chemicals on the land itself or the thousands of pollinators, wildlife, or (God forbid) humans. Yet Monsanto says they are "committed to conserving natural resources."

Even worse, in my opinion, are the products that have built in pesticides, such as the Yield Guard Plus corn pictured below. This corn has pesticide built into the seed to prevent the European corn borer from damaging the crop. I don't want to eat that!



Monsanto has publicly shown that they will sue those that infringe on their copyrights in any way, including farmers that save seed and other agricultural companies. I'm not suggesting that its wrong to protect their copyright against other companies, but shouldn't a farmer be able to save the seed from the plant he has already purchased? This is how farming stayed sustainable for centuries. This is like saying that you can purchase a cow, but when that cow delivers a calf, you have to return the calf to the person you purchased the cow from. In what world does that make sense?

The only redeeming thing Monsanto has going for themselves right now is their claim that they will not create "terminator" seeds or Gene Use Restricted Technology (GURT) seeds. Basically these are seeds that are sterile, and thus unable to produce more seed. GURT seeds are produced by other ag firms and farmers are required to purchase more seed every year to continue to farm that particular plant. My issue is, if Monsanto isn't allowing farmers to keep seeds, then whats the difference? Farmers using Monsanto products still legally have to purchase new seed every year, just we as consumers can "feel better" knowing our corn didn't come from sterile seed. Give me a break.

So lets recap. Today's farmers produce more food than ever before (because the corporate farms are driving small farmers out of business), the company that sells seed to the large corporate farms essentially requires the use of more (and more powerful) chemicals to grow the product, and if you attempt to farm in a natural or organic method, you are doomed to fail. But somehow Monsanto can help solve the world's food crisis (while banking quite a bit; the 2008 net income for Monsanto was $11.365 billion.)

Monsanto wants us to believe that their genetically modified seed products can help feed they world. In my opinion, the only thing that will get fed is the bank account of the Monsanto board of directors.


//All the photos and descriptions of products come directly from the Monsanto website.

////I bet you can guess who makes Roundup too ;-)