Monsanto and GMOs

Browsing an airport store the other day, I bought a copy of the July 7-13, 2014 Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, with a cover story by Drake Bennett about Monsanto and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GM foods. Bennett noted that a Harris Poll puts Monstanto’s reputation near the bottom of companies, just above BP and Bank of America. The company has a reputation for suing organic farmers. (The claim is exaggerated, as it turns out, although the company is very vigilant about “seed piracy”: of the 250,000 farmers who buy Monsanto seeds, only 145 have been sued, and those were farmers who tried to use the seeds without paying the extra costs. See the article, pp. 54, 57, and here.) Other false rumors include the supposed merger of Monsanto with a private military contractor, and the supposed development of a gene that makes plants sterile (p. 54).

The company is a very profitable one, however, its stock market value is high, and its products are widely used. Bennett cites the Department of Agriculture that 93% of American soybeans planted last year, and 90% of the cotton and corn, were genetically modified (p. 54). In the last twenty years, GM plantings were in nearly 700,000 square miles around the world (see the interesting charge concerning different foods and plans on page 56, and here). Several studies have determined that GM foods are not unsafe for consumption (pp. 54-55). The term “genetic engineering” has connotations, writes Bennett, of work “that plant science has not yet attained. Mostly, the process involves taking bits of genetic material, inserting them into the DNA of a seed, seeing what sort of plant results, and repeating the process thousands of times until something happens (p. 57).

Bennett's article is an interesting place to learn about Monsanto’s work, the popular anxieties about GMOs, the challenge of global food production, and related topics of sustainability and health.