In fact seed companies would make more if crops had to be destroyed and new crops planted.
Genetically engineered crops are regulated. Once they get approved, farmers can grow them. However, if someone screws something up (like the environmental assessment), the approval can be revoked. This means farmers might be in the position of having crops that were legal when the planted them but illegal now. The thing everyone is up in arms about right now allows farmers to request that the USDA, if they deem it fit, to allow the planted crops to be grown as normal that season and not be destroyed until the GE crop in question can be officially cleared for cultivation again.
td;dr This thing isn't to protect Monsanto, that's just sensationalist nonsense, it is to protect farmers.
If a biotech crop has already been approved (or deregulated) by the USDA and a court reverses that approval, the provision directs the Secretary of Agriculture to grant temporary deregulation status at the request of a grower or seed producer, to allow growers to continue the cultivation of the crop while legal challenges to the safety of those crops are underway.[7]
...
A joint letter from ten agricultural organizations[note 1] sent to congressmen Hal Rogers and Norman D. Dicks, the chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Appropriations, on June 12, 2012, stated that the provision was a response to frivolous procedural lawsuits against the USDA which were attempting to "disrupt the regulatory process and undermine the science-based regulation of [agricultural biotechnology]."[10]
Section 733 provides certainty to growers with respect to their planting decisions. If enacted, growers would be assured that the crops they plant could continue to be grown, subject to appropriate interim conditions, even after a judicial ruling against USDA. Moreover, the language would apply only to products that have already satisfactorily completed the U.S. regulatory review process and does not remove or restrict anyone’s right to challenge USDA once a determination of no plant pest risk has been made. The inclusion of Section 733 is a positive step to ensure U.S. farmers and our food chain are shielded from supply disruptions caused by litigation over procedural issues unrelated to sound science or the safety of biotech crops.[10]
There is no Monsanto Act, but did not the debunkers also say that the provisions of the Farmer Assurance Provision are in force for 6 months.
Formally called the Farmer Assurance Provision, the measure undermined the Department of Agriculture’s authority to ban genetically modified crops, even if court rulings found they posed risks to human and environmental health. Republican Senator Roy Blunt worked with the genetically modified seed giant Monsanto to craft the initial rider, and it was slipped into a funding resolution that passed in March. There was concern that an agreement to end the shutdown would extend the provision, which is set to expire at the end of the month.
Jon Tester, a farmer and Democratic senator from Montana, removed the measure from the bill yesterday. “All [the Farmer Assurance Provision] really assures is a lack of corporate liability,” Tester argued in March. “It…lets genetically modified crops take hold across the country—even when a judge finds it violates the law.”
The Monsanto Protection Act incited strong opposition from food safety and civil liberties advocates, as well as food businesses, environmentalists and groups representing family farmers. Although it was temporary, the rider curtailed already weak oversight over the handful of agro-giants that control the GMO market by allowing crops that a judge ruled were not properly approved to continue to be planted.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176719/how-congress-just-stuck-it-monsanto#
That really is a gross misrepresentation of the issue.
Well that's not quite true is it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_farming#Corporate_farm_vs_family_farm
One major difference between independent farming and corporate farming is that a corporate farmer is usually a contracted employee, rather than the owner of the farm. However, ownership itself does not mean independence. An owner-operated farm today faces many constraints that are completely out of the owner's control. Most of these can be seen in light of increasing concentration of ownership, not only of farms, but of the equipment and inputs necessary to farm, and the available sales channels.
Production contracts are a primary means of control and vertical integration of family farms. These are of two general types. Production management contracts specify the methods farmers must use. Resource-providing contracts require the contractor to also provide materials (e.g) and equipment. Under the latter, increasingly prevalent arrangement, the family farm owns its land and "sells" its output, but retains no real decision making control over the essential farming activities, like crop selection, equipment purchase, production methods, sales channels, and buyers.
Although 14% of total food production comes from the two percent of all farms in the United States that are owned by corporations or other non-family entities, 50% of food production comes from the biggest two percent of all farms.
A farm scholar once asked an agribusiness executive when his corporation would simply take over the farms. The exec said that it would be dumb for the corporation to do so, in that it is not free to exploit its employees to the degree that farmers are willing to exploit themselves.
I find that statement a little misleading in that I don't think it's the judge that determines if a GMO crop is an environmental hazard in these lawsuits against the USDA. It seems the court only rules on whether or not the USDA had followed proper procedures when it evaluated the potential hazards of a GMO crop and if any new evidence of potential environmental hazards warrants a review by the USDA. After a court ruling, the process goes back to the USDA who ultimately determines the merits of the complaints or finish (restart) their evaluation of the GMO crop in question.Formally called the Farmer Assurance Provision, the measure undermined the Department of Agriculture’s authority to ban genetically modified crops, even if court rulings found they posed risks to human and environmental health.
I don't see how or in what sense, section 735 of the Farmer Assurance Provision absolves corporations of liability. This notion is often quoted but never qualified neither by those repeating it, nor by Jon Tester when he first said it in his remarks to the senate.Jon Tester, a farmer and Democratic senator from Montana, removed the measure from the bill yesterday. “All [the Farmer Assurance Provision] really assures is a lack of corporate liability,” Tester argued in March.
Odd to find opposition among family farmers since the act can only be invocted at their request of a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer.The Monsanto Protection Act incited strong opposition from food safety and civil liberties advocates, as well as food businesses, environmentalists and groups representing family farmers.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176719/how-congress-just-stuck-it-monsanto#
all that money Monsanto is spending to destroy agriculture is just being wasted!!
Monsanto is a massive global corporation that holds unwarranted power and influence over regulatory, judicial, and legislative bodies around the world.
http://www.gmeducation.org/latest-news/p207220-the monsanto monopoly.html
if you consider that Monsanto - the largest and the best known – licenses its genetically modified traits to other seed companies and as a result, more than 80% of US corn and more than 90% of soybeans planted each year are attributable to Monsanto then monopoly comes to mind.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/monsanto-controls-government-chris-parker-135253110.html
In an interview with The Daily Ticker, Parker describes in detail how connected Monsanto is to Washington lawmakers, a feat accomplished by spending $70 million in lobbying since 1998 and $10 million in campaign contributions in the past decade. Earlier this year Michael Taylor, the former vice president of public policy at Monsanto, was named by President Obama as deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at the Food and Drug Administration. Parker says this appointment underscores two things: how deeply embedded Monsanto has become in the higher ranks of government and how the company has been able to quietly influence national food policy.
US Public officials' connections to Monsanto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#US_Public_officials.27_connections_to_Monsanto
Some individuals have held positions at Monsanto and in US government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Supreme Court at various points in their careers. These include:
- Mr. Earle H. Harbison, Jr. served with the Central Intelligence Agency for 18 years, rising to the rank of Deputy Director, after which he had a career at Monsanto, rising to the roles of President, Chief Operating Officer, and Director of Monsanto, which he held from 1986 to 1993.[45]
- Michael A. Friedman, MD, was Senior Vice President of Research and Development, Medical and Public Policy for Pharmacia, and later served as an FDA deputy commissioner.[326][327]
- Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before she was a vice president at Monsanto from 1995 to 2000. In 2001, Fisher became the deputy administrator of the EPA.[140]
- Michael R. Taylor was an assistant to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner before working as an attorney for King & Spalding, a private-sector law firm that represented Monsanto among other clients.[328][329] He later served as deputy commissioner for policy to the FDA on food safety between 1991 and 1994 during which time the FDA approved rBST.[140] He was accused of a conflict of interest, but a federal investigation cleared him. Following his tenure at the FDA, Taylor returned to Monsanto as Vice President for Public Policy.[285][286][287] On July 7, 2009, Taylor entered government as Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration for the Obama administration.[288][289]
- United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto in the 1970s. Thomas wrote the majority opinion in the 2001 Supreme Court decision J. E. M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.[330] which found that "newly developed plant breeds are patentable under the general utility patent laws of the United States."[140][330][331]
- Mickey Kantor served on Monsanto's board after serving in government as a trade representative.[140]
- William D. Ruckelshaus served as the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) in 1970, was subsequently acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and then Deputy Attorney General of the United States. From 1983 to 1985, he returned as EPA administrator. After leaving government he joined the Board of Directors of Monsanto; he is currently retired from that board.[332]
- Between serving for Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was chairman and chief executive officer of G. D. Searle & Company, a pharmaceutical company which produced aspartame apparently while working on an ulcer drug. Monsanto bought the company in 1985, and re-branded aspartame as NutraSweet. Rumsfeld's stock and options in Searle were $12 million USD at the time of the transaction.[140]
- Monsanto is a client of the Lincoln Policy Group, a lobbying group created by former chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Blanche Lincoln after she lost her re-election bid in 2011. Robert Holifield, who was chief of staff on that committee, is a partner in the group.
During Congressional hearings on the Plant Patent Bill of 1930, advocates introduced a letter from the renowned Luther Burbank to nurseryman Paul Stark.
“A man can patent a mousetrap or copyright a nasty song,” wrote the renowned botanist, “but if he gives to the world a new fruit that will add millions to the value of earth’s annual harvest he will be fortunate if he is rewarded by so much as having his name connected with the result.”
[ex/]
I must be missing the point of this. Name an international corporation or industry that doesn't lobby world governments to advance their business interest or higher former government officials for the connections and influence they can bring to the company. Environmental and advocacy groups engage in similar practices. That doesn't make the practice or the practitioners inherently wrong and it seems biased to single out a specific company for the practice.
But only 15% more revenue?? Boy that makes Monsanto pretty inefficient - buy Wholefoods shares now - they're obviously got the goods on Monsanto, and all that money Monsanto is spending to destroy agriculture is just being wasted!!
???? They are working on it now. They already own many of the large seed companies. They also bought out one of the major researchers into the demise of bee populations. And of course, they've been infiltrating our government agencies.
Really? There are hundreds of brands of glyphosohate in the market of which Round Up is one, and not even the cheapest. 10% of their revenue is based on Round up. Unless they plan to undercut the competition it seems a poor business model. Don't forget RR soy comes out of patent soon so they will probably start losing out to generics. Hardly owning the food supply
