Jadwiga Lopata Food Inc

“Should We Care About Genetically Modified Foods?” by John N. Shaw appeared in Food Safety News issue of February 1, 2010, as a feature under the health section on the controversy between the pros and cons of genetically modified foods (Also known as GMO, genetically modified organisms). The main idea of this article is to inform people of the benefits of GMOs . The author, John Shaw received his Bachelor of Science degree in Finance with a minor in Marketing from the University of Arkansas in 2007, where he was a “leadership scholar.” In addition to his studies, he has worked as a research assistant with Food Law LL.M. Director Susan Schneider, interned with Wal-Mart Government and Corporate Affairs division, the Arkansas Attorney General Public Protection Division, and with United States Senator Blanche Lincoln. John has a passion for Food Law, sports, and outdoors. In the article, he states, “ I submit that I am no scientist; merely an interested student.” According to the article, he is passionate and has done sufficient research about the topic to support his argument.

I was immediately intrigued from the beginning of Food, Inc. There was interesting and valuable information brought up during the film. Many people do not think about where their food comes from. I believe that if people were to know where their food comes from, they would not want to eat it. There are 47,000 products at a grocery store. But, Food, Inc. implies that this is in fact an illusion because all of them are made with the same crops. The fact that there are only a few multi-national corporations that control all of the crops and meat production is a huge surprise. I believe that each person in society would be absolutely shocked if they were to watch this documentary.

In 2009 a movie by the name of Food Inc. was released that challenged the production of food we eat. The movie examines everything from the science of seeds all the way through the consumption of the food, the food’s often negative effects on the body. The movie ends with the line “You can change the world with every bite”. This quote embodies the heart behind movie that change starts with the individual, and how they make food choices. This sort of change that Food Inc. invokes implies that top down change that the consumer can bring about change to the seed level. Food Inc. challenges the processes that allow companies like Monsanto to feed the world. We must understand how media like Food Inc. effects this mission to feed the world by examining the movie, the history of Monsanto as a company, and looking at the response from both sides to these challenges made in the public square to better combat and address issues brought forth.

The first introduction in the film is multiple images of farms, and agriculture of all kinds. Then the author quickly states that farms do not look like they use to. The message, and start of this film is to inform the viewer about the changes in agriculture, and present ideas about where our food actually comes from. The purpose of the film is to introduce to consumers the risk of eating foods that are owned by large corporations. This film addresses issues with large corporations owning all food sources, treatment of animals, and food-borne illnesses.

Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO’s, are organisms that have had genes from a different organism implanted into their own genetic code in order to produce a new result (“Genetically engineered foods”). This practice has elicited polar responses across the globe, for a multitude of reasons. Besides the obvious reason, being the morality of changing an organism's DNA for human benefit, one frequently noted problem is the monopolization of GMO’s by the company Monsanto, whose name is nearly synonymous with GMO’s due to their involvement with these crops. Monsanto has been at the center of many controversies regarding GMO’s, and is even considered to be ranked third to last for reputation among all major American companies (Bennett). Most

The farmers then give their products to the manufacturers, who represent the bottleneck of the food system (21). “The ten largest companies control half of the world’s seed supply. …Ten firms control 90% of the nearly $38.6 billion pesticide markets (111-112).” Monsanto, being one of the ten companies that controls the world’s seed supply, is a company that has patents on all of its seeds and products. It produces genetically modified crops that are resistant to its own pesticides and herbicides, so that when a pesticide or herbicide is sprayed and it destroys all plants, the Monsanto seed survives because of its resistance. The reason that Monsanto is able to stay in business is because of the economic benefit it poses for the farmers. They are able to produce their crops at a much higher yield because they are losing less of their crops to pests. This higher yield results in lower costs for the consumers as well (Planes). As discussed

The driving factor behind plant biotechnology is “social constructionism”, in which “social values and institutional domains and their culture shape technology” [Goyder chapter 10]. Bioengineering companies might declare social needs as the motive behind pursuing this technology. In reality, these capitalist institutions possess the much needed economic surplus to invest serve their own desires. The social needs they “intend” to solve are: world food shortage, increase agricultural productivity, help the environment by eliminating pesticides, improve nutrition of foods. Opponents of biotechnology, scientists, consumer advocates, environmental protection agencies, do not buy this claim. According to them, these reasons are just the pretence to fulfil “...capitalist’s profit-making via the deployment of technology, [3 Goyder chapter 5]. Most crop developments so far has been “profit-driven rather than need driven” [4, ten reasons why biotechnology will not ensure food security]. In a capitalistic society, patent laws under constitution permits ownership of seeds, living organisms; genes. Patents permit company like Monsanto could monopolize seed’s

Farmers across the country build their lives around the crops that they produce. The crops support their family and their lifestyle. Today, farmers are very concerned about outsiders that are invading their territory. The outsiders are taking away their livelihood. Certainly, the financial impact is very devastating and might lead to thousands of farms losing money and farmers abandoning their farms. You've probably heard the news that farmers filed a lawsuit against Syngenta because they are marketing a new strain of corn that caused the price for corn to drop dramatically. Let's take a closer look.

Not only with the lack of education that could help the residents see the chemical effects of grooming GM crops and prevent it from harming their bodies, but also in conjunction with the mental pressure to secure money, it leads to “sickness” of the mind and the thoughts of ending their own lives. These two concepts explains the limited social mobility of the people in Monsanto, where many residents face extremely difficult obstacle to move to a higher social class. Despite the drive of obtaining money from globalization, which should help residents move up the social ladder, the high mortality rate instead reverse the effect of globalization, changing the opportunity of making money to being in debt from borrowing money and losing property. This leads the residents, despite moving to a higher social position, digress and possibility shift lower on the social ladder. To further limit social mobility, several aspects of perceived neoliberalism, which should give the farmers the options to choose how to farm, affected the experiences of how farmers in Monsanto attempted to buy GM seed to make

Companies, like Monsanto will come after small farms and sue them for more than they can pay if they find out they are using even a small portion of GM crops in their fields, even if by accident” (Fitzgerald). Approximately 2,400 farmers in 19 states through 2006 were sued and spied upon for alleged “seed piracy”, Monsanto has an annual budget of $10 million dollars and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting farmers who are caught with different seed. (Monsanto).

Bayer and Monsanto recently announced the fourth proposed merger between agribusiness giants within the past year. However, despite their potential economic success, this deal may prove to be harmful to consumers. In response to overproduction, forcing farmers to reduce spending on seeds, large agribusinesses are merging to cut costs. In turn, each merger potentially raises the cost of seed for farmers, ensuring further production at a loss. Despite these businesses’ claims to merge for the purpose of diversifying and increasing growth and research capabilities, lawmakers are involved due to potential violations of anti-trust laws.

Additionally, big business controls the farmers by capitalizing on widely used commodities. For example, the company Monsanto which is based in St. Louis, Missouri protects its dominance over the genetically modified crops such as the soy bean with the use of a patent law. Because of this, Monsanto’s patented genes “account for 95 percent of all soy beans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S.,” (Associated Press). Although genetically modifying the soy bean crop has made it more readily available and more sustainable, this comes at a high price to farmers. Monsanto continues to raise their prices, which forces farmers to accrue even more debt, and there is no sign of the rise in the seed prices stopping. Since a lot of the farmers are under contract with Monsanto, there is nothing they can do about this unethical policy in fear of losing their job.

The objective of this report is to analyze the differences in Monsanto’s experiences in the United States and Europe and the reasons of opposition in Europe, despite that, why Monsanto pushed ahead so hard.

In contribution to the contamination of my local crops, I feared that once the drought and the famine ended, my export with the European Nation will be jeopardized. If the possibility of having a contamination caused by the GM crops planted by several farmers, such a transfer will disrupt my trade and cause me to lose my export markets in the European nation. According to Taylor and Tick (2001), an increasing number of crops that are lawfully grown and sold in the country cannot be lawfully sold in some foreign markets. When questioning the European Nation about the possibility of exporting such crops, the nation decided that they will not accept GM crops for any reason. Fortunately, if I do accept the United States substantial offer, and I lose my export trade with the European nation, the United States offered a trade with them, which indeed creates a significant investment in my country and it generates several jobs to the population.

Big businesses have a major influence towards American agriculture. Large capital investments have contributed to the success of American agriculture. Monsanto is the world’s leading agricultural biotechnology company that has used fundamentally changed the way many