After having to make a new website for GM Watch, because (oh surprise) somehow someone or ones kept cyber-attacking the last one, it is up, running, and really, really informative (as all things Organic Consumers Association does are). Here is some of the article, and the link is above.
Thanks for reading. Get Up. Stand up - as One. We're in this together - along with our children and grandchildren. May they one day look back and thank us for allowing them to have an healthy earth to live on and healthy bodies to thrive in.
GM Firms
The GM firms present themselves as operating out of futuristic laboratories and hi-tech greenhouses in order to provide farmers with innovative crops with valuable new traits. But in reality, all the leading GM firms developed out of the chemical industry and they remain the world's biggest manufacturers of agrochemicals. The leading GM corporations together control nearly 75% of the global pesticide market.
Syngenta, for instance, is not only the world's third largest seed company, it's also the world's second largest agrochemical manufacturer. Monsanto, the world's biggest seed company, is the world's fifth largest agrochemical company. That is why around 80% of GM seeds have been engineered to be resistant to weed killers (herbicides). Monsanto’s main GM product is crops resistant to glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup), creating a near-monopoly for Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, which is now off patent.
Having operated for many decades as major chemical corporations, and in the last 20 years additionally as biotechnology companies, the leading GM firms have a significant historical legacy. This makes it possible to examine their records when it comes to issues of public and employee safety and protection, regulatory compliance, customer care, etc.
This is particularly relevant to the regulation of GM crops, as it is almost entirely dependent on trust, with regulators normally basing their assessments of environmental risk and food safety on data from unpublished studies provided to them in confidence by the GM firms that developed the crop.
Below we look at the corporate character and record to date of the major GM firms.
(this links are in the article online - click the title link to go there - thanks!)
Monsanto: a history
How one of the top 10 US chemical companies used the world's biggest selling pesticide to turn itself into a GM giant in order to try and escape its past.
Read more: Monsanto: a history
Monsanto: resources
Key websites, films, books, articles and other resources
Read more: Monsanto: resources
Bayer: a history
How a chemical and pharmaceutical giant with an appalling record of corporate crimes became a key player in the development, commercialization and sale of GM crops.
Read more: Bayer: a history
Bayer: resources
Key websites, films, books, articles and other resources
Read more: Bayer: resources
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