Katie Austin

Untouchable
How do you feel when possibly life-changing events pass by right under your nose and you have no idea? When you dont care in the beginning because you are fixed on something else and it turns out that they both will affect the society you live and work in? This happened recently to America. A bill was passed, and hidden within its many pages was something called the Monsanto Protection Act. The Monsanto Protection Act makes sure no one can sue Monsanto (A large company extremely involved in the food industry) no matter what happens. If a product Monsanto sells is found to be bad for the consumers, Monsanto cant be sued and they can keep on producing it. Monsanto is negatively affecting our society but we cant fight against it until the duration of the Monsanto protection act ends on September 30th. Monsanto is a huge company that works behind the scenes in the food industry. They are the company that actually gets the food from farmers and makes it into something tasty and sellable. Monsanto was founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny and has changed our perspective on food dramatically (Wikepedia.com). Monsanto has managed to corrupt our food system without us even knowing what they are doing or who they are. Their plans for the future are somewhat extreme to think about. They want to double the yields from their core crops by 2030 (Our Commitment To Sustainable Agriculture, Monsatno.com). That is only 17 years. The only way they will reach their goals is to modify the food they are selling to us even more dramatically. The foods they are selling us are already extremely unhealthy, but they are taking over the food industry so we dont really have a choice in what we eat, we only look at the tastes and colors on the packages. The colorful advertisements and the different labels blind Americans. Our society in general is very ignorant and most of us dont know a thing about the food we are putting into our bodies. We are also teaching our children to eat like this, just because this is what we are feeding them and we dont know enough about what we are eating to teach them. Monsanto is also targeting farmers. Genetically Modified crops spread like a disease and if a farm is infiltrated by the crop without the farmers consent (say if the seeds were blown in) Monsanto can sue them (Food, Inc.). Despite the numerous negatives, there is a positive side to Monsanto. They provide the whole country with food, and the food they provide for us costs less money. This is important to a lot of Americans because their jobs often dont allow them enough money to hold up their whole family. Monsanto also provides education programs. These programs are available to students all around the world, and are mostly in science and agriculture. They fund research grants for graduate students and work hard to make agriculture more sustainable (Youth and Education, Monsanto.com). The society our children are growing up in is dangerous to their health. If we dont pay attention to what we eat, we can cause problems for our children and our childrens children and so on. Right now we have issues with obesity and other diseases; cancer, obesity, liver failure, infertility, and so on, but since we are taking

in foods with altered genetics, who knows what will happen to our future? Monsanto tries to convince us that there is nothing wrong by highlighting their strong points (who can blame them?). On their website the describe how they work in partnerships with government bodies, non-profit agencies, and advocacy groups to make agriculture more sustainable.(Who We Are) I will admit; this does deceive most people. They dont want to know that what they are eating is what is slowly killing their families. This brings us to the topic of our societys ignorance. When the Monsanto Protection Act was being signed, we were so busy with the homosexual revolution that we were not even aware there was a Monsanto Protection Act. A lot of people dont even know what Monsanto is. Many people think that food comes from the places it says on the labels: The place with sunshine and happy cows that are being fed real grass. Another quote from Monsantos website states that the Monsanto of today is focused on agriculture and supporting farmers around the world in their mission to produce more while conserving more(Monsanto.com). Then if you dig a little further, you come across a completely different perspective. One of the extreme articles on the internet has the opinion that when a corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers(The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming). Farmers are often coerced into buying Monsanto products. Since the products are patented, if one seed blows into your Monsanto-free fields and grows there, Monsanto is allowed to sue you. If you werent purposefully working with Monsanto (like buying their crops) they can sue you for stealing their patented products. GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) also spread like a disease through your crops so once one plant is modified, the whole crop turns into something that Monsanto owns (Food, Inc.). The article, The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming explains the issue: as Monsanto sues farmers and traps them in debt it pretends to be working for farmers welfare and the deception that GMOs feed the world. In India, many farmers have actually committed suicide because the company has infiltrated their cotton products. Monsanto entered the cotton belt in India because of the 1988 seed Policy imposed by the World Bank. They started collecting royalties, therefore, raising the cost of seed. Cotton became non-renewable when they were replaced with GMOs, and now has to be grown in a monoculture. The ultimate seed of suicide is Monsantos patented technology to create sterile seeds. (Called Terminator technology by the media, sterile seed technology is a type of Gene Use Restriction Technology, GRUT, in which seed produced by a crop will not grow crops will not produce viable offspring seeds or will produce viable seeds with specific genes switched off.) The Convention on Biological Diversity has banned its use, otherwise Monsanto would be collecting even higher profits from seed. (The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming) In Maharashtra, India, you will find the highest acreage of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis, used as a pesticide) cotton. It isnt a surprise that there you will also find the highest suicide rate (The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys

Farming). Farmers are stuck in debt and their crops dont even belong to them anymore, resulting in the farmer suicides. Monsanto controls 95 percent of Indias cotton and nearly 75 percent of rural debt is due to the purchase inputs. (The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming) Monsanto is taking over our food industry and many Americans dont even know they exist. How messed up is that? Monsanto is a huge company, but being big and successful is not always a bad thing. As Hudson Lofchie says in his article, In Defense of Monsanto Monsanto has the most consistently stable stock prices on Wall Street and has earned massive investments from both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Monsanto is ruthless in their negotiations and makes a large percentage of its money from licensing patented genes to other companies(Lofchie). This article called In Defense Of Monsanto also pointed out how hypocritical the reader was by saying: Notice the complete hypocrisy of the hoards of internet users who rush to vilify Monsanto. How many of the people writing about this company are typing on a computer made by Apple and manufactured by Foxconn? A computer made in factories with such terrible working conditions that Foxconn had to install bars on the windows to prevent suicides due to low pay and illegal overtime. Employees even need to sign away the right for their family or any of their descendants to sue the company in the case of death. Lofchie made a good point through this article, and it is amazing how Americans only hear what we want to hear. Through the writing of this paper I never took this different perspective or even thought about how Americans think like this until I came upon this article. Our world is full of variety and we can never truly open our eyes to it all. Though we live in this world with many choices, we are not always presented with them until it is too late. In the case of the Monsanto Protection Act, some of the Congress members who signed on the bill didnt even know about what was hidden inside it. Top Senator Barbara Mikulski actually apologized for signing it (Top senator apologizes for 'Monsanto Protection Act' after public outrage). The gesture may have been meaningful but an apology wont undo this. The bills professional name is Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 (What is the Monsanto Protection Act?). The piece of the bill about Monsanto was Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and related agencies," section 735. Thats quite a mouthful isnt it? Thats why the piece of the population who actually knew about this nicknamed it the Monsanto Protection Act. This bill was signed March 26, 2013. Much of the population was outraged about this act. Monsanto has now been placed above the government, and cant be sued for anything. If there is a case against Monsanto because of some illness it caused, it cant be sued. If one of its products is found to be dangerous, it still cant be sued, and farmers can keep on planting it until the Monsanto Protection Act is over. This Act expires on September 30th, but until then we are stuck with an untouchable enemy. We have our hands tied with Monsanto until September 30th.

We cant do much with Monsanto right now, however, we can prepare for when the time comes to move forwards. Educate everybody you know; let them know what Monsanto really is and what they are doing to the population who eat their food regularly. Just because Monsanto is untouchable now does not mean they will be forever. What we can do is just get ready for that time. The Monsanto Protection Act will not last forever and we have to do all we can to fight back.

Bibliography

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