1.Re: Monsanto doubles the price of Roundup
2.Congress Discovers Independent Studies Ignored in Favor of Industry Findings
3.Rising Food Prices, Rising Food Protests
NOTE: Items 2 and 3 while not GM-specific, say everything about US governance (item 2) and the dire knock-on effects (item 3) of misguided US agricultural policies shaped by the biotech industry.
Item 1 is Craig Sams comment on the news of Monsanto's doubled quarterly profits on the back of increased corn seed sales - linked to the Bush subsidised ethanol drive - and sales of Roundup, rendered more profitable by massive price hikes.
Craig notes the accuracy of Neil Harl's predictions about the biotech industry rather than farmers being the principal beneficiary of the GM revolution with its accompanying concentration of the seed industry. Harl, of course, is not the only agricultural economist to conclude that the primary beneficiaries of GM crops are farmers but the companies that supply the seed and, in the case of herbicide-resistant crops, the chemicals. Others have come to exactly the same conclusion from looking at the on farm economics.
http://ngin.tripod.com/farming.htm
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1.Re: Monsanto doubles the price of Roundup
Craig Sams
Professor Neil Harl predicted every detail of this unfolding legalised robbery way back in 1998 in the following article. He was explaining why companies like Monsanto were paying silly prices, several times over market value, to get control of key seed companies and their germplasm - it was to be in the monopoly position now where, as soon as corn prices go up, they raise the price of Roundup (and seed no doubt) in order to capture a larger share of the increased value. My cousin was one of the last holdouts against GM seed in his part of Iowa but eventually gave in as non GM varieties were no longer available http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/nwl/1998/1998%2D4%2Dleoletter/98-4contracting.htm
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2.Congress Discovers Independent Studies Ignored in Favor of Industry Findings
Source: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, March 21 2008
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7139
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined that a particular chemical in plastic was not harmful, they used scientific studies to prove it. But they relied on just two studies that were funded by the Society of the Plastics Industry, a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council. On the other hand, they ignored 'hundreds of government and academic studies showing a chemical commonly found in plastic can be harmful to lab animals at low doses.' Of those two industry-funded studies, one 'has never been published, and therefore never subjected to peer review; the second has been heavily criticized by researchers who say the results are inconclusive because of flawed experimental methods.' This only came to light when Michigan Democrats Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Rep. Bart Stupak, who leads a subcommittee, launched an investigation into the use of bisphenol A in containers used by infants and toddlers. 'Anila Jacob, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group ... said she was surprised that the FDA so openly admitted to relying on those two studies, particularly when one of them has never been published or released to the scientific world for review. 'There's a lack of transparency here,' she said, adding that the agency's reliance on these studies 'doesn't serve the public.''
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3.Rising Food Prices, Rising Food Protests
FOODFIRST, People Putting Food First #111 http://www.foodfirst.org
Food riots are currently on the rise across the globe, caused less by shortfalls in world food production than by the rising food prices that increased 37 percent in 2007, according to the FAO.
The global surge in protests and conflicts over rising food prices began in January 2007 with Mexico's 'tortilla crisis' when tortilla prices more than doubled over the previous year. The country's dominant tortilla producers, Gruma (of which ADM owns 27%), claimed that it was passing along the high corn prices that were being pushed up by US ethanol policy. However, public outrage pressured the president to open an investigation as to whether the company had been hoarding supplies so as to artificially lift prices even further. Reports say that 70,000 protesters took to the streets, some with banners reading 'no queremos PAN, queremos tortillas' in a play on the word 'pan' that rejected both the white bread that some households had been forced to switch to as well as President Calderon's PAN political party. For more, see http://grist.org/comments/food/2007/02/22/tortillas/
As grain prices continued to rise corn, wheat, and soy have each approximately doubled over the past two years discontent erupted in places that had not fallen victim to such overt price-gouging.
*Italy: In September, Italians boycotted their national food, pasta, for one day to protest a jump in the cost of wheat and other staples. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6992444.stm
*Morocco: Protesters stymied government plans to raise the price of bread by 30% after a confrontation that injured at least 50 people. Violence returned in January, killing 60. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F6F855F2-BF6D-4C99-BBF9-E21FDA36254D.htm
*Mauritania: In November, one person died and several were injured after police clashed with groups of mostly young people complaining about the price of cereals and oils. http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=324529&referrer=RSS
*Senegal: Riots were sparked after the president issued an order to evict street vendors in a climate of growing discontent over food prices and inequality. 'Prices of basic commodities are reaching incomprehensible levels,' a union leader told the Integrated Regional Information Networks. http://allafrica.com/stories/200711220888.html
*Indonesia: In January, 10,000 protesters pressured the government to lift an import tax on soy, a predominately imported staple source of protein for working people, that had doubled in price on world markets. http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20080215-49807.html
*Burkina Faso: In February rioters targeted government buildings two weeks after officials pledged to take 'strong measures' to control the rising prices of food and other basic goods. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76905
*Cameroon: At least 20 people were killed in the country's worst rioting in 15 years after the president announced an extension to his regime's rule. Protesters demanded cuts in food and fuel prices as well as the president's resignation. http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL2934234720080229?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
*Yemen and Middle East: A dozen people were killed in a string of protests over bread prices that have doubled over the past four months. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/world/middleeast/25economy.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
*Egypt: Shortages of subsidized bread have created long lines, making for tense situations that have occasionally turned violent. At least 10 people died during the first two weeks of March outside of bakeries that produce subsidized bread. http://www.reliefmine.com/articles/preparedness/61-preparedness/101-food-riots-in-egypt