The Bayer-Monsanto merger is more than a merger, it has the potential to become THE agricultural giant of the world. And anytime one giant has the power over our entire food supply, we need to take notice!
- If TTIP passes, BaySanto would have the ability to force it’s GMO on everyone.
- US farm subsidies now cost taxpayers over $20 billion per year thanks to a new bill pushed through Congress with little attention in 2014.
- The largest subsidies currently go to corn and soybean mega-farms
- Many of the subsidized grain crops are for animal feed
- Approximately 90-95% of all corn and soybean in the US is GMO
- In 2003 Bayer bought/partnered with GW Pharmaceuticals, a UK based firm that makes drugs derived from cannabis which is distributed in Canada and the UK.
- The medicinal cannabis market will continue to grow exponentially and the need for a GMO product laced with Monsanto pesticides will be the outcome.
Who benefits from the current farm subsidies?
Monsanto, Cargill, Dreyfus, ADM, the largest corporate farms, and feedlot operators. The largest subsidy for corn is given to CHS, formally Harvest States Cooperatives. They have assets totaling $15.2 billion and annual revenues of $34.6 billion. Their Agriculture Subsidies 1995 to 2014? $49,489,434. Walker Place Farms has received nearly $20million. NAPI Farms about $20million.
In 2016 there is a glut of corn and soy and it is predicted to continue thru 2025, according to the USDA. What that means is that subsidies to these farmers will be even higher as corn and soy prices are less than half what they were a few years ago.
According to Marion Nestle, who has been writing and teaching at NYU, “If you examine how its (the 2014 Food Bill) incentives line up, you quickly see that it strongly favors the industrial agriculture of the Midwest and South over that of the Northeast and West; methods requiring chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides over those that are organic and sustainable; and commodity crops for animal feed and ethanol rather than “specialty” crops (translation: fruits and vegetables) for human consumption.”
Imagine the next subsidized BaySanto crop – cannabis. Because if cannabis laced pharmaceuticals are the next drug generation, I would bet this mega-giant will be planting crops now – perhaps in the Ukraine land-grabs or the Africa land-grabs, subsidized by the US Agriculture with crop farms here.
Nice package.
While feeding the world is becoming more and more problematic, lacing our food with cancer causing toxins has aggravated our healthcare system to the point of no return. Despite billions on research, cancer rates are rising. The US now has the dubious honor of having the 7th highest cancer rates in the world with prostate, breast, lung and colon continuing as the most prevalent. More GMO = more cancer.
Additionally, GMO products consistently are shown to have less nutrient value, thus while we consume food – it provides less and less nutritional value, we become more susceptible to diseases, obesity rises, healthcare costs rise, and people will die. A vicious cycle emerges that would seem to have nothing to do with The People, and everything to do with The Profit. And in the meantime, the small farmers, the organic farmers, are continually pummeled – which is why their cost and their pricing is so much higher.
A scientist was recently driving through soy country in Missouri and noticed the crops were curled up and dead. Apparently, a new and improved herbicide produced by Monsanto called Dicamba, is the culprit. It is being used to kill weeds that are prominent as a result of their new GMO soy seed, Xtend. It is being used because the glyphosate in Monsanto Roundup is no longer as effective against certain weeds, and so Monsanto set out to find a better seed that could withstand the toxins of Dicamba.
Unfortunately, Dicamba vaporizes quickly and blows with the wind to neighboring farms, to neighboring streams and reservoirs, and to crops that aren’t subsidized – like vegetables. Monsanto blames the farmers. Lawsuits have been filed against neighbor farms, but the fines are so ridiculously low, $1000, no one cares and the spraying continues unabated.
A weed expert studied Dicamba and its ability to kill the culprit pigweed – after three generations of seed, he found that Dicamba was no longer effective against the weed. Like insects – weeds develop immunity – and thrive.
Monsanto is well aware of this cycle. Bayer has already moved into the herbicide, insecticide, fungacide market. And they are no angel when it comes to the GMO market having settled a lawsuit in Missouri awarding $750million to farmers when their LibertyLink GMO rice contaminated neighboring farms and resulted in 11,000 plaintiffs filing suit.
It would appear the two companies are equally driven by an ethic that does not favor – you and I.