The world according to Monsanto

Résumé du document

This movie is the result of a two years work on the American company Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin. At the beginning, in the twentieth century, Monsanto was one of the biggest chemical industries in the world who sold substances used by the US Army in Vietnam in order to destroy forests. The consequences today are still a shame for vegetation and humans. We already clearly see the degree of ethic used by this company. Nowadays, it is an agriculture company and they owe more than 80% of the biotechnologies (to make genetically modified organisms by putting extern genes in the gene of a plant, an animal, or other) around the world and 90% of the GMO. The area of global biotech crops in 2005 was 90 million hectares, up from 81 million hectares in 2004. That explosion in less than 10 years was not as important for the developing countries as for the industrial ones. The best Monsanto's product is made to resist to their main pesticide: Roundup. Roundup product seems to be the ideal product that enables farmers to kill all weeds.

Extraits

[...] Women who have PCBs in their body and who are pregnant will give birth to a baby who will have a small IQ. Some other person can have serious skin problems. How GMOs were authorized in 90's? Some scientists said they where worried about high risks for human and animal health. But the FDA (institution that authorized new consumption products) played a big role. The politics knew the short and long term side-effects of GMO < number > How GMO where authorized in the 90's? [...]

[...] A reportage on this hormone was made but was never diffused because of Monsanto's power. < number > Cases of corruption are frequents, the studies on the bovine growth hormone was made by corrupted scientists, who were even pasteurizing the milk more than 129 times before testing it. By injecting bovine growth hormone, it allows farmers to increase their milk production by 20% In addition, they pretend that the milk is exactly the same, that means same properties and same qualities. By now, lots of diseases have been in correlation with this hormone, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob, cancers All cows who received the treatment had problems of reproduction and theirs magpies were infected. [...]

[...] Source : Monsanto.fr Promises Yield increasing : Improving protection from insects and disease Improving protection to environmental stress (heat, drought) Cost decreasing: Decreasing of the use of herbicides and pesticides Undermining workload for the same crops plough,weed ) More flexibility and easier work for (small-scale) growers Respect of biodiversity and ecology Healthier food (maïs mildew, fat in oil, beta-carotene in rice) http://www.monsanto.fr/offre/biotech/comm/faq/faq3.html#b < number > Bad Effects of Roundup: on our environment and on our health. Try to eliminate biodiversity to have the monopole in agriculture. Send experts and make farmers pay if their plants contains Monsanto's gene. Increase their prices without any control. [...]

[...] Because of the number of side effects, the agreement precise that farmers can't sue the company for consequences that these products can lead to. (Allergies, cancers, tumours, skin problems, sterility of animals, increasing of insects ) Farmers are afraid of Monsanto because they can not fight against them. They are dominated agriculture. Farmers are also afraid to be denunciated by they neighbours. The atmosphere is tough. Studies False, incomplete and some results hidden. No studies about the impact of transgenic products on human beings. [...]

[...] The company had also a man in the FDA, the institution that authorized new consumption product, so in the end, Monsanto was allowed to product and sell GMO. The US politics knew the short and long term side-effects of GMO, but they kept silent because GMOs would be a huge business which would bring a lot of money. Health of people was not important as long as the company make profits. Conclusion Even though more and more people start to be alerted, there is still a long way to walk before achieving safety in this field. What is your opinion about GMOs ? [...]