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Hace falta una respuesta sistémica frente a esta gangrena que es Monsanto, una empresa que en vez de producir algo útil, reduce la productividad real en los demás.
Lo que está sucediendo es que nos están sometiendo a un proceso de *saqueo* CALCADO, a los procesos neoliberales que practicaron con latinoamérica con la excusa de la "crisis de la deuda" desde los 70, 80 y 90
Me viene una idea a la cabeza con lo del tratado de comercio con marruecos...a monsanto le hara gracia dejar de vender sus infladisimas semillas a los españoles para venderselas a los marroquis?, no creo q vayan a sacar el mismo beneficio ni de coña, sobre todo con el tema de pesticidas, etc...no me cuadra esto de marruecos, no me cuadra
Cita de: Machetazo en Febrero 16, 2012, 02:51:15 amMe viene una idea a la cabeza con lo del tratado de comercio con marruecos...a monsanto le hara gracia dejar de vender sus infladisimas semillas a los españoles para venderselas a los marroquis?, no creo q vayan a sacar el mismo beneficio ni de coña, sobre todo con el tema de pesticidas, etc...no me cuadra esto de marruecos, no me cuadraFarm Manager - Morocco Job in Morocco with Monsanto | US.jobs]http://www.jobcentral.com:80/jobs/Monsanto/MAR/Farm_Manager_Morocco/020024838/job]Farm Manager - Morocco Job in Morocco with Monsanto | US.jobs[/url]no pierden el tiempo los cabrones
Los eucaliptos de Galicia están afectados por la plaga de un insecto llamado Gorgojo del Eucalipto. La Asociación Española de Fabricantes de Pasta, Papel e Cartón (presidida por el Consejero delegado de ENCE), con la colaboración de la Asociación Forestal de Galicia, la autorización de la Xunta de Galicia y algunos ayuntamientos, han puesto en marcha un plan para fumigarlos masivamente con un tóxico insecticida cuya venta estará prohibida en toda la Unión Europea en menos de 4 meses.Este agresivo producto perjudica el medio ambiente y afecta en especial a las larvas de las abejas, poniendo en serio peligro su supervivencia. De hecho estas fumigaciones podrían suponer la extinción casi total de las abejas gallegas, ya en peligro de desaparición entre otros motivos por el continuo uso de pesticidas neurotóxicos.La Asociación Galega de Apicultura ya ha dado la voz de alarma y ha solicitado la suspensión de las urgente fumigaciones interponiendo denuncia ante la Fiscalía de Medio Ambiente junto con otras organizaciones unidas en la Plataforma http://fumigacionsNON.org preocupada por la muerte de las abejas que producen la deliciosa miel gallega y otros productos y por la masiva contaminación inminente de las tierras y las aguas de Galicia. Más grave aún: las abejas son vitales para la fecundación de numerosas plantas, entre ellas aquellas de las que nos alimentamos los seres humanos. Su desaparición provocaría el colapso de la agricultura y la apicultura en Galicia, y condenaría a los gallegos a la dependencia alimentaria del exterior de manera indefinida.Existen métodos mucho menos agresivos para acabar con el insecto que afecta a los eucaliptos, por eso es difícil entender por qué el empeño en usar este tóxico producto cuando existen otras alternativas. Algunos sospechan que tras este plan está el interés por vender un enorme stock del insecticida antes de que entre en vigor su prohibición. Además existe una Directiva europea que prohibe fumigar desde el aire cuando existen otros métodos.Debemos movilizarnos para salvar las abejas y el resto del ecosistema gallego. Nos jugamos un equilibrio ecológico vital para nuestra supervivencia. Pídele a la Xunta y a la Asociación Española de Fabricantes de Pasta, Papel e Cartón que detengan inmediatamente estas fumigaciones.¡Ni una gota de este veneno sobre los montes gallegos![ACTUALIZACIÓN 20/04/2012] Se ha constituido una Plataforma contra las fumigaciones[ACTUALIZACIÓN 30/04/2012] Actualizamos el texto de la campaña y de la carta, que ahora también recibirán las autoridades de la Xunta que deben autorizar esta fumigación. Añadimos vídeo de TVE en Galicia.Más información:· Plataforma contra las fumigaciones, por un futuro sin pesticidas: http://fumigacionsNON.org/· Comunicado del Concello de Melide promoviendo la fumigación: http://www.concellodemelide.org/actualidade/nova.php?id=839&lg=gal· Comunicado con la posición de la Asociación Galega de Apicultura: http://www.apiculturagalega.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=277· Sobre la prohibición del insecticida que se pretende utilizar:http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:246:0013:0015:ES:PDFhttp://www.portalreach.info/noticias/el-comite-de-evaluacion-de-riesgos-cer-adopta-diez-dictamenes-cientificos/· Ficha técnica del insecticida Flufenoxurón (Cascade): http://www.magrama.gob.es/agricultura/pags/fitos/registro/productos/pdf/19337.pdf
Brazilian farmers win $2 billion judgment against Monsantoby Mohammed Ismail on Jun 15, 2012 • 8:18 am 17 CommentsBy Subodh Varma - Times of IndiaFive million Brazilian farmers have taken on US based biotech company Monsanto through a lawsuit demanding return of about 6.2 billion euros taken as royalties from them. The farmers are claiming that the powerful company has unfairly extracted these royalties from poor farmers because they were using seeds produced from crops grown from Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds, reports Merco Press.In April this year, a judge in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, ruled in favor of the farmers and ordered Monsanto to return royalties paid since 2004 or a minimum of $2 billion. The ruling said that the business practices of seed multinational Monsanto violate the rules of the Brazilian Cultivars Act (No. 9.456/97).Monsanto has appealed against the order and a federal court ruling on the case is now expected by 2014.About 85% of Brazil’s massive soyabean crop output is produced from genetically engineered seeds. Brazil exports about $24.1 billion worth of soyabeans annually, more than a quarter of its total agri-exports.Farmers say that they are using seeds produced many generations after the initial crops from the genetically modified Monsanto seeds were grown. Farmers claim that Monsanto unfairly collects exorbitant profits every year worldwide on royalties from “renewal” seed harvests. Renewal crops are those that have been planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest. Monsanto disagrees, demanding royalties from any crop generation produced from its genetically-engineered seed. Because the engineered seed is patented, Monsanto not only charges an initial royalty on the sale of the crop produced, but a continuing two per cent royalty on every subsequent crop, even if the farmer is using a later generation of seed.The first transgenic soy seeds were illegally smuggled into Brazil from neighboring Argentina in 1998 and their use was banned and subject to prosecution until the last decade, according to the state-owned Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research (EMBRAPA).The ban has since been lifted and now 85 percent of the country’s soybean crop (25 million hectares or 62 million acres) is genetically modified, Alexandre Cattelan, an EMBRAPA researcher told Merco Press. Brazil is the world’s second largest producer and exporter of soyabean. China is one of its biggest buyers.“Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production,” Jane Berwanger, lawyer for the farmers told the media agencies.
La miel española no se puede exportar por culpa de los transgénicoshttp://ecocosas.com/noticias/miel-espanola/[...]Es imposible controlar el lugar donde las abejas hacen su tan preciado trabajo y, por tanto, es imposible garantizar que el polen no será portador de OGM."En 2011, la superficie de maíz MON810 aumentó un 27% y representa 97.300 hectáreas, es decir una cuarta parte de maíz que se cultiva en el Estado español", afirma Ferreirim.Cataluña tiene más del 40% de los campos experimentales de OGM que aún no han sido autorizados.
Although I generally refrain from posting on Big Ag and relegate the topic to Links, I have a special interest in Monsanto. Last year, I had wanted to devise a list or ranking of top predatory companies, but could not find a way to make the tally sufficiently objective to be as useful in calling them out as it ought to be. Nevertheless, no matter how many ways I looked at the issue, it was clear that any ranking would put Monsanto as number 1. Monsanto has (among other things) genetically engineered seeds so that they can’t reproduce, denying farmers the ability to save seeds and have a measure of financial independence. In 2009, Vandana Shiva estimated that 200,000 farmers in India had committed suicide since 1997, and Monsanto was a major culprit: <blockquote>In 1998, the World Bank’s structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds, which need fertilizers and pesticides and cannot be saved.Corporations prevent seed savings through patents and by engineering seeds with non-renewable traits. As a result, poor peasants have to buy new seeds for every planting season and what was traditionally a free resource, available by putting aside a small portion of the crop, becomes a commodity. This new expense increases poverty and leads to indebtness.The shift from saved seed to corporate monopoly of the seed supply also represents a shift from biodiversity to monoculture in agriculture. The district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh used to grow diverse legumes, millets, and oilseeds. Now the imposition of cotton monocultures has led to the loss of the wealth of farmer’s breeding and nature’s evolution.Monocultures and uniformity increase the risk of crop failure, as diverse seeds adapted to diverse to eco-systems are replaced by the rushed introduction of uniform and often untested seeds into the market. When Monsanto first introduced Bt Cotton in 2002, the farmers lost 1 billion rupees due to crop failure. Instead of 1,500 kilos per acre as promised by the company, the harvest was as low as 200 kilos per acre. Instead of incomes of 10,000 rupees an acre, farmers ran into losses of 6,400 rupees an acre. In the state of Bihar, when farm-saved corn seed was displaced by Monsanto’s hybrid corn, the entire crop failed, creating 4 billion rupees in losses and increased poverty for desperately poor farmers. Poor peasants of the South cannot survive seed monopolies. The crisis of suicides shows how the survival of small farmers is incompatible with the seed monopolies of global corporations.</blockquote> Monsanto’s seeds can also sterilize wild crops via contamination. And Monsanto routinely sues farmers who wind up having some Monsanto seeds by virtue of seeds from neighboring farms blowing onto their property. I also know a wee bit about Monsanto because I was on its client team as a very junior investment banker at Goldman in the early 1980s. It was then a specialty chemical company, with the herbicide Roundup as the driver of its profits. The Goldman bankers and analysts were aware that Monsanto was effectively a one-trick pony, and that the St. Louis company was exposed both to the end of its patent and the possibility of Roundup-resistant weeds developing. Monsanto managed to extend the life of its patent both legally and far more important, practically, via the genetic engineering described above. The result is that Roundup has been far and away the most widely used herbicide in the US for over 30 years. And that little fact makes a newly-released study particularly troubling. The study, by Dr. Joel Spiroux and Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini, was published in Food and Chemical Toxicology as “Long term toxicity of a herbicide Roundup and Roundup-tolerant genetically has modified maize.” The authors are both members of CRIIGEN (Committee for Research and Independent Information). Per the summary on the CRIIGEN website (furzy mouse): <blockquote>For the first time, the health impact of a GMO and a widely used pesticide have been comprehensively assessed * in a long term animal feeding trial of greater duration and with more detailed analyses than any previous studies, by environmental and food agencies, governments, industries or researchers institutes. The two tested products are in very common use : (i) a transgenic maize made tolerant to Roundup, the characteristic shared by over 80% of food and animal feed GMOs, and (ii) Roundup itself, the most widely used herbicide on the planet. The regulatory approval process requires these products to be tested on rats as a surrogate for humans. The new research took the form of a two year feeding trial on 200 rats, monitored for outcomes against more than 100 parameters. The doses were consistent with typical dietary/ environmental exposure (from 11% GMO in the diet, and 0.1 ppb in water). The results, which are of serious concern, included increased and more rapid mortality, coupled with hormonal non linear and sex related effects. Females developed significant and numerous mammary tumours, pituitary and kidney problems. Males died mostly from severe hepatorenal chronic deficiencies. Professor Seralini’s team in the University of Caen is publishing this detailed study in one of the leading scientific international peer-reviewed journals of food toxicology, on line on Sept. 19, 2012. The implications are extremely serious. They demonstrate the toxicity, both of a GMO with the most widely spread transgenic character and of the most widely used herbicide, even when ingested at extremely low levels, (corresponding to those found in surface or tap water). In addition, these results call into question the adequacy of the current regulatory process, used throughout the world by agencies involved in the assessment of health, food and chemicals, and industries seeking commercialisation of products.</blockquote> The difference between this study and most studies of toxicity is the duration of the exposure. Analyses for regulatory purposes are only 3 months in length, while this was two years (which is pretty close to a normal rat lifespan, or at least for rats as pets). The sample size, 200 animals, is large enough that the findings can’t be dismissed casually. CRIIGEN, a not for profit with a large roster of scientific advisors, is making an aggressive push and launching a related book and documentary. But CRIIGEN can’t be depicted as knee jerk anti GMO. In an interview, Dr. Spiroux stressed that he approved of the use of transgenic GMOs to produce medication, such as insulin, but that he and other CRIIGEN members are opposed to “pesticides plants that are agricultural GMOs and above all are poorly evaluated.” And he is far from alone. A burger eating buddy (as in no sanctimonious health foodie) who is a biomedical engineer whose first job was with the NIH would get agitated on the subject of GMOs, complaining it was a mass scale, uncontrolled experiment on the public at large. He even tried avoiding GMOs but found it too difficult and gave up. But from my perspective, the more troubling part is the finding of Roundup toxicity. As the study suggests, Roundup is pervasive, it’s even in the water. If it is toxic to the degree this analysis suggests, we may be at the beginning of a large scale legal battle, similar to the suits against Big Tobacco, where the science was initially disputed but the link between smoking and lung cancer was eventually confirmed. The problem is that if the study’s findings are valid, it will be hard to stuff this evil genie back in the bottle. But Europeans, particularly the French, have long been leery of GMOs and Big Ag generally, and this study may be the opening salvo in a serious pushback effort. Update 4:30 AM: Below is the published article. Be sure to look at the photos.
With others, I made some comments for the press about the recent paper (abstract, figures and tables freely available here) on cancer in rats fed GM maize and Monsanto's Roundup pesticide. [ Full paper should also be available here].Whatever the truth about GMOs, this is not a great contribution to the debate. The paper is not well written, to say the least, with phrases such as “In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly” in the abstract. The Methods section gives a whole lot of detail about some complex secondary method, but nothing on the analysis of the primary outcome data, presumably tumour incidence over time. If we assume the experiment was carried out appropriately, the crucial flaw was only having 20 control rats, 10 in each group, so that it is (predictably) almost impossible to show statistically significant differences, since the control rats would have been expected to develop tumours too. In fact no formal statistical tests are carried out, and one does not have to do much maths to understand that statements about ‘30% of male control rats’ actually mean ‘3 out of 10’.
tomhath writes with this exerpt from a Reuters story: "The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear an Indiana farmer's appeal that challenges the scope of Monsanto Co.'s patent rights on its Roundup Ready seeds. Mr. Bowman bought and planted 'commodity seeds' from a grain elevator. Those soybean seeds were a mix and included some that contained Monsanto's technology. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case over the objections of the Obama administration, which had urged the justices to leave the lower court rulings in place."After all, the manufacture, distribution and use of Monsanto's GM product is presumably regulated by some governmental agency? I tend to think that FDA is involved, at least? Monsanto's seed got onto that farmer's land without his knowledge or consent, and the potential damages he could suffer as a result of Monsanto's technology being inadvertently deployed on his land are demonstrably quite large. The ultimate fault is Monsanto's, for failing to adequately control their genetically modified produce's growth and proliferation.