The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of the World's Food Supply

385 Pages·2010·1.88 MB·English

by  Marie-Monique Robin

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2009 RACHEL CARSON PRIZE
SCIENCE $26.95 U.S.
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“As this powerful book makes clear, Monsanto’s innovations create more he result of a remarkable three-year investigation
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problems than they solve—above all by helping to concentrate the food system in H that took award-winning journalist and documen-
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tary filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin across four
ever fewer hands, with baleful consequences for the world’s small-scale farmers. O
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continents (North and South America, Europe,
It’s the kind of reporting we need more of, and one hopes it will be at least a O
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and Asia), The World According to Monsanto tells
MARIE-MONIQUE ROBIN partial antidote to all the slick commercials with smiling peasants.” L
French journalist and filmmak eirs. aSnh ea wreacredi-vweidn ntihneg —BILL McKIBBEN, author of Deep Economy SD A the little-known yet shocking story of this agribusi-
C ness giant—the world’s leading producer of GMOs
A
1995 Albert-Londres Prize, awarded to investigative C
“We are what we eat, and what we eat is rapidly being determined by O (genetically modified organisms)—and how its new
journalists in France. She is the director and NR
“green” face is no less troubling than its PCB- and
one company, Monsanto. Monsanto’s seed and food dictatorship is based on D
producer of over thirty documentaries and inves-
corrupting regulatory processes, corrupting science, and destroying democracy. TIN Agent Orange–soaked past.
tigative reports filmed in Latin America, Africa,
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Europe, and Asia. We needed a book that told us the story in detail, with courage—The World O T Robin reports that, following its long history of
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According to Monsanto does just that.”
manufacturing hazardous chemicals and lethal
GEORGE HOLOCH THE WORLD ACCORDING TO
has translated more than —VANDANA SHIVA, author of Earth Democracy and Stolen Harvest herbicides, Monsanto is now marketing itself as a
twenty books, including Eric Hazan’s Notes on the
MONSANTO “life sciences” company, seemingly convinced about
Occupation (The New Press). “An alarming and uncompromising investigation.”
the virtues of sustainable development. However,
—Le Monde
Monsanto now controls the majority of the yield

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of the world’s genetically modified corn and soy—
“Sends chills down the spine. . . . After reading this, we can no longer a
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i ingredients found in more than 95 percent of
afford to turn a blind eye.” e
- American households—and its alarming legal and
—Le Point M POLLUTION CORRUPTION
o , , political tactics to maintain this monopoly are the
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iq subject of worldwide concern.
u AND THE CONTROL OF OUR FOOD SUPPLY
THE NEW PRESS
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Released to great acclaim and controversy in France,
www.thenewpress.com R
o AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE WORLD’S
throughout Europe, and in Latin America, The World
b
Jacket photograph by DAJ/GETTY in MOST CONTROVERSIAL COMPANY According to Monsanto is sure to change the way we
Author photograph by Guillaume de Crop
think about food safety and the corporate control of
Jacket design by Ann Weinstock
our food supply.
THE NEW PRESS
Marie-Monique Robin
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The World According to Monsanto
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Also by Marie-Monique Robin
Voleurs d’organes: Enquête sur un trafic
Les Cent Photos du siècle
Le Sixième Sens: Science et paranormal (with Mario Varvoglis)
Escadrons de la mort, l’école française
L’École du soupçon: Les dérives de la lutte contre la pédophilie
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The World According
to Monsanto
Pollution, Corruption, and the
Control of the World’s Food Supply
MARIE-MONIQUE ROBIN
Translated from the French by George Holoch
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The New Press gratefully acknowledges the Florence Gould Foundation
for supporting the publication of this book.
© 2008 by Éditions La Découverte / Arte Editions
English translation © 2010 by The New Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form,
without written permission from the publisher.
Requests for permission to reproduce selections from this book should be mailed to:
Permissions Department, The New Press, 38 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013.
First published as Le monde selon Monsantoby Éditions La Découverte, Paris, 2008
Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2010
Distributed by Perseus Distribution
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Robin, Marie-Monique.
[Monde selon Monsanto. English]
The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and the control of the world’s
food supply / Marie-Monique Robin ; translated by George Holoch.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59558-426-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Monsanto Company. 2. Agricultural innovations—United States—Social aspects.
3. Agricultural chemicals industry—Social aspects. 4. Agricultural chemicals—Environmental
aspects. 5. Agricultural chemicals industry—Corrupt practices. 6. Social responsibility of
business. 7. Food supply. 8. Human rights and globalization. I. Title.
HD9482.U64M6613 2009
338.7'6600973—dc22 2009008621
The New Press was established in 1990 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large,
commercial publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry.
The New Press operates in the public interest rather than for private gain,
and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural,
and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable.
www.thenewpress.com
Composition by NK Graphics
This book was set in Fairfield
Printed in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
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To my parents, Joël and Jeannette,
farmers who taught me to love the good things of the earth,
and so to love life.
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Contents
Preface: A Book for Public Health by Nicolas Hulot
ix
Introduction: The Monsanto Question
1
PART I: ONE OF THE GREAT POLLUTERS
OF INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
1. PCBs: White-Collar Crime
9
2. Dioxin: A Polluter Working with the Pentagon
30
3. Dioxin:Manipulation and Corruption
48
4. Roundup: AMassive Brainwashing Operation
69
5. The Bovine Growth Hormone Affair, Part One
89
6. The Bovine Growth Hormone Affair, Part Two
108
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PART II: GMOs: THE GREAT CONSPIRACY
7. The Invention of GMOs
131
8. Scientists Suppressed
153
9. Monsanto Weaves Its Web, 1995–1999
178
10. The Iron Law of the Patenting of Life
201
11. Transgenic Wheat: Monsanto’s Lost Battle in North America
225
PART III: MONSANTO’S GMOsSTORM THE SOUTH
12. Mexico: Seizing Control of Biodiversity
243
13. In Argentina: The Soybeans of Hunger
256
14. Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina: The “United Soy Republic”
273
15. India: The Seeds of Suicide
290
16. How Multinational Corporations Control the World’s Food
307
Conclusion: A Colossus with Feet of Clay
318
Notes
331
Index
359
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Preface
A Book for Public Health
Nicolas Hulot
As I progressed in my reading of Marie-Monique Robin’s book, a flood of
weighty questions overwhelmed me, filling me with anxiety that I might sum
up in a single question: how is this possible? How can Monsanto, that em-
blematic firm of global agrochemistry, have made so many fatal mistakes,
and how can it have marketed products so harmful to human health and to
the environment? How has the company succeeded in conducting its busi-
ness as though nothing had happened, constantly extending its influence
(and its wealth), despite the tragedies its products have caused? How has it
so quietly managed to continue its activities unconcerned and fool everyone?
Why has it been able to carry on despite the heavy legal penalties it suffered
and despite the bans imposed on some of its products (unfortunately, after
they had already caused a good deal of irreparable harm)?
This book discloses a reality that hurts the eyes and grips the heart: that
of a calmly arrogant company heedlessly profiting from the suffering of vic-
tims and the destruction of ecosystems. As the pages go by, the mystery is re-
vealed. They show the prospering of a company whose history “constitutes a
paradigm of the aberrations in which industrial society has become mired.”
You may often shake your head in disbelief, but the demonstration is limpid,
and we understand where Monsanto gets its power, how its lies have won
out over the truth, and why many of its allegedly miraculous products in the
end turned out to be nightmares. In other words, at a time when the North
American company has taken on an even more totalizing ambition than
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