How Agro-Chemical Giant Monsanto Has Been Destroying Environment, Human Lives for Decades
In 1995, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, listed Monsanto among the top 5 lethal corporations dumping toxic waste, as it was recorded dumping nearly 37 million tons of toxic waste, through air, water, and land.
On April 10, the terrifying news of the U.S. court allowing a merger of the German chemical firm, Bayer, with U.S’ Monsanto alarmed environmentalists, heralding it as “Bad News for the Planet.” The Bayer-Monsanto merger would create a company which controls over a quarter of the world’s seed and pesticide market.
The two firms have individually caused immense harm to the environment, and a merger, which environmentalists have been protesting for months, would make them eminently stronger and harder to fight.
And tragically enough, Monsanto, despite bearing the weight of hundreds of lawsuits, continues on its path of dominating the world’s agro-industry thanks to the enablers in governments and lobby groups.
From India to Brazil, Monsanto’s toxicity has impacted millions of lives.
In South America, countries like Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia are known to produce most of the world’s soybeans.
An intensive research done on the history of soybean production in Latin America few years ago by Miguel A. Altieri, of University of California, Berkeley, and Walter A. Pengue, of University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, revealed some disturbing findings within the industry.
“Since 1961 soybean increased 57 times and production volume increased 138 times. In Paraguay, soybeans are planted on more than 25% of all agricultural land in the country and in Argentina soybean acreage reached, in 2000, almost 15 million hectares, producing 38,3 million metric tons. All this expansion is occurring dramatically at the expense of forests and other habitats. In Paraguay, much of the Atlantic forest is being cut (Jason 2004),” Altieri and Walter reported in their 2006 study “GM soybean: Latin America’s new colonizer”.
“In Argentina 118,000 hectares of forests have been cleared to grow soybean, in Salta about 160,000 hectares and in Santiago del Estero a record of 223,000 hectares. In Brazil, the Cerrado and the savannas are falling victim to the plow at a rapid pace.”
The two researchers concluded, “Soybean expansion in Latin America represents a recent and powerful threat to biodiversity in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. Transgenic soybeans are much more environmentally damaging than other crops because in addition to the effects derived from the production methods, mainly heavy herbicide use and genetic pollution.”
A March report, “The Avoidable Crisis” tied meat and soybean production to widespread deforestation, fires, and human rights violations in Argentina and Paraguay’s Gran Chaco border area. On average, around 19 percent of the deaths in Argentina have been attributed to cancer, but in the soy-growing parts of the country, over 30 percent of the deaths are caused by cancer, which has raised concerns over the rampant and widespread pesticide and chemical use in the Chaco.
But, instead of holding the pesticide giant accountable, several U.S. government agencies and companies around the world have rather continued to award Monsanto with subsidies and contracts.
A Long Odious History of Monsanto’s Chemicals
Monsanto opened for business in 1901 when it opened its first pharmaceutical laboratory in Missouri. John F. Queeny, the founder of the company, named it after his wife, Olga Monsanto Queeny, the daughter of Emmanuel Mendes Monsanto, who also financed the corporation at the beginning. The company first produced saccharine at one-sixth the cost of sugar.
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The Monsanto Papers: Deadly secrets, corporate corruption, and one man’s search for justice
Carey Gillam’s new book is out
“An authoritative takedown of a corporation that evidently cares little for public health.” — Kirkus
When global conglomerate Bayer AG paid $63 billion in 2018 to buy Monsanto Company, the deal was seen as a boost to Bayer’s wealth and power. But only two years later, Bayer was forced to agree to pay $11 billion to settle the claims of more than 100,000 cancer victims who alleged their suffering was caused by the use of Monsanto’s flagship herbicide, Roundup. That settlement may never have happened without Lee Johnson.
The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice (publication date: March 2, 2021) tells the inside story of Lee Johnson’s landmark lawsuit against Monsanto after a workplace accident left Lee doused in Monsanto’s herbicide and facing a deadly cancer. Lee was the first to take Monsanto to trial, drawing attention from around the world as his case became one of the most dramatic legal battles in courthouse history.
For Lee, the case was a race against the clock as doctors predicted he wouldn’t survive long enough to take the witness stand. For the eclectic band of ambitious lawyers representing him, taking on Monsanto was a matter of professional pride and personal risk that placed millions of dollars and hard-earned reputations on the line. For observers, Johnson’s battle brought to light decades of deceptive conduct by Monsanto and regulators with worldwide public health implications.
Written by award-winning investigative journalist Carey Gillam, The Monsanto Papers is the explosive follow-up to Whitewash, Gillam’s “hard-hitting,” (Kirkus) “must-read” (Booklist) exposé on Monsanto and the health risks of the widely used Roundup. Readers of The Monsanto Papers will be astounded by how far the company was willing to go to hide those dangers.
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The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of Our Food Supply
Description
Published to stellar praise worldwide, The World According to Monsanto charts award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin’s three-year journey across four continents to uncover the disturbing practices of multinational agribusiness corporation Monsanto.
The book exposes the shocking story of how the new “green” face of the world’s leading producer of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) is no less malign than its PCB–and Agent Orange–soaked past. Monsanto currently controls the majority of the yield of the world’s genetically modified corn and soy–ingredients found in more than 95 percent of American households–and its alarming legal and political tactics to maintain this monopoly are the subject of worldwide concern, with baleful consequences for the world’s small-scale farmers.
Selected as a finalist for the New York Public Library’s 2011 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, The World According to Monsanto is positioned to increase awareness of a serious threat to our food supply.
