{"id":95061,"date":"2016-09-01T07:55:48","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T11:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=95061"},"modified":"2016-09-01T06:56:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T10:56:29","slug":"monsanto-the-evil-and-good-of-this-food-industry-heavyweight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2016\/09\/monsanto-the-evil-and-good-of-this-food-industry-heavyweight\/","title":{"rendered":"Monsanto: The Evil (and Good) of This Food Industry Heavyweight"},"content":{"rendered":"
September 1, 2016<\/div>
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By WallStreetDaily.com<\/u><\/a> \"Monsanto:<\/p>\n

Monsanto Company<\/strong> (MON<\/strong><\/a>) is The Enemy \u2013 the embodiment of everything wrong with Big Food.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Canada-based Centre for Research on Globalization has labeled the agribusiness juggernaut \u201cthe world\u2019s most evil corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s cozy with the federal government, as the Union of Concerned Scientists notes, outspending \u201call other agribusinesses on efforts to persuade Congress and the public to maintain the industrial agriculture status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the major force behind genetically modified organism (GMO) seeds, or engineered \u201cFrankenfood.\u201d And that stuff boosts corporate control of our food, doesn\u2019t actually lead to improved yields, increases use of chemicals in farming, contaminates neighboring \u201corganic\u201d farms, and is rooted in biased research.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also to blame for our obesity epidemic, and its products have been linked by researchers to cancer.<\/p>

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According to a 2009 paper published by the International Journal of Biological Sciences,<\/em> GMOs increased body weight in rats.<\/p>\n

Another paper \u2014 later retracted by the journal that published it but republished by another after corrections \u2014 detailed research that revealed an increased rate of cancer in rats that were fed on Roundup-treated genetically modified corn.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s not forget that Monsanto, which was founded in 1901, was among the group of companies that produced Agent Orange and its main poison, dioxin.<\/p>\n

It also sold DDT, PCBs, the controversial dairy cow hormone rBGH, and the cancer-linked aspartame sweetener.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no longer a chemicals-and-plastics company, although, ironically, that\u2019s not even how it earned its bad reputation.<\/p>\n

Beginning in the 1980s, Monsanto shed those assets and began acquiring seed companies, investing in biogenetic research and recasting itself as an agriculture company.<\/p>\n

And then, in the aftermath of the 1996 mad cow outbreak in the United Kingdom, Monsanto tried to market its patented glyphosate-resistant \u201cRoundup Ready\u201d soybean seeds in Europe.<\/p>\n

Those seeds had been approved the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1994. And the European Union OK\u2019d them, too.<\/p>\n

But consumers hated the concept. Even Prince Charles weighed in, writing in a Daily Telegraph<\/em> editorial on June 8, 1998, that this type of genetic engineering \u201ctakes mankind into realms that belong to God, and to God alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monsanto\u2019s push-back campaign was a miserable failure, dismissed as insincere by consumers.<\/p>\n

Its attempt to acquire a company that pioneered \u201cterminator seed\u201d technology \u2013 second-generation seeds are sterile, thus limiting the spread of genetically modified plants to other farms \u2013 only worsened the situation, as farmers would be forced to buy new seed every year.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t gotten any better for Monsanto.<\/p>\n

Environmental groups continue to play on what the public doesn\u2019t know, plucking the emotional strings of \u201cpersonal health\u201d and \u201csafety\u201d with great effect.<\/p>\n

But what if we have it wrong about big, bad Monsanto and the whole concept of engineered food?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, responding to Prince Charles in a May 21, 2000, open letter in The<\/em> Observer<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Next, Sir, I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the naturalness of \u201ctraditional\u201d or \u201corganic\u201d agriculture. Agriculture has always been unnatural. Our species began to depart from our natural hunter-gatherer lifestyle as recently as 10,000 years ago \u2013 too short to measure on the evolutionary timescale.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wheat, be it ever so wholemeal and stoneground, is not a natural food for Homo sapiens. Nor is milk, except for children. Almost every morsel of our food is genetically modified \u2013 admittedly by artificial selection not artificial mutation, but the end result is the same. A wheat grain is a genetically modified grass seed, just as a Pekinese is a genetically modified wolf. Playing God? We\u2019ve been playing God for centuries!<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to blame Monsanto for a lot of things. But obesity actually boils down to the overall diet and physical activity, at least according to the Food & Brand Lab at Cornell University.<\/p>\n

And as Dr. Kevin Folta, a professor and chairman of the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida, recently told Forbes<\/em>: \u201cThe short answer is no, there is absolutely zero reputable evidence that GMO foods cause cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas, we all love a bogeyman. And science is hard.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s just work on the assumption that Monsanto is evil. Can it rehabilitate itself and become a force for good?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually a major player in the drive to redesign the food industry\u2019s systems and processes \u2013 the major focus of what we now call the \u201cInternet of Food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take, for example, Monsanto\u2019s $930 million all-cash acquisition of Climate Corp. in October 2013.<\/p>\n

Climate Corp., as The New Yorker<\/em> noted in a November 4, 2013, story about the deal, \u201cis trying to deploy a vast and growing trove of data to help farmers cope with the increasingly severe fluctuations in weather caused by climate change, in much the way that Google organizes and presents the world\u2019s information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Climate Corp.\u2019s founders \u2013 a couple of former Google employees \u2013 had to defend themselves against a serious backlash.<\/p>\n

CEO David Friedberg told The New Yorker<\/em> that his dad\u2019s first reaction was, \u201cMonsanto? The most evil company in the world? I thought you were trying to make the world a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that billion-dollar investment by Monsanto is going to help Climate Corp. scale up so much that small farms and the farmers\u2019 markets where their products are sold will be able to maximize efficiencies.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll be able to take advantage of detailed weather prediction, monitoring, and analysis services. And it will involve zero engineering of any food at all.<\/p>\n

Climate Corp. was the first major cash-out by an \u201cInternet of Food\u201d startup. But funding continues to flow into the space.<\/p>\n

A problem like our messed-up food system is a given for the information aggregating and dispersing capabilities of the internet. And we\u2019re just getting started.<\/p>\n

This is where the application of information technology will help solve a real need rather than simply lead to another \u201cmust-want\u201d product.<\/p>\n

Cheap and abundant food is important. Climate Corp. will help us satisfy that need.<\/p>\n

But so will Monsanto.<\/p>\n

Money Quote<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel I change my mind all the time. And I sort of feel that\u2019s your responsibility as a person, as a human being \u2013 to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don\u2019t contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you\u2019re not thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference<\/em>, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking<\/em>, Outliers: The Story of Success<\/em>, and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants<\/em><\/p>\n

Smart Investing,<\/p>\n

David Dittman
\nEditorial Director, Wall Street Daily<\/i><\/p>\n

The post Monsanto: The Evil (and Good) of This Food Industry Heavyweight<\/a> appeared first on Wall Street Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By WallStreetDaily.com Monsanto Company (MON) is The Enemy \u2013 the embodiment of everything wrong with Big Food. Indeed, the Canada-based Centre for Research on Globalization has labeled the agribusiness juggernaut \u201cthe world\u2019s most evil corporation.\u201d It\u2019s cozy with the federal government, as the Union of Concerned Scientists notes, outspending \u201call other agribusinesses on efforts to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95083,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95061\/revisions\/95083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}