The Organic Seed Alliance Weighs in on the Monsanto Merger

Matthew Dillon, executive director of the Organic Seed Alliance, just emailed me to share an email he sent to Owen Taylor, editor and publisher at AgFax Media, who I quoted in my story today on Monsanto's proposed merger with Delta and Pine Land Company. Taylor approves of the merger, and he believes the markets will decide what's best for agriculture.

Owen,

I write in regards to your quote in the Wired article (
https://more-deals.info/news/technology/0,72783-0.html?tw=rss.index) on
risks to organic cotton, and your opinion that farmers have strong
desire to plant transgenic cotton.

You state: "Farmers can compare performance every year, both in their
own fields and in non-biased university trials."

What non-biased university are you talking about? All of the major LGUs
have strong financial ties to large agribusiness, especially to
Monsanto. With Hatch funds increasingly at risk, and the era of
Bayh-Dohl, universities are more and more tied to serving the private
sector, rarely releasing public cultivars, and researchers who speak out
against the heavy handed tactics of Monsanto are often threatened or
punished with cuts to their programs (the wheat program of Steve Jones
at WSU for example). Monsanto's recent investment at North Carolina.
Pioneers historic investment at Iowa State. How many do you want me to
name. And in counter, what facts can you give that support your claim
towards "unbiased trials"? Not only do university researchers have
reduced freedom to operate, farmers have it even worse. There is strong
documentation throughout the nation showing that farmers have less and
less choice when it comes to growing a crop. If they want a contract
with an ADM processor, they plant what ADM wants them to plant.

You do the farmers of this nation a great disservice, especially when
you downplay the risks of genetic contamination. Regardless of health or
environmental disputes, the inarguable fact is that genetic
contamination, and the risk of such contamination have in actuality
damaged farm economies - as exemplified by rice, canola (especially in
Canada), alfalfa - wheat would be on the list if not for strong farmer
opposition based upon the recognition that it would hurt their markets.
In the northwest the conventional vegetable seed industry -
conventional, not organic - is now asking for bans on canola planting in
order to protect Brassica seed crops (one of the major crops in the
region, growing seed for the world) from contamination. Your comments
in the Wired article want to brush off this risk as "the same old
rhetoric", when in reality the momentum of facts shows that the market
has reason to fear contamination - from a purely economic standpoint.
Certainly there are those who are profiting, but at what cost to their
neighbor. Surely a good capitalist like you is familiar with Adam
Smith's concepts of good and bad neighbor effect.

If you are so sure that contamination is not an issue, then please,
write an article that calls for liability laws that make those who hold
the genetic patents responsible - so that in that far out sci-fi
scenario that it occurs - farmers have some protection against market
loss. Please, back your facts with calls for action.

How disappointing that Wired even listened to your very biased
viewpoint. Where does your funding come from?

Havean opinion on corporate influence over academic studies? Or on farmers'
choices when it comes to seeds? Share it with us in the commentssection.