Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
DuPont had entered biotech in a really big way. But the struggle for control of the biotech industry was just
beginning.
Continuing the crazy and confusing merry-go-round of mergers and acquisitions was the creation of
Syngenta. Up until 2000, Monsanto and DuPont were battling for market domination with Novartis, a mul-
tinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland. In 2000 Swiss Novartis and AstraZeneca,
both the products of mergers and acquisitions, combined their agribusiness companies to create a new com-
pany called Syngenta, which specializes in genetically engineered seeds and pesticides. Today the com-
pany is the third-largest biotech seed company.
Vandana Shiva saw very clearly how biotechnology and the consolidation of the leading companies
would affect farmers and eaters. In 1987 she was at a biotechnology seminar and heard a staff person from
Sandoz speak.
I started to get called into biotechnology seminars because it was the next step. In '87 at one of these seminars,
the industry laid out its grand dream of controlling the world. They talked about needing genetic engineering
so that there's a technology that they have that peasants can't use, so that they can have a monopoly through
technology. Patents. Because without it they cannot consolidate power.
That was said by Sandoz. . . . All of them merged to become Syngenta. What they had said at that time was,
“By the turn of the century we will be five,” in '87. I said, “I don't want to live in a world where five giant
companies control our health and our food.”
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Sadly, this was more than boastful audacity on the part of the biotech industry. The industry has success-
fully used its political clout to shape public policy, and subsequently it now controls many of the Earth's
genetic resources. Genetic engineering requires large amounts of capital to fund scientists, technicians, and
laboratories, and so it is inextricably linked to the foodopoly and its model of large-scale, commercialized
food production.
Biotechnology is a primary example of how science has been hijacked to remove food from its proper
role in society—providing sustenance to the world's population in an ecologically balanced way. Historic-
ally, people around the world have used local ingredients and culture to create a healthy cuisine, using vari-
ations of these foods. We have decades of research verifying the foundation of a healthy diet—vegetables,
whole grains, fruits, and a dash of protein. It is well established that processed food based on ingredients
processed from genetically engineered crops is the antithesis of healthy food. But the science establishment
has been a partner with the foodopoly in manipulating taste preferences, food processing, and agricultural
production to make food a profit center, not the basis for a healthy diet.
We should not be surprised. Many of the companies now making decisions about the future of the gene
pool have been exceedingly irresponsible in the past and have poor track records in protecting public health
or the environment. Their use of genetic engineering has been marked by a complete lack of concern about
the long-term unintended consequences of the technology. The primary interest of the foodopoly leader-
ship is not nourishing people, contributing to public health, or even ensuring the long-term viability of
their companies. Their agenda—shaped by the structure of our economic system—is focused on short-term
economic gains. The focus is on next quarter's profits, the price on a share of company stock, the bonus
generated from a merger or acquisition, stock options, and golden parachutes.
It is time to use science for the benefit of people rather than corporate financial statements. Farmers
have used selective breeding of plants and animals for untold centuries, producing the seeds and animals
best acclimated for their local environment. We must reestablish this sensible system of food production,
based on techniques that have enabled humanity to produce food for millennia. This has never been more
critical than today. As we face new challenges from climate change and an increasing population, it is time
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