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The 2013 World Food Prize: Monopolizing the War on Hunger?

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/war+on+hunger

By Eric Holt-Gimenez, Huffington Post, June 21, 2013
Read the original blog at the Huffington Post.

The biotech industry has awarded itself the World Food Prize. A career Monsanto executive, a Syngenta scientist and a private industrial scientist will share the $250,000 prize for "feeding a growing global population."

The trouble is, GMO seeds produce feed and fuel, not food. Over the last 20 years they've yet to feed any of the planet's poor or hungry. In any case, the world already produces enough food for 10 billion people, so simply increasing production clearly won't end hunger. The World Food Prize's love affair with biotechnology not only elides the structural causes of hunger; it ignores the documented successes of agroecological methods for building in farm-scale resiliency and ensuring productive, sustainable yields.

The World Food Prize has become a corporate celebration of self. In addition to Syngenta, Pioneer and Monsanto, the foundation's donor list includes Cargill, ADM, Walmart, Pepsi, Land O'Lakes, the American Soybean Association, the Iowa Soybean Association and the Iowa Farm Bureau. Biotech boosters Howard Buffet and Rockefeller foundations each gave a cool million bucks; the Monsanto-friendly State of Iowa gave $1.4 million.

Even The New York Times suggested that this award may be a PR attempt to counter the growing global backlash against GMOs. It is also an effort to fibrillate the industry's flat economic performance that has followed the heady days of the 2008-09 food crisis (in which they made record profits while a billion people were pushed into the ranks of the hungry). Apparently the way to revive lackluster seed monopolies is to guarantee them a monopoly on ending hunger. But giving the World Food Prize to the monopolies profiting from hunger is like awarding the Nobel Peace prize for going to war... wait, that's already been done. So it goes.

It is no wonder farm and food activists have established the Food Sovereignty Prize to celebrate organizations working to democratize--rather than monopolize--our food system. While the World Food Prize emphasizes increased production through proprietary technologies, the Food Sovereignty Prize rewards social and agroecological solutions coming from those sectors that are most negatively impacted by the corporate food regime.

Given by the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, this prize, first awarded in 2009, has been given to honorees that include the MST--Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (2011), Family Farm Defenders (2010): La Via Campesina (2009) and honorable mentions like the Movimiento Campesino a Campesino (Farmer to Farmer Movement), as well as urban organizations like the South Central Farmers of Los Angeles, the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network and the Toronto Food Policy Council.

Behind the thinning public veil of the World Food Prize lurk the corporate interests of the monopolies controlling the food system. It is time to recognize the people and organizations fighting to end the injustices that cause hunger in the first place.

Eric Holt-Gimenez at anti-Monsanto rally, 5/25/13

Charla de Eric Holt-Giménez en la protesta mundial contra Monsanto el sábado pasado. Tiene puesta la camisa que le regalaron en Puerto Rico! El hace referencia a nuestra nación a los 3 minutos de comenzado el video.

Eric Holt-Gimenez Discusses Genetically Modified Food

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/Why+opposition+to+Monsanto%3F

CCTV asks Eric Holt-Giménez Executive Director, Food First "Why are People Marching Against Monsanto?"

Posted May 26th, 2013 

On May 25, 2013 Marches Against Monsanto were held in 436 cities in 52 countries around the world. While 60 countries have already banned or require labeling of products containing Monsanto's genetically modified organisms (high-fructose corn syrup being the leading and most pervasive ingredient in processed foods), the U.S requires no labeling. The only way to know that your food does not contain GMOs is to buy organic, grow it yourself or know your farmer.

Not Monsanto's Fault! Ever. by Eric Holt-Gimenez

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/3315

By Eric Holt-Giménez, March 2, 2011

Monsanto has an interesting clause in its seed contract. The Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement has a waiver that shifts all liability from any incidental, direct, indirect consequences from its seeds from the company to the farmer.

Apparently, Monsanto is so sure that their seeds are problem-free that they refuse to take responsibility for them...

Want to plant Monsanto's GMO seeds? Here is your cross to bear:

GROWER'S EXCLUSIVE LIMITED REMEDY: THE EXCLUSIVE REMEDY OF THE GROWER AND THE LIMIT OF THE LIABILITY OF MONSANTO OR ANY SELLER FOR ANY AND ALL LOSSES, INJURY OR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OR HANDLING OF SEED (INCLUDING CLAIMS BASED IN CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, PRODUCT LIABILITY, STRICT LIABILITY, TORT, OR OTHERWISE) SHALL BE THE PRICE PAID BY THE GROWER FOR THE QUANTITY OF THE SEED INVOLVED OR, AT THE ELECTION OF MONSANTO OR THE SEED SELLER, THE REPLACEMENT OF THE SEED. IN NO EVENT SHALL MONSANTO OR ANY SELLER BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES.

That means if your seed contaminates an organic field and the farmer sues you for ruining their certification, you can't blame Monsanto.

Sued because pathogens from your GMO grain increased the spontaneous abortion rates of someone else's livestock? Don't look to the seed seller for help.

(I guess that's what they mean in their Pledge Report when they said "Monsanto Company is helping smallholder farmers around the world become more productive and self-sufficient.")

Get sued and they might return you the price of the seed...

Why does Monsanto have these clauses in their agreement? Because they know that GMOs are promiscuous in the field, create insect resistance and super-weeds, and are linked to late-term, spontaneous abortions in cattle. (Just as they knew of the devastating effects of dioxin, Agent Orange and rBGH.)

But it doesn't stop there.

Sign on with Monsanto and your farm is theirs:

GROWER AGREES: To accept and continue the obligations of this Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement on any new land purchased or leased by Grower that has Seed planted on it by a previous owner or possessor of the land; and to notify in writing purchasers or lessees of land owned by Grower that has Seed planted on it that the Monsanto Technology is subject to this Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement and they must have or obtain their own Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement.

Well! Quite a statement from the company in the oligopoly club that claims it is going to save the world from hunger. They didn't mention that patent bondage was part of the deal...

What corn farmer in their right mind will sign an agreement like that? Probably most.

Monsanto's monopoly over industrial corn is almost complete and farmers have few easy options. The company wouldn't roll out this agreement if they didn't think they could force farmers to sign it. Because of the nature of our industrial farming system, farmers live indebted lives and make up less than 2% of the U.S. population so they don't have much room for maneuver or much political clout. Certainly not enough to stand up to Monsanto.

Why isn't anybody stopping Monsanto from spreading these seeds throughout the food chain and around the world? Why does the U.S. Department of Agriculture jump when the monopoly snaps its fingers? Why do molecular biologists and politicians climb on the bandwagon? And why aren't GMOs labeled in our food?

I found a fable that might help explain things: "The Emperor's New Seeds." Timeless.