Just days before the massive global day of action to Occupy our Food Supply, I thought I’d take a look at just who some of these agribusiness thugs really are.
The deeper you dig the more clear it becomes that two corporate giants are responsible for a large part of the poisoning of our food system: Monsanto and Cargill. It’s time we call out these corporate criminals for trashing our food, literally.
Monsanto: Biotechnology giant
Monsanto’s biotech tentacles are strangling our food system. The despicable behavior of this offensive corporation ranges from suing small family farmers like Percy Schmeiser (and bankrupting many through legal processes) to refusing to compensate veterans and families for exposure to Agent Orange where the chemical is estimated to have killed 400,000, deformed another 500,000, and stricken another 2 million with various diseases.
When Monsanto began selling its genetically modified Roundup Ready soybeans in 1996, only 2% of soybeans in the U.S. contained their patented gene. By 2008, over 90% of soybeans in the U.S. contained Monsanto’s gene and now 80 percent of corn seeds used in the United States are sold by Monsanto. This is especially alarming as soybeans account for the largest source of protein feed and the second largest source of vegetable oil in the world (after palm oil).
Among the many things we can thank Monsanto for: artificial sweeteners linked to cancer; oil-based plastics like styrofoam that never biodegrade and release cancer-causing benzene into the environment for a thousand years; Agent Orange (the deadly chemical cocktail that the U.S. Army dumped over Vietman and now ends up in our food); genetically-modified (GMO) seeds, and the nasty Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), a carcinogenic, artificial growth hormone that is injected into cows (prevalent in the U.S. and banned in all 27 countries of the EU, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia).
From the Millions against Monsanto GMO labeling campaign to the 300,000 farmers that took Monsanto to court last month, no longer able to keep Monsanto’s genetically modified crops from contaminating their organic fields, Monsanto is getting slammed from all angles.
May justice be served.
Cargill, Inc.: Global agricultural commodities trader
Cargill is Monsanto’s evil twin.
With annual revenues of over $119 billion (bigger than the GDP of 70% of the world’s countries ), Cargill is the world’s largest trader of grains, the world’s largest privately held corporation and one of a handful of agribusiness giants that are shaping the increasingly globalized food system to their advantage. Operating in more than 66 countries, Cargill produces, trades, manufactures, and markets all manner of agricultural commodities touching almost every aspect of our food supply. And that’s only the beginning — check this Cargill Fact sheet out and tell me you don’t think it’s time to Occupy Cargill.
From Cargill’s shameful Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that are not only inhumane but undermine food safety, to the fact that along with Tyson and JBS it is responsible for processing more than 70 percent of all U.S. beef, Cargill is the shady thug stomping on family farmers to consolidate our food system in the name of profit (did I mention the colossus is owned by the McMillan-Cargill family, making them the richest family in America?).
Without proper supply chain safeguards in place, Cargill continues to purchase, trade and profit from palm oil grown on lands stolen from local communities and palm plantation areas with active ongoing social conflict and human rights violations, including slave labor. Not to mention pushing orangutans towards extinction.
Look at the photos below and ask yourself: Is this the way forward? I stand with Willie Nelson and say hell no.
Twitter Updates
So basically your point is that Cargill is bad because it’s successful and big, and that it trades palm oil (because the consumers don’t want hydrogenated oils). OK, so what exactly are you hoping to achieve?
Ben, do some research
@Ben, thank you for your comment. I think the answer to your question depends on how you gauge “success.” If you deem a company successful for making record breaking profits at the expense of irreplaceable natural forests, endangered species and human rights, including slave labor, then you are correct.
If you listen to the voices of those directly impacted by Cargill’s operations on the ground, I think your perspective may change. For example:
Paul Sobocinski, a Land Stewardship Project organizer and family farm livestock producer from Wabasso, MN said, “Cargill wants to control the livestock industry, they’d like to turn family farmers into modern day serfs who do their bidding while Cargill walks away with the lion’s share of the profits. Cargill is fully integrated and one of the largest meatpackers and factory farm hog producers in the country. It’s time to hold them accountable. It’s time to take back our food and farming system from corporate agribusiness.”
Rukaiya Rofiq, Director of the human rights organization Yayasan SETARA Jambi in Indonesia comments: “It is encouraging to see Americans connecting the dots between the food choices they make at a grocery store and the serious impacts those choices have here in Southeast Asia. When an additive like palm oil is used to make cheap crackers and cookies it gives companies a green light to expand palm plantations at all costs which is why we see community member homes bulldozed when they fight expansion, Indigenous land rights ignored, and natural rainforests completely decimated. Invisible companies like Cargill, who are profiting off the backs of Indonesians, must be held accountable in the countries they call home.”
Clearly you folks have no connection to agriculture. Farmers I know would argue with you, but I will again ask what exactly does “take back our food and farming systems” mean? Good post for you to read about “big ag”: http://thefarmerslife.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/i-occupy-our-food-supply-everyday/#comment-706
All the farmers I work with can’t stand Cargill (or Monsanto or ADM or Sygenta or Kraft or Deans or….) Why is that? Because farmers deserve a fair price for their hard work and these multinational corporations now have too much monopoly power in the food system, and are basically rigging commodity markets to price gouge farmers and consumers alike. I’ll never forget during the last Farm Bill debate when Cargill and ADM basically threatened to import sugar cane ethanol from Brazil if they were not guaranteed enough taxpayer subsidies to make corn-based ethanol “competitive.” It is a crying shame that so many family farmers are going bankrupt while these corporate welfare cheats run free for lack of anti-trust action by the Dept of Justice at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange/Chicago Board of Trade. One of our farmer members, Jim Goodman, wrote a good oped about why we need to Occupy the Food System – you can read it here: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/jim-goodman-occupy-the-food-system/article_484d57c5-158b-5484-96e8-c5d26873200c.html
Farm incomes are at an all time high. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FarmIncome/2011farmincomeforecast.htm
Much of the profit (and the control) of the food supply is occurring today at the farmer level. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204778604577243491711608130.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Never before have farmers been given more choice in markets, genetics, and methods. A farmer today could plant non-gmo beans to sell (through Cargill) to asian customers while the identity of the crop is preserved. That is revolutionary. A farmer today uses a lot less chemicals to kill bugs due to the advances in, yes, GMO corn. Cargill, like everyone else actually involved in the business is striving to make the food supply safer, more secure, and efficient. The only farmers going bankrupt now are ones that make spectacularly bad business decisions (there are a few out there). However, most of the farmers I deal with directly are more concerned about making sure Uncle Sam doesn’t take too much of their earnings. By the way, most ethanol subsidies went away in Jan.
To address some of the statements in Jim Goodman’s article: Lending institutions are clamoring to lend money to farmers… problem is, they don’t need it. Banks want to be invested in the only part of the economy that is really thriving. Costs of production are going up, but nitrogen (and generally all macronutrient) costs track corn. Agribusiness profits are not continuing to grow. As a matter of fact some cursory research would show that although earnings have grown in the last five years, the most recent year has been sharply lower for several “big Ag” companies.
Granted my view is from production grain agriculture, but you can’t just make blanket statements about parts of the economy that you don’t know anything about.
I want to say that this is a well done article. Industrializing our food systems is what is wrong with the whole of it. It just does not work in reality. As we see. I beleive we can and will change this horrific practice more than less. Big industry and food systems are not good partners. There are better ways to produce food and it systems than the ones in place at this time.