One mega-company is gradually taking over our global food supply,
poisoning our politics and putting the planet’s food future in serious
danger. To stop it we need to expose and break up Monsanto’s worldwide grip.
Monsanto, the chemical giant that gave us poisons like Agent Orange and DDT, has a super-profitable racket.
Step 1: Develop pesticides and genetically modified (GM) seeds designed
to resist them, patent the seeds, prohibit farmers from replanting
their seeds year to year, then send undercover agents out to investigate
and sue farmers who don’t comply. Step 2: Spend millions lobbying
government officials and contributing to political campaigns, get former
Monsanto bigwigs into top government jobs, and then work with them to
weaken regulations and push Monsanto goods into markets across the
world.
As long as US law allows corporations to spend unlimited sums to influence policy, they can often buy the laws they want.
Last year, Monsanto and biotech giants spent a whopping $45m to kill a
ballot initiative that would have labelled GMO products just in
California, despite 82 percent of Americans wanting to know if they are
buying GM. And just this month, the company helped ram through the
"Monsanto Protection Act,” that blocks courts from stopping the sale of a
product even if they’ve been wrongly approved by the government.
Monsanto’s power in the US gives them a launch pad to dominate across
the world. But brave farmers and activists from the EU, to Brazil, to
India and Canada are resisting and starting to win.
We’re at a global tipping point. If enough of us pledge just €4 now,
we can join forces to break Monsanto’s grip on our politics and our food
and help stop the corporate capture of our governments. Avaaz will only process the pledges if we get enough to make a real difference:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_monsanto_nd3/?bBERZdb&v=24247
Monsanto is driving an industrial farming takeover -- trampling small
farmers and small businesses as vast ‘monoculture’ farms of single crops
leech the land of nutrients, diminish genetic diversity, and create
dependency on fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals. The irony is,
it’s not clear that the decimation of natural, sustainable farming has
brought any boom in crop yields. Just more profit for the corporations.
Our governments should step in, but Monsanto’s lobbying obstructs them.
Monsanto’s near monopoly is breath-taking, with patent rights
over 96% of the GM seeds planted in the US. And despite concerns about
health and safety, the same patents allow Monsanto to prevent any farmer
or scientist from testing their seeds! Still, a few countries have
banned or restricted Monsanto products.
They claim their products cost less, but often farmers are lured into
multi-year contracts, then seed prices rise, and they have buy new seed
each season and use more herbicides to keep out ‘superweeds’.
In
India, the situation is so dire that one cotton area has been called
‘the suicide belt’, as tens of thousands of the poorest farmers have
taken their lives to escape crippling debt.
But farmers and scientists are also fighting back -- and winning.
One group in India has helped win three patent battles against the
corporations, and in Brazil five million farmers sued Monsanto for
unfair collection of royalties, and won a $2 billion payout! Scientists
are campaigning for sustainable agriculture models, and just last week
1.5 million of us joined the fight against conventional patents in the
EU.
Only a massive, global, united force can stand up to Monsanto and the corporate capture of our governments.
Let’s expose this dominance of our democracies, help farmers speak out,
challenge unjust laws and patents, and go head to head with the
corporate lobbies.
Pledge €4 to support action now:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_monsanto_nd3/?bBERZdb&v=24247
We are running out of time. As we confront massive environmental,
climate and food crises, we need sustainable agriculture and
innovation, but that is best done by multiple farmers and scientists who
know what works best in different ecosystems, rather than one monolith
driven by their own profit, taking control our food future.
This corporate Goliath is increasing in power across our world. But if
our 21 million strong community stands together, we have a chance. Avaaz
members have repeatedly stood up against the world's biggest bullies,
and won. Now it is time for us to go big to save our policies from
special interests, protect our food supply, and get justice for poor
farmers.
With hope and determination,
Alice, Oli, Joseph, Ricken, Pascal, Chris, Michelle, Emily, and the whole Avaaz team
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