St. Louis Business Journal: Food activists to protest at Monsanto shareholder meeting Jan. 31

Monsanto World Headquarters, Sept 17 2012. Photo: Don Fitz

Food activists to protest at Monsanto shareholder meeting Jan. 31

Activists plan to protest outside Monsanto Co.’s shareholder meeting Thursday.

By E.B. Solomont, Reporter, St. Louis Business Journal

Food activists plan to protest outside Monsanto Co.’s shareholder meeting Thursday, calling on the $13.5 billion seed company to be more transparent.

The activists also hope to draw attention to a shareholder proposal to study “material financial risks or operational potential impacts” on Monsanto associated with seed contamination from genetically modified organisms, among other things.

“Monsanto pledges transparency, but provides very little,” says Adam Eidinger, an activist and Monsanto shareholder, who plans to speak at the meeting, which will take place at Monsanto’s Creve Coeur headquarters.

Reached by phone, Eidinger said he would speak on behalf of Harrington Investments of Napa, Calif., which submitted the shareholder proposal.

Eidinger said he personally holds 75 shares of Monsanto stock. “This is about the food people eat,” he said. “I am a shareholder; I’m also an activist who wants to see the company reform in a major way.”

The board of Monsanto, led by Chairman and CEO Hugh Grant, is against the proposal. “Disclosure of material financial risks or operational impacts on the company is required by SEC reporting requirements, and we take seriously our responsibility to identify, analyze and transparently report such risks or potential impacts,” company officials said in a Dec. 10 proxy document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the filing, officials cited various programs — including a technology use guide, ongoing dialogue with seed users and academics, and ongoing discussions to determine best practices, among other things. “An additional report to restate such risks or impacts as suggested in the proposal would be redundant and provide no meaningful additional information to shareowners,” the proxy stated.

Source: St. Louis Business Journal

Why Senator Bernie Sanders’ GMO Labeling Amendment to the Farm Bill Failed: Monsanto’s GMO Money

Last week corporate cash killed Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) GMO Labeling amendment to the Senate Farm Bill (S. 3240). The Genetic Crime Unit of Occupy Monsanto decided to cross-reference the Amendment’s vote tally with the last 10 years of Monsanto’s PAC contributions to U.S. Senators.

It’s not surprising that of the 73 Senators who voted against (‘Nay’) the amendment, 37 Senators, or over 50%, received a combined total of $237,500 in campaign contributions from Monsanto’s PAC. Only 2 Senators, Senator Inouye from Hawaii & Senator Leahy from Vermont, who received a combined total of $8,000 from Monsanto’s PAC, voted in support (‘Yea’) of the GMO labeling amendment.

Monsanto’s GMO Money is rampant in the halls of Congress and the corporation’s patented genes are becoming a biohazard to the health of American democracy. With nearly half of American U.S. Senators becoming genetically mutated, we must take action to remove Monsanto’s GMO Money from the currency supply. Do you have plans for the third week of September? Yea.

Note: These figures are only from Monsanto’s PAC. Congress receives millions of dollars from the biotech industry as a whole, undoubtedly influencing their vote against the people’s right to know if they are eating GMOs.