KPLR St. Louis, Missouri: Jacology – Some Folks Really Hate Monsanto

ST. LOUIS, MO (KPLR) – Millions of people worldwide hate St. Louis’s own Monsanto. I don’t mean dislike, I don’t mean disagree with, I mean hate. To activists worldwide Monsanto is somewhere between Al Qaeda and Satan himself in the pantheon of evil.

The reason is that Monsanto is the world’s leading purveyor of GMO’S. That stands for genetically modified organisims. The folks at Monsanto say their genetic engineering and gene splicing has produced corn and wheat and rice and vegetables that are resistant to drought and disease and insects. They say that will help feed tens of millions of starving people worldwide whose food supplies are held hostage to bad weather, insects and poor soil.

But Monsanto’s opponents say Monsanto is bad for two reasons: One, health & two, money.

They say the main thing Monsanto’s genetic modification is working on is to make crops resistant to damage from pesticides like Monsanto’s own Roundup. They say that leads to more pesticide spraying. They also say some genetically-altered foods like soybeans produce previously unknown allergic reactuiions in humans.

As to the money. Monsanto and other companies patent the crops they modify. So farmers can’t use those seeds without paying a fee. This leads, they say, to a genetic monopoly. Especially since the vast majority of both corn and wheat now grown in the United States is genetically modified.

Today protestors have been marching on Monsanto here in St. Louis and worldwide. In California voters will soon decide whether all genetically modified crops should be labeled. Monsanto, ironically, says geneticvally modified foods are completely safe, but they’ve spent over four million dollars so far in California to stop those foods from being labeled.

I’m Charles Jaco and that’s Jacology.

Source: KPLR St. Louis, Missouri