The Crisis of GMO Monopolization
The year of 2016 has been packed with political surprises, national and global turmoil, great achievements and great tragedies. The battle for GMO (genetically modified organism) illegalization has been fought for decades prior to my lifetime, but this year has been arguably the most paramount to the global agriculture industry. This year, Monsanto merged with Bayer, Dow merged with DuPont and Syngenta merged with ChemChina. These are six companies who lead world sales in all chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and other pesti-toxins. These companies have long ruled the global agriculture market with their chemical products, creating dangerous and toxic food sources. These companies have now done the only thing that could worsen the problem—monopolize.
"Their power to manipulate chemicals, foods and pesti-toxins should be used to benefit farmers and to help tackle world hunger, not to be used as a weapon."
In the Vietnam War, Monsanto and Bayer teamed up to produce the chemical called Agent Orange. When sprayed over forests, it killed leaf canopies and exposed soldiers hiding underneath. Because of the toxic nature of Agent Orange, 400,000 people were killed. In the Vietnam War, way more lives were lost that needed to be because Monsanto and Bayer introduced chemical warfare, creating a terrible genocide with casualties on both sides.
This tragedy went unrealized for many years because of Monsanto’s close ties with the Federal Food and Drug Administration. One of the greatest feats of some of these world chemical titans has been their ability to cover up any dubious affairs. All of their products must be approved by the FDA before they hit the market, but the niche that they don’t go through a sound testing system before products are approved. Researchers and skeptics of the agribiz call it the “revolving door phenomenon” where high-ranking executives of the FDA often switch or share jobs at these large chemical companies. The likeliness of existing bias and inconsistency with quality checks helps products like the very harmful Agent Orange, DDT and Round-Up be approved when they instead pose potential dangers to health.
The effects of these enormous chemical companies are already detrimental to the global agriculture market, our health as people, and our trust in the government. Once these billion dollar mergers go through, six ruling GMO companies will turn to three condensed and more powerful ones. The dangers of a merge are astronomical. What these wealthy companies will do with their absoluteness is unknown, but when looking at what has happened historically when large chemical companies join together, we should be hopeful that history will not repeat itself. Their power to manipulate chemicals, foods and pesti-toxins should be used to benefit farmers and to help tackle world hunger, not to be used as a weapon.
I see 2017 as a year that will determine many things for our future as a planet. With large chemical corporations teaming up, and a person like Donald Trump in charge who believes that power should be in the hands of the wealthy, I fear many things. I fear that we are becoming a more plutocratic world every day, I fear companies like Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and Synergy each obtaining 25 percent of the global seed production, and I fear that movements like Slow Food, Renewing America’s Food Traditions and the Good Food Revolution will be stifled by the corporate eye, and will quickly fade away. Our food system has been falling apart since the industrial revolution, but this is the last step to its breakage. We turn to you—chemical companies. How will you play next?