After asking a class of college kids whether they had heard of Monsanto and none of them had, I asked the same question on the PHP Facebook page and many do know about Monsanto. But, there seems to be a generation gap on this. Many had heard about Monsanto years or decades ago.
Like these three FB comments —
"DDT and Agent Orange in the 60's. Monsanto is a poison dealer."
"From early childhood. Monsanto had a chemical plant in our town. My father was a Chemical Engineer for Union Carbide and made, among other things, MIC the stuff that was being made in Bhopal."
And (sarcasm alert) — "back in the 70's for dirty dealing and toxic pollution ….great company !!!!"
But not all were elders…
"Years. But in 90's heard more about ADM – and late 90's early 00's when "supermarket to the world" was sponsoring NPR, it was shocking. Well, not shocking… (for the record, I'm a Gen Xer)"
And one commented that it would be "worth doing research into the issue."
Indeed. Some articles on Monsanto have just come my way today, and below those are several earlier posts on Monsanto – in case you missed those. To be clear here, the Presbyterian Church USA has nothing against the company. On the other hand, we do have clear policy supporting family farmers and sustainable farming approaches, but your reading of the following may raise questions about whether Monsanto is always considering these. It's a hodge-podge, but hopefully something for everyone.
If you don't read the rest, here are some morsels from the GRIST article below that address some of the myths surrounding GMOs:
"…Monsanto finally admitted recently that superbugs, or pests that have evolved to be able to eat the Bt crops, are a real and growing concern."
"Not only do genetically engineered crops have worse yields than conventionally bred crops, cost more, lead to pesticide resistance, contaminate other plants with their transgenes, possibly cause allergies and even organ damage, but now we also learn that the plants themselves are possibly poisonous to the environment"
"These kinds of genetically engineered seeds keep being touted as the only way we're going to feed the world. Isn't it about time we started investing in less toxic alternatives?"
