From Cotton to Brinjal: Fraudulent GMO Project in India Sustained by Deception
Colin Todhunter
Insecticidal Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton is the first and only GM (genetically modified) crop that has been approved in India. It has been cultivated in the country for more than 20 years.
In a formal statement to the Supreme Court of India, the Indian government has asserted that hybrid Bt cotton is an outstanding success. It therefore argues that Bt cotton is a template for the introduction of GM food crops.
However, over the last week, two important webinars took place that challenged the government’s stance. The first was on Bt cotton and involved a panel of internationally renowned scientists who conclusively debunked the myth of Bt cotton success in India.
The webinar, organised by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Jatan, focused on an evidence-based evaluation of 18 years of approved Bt cotton cultivation in India.
The second webinar discussed the case of Bt brinjal, which the country’s apex regulatory body, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), has brought to the brink of commercialisation.
The webinar highlighted deep-seated problems with regulatory processes in India and outlined how the GEAC is dogged by secrecy, conflicts of interest and (scientific) fraud: participants outlined how the GEAC has been colluding with crop developers and seed companies to drive GM crops into agriculture.
Bt cotton failure
The panel for the Bt cotton webinar (YouTube: Bt Cotton in India: Myths & Realities – An Evidence-Based Evaluation) on 24 August included Dr Andrew Paul Gutierrez, senior emeritus professor in the College of Natural Resources at the University of California at Berkeley; Dr Keshav Kranthi, former director of Central Institute for Cotton Research in India; Dr Peter Kenmore, former FAO representative in India, and Dr Hans Herren, World Food Prize Laureate.
Dr Herren said that “the failure of Bt cotton” is a classic representation of what an unsound science of plant protection and faulty direction of agricultural development can lead to.
He explained:
Bt hybrid technology in India represents an error-driven policy that has led to the denial and non-implementation of the real solutions for the revival of cotton in India, which lie in HDSS (high density short season) planting of non-Bt/GMO cotton in pure line varieties of native desi species and American cotton species.”
He argued that a transformation of agriculture and the food system is required; one that entails a shift to agroecology, which includes regenerative, organic, biodynamic, permaculture and natural farming practices.
Dr Kenmore said that Bt cotton is an aging pest control technology:
It follows the same path worn down by generations of insecticide molecules from arsenic to DDT to BHC to endosulfan to monocrotophos to carbaryl to imidacloprid. In-house research aims for each molecule to be packaged biochemically, legally and commercially before it is released and promoted. Corporate and public policy actors then claim yield increases but deliver no more than temporary pest suppression, secondary pest release and pest resistance.”
Recurrent cycles of crises have sparked public action and ecological field research which creates locally adapted agroecological strategies.
He added that this agroecology:
…now gathers global support from citizens’ groups, governments and UN-FAO. Their robust local solutions in Indian cotton do not require any new molecules, including endo-toxins like in Bt cotton”.
Prof Gutierrez presented the ecological reasons as to why hybrid Bt cotton failed in India: long season Bt cotton introduced in India was incorporated into hybrids that trapped farmers into biotech and insecticide treadmills that benefited GMO seed manufacturers.
He noted:
The cultivation of long-season hybrid Bt cotton in rainfed areas is unique to India. It is a value capture mechanism that does not contribute to yield, is a major contributor to low yield stagnation and contributes to increasing production costs.”
Prof Gutierrez asserted that increases in cotton farmer suicides are related to the resulting economic distress.
He argued:
A viable solution to the current GM hybrid system is adoption of improved non-GM high-density short-season fertile cotton varieties.”
Presenting data on yields, insecticide usage, irrigation, fertiliser usage and pest incidence and resistance, Dr Keshav Kranthi said that a critical analysis of official statistics (eands.dacnet.nic.in and cotcorp.gov.in) shows that Bt hybrid technology has not been providing any tangible benefits in India either in yield or insecticide usage.
He said that cotton yields are the lowest in the world in Maharashtra, despite being saturated with Bt hybrids and the highest use of fertilisers. Yields in Maharashtra are less than in rainfed Africa where there is hardly any usage of technologies such as Bt, hybrids, fertilisers, pesticides or irrigation.
It is revealing that Indian cotton yields rank 36th in the world and have been stagnant in the past 15 years and insecticide usage has been constantly increasing after 2005, despite an increase in area under Bt cotton.
Dr Kranthi argued that research also shows that the Bt hybrid technology has failed the test of sustainability with resistance in pink bollworm to Bt cotton, increasing sucking pest infestation, increasing trends in insecticide and fertiliser usage, increasing costs and negative net returns in 2014 and 2015.
Dr Herren said that GMOs exemplify the case of a technology searching for an application:
It is essentially about treating symptoms, rather than taking a systems approach to create resilient, productive and bio-diverse food systems in the widest sense and to provide sustainable and affordable solutions in it’s social, environmental and economic dimensions.”
He went on to argue that the failure of Bt cotton is a classic representation of what an unsound science of plant protection and a faulty direction of agricultural development can lead to:
“We need to push aside the vested interests blocking the transformation with the baseless arguments of ‘the world needs more food’ and design and implement policies that are forward-looking… We have all the needed scientific and practical evidence that the agroecological approaches to food and nutrition security work successfully.”
Bt brinjal – the danger is back
The government’s attempt to use a failed technology as a template for driving GMOs into agriculture has been exposed. Nevertheless, the GEAC has been moving forward with late-stage trials of Bt brinjal, while ignoring the issues and arguments against its commercialisation that were forwarded a decade ago.
In February 2010, the Indian government placed an indefinite moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal after numerous independent scientific experts from India and abroad had pointed out safety concerns based on data and reports in the biosafety dossier that Mahyco, the crop developer, had submitted to the regulators.
The then Minister of the Ministry of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh had instituted a unique four-month scientific enquiry and public hearings. His decision to reject the commercialisation of Bt brinjal was supported by advice from the renowned scientists. Their collective appraisals demonstrated serious environmental and biosafety concerns.
Jairam Ramesh pronounced a moratorium on Bt brinjal in February 2010 by stating:
it is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal, till such time independent scientific studies establish, to the satisfaction of both the public and professionals, the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and environment, including the rich genetic wealth existing in brinjal in our country.”
The moratorium has not been lifted and the conditions he set out have still not been met. Moreover, five high-level reports have advised against the adoption of GM crops in India.
Appointed by the Supreme Court, the ‘Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report’ (2013) was scathing about the prevailing regulatory system and highlighted its inadequacies. The TEC went a step further by recommending a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops.
The regulatory process was shown to lack competency, possessed endemic conflicts of interest and demonstrated a lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts.
Ten years on and regulators have done nothing to address this woeful state of affairs. As we have seen with the relentless push to get GM mustard commercialised, the problems persist. Through numerous submissions to the Supreme Court, Aruna Rodrigues has described how GM mustard is being forced through with flawed tests (or no tests) and a lack of public scrutiny.
Regulators are seriously conflicted: they promote GMOs openly, fund them and then regulate them.
And this is precisely what the webinar ‘Bt brinjal – the danger is back’ (watch on YouTube) discussed on 27 August. Organised by the Coalition for a GM-Free India, the webinar was arranged because the regulators have again brought to the brink of commercialisation a new Bt brinjal ‘event’ – a different Bt brinjal than the 2010 version. Also included in the webinar were the experiences of Bt brinjal introduction in Bangladesh.
Dr Ramanjaneyulu (Centre for Sustainable Agriculture) highlighted how need has never been established for Bt brinjal of which India is a recognised centre of diversity. The argument for Bt brinjal in the run-up to Jairam Ramesh’s moratorium was that pesticide use is a problem in containing the brinjal fruit and shoot borer.
He noted that Bt brinjal was promoted by Monsanto, USAID and Cornell University, but serious protocol violations, environmental contamination concerns and potential adverse health impacts were discovered.
He outlined simple non-pesticidal, agroecological management practises that can and are being used to deal with the brinjal fruit and shoot borer.
Farida Akhter of UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternative) outlined how the introduction of Bt brinjal in Bangladesh was not needed but imposed on the country, which has 248 varieties of brinjal. Where pesticide use is problematic, she argued that it concerns hybrid varieties rather than traditional cultivars of which 24 varieties are resistant to fruit and shoot borer.
Akhter said that poor quality brinjal and financial losses for farmers have been major issues. Many have abandoned Bt brinjal, but farmers have received incentives to cultivate and where they have done so, fertiliser use has increased and there have been many pest attacks, with 35 different types of pesticides applied.
The Bill Gates-funded Cornell Alliance for Science, a public relations entity that promotes GM agriculture, and USAID, which serves the interests of the GMO biotech sector, tried to sell Bt brinjal on the basis it would ‘save’ people from the overuse of pesticides and related illnesses.
But Akhter argued that Bangladesh was targeted because the Philippines and India had rejected Bt brinjal. Again, protocol violations occurred leading to its introduction and Akhter concluded that there was no scientific basis for Bt brinjal: its introduction was political.
As for India, event EE1, the initial Bt brinjal, has now been replaced by event 142, a different Bt brinjal. Kavitha Kuruganti (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture) explained this in the webinar and notes that the GEAC, immediately after the 2010 moratorium was announced, went straight ahead and sanctioned new trials for this Bt brinjal.
The GEAC basically stated that the moratorium did not apply to this version, while ignoring all the criticisms about lack of competence, conflicts of interest, non-transparency and protocol violations. It was effectively business as usual!
With event EE1, Kuruganti implied that the GEAC acted more like a servant for Mayco and its Monsanto master. Nothing has changed. She noted the ongoing revolving door between crop developers (even patent holders) and regulators.
As before, developers-cum-lobbyists were actually sitting on regulatory bodies as event 142 was proceeding.
Under public-private-partnership arrangements, event 142 has been licensed to private companies for biosafety testing/commercialisation. Despite major concerns, the GEAC has pressed ahead with various trials.
In May 2020, under lockdown, Kuruganti notes that the GEAC held a virtual meeting and sanctioned what were effectively final trials prior to commercialisation. She explains that important information and vital data is not in the public domain.
According to Kuruganti, the regulator sits with the crop developer and the companies and grant biosafety clearance, claiming all tests (soil, pollen flow, toxicity, etc) are complete. What is also disturbing is that these licensed companies have closed and opened under new names (with the same people in charge), thereby making accountability and liability fixing very difficult if something were to go wrong further down the line.
She concludes that the story of event 142 is even worse than event EE1:
Once again, they are certainly hiding things that they don’t want conscientious scientists and aware citizens to see and know.”
Taken together, the two webinars highlighted how hybrid Bt cotton is being deceptively used as a template for rolling out GM food crops: a fraud being used to promote another fraud in order to force unnecessary GMOs into Indian agriculture.
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“Fraudulent GMO Project in India Sustained by Deception”
it sounds very much like: Fraudulent Democracy Promotion around the World Sustained by Deception.
The stride of the beast continues apace…
Anyone who doesn’t believe this company is undiluted evil should look at the involvement of Donald ”knowns and known unknowns’‘ Rumsfeld back before he didn’t really help plan 9 / 11. He was president of Searle and he sold that to them for 12 million in loose change.More dirty drug money. It’s a wonder he found the time to pretend to be a politician..
This Death cult always swarm as one.Where there’s money to be stolen they’re there.Where there’s lives to be played with, they’re there. Where there’s too many people, they’re there.But not in person.They leave their calling card in your blood or on your deathbed.
So let’s have a quick look- see at this branch of bastards…
1990s
Monsanto spends millions defeating state and federal legislation that disallows the corporation from continuing to dump dioxins, pesticides and other cancer-causing poisons into drinking water systems. Regardless, they are sued countless times for causing disease in their plant workers, the people in surrounding areas and birth defects in babies.The $100 million dollar settlements are considered the low cost of doing business and thanks to the FDA, Congress and White House, business remains very good. So good that Monsanto is sued for giving radioactive iron to 829 pregnant women for a study to see what would happen to them.
In 1994, the FDA once again criminally approves Monsanto’s latest monstrosity, the Synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), produced from a genetically modified E. coli bacteria. Of course, Monsanto claims that diseased pus milk, full of antibiotics and hormones is not only safe, but actually good for you.
Worse , dairy companies who refuse to use this toxic cow pus and label their products as“rBGH-free” are sued by Monsanto, claiming it gives them an unfair advantage over competitors that did. In essence, what Monsanto was saying is “yes, we know rBGH makes people sick, but it’s not alright that you advertise it’s not in your products.”
Because these GM crops have been engineered to ‘self-pollinate,’ they do not need nature or bees to do that for them. There is a very dark side agenda to this and that is to wipe out the world’s bee population.
Monsanto knows that birds and especially bees, throw a wrench into their monopoly due to their ability to pollinate plants, thus naturally creating foods outside of the company’s “full domination control agenda.” When bees attempt to pollinate a GM plant or flower, it gets poisoned and dies. In fact, the bee colony collapse was recognized and has been going on since GM crops were first introduced.
To counter the accusations that they deliberately caused this ongoing genocide of bees, Monsanto bought out Beeologics, the largest bee research firm that was dedicated to studying the colony collapse phenomenon and whose extensive research named them as the primary culprit.Once Beelogics became there’s, the findings stopped.How strange.
Monsanto is repeatedly sued for $100s of millions for causing illness, infant deformities and death by illegally dumping all manner of PCBs into ground water, and continually lying about products safety.At the same time, they begin filing patents on breeding techniques for pigs, claiming animals bred any way remotely similar to their patent would grant them ownership. So loose was this patent filing that it became obvious they wanted to claim all pigs bred throughout the world would infringe upon their patent.Forbes then names Monsanto “company of the year.”
2009
Monsanto and their partners in crime Archer Daniels Midland, Sodexo and Tyson Foods write and sponsor The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009: HR 875. This “act” gives the corporate factory farms a virtual monopoly to police and control all foods grown anywhere, including one’s own backyard, and provides harsh penalties and jail sentences for those who do not use chemicals and fertilizers. President Obama decided this sounded reasonable and gave his approval. The so -called ‘Monsanto Act’. The ‘Leader Of The Free World’ allowed that through.
Did, somebody mention poison ? Genocide ? Buying silence and putting politicians in their pocket ?
Yes, Mr Gates. Come in. We’ve been expecting you…
The Gates Foundation’s ties with Monsanto and corporate agriculture in general speak volumes about its real agenda, which is to create a monopolistic system of world control in every area of human life. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, GMOs, reproductive control, weather manipulation, global warming — these and many other points of entry are the means by which the Gates Foundation is making great strides to control the world by pretending to help improve and save it.
Bill Gates Sr is a silent, background figure and partner in this outfit. ‘Junior’ has spent his life cowering before him and his presence so let’s Daddy do the steering of his ‘foundation’ on behalf of his other partners in Planned Parenthood( murder) , Pharma ( murder) as well as the eugenicists( nihilism).All have more power than Obama had ( apparently).So they’re fronting for a government we can’t see it seems.
There’s a poisonous blanket covering the soil of the planet right now. That in itself is a metaphor to be considered. Nature being finally suffocated by Science.Above that, the air is being infested with poison for us to ingest into our respiratory systems. Above that is Trumps ‘Space Army’ ( yes, I know) and, finally, above that, is an atmosphere peppered with Musk’s satellites that are about to create a blanket of control and EM lock-in.
If the boot on the back of your neck doesn’t choke you, the grip of the beast’s fist will.But right now, we still have life in us.Our next decisions need to be well -considered They’ll be the difference between victory and defeat in the final conflict.
further :
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/racketeering-charges-filed-against-donald-rumsfeld-monsanto
Racketeering is alive and well… It’s not very effective to sue corporations, but very effective to sue individuals employed by corporations…
Here’s more interesting background regarding Monsanto’s blitzkrieg of the planet: >
Capture, Smear, Contaminate: The Politics Of GMOsBy Colin Todhunter
June 29, 2015
https://www.globalresearch.ca/capture-smear-contaminate-the-politics-of-gmos/5459021
Yep amen to that too..
these scumbags have more chance of spreading disease / poison that the virus makers..and they happen to have the same investors in the company..
They’re the ultimate gun for hire..
when reading – “a value capture mechanism that does not contribute to Yield, is a major contributor to Low Yield stagnation and contributes to increasing production costs.” – I thought, then at the end, it came – “Bt cotton is being deceptively used as a template for rolling out GM Food Crops,a fraud being used to promote another fraud” – just as ants, forcing aphids high, then sucking them dry.
Excellent article.
For anyone wishing to explore Monsanto’s misdeeds a little more, I’d recommend the following documentary, The World According to Monsanto.
And this article, the complete history of Monsanto, “the world’s most evil corporation“.
The more you know about Monsanto, the clearer the eugenics links between Gates, Monsanto, Vaccines, the WHO, PhRMA, War, Oil, Rockefeller, Rothschild and Banking become.
They’re inextricably linked.
The pseudoscience fields of bioethics, social biology, crypto-eugenics, eugenics. population management, psychiatry, gene therapy, genetic modification and biologics such as vaccines must be exposed to the world for their true origins, their scientific fraud and their real purpose, which is to harm humanity for profit.
thanks Colin
this type of articles is really important
PROFITS ABOVE ALL…
GMO’s are an integral part of the UK’s post Brexit banquet, where the US will force us, if they haven’t already, to adopt their terrible food safety regulations and standards.
Spain is the biggest grower GM of crops in the EU.
What a very vague statement, is that one potted plant in an old Spanish ladies window ?
Post Brexit the UK with be home to a GMO paradise by order of the USA.
Wake up.Quite a lot of the food from the EU is radiated to falsely extend its shelf life.Penny dropped yet?
Another example of the method that is used in every sphere of activity~ “diversity”now means uniformity, “sustainable” means anything but, etc et bloody cetera.
Diversity of opinion is taboo now
I keep wanting to remind people that it’s not “corporations” or “governments” who are corrupt, it’s the Employees of organizations, and they’re paid to do it. Remove the profit motive by removing profits, and the situation will change damn quick…
Thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide over crop failures, personal loss of health, and bankruptcy in the past decade… This is just one of many pages from Dr. Mae-Wan Ho.
Why GMOs Can Never be Safe
ISIS Report 22/07/13 http://www.i-sis.org.uk:80/Why_GMOs_Can_Never_be_Safe.php
Please scroll down to the section titled: “GM inherently hazardous”. Read the whole article…
Suddenly fashionable to hate GMO’s again, I wonder why?
They cause disease and death.
They destroy soil. Water. Livelihoods.
Get a clue.
Not because the US are taking down Bayer of course ?
Do you spend all your free time changing your user name to ask me idiotic questions?
I’m notoriously unable or unwilling to keep up with fashions, so I guess it’s no surprise that it’s news to me that hating GMOs ever went out of fashion. 😉
well said paul
waitrose has the organic duchy range and lots of the customer are quite pro active when they try to disconnected certain ranges there on it. and the range stays
also the talking to the actuall fruit and veg guy girl in the shop helps get the inlet back to there buyers veg fruit head management Organic organic organic
Its all about the customer and 2 customer letters or calls activates a conversation and the head buyers will listen
lidl aldl have organic range it now in the clothing as well
that customers and them as a business not wanting to miss out that created this
all the posters on this forum i hope in the real world they actually post verbally the management shop supervisors and head-office if need be to get the message out for better quality food and it does take educationing them also
it works i have seen it
The corruption or capture of scientific expertise, publications, outlets, bureaucrats, politicians and government advisors by corporate interests and by pompous experts immune to criticism and alternative scientific opinion lie behind much of our democratic malaise and political scandal today. The GMO affair, lockdown and maskwearing, the demonising and banning of HCQ, and the climate crisis hoax determining official policy on the environment are all the results of our degraded, corrupted understanding of scientific truths which scepticism has been banned. As Richard Feynman put it so succinctly, “science is belief in the ignorance of experts”, but our illiterate authorities and media think science means the infallible omniscience of experts.
Problems elsewhere, too.
“CHINA‘S GROWING AGRICULTURE CRISIS”
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO25Aug2020.php
CCP China is a useless target/mark for Western “NGOs” as in that regime local public & international opinions have zero influence, so stopping to delay(the scam) a new big project for a bribe doesn’t work there.
I have never read any article about Chinese agriculture here, but I am pretty sure its not small scale biological perma-culture there.
round up
ready
round up the cattle
for profit
human harvest
slow cull
66 billion bayer paid to rothschild and associates
a satan numbers game
all kaballa
Insect damage to crops is not a problem, it is a symptom of the underlying problem which is soil fertility that is too low to support a healthy crop. Soil fertility is the ability of the soil to produce protein. In order to be healthy different crops require different levels of soil fertility. Mainly carbohydrate crops like corn can be healthy in lower soil fertility than legumes which require higher soil fertility in order to be healthy and produce higher amounts of high quality protein.
Fighting insects that damage crops is an exercise in self-delusion.
Soil with good fertility means healthy crops means insects ignore the tempting food? I can’t see your logic in that, sorry.
Fertile soil means healthy crops means insects don’t eat them? Sorry, can’t see your logic
Scientific evidence left by the late soil scientist, William Albrecht, PhD, shows that when the soil fertility is sufficient to meet the plants’ nutritional needs, the plants are not troubled by insects or disease. The experiments are repeatable. No one is interested. There is too much money to be made treating symptoms.
So if your plants are being attacked by insects, you don’t have an insect problem, you have a soil fertility problem.
Yes, I went to a number of seminars on organic farming and in that it was advised soil should be tested twice a year. My lecturer told me that if plants were being attacked by pests it was because they were weak and sickly due to poor soil quality and imbalance. The evidence was right before me in the acres of beautiful produce, pest free.
Healthy plants also have a defense mechanism – a substance toxic to insects called lectin. Some plants have a lot more than others, so sensitive humans are sometimes affected by consuming those plants with high levels, often manifesting in joint pain.
..Jump..
Sep 2, 2020 11:14 AM
Awaiting for approval
God
Sep 2, 2020 11:06 AM
Awaiting for approval
Personally I think the USA’s deep state is backing both horses: the oppressive fake-left, which has nothing to do with left-wing principles of the past, rather is a more Stalinist form of fascism only paying lip service to civil rights, OR the authoritarian ‘Trumpian’ far-right, which is a more traditional form of fascism.
The fake left, with it’s forced vaccinations, social credit scoring, their War on the Carbon units (us), censorship and group think, are just as bad as the other horse in the race, the far-right with all their racism, demonetization of the intellectuals & liberals, militarised police brutality, surveillance, looting of the economy and blatant Corporate extortion.
I think the Deep state is just sitting back waiting to see which horse will win the race, but either way we lose as both mafia families see us as the real enemy.
The deep state is so powerful now that they can easily ‘disappear’ any real political opposition. Any non-aligned anti-Covid protest group will rest in the shadows, at the peripheries of the internet, unless allied to the far-right.
Facebook is an arm of the CIA so administer this polarization. It looks to me like the populations compliance to their own economic destruction, with very little opposition, is favoring the fake-lefts version of tyranny, unless the far-right can turn it around and use the ‘truth’ about the Covid scam more effectively.
Which tyranny would you prefer?
The WSWS, Labour, Morning Star, SWP, Fabians, Trades Unions etc… are Quislings.
I don’t see anyone on our side. Corbyn’s brother perhaps, who was arrested and finned 10k, whilst Extinction & vacination marches are allowed to ahead.
Who belongs to the ‘Trumpian far right’? Names and evidence please. Are you sure you aren’t buying propaganda from the deep state controlled MSM about Trump’s fascism?
I’m betting Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace and the Greens will be silent on this.
Capitalism is destroying nature.
I think nature is very proud of Man. Its best creation so far.
..Jump..
Sep 2, 2020 11:17 AM
Awaiting for approval
Reply to Eyes Open
I think nature is very proud of Man. Its best creation so far.
god this upsets me
feeling dizzy
head spinning
losing the plot
feel weak
and de moralized
thats 5g phased array
cookin
Sally
Sep 2, 2020 9:48 AM
Awaiting for approval
When I first heard about Bayer intending to buy Monsanto a while back, I wrote a few comments in the Guardian business section, stating that as soon as the deal was done the US ‘justice’ system will open the flood gates to legal claims against Monsanto and demand massive compensation, in the billions.
After the deal was done, my prediction came true and I found myself watching repeated adverts on YouTube calling any American who had used Monsanto’s Roundup and also had cancer to call in and join a class action against Monsanto.
This is the same drumming up of ‘victims’ we saw in the BP oil spill. When calls went out to all businesses in the Mexican gulf area to immediately make a claim. All claims were immediately approved by American judges of course regardless of validity.
The campaign against Monsanto culminated (since overturned) in an award of $2 billion to one cancer sufferer, whose illness was attributed to Monsanto’s Roundup, in a jury trial, where the threshold of proof is extremely low.
Bayer offers almost a bottomless pit of money for the US to extort and they will ultimately attempt to get control of the company, like they succeeded in doing with BP.
The US justice system extracted $65 billion from BP, deposed the British head and put an America CEO in charge, for the failure of BP’s US subcontractor, Halliburton.
They have also extorted 30 billion from VW for the ‘emissions scandal’, which I have no doubt the US regulators passed as acceptable for years until they turned on them, and in the banking sector extracted 27 billion from RBS for crimes facilitated by the US banking system over the past 8 years and will no doubt extract similar amounts from Bayer in thew future.
The US is a criminal enterprise that uses a conspiracy of Corporate, Judicial and CIA to extort trillions from overseas companies. There have now been so many examples it is a very obvious routine obvious but yet you’ll hear not a word about it in the press.
As Putin once said to Macron; ‘I don’t know why you pay the fines’, referring to BNP’s multi billion dollar fine to the US ‘justice’ system. Of course there is no reason to pay money to a ‘protection racket’ but if you don’t, then there will be consequences, which the victim must be prepared to stomach. They may burn down your precious national monuments, murder people in a concert hall and call it terrorism, or slap a 20% tariff on all your exports. Mafia, psychopaths are outside the law and outside any notion of conscience.
In my view, whoever arranged the take over of Monsanto in Bayer, needs to be arrested for treason against Germany. Monsanto has been a poison challis for decades and only an idiot or a threatened man would take on all that liability, and they haven’t even started the compensation for GMO’s yet.
So how do you know who is backed by the US deep state? This article is actually adding to the campaign to extort vast amounts of European wealth by the USA, so thanks for helping to make us, in Europe,that little bit poorer and helping the US, a criminal state, loot our most successful Corporations.
Monsanto is a monster because US regulators let them be a monster, like Boeing became a murders because US regulators let them become murderers by climbing into bed with them. It is so easy to jump on the bandwagon of anti-Corporate campaigning but ultimately Corporations will do what states allow them to do, so our energy should always be directed at the regulators not the Corporations.
The result of Bayer’s purchase of Monsanto will be higher priced drugs, less tax revenues, less sponsorship of the arts and less research by Bayer in Europe, as its hard won profits flow to the US probably to fund similar criminal looting operations.
The $27 billion handed over by RBS, a government owned bank, was the equivalent of 8 years of austerity. So if you want to know why the British suffered so long under austerity ask them where our money went.
Quite a good post aside from this:
“This article is actually adding to the campaign to extort vast amounts of European wealth by the USA, so thanks for helping to make us, in Europe, that little bit poorer and helping the US, a criminal state, loot our most successful Corporations.”
That statement is nonsense. By choosing to see the article that way, you are devaluing what many people in India are struggling to achieve and are placing the needs of a European company (Bayer) above those of Indian farmers and consumers.
The article reports on one webinar that presented factual data on Bt cotton performance in India and on another that highlighted corrupt practices and compromised agencies. The issue of Bt cotton and malfeasant regulatory bodies (not least, the GEAC) have been consistently highlighted for many years by campaigners, the Supreme Court, official reports, academics and many others – long before Bayer even considered buying Monsanto!
These webinars took place because 1) after two decades of Bt cotton cultivation, there is now the strongest evidence available to conclude Bt cotton has generally failed and 2) the GM issue in India has reached a pivotal point.
The article and the webinars coincide with the upcoming hearing of a case before the Supreme Court on GM mustard that could (and probably will) decide whether India goes down the GM agriculture route. The thrust of the article is to highlight the dangers of something being forced through (by the pro-GMO lobby) without any proper regulatory oversight (which will benefit the likes of Bayer and Corteva) to the detriment of struggling farmers and consumers.
Instead of thanking everyone involved (the author and by implication the participants in the webinars) for helping the US loot Bayer, put your sarcasm to one side and think about the implications GM will have in India. At any rate, Bayer – through its GMOs and associated chemical inputs – is set for a financial bonanza if the myth of Bt cotton success succeeds in tipping the argument in favour of GM and we see the wholesale introduction of GM food crops in India.
Moreover, I fail to see how presenting the evidence in the article would in any way allow the US to ‘extort’ vast amounts of wealth from a European company. If by that you mean any court cases which emerge in India related to the devastation caused by Bt cotton could damage Bayer’s financial well-being, such proceedings are highly unlikely. And I also fail to see how the Indian govt seeking financial compensation and justice for farmers would amount to the extortion of Bayer by the US.
You make valid points in your post but then abandon reason to try to attack the article in this way.
Based on your statement above, the implication is – to protect a European company – we should stay silent on the negative impacts of (Monsanto’s now Bayer’s) Bt cotton and let Bayer walk into India and loot its agriculture. Choosing to speak out on such things does not automatically mean it becomes part of the ‘campaign’ you mention. It is ludicrous – just as ludicrous as me saying that your statement is an attempt to muddy the waters and is therefore part of the GMO-lobby’s campaign to drive through GM crops.
Whether the companies that gain from GMOs are US or European, the key issue is that GMOs must be kept out until need is established and proper independent assessments can be made.
God#2
Sep 2, 2020 3:13 PM
Awaiting for approval
Reply to Colin T
I do not defend Bayer or GMO, I simply point out that there is a heist going on as part of a systematic looting of European and other major non-American companies, and as part of that heist the US are able to drive the mood in the media against, a company, an industrial sector, or even a whole area of science, as they see fit.
I expect there will be a lot of fuss made about GMO’s in the media until Bayer is totally US owned and I think you are part of that noise. The articles providing the background music to the VW emissions ‘scandal’ and the BP spill were equally pious on the subject of pollution. I don’t know if it is above your pay-grade, or not, to select these articles, but it is the second posted in only a few weeks. So at best you are acting as ‘useful idiots’ for dark greedy forces or your selective ‘caring’ is coordinated.
Your selective insight ultimately results in the defence of the ‘right’ of European companies (Bayer) to plunder Indian agriculture. Because if those involved (you know, the ‘useful idiots’) in the pushback against GMOs and Bt cotton just said nothing (as you imply should be the case), the floodgates for GM would open.
And Bayer – the company you want to prosper, as it would mean a bloody nose to the US – would be leading the plunder. ‘Useful idiot’ for Western imperialism and the powerful pro-GMO lobby – it becomes clear who that is.
Psychological projection notwithstanding on your part, the ‘useful idiots’ slur is a massive insult to those who have been fighting US-based Monsanto in India for decades. They have not just suddenly appeared as part of the ‘noise’ or ‘fuss’ you refer to. They (we) have always been there. I guess it suits your agenda to imply such a thing. Your narrow ideological proclivities blind you to the reality. Whether Bayer is European or becomes US owned, the fight will continue.
For your information, I receive NO payment for these articles and I do not belong to any NGO or organisation. No one is directing me, so best to keep your implied smears and baseless assumptions out of this.
Instead of you slinging mud from the sidelines while offering nothing constructive whatsoever, I would be interested to know what concerned citizens and academics who are pushing back against GMOs in India should be doing on a practical level. What actions should they be taking which would fit in with your views and notion of ideological purity.
My sympathy goes out to environmentalist, if you do find you are just being played as a warm-up-act or mood music for a national Corporate fascist attack on a foreign Corporation. But if that is what is happening then acknowledged it.
…
I notice you are incapable of responding to my request to offer something constructive regarding the GMO pushback in India. So I must conclude you have nothing to offer – just innuendo, smears and namecalling. I must also conclude, therefore, that you do not wish to see any pushback. The pro-GMO lobby always tries to muddy the waters and discredit those who are protesting against corruption and GMOs as being in league with ‘foreign interests’. We see it again from you. Standard industry stuff.
”…..offer something constructive regarding the GMO pushback in India.”
That is a subject I am not interested in. I have nothing to offer on the subject, that is your passion, not mine. My points were very clear.
It’s so easy to sit on the sidelines, take cheap shots and when challenged come up with the cop-out “I am not interested” in the subject.
Not once have you engaged with any of the points mentioned in the article. You just appear with some general abstraction – which was subsequently rebutted by ‘researcher’ on here.
And for your information, GMO is just part of my wider interest in how foreign (Western) agricapital is fuelling India’s agrarian crisis and wrong-headed ‘development’ policies.
Best not to make superficial judgements about someone until you fully understand who they are and what they do. But I guess anonymity affords you the luxury to do that.
And as far as ‘useful idiots’ go, you are right up there with the best. By attacking the campaign against GM in India the way you do, you carry water for the pro-GMO lobby.
I’d like to know what those valid points are, because I found none.
Australia grows almost 100% BT cotton, plus two other GMO crops. Wheat is on the waiting list. I am dismayed to read that all cereals and pulses, with the exception of barley, are sprayed with glyphosate prior to harvest which means all have a harmful residue. I have written to the Shadow Environment Minister attaching articles on the failures and dangers of GMOs – polite reply ‘thank you for your views’. In our family we have 3 lots of bee keepers so a vested interest in preserving their health. I am frustrated to know how best to protest the travesty to nature imposed by these companies. Do you have any suggestions?
Contact me. I’m on Twitter https://twitter.com/1ColinT
Corporate war games~ european proles = american proles= cash crops. All the corporations are owned by wealth funds,mega banks and suchlike which are controlled by the biggest investors.
See the analysis by ETH Zurich, in 2011 I think. At the top financial level countries ceased to have any meaning a long time ago.
Every word you say is contradicted by everything that is happening in the world today. Have you heard of geopolitics? go and read a bit about it.
I have enough trouble on my local forum with condescending omnicients,but thanks for bothering.
Almost total disinformation.
Monsanto’s name has become almost as toxic as their products, which are designed specifically to cause disease and death in humans.
The globalists, who run the world and own the majority stake in these transnational corporations, wanted to consolidate Bayer and Monsanto before the Great Reset and that’s why Bayer, a drug maker and chemical manufacturer responsible for millions of aspirin overdoses during the 1918 flu epidemic, that was once a subsidiary of IG Farben, (the same company that manufactured Zyklon B) merged with Monsanto.
Are you seriously contending that Bayer had no idea of Monsanto’s history and eugenics based biotechnology to poison people and the planet, for profit?
Bayer paid millions in a three decade long scandal where HIV contaminated blood products were given to hemophiliacs resulting in AIDS. The real question is, was it a mistake or done on purpose? I’d bet money on the latter.
The jury awards in the glyphosate lawsuits were overturned by crooked judges on appeal, not merit. Your claims are simply outrageous.
While you were formulating your fiction of nation vs nation theory, and the US pillaging angelic foreign corporations of their cash, the globalists have been merging corporations and taking over smaller competitors through disasters and crises they purposefully manufacture.
Poppy Bush is ultimately responsible for all the deregulation that benefited Monsanto.
The psychopath who headed up the CIA, and was the mastermind behind the 9-11 attack on the 11th anniversary of his “New World Order” speech, also enabled the total deregulation of GMOs.
Your comment insinuates roundup doesn’t cause cancer and that BP didn’t cause any physical harm to residents through the Gulf oil disaster or their illegal use of Corexit, a product so toxic it eats through boat hulls. Corexit was originally developed by Standard Oil, which is Rockefeller owned.
BP ignored the EPA (regulators) and went ahead and sprayed tons of Corexit into the gulf to make the oil sink and disperse, preventing a proper cleanup resulting in a double toxic dose of chemicals to residents around the gulf and to volunteers and citizens involved in the cleanup.
BP is not a British owned corporation but a transnational conglomerate.
Originally, BP was just a daughter company of Standard Oil, a Rockefeller owned and controlled cartel known as the seven sisters, backed by the Rothschild banking cartel.
Whether Halliburton facilitated the oil spill through purposeful mismanagement, or direct sabotage is another issue altogether and one that needs to be properly investigated.
But most certainly, BP management knew who it was hiring to drill that well and the CEO was not some naive British National. He was paid off handsomely with an $18 million dollar pension fund, untold dollars under the table, stock options and now runs BP operations in Russia.
Corporations are just organized crime syndicates, so are banks, so are governments and militaries.
Corporations direct militaries and intelligence operations. Corporations, even public transnationals, are majority owned by central banks and billionaires.
Whatever management is put in place and therefore directly controlled by the central banks, hedge funds and billionaires, is almost irrelevant because they are interchangeable.
Regulators have the absolute least power of all and are bureaucrats that are appointed by politicians and controlled by corporate interests. The politicians who appoint regulators are controlled by central banks and corporations.
Regulators can be replaced, blackmailed and bribed and are functionaries of a much larger more sinister integration of all governments by the moneyed interests of the crypto-eugenics class who own the central banks and are the majority shareholder of all the major transnational corporations.
When regulators in Canada blew the whistle on Monsanto’s attempt to bribe them $1-2 million to introduce bovine growing hormone, they were promptly fired.
BP was not the takeover victim of US imperialism and neither was Bayer, BNP or RBS.
RBS was fined $27b over several years and many instances of financial malfeasance and crimes including selling toxic mortgage backed securities contributing to the global financial crisis in 2008.
“The UK Government bail out of RBS and HBOS amounted to £65bn. That’s a lot of money, but the US Federal Reserve made emergency loans available to RBS of £285bn and to HBOS of £115bn. The US bailed out these UK banks too, in the same way as Scottish taxpayers contributed to liquidity support for international banks based in London (including American ones).”
So the Fed and the U.K. bailed out RBS. Why? Because the central banks own and control the banks that you falsely believe are public or national assets.
Central banks, private banks and public banks launder money, sell fictional financial products and offshore money through “The City of London Corp” in tax avoidance schemes that are global in nature.
Your entire view of the world and how it functions isn’t based in reality.
RBS and Barclays were recently fined $1billion along with their co-conspirators Citigroup, JP Morgan and Mitsubishi UFG by EU antitrust regulators for rigging the spot foreign exchange market for 11 currencies.
These fines are a mere drop in the bucket compared to the profits made from their criminal activities.
Banks work together across borders to defraud the public. That’s what globalization is and it’s been going on since the 1930’s and earlier.
Your false conclusions are misleading at best, or purposeful dissemination of disinformation at worst.
”Almost total disinformation.”
A very accurate heading.
Yeah, it describes your bs.
Everything I write is researched and can be backed up with multiple references.
And changing your username doesn’t make you any less obvious.
Your comments are consistently the dumbest on every thread.
Thank you. This exact same (very long but very well written and very pithy) comment was posted here at OffG about two months ago if memory serves. Work of some troll/group.
When I first heard about Bayer intending to buy Monsanto a while back, I wrote a few comments in the Guardian business section, stating that as soon as the deal was done the US ‘justice’ system will open the flood gates to legal claims against Monsanto and demand massive compensation, in the billions.
After the deal was done, my prediction came true and I found myself watching repeated adverts on YouTube calling any American who had used Monsanto’s Roundup and also had cancer to call in and join a class action against Monsanto.
This is the same drumming up of ‘victims’ we saw in the BP oil spill. When calls went out to all businesses in the Mexican gulf area to immediately make a claim. All claims were immediately approved by American judges of course regardless of validity.
The campaign against Monsanto culminated (since overturned) in an award of $2 billion to one cancer sufferer, whose illness was attributed to Monsanto’s Roundup, in a jury trial, where the threshold of proof is extremely low.
Bayer offers almost a bottomless pit of money for the US to extort and they will ultimately attempt to get control of the company, like they succeeded in doing with BP.
The US justice system extracted $65 billion from BP, deposed the British head and put an America CEO in charge, for the failure of BP’s US subcontractor, Halliburton.
They have also extorted 30 billion from VW for the ‘emissions scandal’, which I have no doubt the US regulators passed as acceptable for years until they turned on them, and in the banking sector extracted 27 billion from RBS for crimes facilitated by the US banking system over the past 8 years and will no doubt extract similar amounts from Bayer in thew future.
The US is a criminal enterprise that uses a conspiracy of Corporate, Judicial and CIA to extort trillions from overseas companies. There have now been so many examples it is a very obvious routine obvious but yet you’ll hear not a word about it in the press.
As Putin once said to Macron; ‘I don’t know why you pay the fines’, referring to BNP’s multi billion dollar fine to the US ‘justice’ system. Of course there is no reason to pay money to a ‘protection racket’ but if you don’t, then there will be consequences, which the victim must be prepared to stomach. They may burn down your precious national monuments, murder people in a concert hall and call it terrorism, or slap a 20% tariff on all your exports. Mafia, psychopaths are outside the law and outside any notion of conscience.
In my view, whoever arranged the take over of Monsanto in Bayer, needs to be arrested for treason against Germany. Monsanto has been a poison challis for decades and only an idiot or a threatened man would take on all that liability, and they haven’t even started the compensation for GMO’s yet.
So how do you know who is backed by the US deep state? This article is actually adding to the campaign to extort vast amounts of European wealth by the USA, so thanks for helping to make us, in Europe,that little bit poorer and helping the US, a criminal state, loot our most successful Corporations.
Monsanto is a monster because US regulators let them be a monster, like Boeing became a murders because US regulators let them become murderers by climbing into bed with them. It is so easy to jump on the bandwagon of anti-Corporate campaigning but ultimately Corporations will do what states alow them to do, so our energy should always be directed at the regulators not the Corporations.
The result of Bayer’s purchase of Monsanto will be higher priced drugs, less tax revenues, less sponsorship of the arts and less research by Bayer in Europe, as its hard won profits flow to the US probably to fund similar criminal looting operations.
The $27 billion handed over by RBS, a government owned bank, was the equivalent of 8 years of austerity. So if you want to know why the British suffered so long under austerity ask them where our money went.
Monsterinsaneto