Vanity Fair on Corporate vs. Family Farming
4 May 2008
2 Comments
Vanity fair reports on Monsanto stalking, investigating, and suing farmers for “improper” use of seed. Vanity Fair’s photography department has always been provocative, and so has their news department in a very hard-hitting way, covering stories that most other news channels don’t want to cover. To wit, I suggest everyone with an interest in farming read how Monsanto is becoming the Microsoft of seed lots, and is turning back the economic clock to feudal Europe, trying to turn farmers into serfs in Monsanto’s fiefdom.
Read the full article: Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear.
[...] If we do not get our food from family farms, we will get it from corporate agriculture. Corporations do not operate out of small towns. They will concentrate their wealth in large cities, and employ the very least expensive labor available for planting and harvesting. Is this what we want for our small towns? [...]
First and foremost, this is a great site. While I do not farm myself, much of my extended family either farms or is involved in agri-business in east central IL.
I read the Monsanto article with great interest and had no idea that Monsanto was such a hulking giant of a corporation. I’m wondering if someone can explain to me why Monsanto insists that surplus seeds are sold to other farmers or discarded after each planting season. Is this because Monsanto changes the seed each year, or is it because they believe a family farmer can “unlock” their secrets and benefit? I listne intently to my cousins “talk farming” when I visit with my family a few times each year, and while I don’t know specifics I do know that none of them are in a position to simply throw unused ANYTHING into the trash.
I’m sorry to sound like such a greenhorn; I simply want to learn about this from the farmer’s/seed dealer’s perspective.
Again, this site is fantastic! I hope that it continues to stay up and running now that “Yes We Can” is ready to become “Let’s Get To Work.”
Damon in Evansville, IN
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