 “Mark Twain State Park was the location of a “Taking It Back” meeting held on July 12th, sponsored by Organization for Competitive Markets, American Corn Growers, and Missouri Farmers Union. The purpose of the gathering was to learn more about how we in Missouri and across America have lost the right to plant our own seeds. ” From Daily Yonder
Daily Yonder has an interesting story about Monsanto’s monopoly on seeds that has farmers in Missouri getting organized. Daily Yonder. Farmers, politicians, professors and company representatives discussed Monsanto’s patents that protect Monsanto to the point of taking seed back from farmers. Farmers don’t buy seed form Monsanto. They rent it. Monsanto keeps up with what is sold and what is used and wants any unused seed back.
Farmers who attempt to save seed and use it next year are punished with ruinous lawsuits. In some cases, they go after farmers not guilty of saving their seed. One farmer who was not saving seed fought back to the tune of $400,000 in legal fees. He eventually proved that the seed in question was actually from a neighbor’s farm.
While this might seem a minor issue to city folks, it shouldn’t be. Control of seeds means control of the food supply. Control of the food supply means control of society. Food prices can be manipulated just as cynically as manipulation of oil prices. We can live without oil (it only feels like we can’t). We cannot live without food.
Most of us who are not farmers have a “Little House on the Prairie” view of farming. We think Pa and Ma go out with a hoe and a mule to harvest their few acres. Some of us even have the mistaken notion that farmers aren’t as smart as we are. Choosing to work in the dirt is not as attractive a career choice as carrying a briefcase and wearing Sunday clothes to work every day. We think that because Ma and Pa live in the country that they are untutored in the ways of the Internet and less than tech savvy. Our notion that farmers are less than canny business men is a myth.
Farmers in the 21st century are knowledgeable of world markets. They have to be. Knowing what will sell is the first lesson every salesperson learns if they are going to stay in business. What happens in the sugar beet fields of Brazil or the catfish farms of Vietnam matters because competition is global. More often than not, it’s not the neighbor in the next farm who undercuts prices, but somebody half a world away who can afford to take less for their crops.
Farmers use GPS to measure their crops as they grow. Tractors come equipped to measure yield per acre as the crop grows. Successful farmers work with the Internet to keep up with trends and each other. Technology (that is not cheap) allows farmers to harvest larger fields with fewer workers in less time.
So why should it matter to you? To find out, next time you go to the grocery store, check out how many products have corn, wheat or sugar in them. Try eating without them. It can be done, but most of us can’t do it. A monopoly on seeds for those staples means that a very few decide what you are going to eat and how much you will pay for it.
During the twentieth century, a division between city dwellers and rural residents grew. To some extent, it has always been so. Just read the children’s story about the city mouse and the country mouse.
This has got to stop. We all need to eat and we all depend on the men and women who devote their lives to the business of providing food. If they are being painted into a corner by a monopoly, then we are being squeezed into that same corner. They don’t need us to put them on some sort of noble pedestal as American pioneers. What they need is for the rest of us to have the self interest to support them to keep the price of the food supply competitive. |
