A coalition of activist organizations demonstrating at the Monsanto office in Davis CA. successfully caused a shutdown of the multinational chemical and biotech company offices there on on Saturday, March 17.
The shutdown took place on the first day of a planned weekend of activities in Davis, intended to spotlight and oppose the activities of Monsanto in this country and abroad. Upon announcement of the shutdown, Monsanto instructed employees to stay away from work.
Monsanto is known for developing controversial chemical products for farming, landscaping and pest-control such as DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone), and Roundup. Over the last 20 years the corporation has shifted its research focus to bio-engineered seeds and GMOs (genetically-modified organisms). Significantly, the University of California, Davis is a top-ranked research university recognized as a leader in agriculture and sciences.
Monsanto has been the target of legal action, moratoriums and/or outright bans in Brazil, Peru, Haiti, India, and several European countries including Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and others. So far the company has been able to operate with little resistance in the U.S., due to its multi-million dollar lobbying efforts and close ties within the White House and Food and Drug Administration.
Sponsors of the weekend action included The Anti-Monsanto Project, Peace & Freedom Party, and Occupy Woodland/ Occupy Sacramento/ Occupy UC Davis.
The first day's action began at 6:30 a.m. with around 150 demonstrators picketing and setting up tents from which to distribute information. Despite the steady rain all day, a small but dedicated group maintained a vigil in front of the Monsanto complex.
Tents blocked the entrances to the parking lot, and a single security guard was posted at the main entrance to the building. Many passing cars honked their horns in support of the protestors, notable in this agriculturally-dependant town.
According to Steven Payan, a farm worker and organizer of the event allied with the Yolo County Peace & Freedom Party, the shutdown took place peacefully and without incident. The protest will continue on Saturday.
Payan also said that the coalition's next efforts will be to draft a set of anti-Monsanto resolutions, and to bring their demands to the United Nations.
Monsanto is a site of intersecting oppressions related to gender, race, class, etc. They deserve to viciously opposed until their stock drops to oblivious and operations become obsolete.
We can fight this fight together, but not alone.
Farmers are smart people. In fact, they are some of the best experimental scientists the world has ever seen.
The U.S. Government, and to some extent the Canadian, are corrupted by their unwavering support of big seed and biogenetics companies like Monsanto. This corruption exists despite growing demand for change from consumers and producers.
I do see this as a coalition raising endeavor. Monsanto is a big company, with a lot of power, in an agricultural context that has become far too concentrated. It will take a grassroots coalition to bring it down, and I frankly don't care whether or not those people are ideologically left or right.
What matters is that the food system changes, and farmers and consumers together are going to be the ones to lead that charge. Not government. Not industry.
Oh, and Bby the way, I am a farmer. And most of my farmer colleagues are social democrats. And while they may not personally adopt that descriptor, they live by the principles of this position in the sense that they respect the land and the people in their community, knowing full well that their livelihood depends on both.
Right-wing, corporate ideology divides people in search of profits. Progressive, critical ideologies seek to unites people in search of real and meaningful forms of justice and equity.
Every single product is detrimental to everything around it including those consuming it.
http://earthopensource.org/
I would love for you to provide a link that attests to your little factoid...
what they are is a company that produces chemicals. agent orange. round up. and on top of that, their sole goal is to be able to patent the very essence of 'life', thus owning and controlling the food supply.
this company is pure evil.
The Ethanol Scam
Politicians are high on turning corn into fuel — but ethanol not only hurts the environment, it's also one of America's biggest political boondoggles
By Jeff Goodell
The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn.Green Party Leader Sharon Labchuk says she's shocked at the lack of public consultation regarding an ethanol plant that has the potential for a huge effect on P.E.I. agriculture.
"Here we go again, shades of the late 1980s, early '90s, where they increased potato crop acreage on P.E.I. by 70 per cent by subsidies with no public consultation,"
"They have gone ahead with this major shift in the kinds of crops that can be grown on P.E.I. without consulting the public when in this particular case we are using a crop that is very heavy on pesticides and will affect our groundwater and will affect the air we breathe.
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2011-12-05/article-2826108/Ethanol-plant-draws-criticism/1
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-ethanol-scam-20110323#ixzz1pYtDzozr
The elimination of the subsidy, or more accurately, the tax credit, has unfortunately eliminating another talking point for you folks. Amen to that
Being a farmer, thought he would have loved the land more. Has since died and took none of it $ with him
By Robyn Griggs Lawrence
Tags: Monsanto, evil corporations, NaturalNews, Mike Adams, Roundup Ready soybeans, Most Evil Corporation, Robyn Griggs Lawrence
“Evil” is a word most people don’t use lightly. Yet the majority of NaturalNews readers didn’t hesitate when asked to name the Most Evil Corporation of the Year in an online survey this week. More than 16,000 voters participated, and an astonishing 51 percent gave Monsanto the dubious prize. (The Federal Reserve took a distant second with 20 percent of the votes, followed by British Petroleum with 9 percent and Halliburton with 5 percent.)
How bad is Monsanto? Mother Earth News writer Barbara Pleasant answered that question in a “Happy Homesteader” post last year. “In 2006 the corporate giant bought Delta and Pineland, a leading producer of cotton seed, so that it now controls a huge share of the cotton seed market,” Pleasant reports. “Monsanto’s genes are in about 95 percent of commercial soybeans and 80 percent of commercial corn, and people like the attorney generals of Iowa and Texas are concerned that Monsanto’s business practices violate federal antitrust laws that protect free competition. When it comes to licensing agreements, Monsanto is reportedly a big time bully.” Monsanto’s misdeeds are well chronicled in Christopher Leonard’s excellent article, “Monsanto Stomps Down Budding Seed Competitors.”
Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-home-living/is-monsanto-the-worlds-most-evil-corporation.aspx#ixzz1pYr5X4In
the earth has had just about enough of us
btw hows that HFCS experiment coming along ? 30 years of HFCS have ruined the health of americans ....
hip hip hooray for europe. but something tells me with the way things look like they really are, won't be long and they too will become victims of us being the tested.
cheerios are processed food made by "big ag" General Mills
you are big ag lover. you are gonna lose your membersip in the antiGMO/ antiScience club for this one
http://www.occupymonsanto360.org/2012/02/22/failure-to-yield/
http://digitaljournal.com/article/270101
These companies care NOTHING about this planet, its people: past, present and future. Bottom line is all that counts. They are systematically entraping, planning, scheming and poisoning this entire planet.
BRAVO to the activists in California!!!!! There are many more events planned around the country to disrupt this company!
http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm
As far as I am concerned ---- EVERY chemical corporation like Monsanto: Bayer, Syngenta, Du Pont, BASF and Dow should all be brought up on human rights violations for willfully poisoning this planet and its people!
then due to new rules, all crops make it to our grocery stores without same rules would be under if grown here for general consumption.
one of the real reasons we have american law makers dealing with the powers that be on that continent especially where the water concentrations are.