Retrospective for the Introspective

George Washington Carver was a smart man. In the early 19th century, he invented new and promosing uses for peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatos. Peanut butter, pest resistent foods all those things were helped to make popular by GWC. Back in the day, public institutions of higher learning were often contracted(or they did it on their on volition) to try to create new type of seeds. Cross breeding plants, seedless watermelon, broccoli with bigger buds were all helped along by these public institutions.(that is, colleges and college kids doing the work)

Around the 1980's genetic engeneering became possible for some of the best and brightest. Naturally, the food industries were one of the first to climb aboard the wagon. There actually was a law passed stating that any food that is genetically engineered or modified can be PATENTED. There was a company by the name of Monsanto that created their own type of Soybean.

Monsanto is the same company that created Agent Orange and DDT, two extremely destructive and deadly chemicals(one was designed to maim, the other was not). Agent Orange was a biologically corrosive substance that was scattered en-masse amongst the think jungle canopies in Vietnam in order to be able to see troops better from the air.

Years after coming into contact with Agent Orange, the children of the people most heavily contacted would be born with terribly disfigurments, mental disabilities, and many other chronic health concerns.

DDT was a pesticide that was sprayed over just about every damn thing is the US in the 40's. The problem was not with it contaminating the plants, it was that DDT was insoluble. DDT would survive in the ground, mix in with rain water and eventually become part of the water table of the local town. You get the picture.

So THIS fucking company gets the bright idea to manufacture its own Soybean. Ok sure, whatever, move on. What made this bean so different is that it supposedly could be sprayed with this new type of pesticide RoundUP and it would have no ill effects. No other Soybean could match this boast. And, it appears as if in our new environmentally conscious age that it's ill effects are negligble.

But, there was a catch. The farmer who buys and uses these genetically modified beans also has to buy the only pesticide that will now work in conjuction with the beans, RoundUP. So double money for the company.

The problem lay after the harvest. The farmer that had bought the beans could NOT keep the seeds for another year. Because of the law passed and the patent recieved by Monsanto, the famers had to either give back or destroy the seeds after each harvest. Monsanto had somehow found a way to not only patent nature, but to own their own specific brand of it...I.E. the Soybean seeds.

So i have one last question... where does their jurisdiction of the product end? If i pay for some Soybeans seeds, plant them and then eat the crop, does Monsanto technically own little parts of my shit? What if a passing crow eats some of the seeds off the plants, craps them out 4 miles away on another farmers plot of land that is NOT Monsanto bean-grown? Would Monsanto own just one plant in a field? What if this happened for years and the pollen and seeds of the Monsanto beans mixed with a non-Monsanto field let's say, across the road?

The answer is that Monsanto still owns it. It is legally responsible to the farmer to NOT have that happen.

So that's the story. The more i learn about Corporate America as a whole i less and less i like of it.