Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

Kick a Bully If It’s Monsanto

“Never kick a bully when he’s down,” my old man used to say, though what he knew about bullies or being down or even kicking for that matter is up for debate. But, for the time being, we might add to the quote: “Never kick a bully when it’s down, unless its name is Monsanto.” Then, stomp on it with both feet.

Ever since the biotech giant was socked with a fine of $289 million in the case of a school groundskeeper with lymphoma caused by Roundup, lawsuits have cropped up all over the world. One source estimates more than 11,000 cases filed. On the international scene, a French court ruled against Monsanto chemical Lasso, which has been banned in several countries, but not the US. For a company that has held farmers hostage, this is a fair outcome. As a wise lawyer once said, when lawyers start winning, there will be more lawsuits.

Roundup, the weedkiller created by Monsanto, has had 20 years to prove the benefit of its killing strategies. I remember sitting in a university extension presentation for farmers, hearing that with a genetically-modified (GM) seed, modified to resist the chemical, a farmer could have “clean” fields where only the GM seeds would benefit from the nutrients poured onto it. All the weeds would be dead. At that meeting, the farmers asked the right questions. Namely, “what happens when the weeds become resistant to Roundup?” And the extension agents sat mute, muzzled by the money that Monsanto had given to the university.

That year, farmers got a discount on the GM seed-Roundup package and they made money. They were able to build new grain bins, expand their machine sheds, buy out their neighbors. The industrialization of agriculture, which began with the discovery of industry’s chemicals in the 1950s, picked up steam. Only a few farmers resisted the call to plant GM seeds, and today those farmers are still raising non-GM crops and the seeds are hard to get and expensive.

Please note, dear reader, that back when Roundup was invented and promoted we didn’t know about the complexity of the soil, or the complexity of human health, which is now suffering. Farmers trusted the universities, which had been founded by their ancestors. They thought that killing weeds was a real benefit. Nobody asked if the new crops had more or less nutrition or value to humanity.

With one crop after another modified genetically to do nothing more than to resist the herbicide, so many weeds have become resistant that Roundup-sprayed fields are riddled with weeds, but rather than admitting failure, Monsanto has come up with worse and worse killing strategies. The latest is to use more potent chemicals. It modified soybeans to resist dicamba, a chemical prone to drifting in hot weather. In 2017, dicamba killed hundreds of thousands of acres of non-modified plants. So many complaints came into state departments of agriculture that there was not enough money to record them all, let alone to investigate.

Some of my Farm-Bureau-believer neighbors argue that, in order to prevent the drift damage everyone should plant dicamba beans. But, in the words of Food and Water Watch’s Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, director of the Pesticide Action Network’s Grassroots Science Program, “The cupped leaves of dying plants are the more visible sign of a deeper disease that has corporate power, corrupt public agencies and lack of integrity in our public institutions at its roots.”

One would hope that the EPA or state Departments of Natural Resources would step up and argue that spraying so much chemical, year after year, onto vulnerable fields that drain to ditches and intermittent streams is dangerous. But, no. Rather than do the right thing, the government is now declaring that intermittent streams that run next to fields — consisting of more than half the total number of streams — should be de-classified from protection under Waters of the United States (WOTUS). This action makes them nothing more than sewer pipes carrying industry’s products from the fields to the ocean.

So, it’s up to the courts to kick the bullies. A second case — awarding $80 million to a victim — was found in favor of the injured just a few months after the groundskeeper won.

The cases, both decided in California, will no doubt make their long, tortured way to the Supreme Court (we might say to “Trump’s Supreme Court”) and there are interesting discoveries to be made along the way. E-mails between Monsanto execs and EPA scientists reveal a cozy relationship. “Sweetheart, I know lots of people so you can count on me,” an EPA official wrote to a Monsanto liaison to the EPA.

And what has the reaction of Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, been in the head office? Its share price has tanked, so costs are being cut — Bayer is selling Monsanto’s expensive fleet of private airplanes and laid off its pilots. But CEO Wemer Baumann gave himself a nice bonus to make up for pay lost when his stock-based compensation went into a dive.

The shareholder meeting in late April looks like it will be a kick-and-stomp fest.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History. Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2019

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