Shape of things to come

I have written on the shape of things to come before here. Disturbing trends are converging at a rapid rate which portend an entirely different future than humans have imagined (except in science-fiction).

Three articles below stand out as huge milestones in the relentless march toward a New World Order: sophisticated human implants, corporation monopolies of food production and the alliance of China and Russia politically. The vehicle of implementing surveillance through implants and DNA collection, could very well be world hunger as corporations have taken over food production.

When I first blogged on these issues, I was alarmed. But finding the ongoing progress of technology to control the masses, I am beginning to fear the road ahead for us. Not that I have a solution - but the first step in definitely being aware.

Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track,
Eliminate Undesirables

05-17-2009
Source
It could be the ultimate in political control — but it won't be patented in Germany.

German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied.

The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily.

Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat.

The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants and foreigners overstaying their visas.

"The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law — which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals," German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told the English-language German-news Web site The Local.
Click to enlarge pic.

The 21st century's bleak harvest

Rising food prices increased the aid dependency of developing countries [GALLO/GETTY]

By Asif Mehdi, development practitioner
Source
As the world staggers from one economic crisis to another, it seems easy to forget the global food crisis that occupied centre stage in 2008.

World prices for essential grains more than doubled between 2006 and 2008.

Rice, the staple food of most of Asia, doubled in price in just seven months. And, despite their commitments to trade liberalisation, a few significant grain-exporting developing countries rushed to protect domestic grain stocks by banning exports.

The poor, who typically spend between 50 and 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, were most affected by the crisis.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the food crisis raised the number of undernourished people from 923 million to more than one billion by this year.

In late 2007 and 2008, the crisis caused food riots in at least 15 countries across the world, from Brazil to Bangladesh, and international media and forums spoke of little else.

Then, as suddenly as it struck, declining prices relegated the food crisis to collective global amnesia.

Causes not addressed

However, while prices for grains and foods have declined in 2009, they are still higher than pre-crisis levels and the fundamental causes of their volatility have not disappeared.

The international economic system has witnessed a dramatic disbanding of trade and investment barriers.

However, the international market for agricultural commodities, the nature of industrial agriculture, changing consumption patterns and international finance all threaten to make food price volatility and food insecurity a recurrent feature of the early 21st century.

Agriculture offers a textbook case of international market distortion. And in this case, the market distortion is created by precisely the developed countries that extol the virtues of free markets.

Double standards

The developed world protects its domestic agriculture with any number of subsidies and technical barriers to trade.

In 2006, for example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that agricultural subsidies in OECD member countries were about $230bn.

In contrast to the magnitude of those subsidies, Official Development Assistance from OECD member states amounted to $120bn (the US alone had a military budget of $600bn in 2007).

The agricultural subsidies cover a host of measures - from domestic price support, to compensation to farmers for maintaining fallow land, to export price subsidies to dumping, some of which is disguised as food aid.

Paradoxically, international trade negotiations and, more importantly, International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending conditions expect developing countries to remove agricultural subsidies and liberalise domestic markets to imported foods.

While these measures allow for the increased availability of food, they have also eroded domestic agriculture and impoverished the rural economy, often in the most economically fragile states.

It was not surprising that the most impoverished countries were unable to meet the international price surge with increased domestic production, or the release of buffer stocks of staple food commodities.

In fact, those countries became ever more aid dependent as governments struggled to find the resources to pay the bills for imported food (and fuel), in the face of sharpened threats of hunger and undernourishment.

Industry domination

The opening of developing country markets does not benefit the average farmer in the developed world.

The international agricultural industry is dominated by a few grain, seed, chemicals and oil companies.

Such is their market power that three companies control the global grain trade and one company controls 60 per cent of seed production.

The grain trading conglomerates have unchecked market power to hoard and influence world prices.

Seed companies have employed breakthroughs in biotechnology to produce seeds that are compatible only with certain brands of pesticide or supply patented terminator seeds which germinate just once, and therefore the seed from a harvest cannot be used to grow a second crop.

This last feature of the seed business ensures a seed serfdom for the farmer, who cannot set aside part of the harvest for replanting.

It is no wonder, then, that the profits of the grain traders soared to astronomical heights in 2007, in one case up by 60 per cent over the previous year.

And it is no wonder that small farmers are bankrupted by one crop failure because of their inability to afford to buy or finance the procurement of seed for a new crop.

Industrialised agriculture

The other facet of industrialised agriculture is its energy intensity and reliance on hydrocarbon resources, whether as fertiliser or as fuel.

The poorest were most seriously impacted by rising food prices [GALLO/GETTY]
During the heyday of the Green Revolution, one study noted that between 1945 and 1994 US energy input for agriculture increased four-fold while crop yields only increased three-fold.

Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield.

Barring a breakthrough in seed technology, industrial agriculture has reached a point of diminishing marginal returns from energy usage.

In addition, the fact that oil resource availability has peaked suggests that oil prices will be on a long-term increase, thereby increasing the costs of food production.

Given the nature of the financial crisis in developed countries, it is highly doubtful that governments will have the fiscal resources to increase subsidies to the agricultural sector, in order to contain the increase in prices.

For the developing world, fiscal constraints on governments and the likely drying up of development assistance will have the same impact.

Food to fuel

The recent movement in the developed world to produce bio-fuels is yet another factor propelling the price of grains.

A World Bank study, prepared in April 2008, pointed out that a third of US corn production goes to produce ethanol and half the vegetable oils produced in the EU to the production of biodiesel.

This diversion from food to fuel is subsidised extensively, while imports from Brazil (which has had the longest standing and most extensive bio ethanol production) are subjected to tariff barriers that effectively prohibit imports of Brazilian ethanol into these markets.

Commodity speculators, seeing the potential from increased demand for grains in these subsidised programmes, drove up futures commodity prices which in turn raised current prices in grain markets.

The same World Bank study contends that 75 per cent of the food price increase was due to bio-fuels, a figure hotly contested by the Bush administration at the time.

An International Food Policy Research Institute study asserts that the effect was somewhat less, at 30 per cent of the food price increase.

Ideology of the rich

The financial crisis in itself was a cause for the food price hike.

While prices rose steadily through 2006 and 2007, the latter half of 2008 saw a sharp increase in prices, in a so-called price spike.

However, little had changed in the fundamental conditions of supply or demand to cause such dramatic market adjustments.

If the financial crisis reduces aid another food crisis could be devastating[GALLO/GETTY]
By now it is clearly evident that as the unregulated and complex financial sector of the US was facing the unfolding effects of the real estate bubble, trillions of dollars moved across sectors and spaces and invested in food and primary commodities, causing another price bubble, this time of an altogether more serious consequence.

The simultaneous inflation of oil and food futures caused cost increases in the production of food while inflating its trading prices at the same time.

It seems that finance had run out of opportunities for profit, so it turned to the earth as a means of generating speculative profit, whether through real estate or primary commodities and food.

As the more recent financial crisis has shown, there is no regulatory capacity to stop such profiteering from reoccurring.

These are the difficult prospects and consequences of a world run by the ideology of the rich and powerful.

Development lessons

There are development lessons to be learned here.

First, food security is an issue requiring long-term international effort and food security demands that local agriculture be able to supply domestic needs wherever possible and that reserve stocks are garnered for difficult times.

Second, the developing nations are justified in holding out in the Doha Round of trade negotiations until real and tangible concessions are made with regard to trade in agricultural products.

Third, national development efforts need to be replenished with such 'old fashioned' endeavours as investing in rural production, water availability and the empowerment of the small farmer.

Economic history shows us that industrialisation was preceded by agricultural transformations, with the state playing a heavy role.

And economic history is a better guide to policy than the theorising of free marketers serving powerful corporate interests.

Asif Mehdi works in international development with an international intergovernmental organisation and has worked extensively in Asia and Africa during his 29-year career as a development practitioner.

The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera.

China's top legislator: China-Russia partnership
enjoys fast growth

05-17-2009
Source
The strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Russia is currently showing all-round momentum and rapid growth as high-level contacts remain frequent, China's top legislator said in Moscow on Wednesday.

Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, made the remark during a meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Wu, who arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for an official goodwill visit, said he appreciates the frequent contact between leaders of the two countries.

He said Medvedev's visit to China last year helped lay the foundation for continuous growth of the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Medvedev said that he and Chinese President Hu Jintao held their first meeting this year during the London G20 summit in April. He expressed the wish that they will have more meetings later this year.

The Russian president said he expects Hu to pay a state visit to Russia in June. Medvedev also expects to meet with Hu during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and the summit of "BRIC" countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China, later this year.

China and Russia this year also are to hold a series of activities to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Wu and Medvedev stressed the importance of parliamentary exchanges between the two countries, saying they reflect the high level of development of the China-Russia partnership of strategic cooperation.

Wu said the strong China-Russia partnership is reflected in such areas as frequent contacts between top leaders of the two countries, the staging of "Russian Language Year" in China, the signing of an oil cooperation agreement between the two governments, and exchanges between the NPC and the Russian parliament.

Russia, Medvedev said, places high importance on parliamentary exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.

The Russian president also said Wu's visit reflects the momentum of fast growth in bilateral links.

Source: Xinhua

http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2009-05/14/content_252734.htm

18 trends I find disturbing

Focussing on specific issues in depth, is, by and large, a good thing. However, noticing the long term patterns repeat themselves time and again in many spheres is critical to seeing the bigger picture.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, we must examine each piece of news and reality to see how it fits with other bits: but, unless we stand back and see the emerging picture of ALL the interlocked clues, we will be lost in minuitae and miss the direction in which we are travelling en masse.

I am not going to bother to 'prove' any of these trends; they are just my observations. If readers of this blog are interested in one or more of the trends below, leave a comment and I will do my best to address questions raised in a future blog with examples.

1. The increasing number of 'law and order' television shows over the last 20 years has desensitised people to the abuse of civil rights, justified by 'getting the bad guys'.
2. The television shows which exalt technology which invades our privacy, has created a culture where nothing is sacred or private if it can be used by government agencies to 'get the bad guy' (they will tell you who that is through media).
3. Destruction of free media has allowed those in power to construct a false universe which serves their purposes of controlling the masses.
4. Terrifying people with bogeymen keeps them from finding the curiosity and confidence to seek balanced information.
5. Democracy has become an inoperable ideal, used to provide people with the illusion that they are in control of their destiny.
6. Technology is enabling a new world order, in which every moment of our existences is monitored and controlled by government.
7. Labels which divide people, keep them busy fighing each other while others control world events behind the scenes.
8. Food and water, housing and healthcare are going to be the scarce resources of the future.
9. Corporations are morphing into global institutions which are not accountable to any government or people whose lives they control.
10. The 'rational' systemic paradigm of socio-economic progress trumps 'compassion and integrity' everywhere.
11. The people of the West are terrified by the specter of 'relative deprivation'; and willing to do almost anything to continue indulging in lifestyles the resources of the planet cannot sustain.
12. Overpopulation is upon us: there will be a cull - whether natural or manmade.
13. Most people would rather be right, than learn something which challenges their security.
14. Those in the most dire poverty and areas of imperial violence, are alone.
15. Banal discussions of irrelevant issues presented to us by the media occupy the majority of our time.
16. Our mileau rests on arrogance, as though tradegy could not affect such an advanced civilisation as ours. (No historical context)
17. The laws enacted by politicians which erode human rights are ignored by a panicked populace (see # 15).
18. The ignorant have become arrogant: everyone thinks they are right from their own point of view.

My conclusion is that we are doomed if we do not begin to figure out the context in which our lives are occurring. Divided we fall.

Cull: to reduce the size of the herd

Cull: to reduce or control the size of (as a herd) by removal (as by hunting) of especially weaker animals ; also : to hunt or kill (animals) as a means of population control Source

Population growth is the elephant in the room no one wants to discuss. The demographic calculations are there for all to see; humans are a cancer on earth which will eventually kill the host organism. Yet we go on and on about bailouts and arms trading, protectionism and media propaganda - as though this elephant does not exist, casting its shadows over all our meager plans for species salvation on earth.

If you are not here to experience the effects of increasing population on a planet of decreasing resources, your sons and daughters will be. By ignoring it, we pass the problem to those we wish to inherit the earth.

I remember having discussions with 'hunters' about the act of killing animals. How many times the rationalisation was used, 'but we are doing deer a favor by killing them - if we didn't shoot them, they would starve to death.', I cannot count. I guess that makes hunting OK then.

What if the elites who wish their young to inherit the earth use the same argument? Is the thought too horrible to comprehend or consider? I don't think so. The population of earth will be culled: how is anyone's guess: starvation, bioweapons, pandemic, meteor, nuclear war, climate change, either made by man or made by Mother Nature, a cull will occur.

We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction

By Chris Hedges
March 09, 2009
"Truthdig"
Source
All measures to thwart the degradation and destruction of our ecosystem will be useless if we do not cut population growth. By 2050, if we continue to reproduce at the current rate, the planet will have between 8 billion and 10 billion people, according to a recent U.N. forecast. This is a 50 percent increase. And yet government-commissioned reviews, such as the Stern report in Britain, do not mention the word population. Books and documentaries that deal with the climate crisis, including Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," fail to discuss the danger of population growth. This omission is odd, given that a doubling in population, even if we cut back on the use of fossil fuels, shut down all our coal-burning power plants and build seas of wind turbines, will plunge us into an age of extinction and desolation unseen since the end of the Mesozoic era, 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared.

We are experiencing an accelerated obliteration of the planet's life-forms-an estimated 8,760 species die off per year-because, simply put, there are too many people. Most of these extinctions are the direct result of the expanding need for energy, housing, food and other resources. The Yangtze River dolphin, Atlantic gray whale, West African black rhino, Merriam's elk, California grizzly bear, silver trout, blue pike and dusky seaside sparrow are all victims of human overpopulation. Population growth, as E.O. Wilson says, is "the monster on the land." Species are vanishing at a rate of a hundred to a thousand times faster than they did before the arrival of humans. If the current rate of extinction continues, Homo sapiens will be one of the few life-forms left on the planet, its members scrambling violently among themselves for water, food, fossil fuels and perhaps air until they too disappear. Humanity, Wilson says, is leaving the Cenozoic, the age of mammals, and entering the Eremozoic-the era of solitude. As long as the Earth is viewed as the personal property of the human race, a belief embraced by everyone from born-again Christians to Marxists to free-market economists, we are destined to soon inhabit a biological wasteland.

The populations in industrialized nations maintain their lifestyles because they have the military and economic power to consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources. The United States alone gobbles up about 25 percent of the oil produced in the world each year. These nations view their stable or even zero growth birthrates as sufficient. It has been left to developing countries to cope with the emergent population crisis. India, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Cuba and China, whose one-child policy has prevented the addition of 400 million people, have all tried to institute population control measures. But on most of the planet, population growth is exploding. The U.N. estimates that 200 million women worldwide do not have access to contraception. The population of the Persian Gulf states, along with the Israeli-occupied territories, will double in two decades, a rise that will ominously coincide with precipitous peak oil declines.

The overpopulated regions of the globe will ravage their local environments, cutting down rainforests and the few remaining wilderness areas, in a desperate bid to grow food. And the depletion and destruction of resources will eventually create an overpopulation problem in industrialized nations as well. The resources that industrialized nations consider their birthright will become harder and more expensive to obtain.

Rising water levels on coastlines, which may submerge coastal nations such as Bangladesh, will disrupt agriculture and displace millions, who will attempt to flee to areas on the planet where life is still possible. The rising temperatures and droughts have already begun to destroy crop lands in Africa, Australia, Texas and California. The effects of this devastation will first be felt in places like Bangladesh, but will soon spread within our borders.

Footprint data suggests that, based on current lifestyles, the sustainable population of the United Kingdom-the number of people the country could feed, fuel and support from its own biological capacity-is about 18 million. This means that in an age of extreme scarcity, some 43 million people in Great Britain would not be able to survive. Overpopulation will become a serious threat to the viability of many industrialized states the instant the cheap consumption of the world's resources can no longer be maintained. This moment may be closer than we think.

A world where 8 billion to 10 billion people are competing for diminishing resources will not be peaceful. The industrialized nations will, as we have done in Iraq, turn to their militaries to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuels, minerals and other nonrenewable resources in the vain effort to sustain a lifestyle that will, in the end, be unsustainable. The collapse of industrial farming, which is made possible only with cheap oil, will lead to an increase in famine, disease and starvation. And the reaction of those on the bottom will be the low-tech tactic of terrorism and war. Perhaps the chaos and bloodshed will be so massive that overpopulation will be solved through violence, but this is hardly a comfort.

James Lovelock, an independent British scientist who has spent most of his career locked out of the mainstream, warned several decades ago that disrupting the delicate balance of the Earth, which he refers to as a living body, would be a form of collective suicide. The atmosphere on Earth-21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen-is not common among planets, he notes. These gases are generated, and maintained at an equable level for life's processes, by living organisms themselves. Oxygen and nitrogen would disappear if the biosphere was destroyed. The result would be a greenhouse atmosphere similar to that of Venus, a planet that is consequently hundreds of degrees hotter than Earth. Lovelock argues that the atmosphere, oceans, rocks and soil are living entities. They constitute, he says, a self-regulating system.

Lovelock, in support of this thesis, looked at the cycle in which algae in the oceans produce volatile sulfur compounds. These compounds act as seeds to form oceanic clouds. Without these dimethyl sulfide "seeds" the cooling oceanic clouds would be lost. This self-regulating system is remarkable because it maintains favorable conditions for human life. Its destruction would not mean the death of the planet. It would not mean the death of life-forms. But it would mean the death of Homo sapiens.

Lovelock advocates nuclear power and thermal solar power; the latter, he says, can be produced by huge mirrors mounted in deserts such as those in Arizona and the Sahara. He proposes reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide with large plastic cylinders thrust vertically into the ocean. These, he says, could bring nutrient-rich lower waters to the surface, producing an algal bloom that would increase the cloud cover. But he warns that these steps will be ineffective if we do not first control population growth. He believes the Earth is overpopulated by a factor of about seven. As the planet overheats-and he believes we can do nothing to halt this process-overpopulation will make all efforts to save the ecosystem futile.

Lovelock, in "The Revenge of Gaia," said that if we do not radically and immediately cut greenhouse gas emissions, the human race might not die out but it would be reduced to "a few breeding pairs." "The Vanishing Face of Gaia," his latest book, which has for its subtitle "The Final Warning," paints an even grimmer picture. Lovelock says a continued population boom will make the reduction of fossil fuel use impossible. If we do not reduce our emissions by 60 percent, something that can be achieved only by walking away from fossil fuels, the human race is doomed, he argues. Time is running out. This reduction will never take place, he says, unless we can dramatically reduce our birthrate.

All efforts to stanch the effects of climate change are not going to work if we do not practice vigorous population control. Overpopulation, in times of hardship, will create as much havoc in industrialized nations as in the impoverished slums around the globe where people struggle on less than two dollars a day. Population growth is often overlooked, or at best considered a secondary issue, by many environmentalists, but it is as fundamental to our survival as reducing the emissions that are melting the polar ice caps.

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."

© 2009 TruthDig.com
Related: Human Rights Cartoon (82): Overpopulation?

Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head...soon to be regulated.

The regulations flooding out of Congress are alarming to say the least. Here is one that will make small farmers jump through 100 hoops before they can offer their food at a farmers market. Got to keep an eye on these slippery bills....I highly advise reading the entire article to see how this trick is accomplished in 'definitions'. On the darker side, Monsanto is devouring small farmers at such an alarming rate, all our food production may soon be in corporate hands.
Lets not be.......

Change We Can Believe In:
How About the End of Farmers Markets?
Say Hello to H.R. 875:
Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009

What this will do is force anyone who produces food of any kind, and then transports it to a different location for sale, to register with a new federal agency called the “Food Safety Administration.” Even growers who only sell only fruit and/or vegetables at farmers markets would not only have to register, but they would be subject inspections by federal agents of their property and all records related to food production. The frequency of these inspections will be determined by the whim of the Food Safety Administration. Mandatory “safety” records would have to be kept. Anyone who fails to register and comply with all of this nonsense could be facing a fine of up to $1,000,000 per violation.

I’ve bought food at several farmers markets for years and I have yet to meet any vendors who are fond of the government. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most vendors at farmers markets won’t go along with this. The problem will be that the people who run the farmers markets will be forced to make sure that vendors are “registered” with the government.

Is this Change we can believe in? Maybe it is for Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, Tom “I Fly with Monsanto” Vilsack.

For the rest of us, this is a nightmare. Read entire article here.

Related urls:
Monsanto gobbles up small farmers

Crop Cops - Big brother and agriculture

Monsanto gobbles up small farmers

Theft of Life: A story of the struggle against Monsanto and the corporate takeover of our genetic inheritance

Percy Schmeiser
Source
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:14 UTC
I am a seed developer from western Canada, where since 1947 my wife and I have been developing a strain of canola that is resistant to certain diseases that we have on the prairies. I am also a seed saver, like hundred of thousands of farmers around the world who save their seed from year to year, to plant and harvest.

I was also the mayor of my community for over twenty five years.

In 1998 without any prior knowledge, Monsanto laid a lawsuit against me alleging that I had infringed their patent by growing their genetically modified conola without a license. It was a real shock to me, as we had never had anything to do with Monsanto.

But the real issue that concerned us was the possibility that our pure seed, which we had developed after half a century of research would now be contaminated. We stood up to Monsanto, arguing that if any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were present in our pure seed, then Monsanto were liable for destroying the property of others.

It took two years for this case to go to trial at the Federal court of Canada, with one judge, but no jury, and I had no choice in the matter. In the two years of allegations Monsanto withdrew all allegations that I had obtained their seed illegally, but because they had found some GMO canola plants in the ditch along my field, I had infringed their patent. That is the basis on which the case went to the Federal Court of Canada.

This is what the judge ruled: it does not matter how Monsanto's GMOs get into or onto any farmer's field or into a seed supply (He went on to specify how this could happen: direct seed movement by birds, by wind, especially on the prairies, by floods, and through cross-pollination by bees). It doesn't actually matter how the genetically modified organisms get into an organic farmer's field or into the fields of a conventional farmer like myself: once there, those seeds and plants become Monsanto's property."

It was a very startling decision. The judge also ruled that we were not allowed to use our seeds or plants again and that all the seeds and plants that we had developed over 50 years became the property of Monsanto. The judge also ruled that all the profit from my 1998 canola crop was payable to Monsanto. The judge further ruled that even from the land that had no contamination, all profit would be payable to Monsanto because there was a probability that our seed contained some of Monsanto's GMOs.

We immediately applied to the Federal court of Appeal which has three judges but no jury. After a year theAppeal Court upheld the first judge's decision, but did not agree with all his decisions. After this second ruling in 2002, we appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. The case began in January 2004.

There were many issues to be decided, including the whole issue of patenting life forms. At the original trial, Monsanto said that by putting a gene into a seed, they invented the seed. When the seed becomes a plant, they invented the plant. Now if you look at the implications of that: if you put one gene in any seed, or any plant, or any life form, whether it be a bird, an animal, or a fish or a human being - does that say the corporation responsible has invented that life form?

It is an important issue not only of the rights of farmers being able to use their seed from year to year but the whole rights of controlling and owning genes - the controlling and owning of human beings, animals, birds, bees and so on.

In December 2002 the Supreme Court ruled on one very important issue: in Canada you cannot patent a higher life form, including a seed or a plant.

The really worrying thing is how we can lose our rights and freedoms. The contract from Monsanto, takes all farmers' rights away. Here is a paraphrase of a few clauses.

"You cannot use your own seed.

You must always buy your seed each year.

You can only use Monsanto's chemicals.

You have to pay a fixed fee, per acre, per year as license fee or technology charge to Monsanto.

If you commit some violation of this contract

you must sign a non disclosure statement, and

you cannot talk to the press or

you cannot discuss the situation with your neighbor.

So it takes a farmer's freedom of speech and expression away.

There is another clause:

You must permit Monsanto's police force to come into your land for 3 years after you sign this contract. Even though you may only grow their seeds one year, they can go into your grain reservoir, into your silos, onto your land, to inspect and see what you are growing or what you have in storage.

They can ask for your farming records, your income tax records, anything. And you must permit them to do that.

Another clause has been added in 2003 contract :

The clause says you can no longer sue Monsanto, for whatever reason.

So that is why it is important for people to know the true impact of the introduction of GMOs and how rights of people are being taken away by corporations.

Another very important issue is how Monsanto advertise in their brochures. They state that if you think your neighbor is growing Monsanto's GMO canola or Soya beans without license, you should inform on your neighbor. If you inform on your neighbor you get a gift from Monsanto.

Now what happens when Monsanto gets this tip off? They will immediately send 2 of their police out to a farmer's home, and accuse the farmer of growing their product without a licence, and threaten the farmer with the full force of the law.
The effect this has on the community is appalling as the accused try to work out which neighbour informed on them.

These are the methods Monsanto uses to instill fear in farmers, because the best way to control people is by the culture of fear.

There are some other points that need to be borne in mind when considering the implications of Monsanto's business practices:

There is no such thing as containment. Believe me, as a farmer for over half a century. I know that you cannot contain a life form once you put it into the environment. Whatever the level of contamination of plants, whether 1% or 0.3% of genetically modified material, this genetic pollution will become all pervasive. There is no such thing as containment.

There is no such thing as coexistence. Introduce a genetically modified organism into the environment and it becomes dominant. It will contaminate an organic farm or a conventional farm in a matter of just a few years. After the introduction of genetically modified canola in 1996 within two years super weeds had become dominant. Now what is a super-weed? A super-weed in this case is mutant canola which carried genes modified by two other companies as well as those of Monsanto. These modified genes are now all in one plant it has become a super weed, polluting the entire western prairies. It is in wheat fields, barley fields, and oat fields, and it takes a new, more powerful highly toxic chemical to kill it. There is no such thing as co-existence.

Organic farmers in Canada can no longer grow two crops: Soya beans and canola. All our seed is contaminated. We can no longer sell one bushel of canola to the European Union. We have lost our markets all over the world.

But I think the greatest curse is still coming. And that's coming in the line of prescription drug plants or 'pharma-plants'. There are six major drugs that are now being produced by genetically modified plants: vaccines, industrial enzymes, blood thinners, blood clotting proteins, growth hormones and contraceptives. What if somebody has had major surgery and they then eat food that is contaminated with genes from a plant manufactured to be a blood thinner? Or what about a pregnant woman who eats food contaminated by genes from a plant that is manufactured as a contraceptive? Remember, there is no such thing as containment or co-existence.

What kind of a legacy do we want to leave to our children and our grandchildren? A legacy of land, food, water and air full of poisons? No we want to leave a legacy of land, food, air and water full of health and vitality. I have a message especially to the younger generation: Your rights and your freedoms can be lost overnight, your choice to eat healthily can be taken away. The law in Canada has enabled corporations to deny the rights of farmers to grow and save their own uncontaminated seeds. We are determined to spend the rest of our lives, if necessary, protecting our human rights.