July 27, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Throughout the history of agriculture across the globe,
farming has always been a diversified sector of the economy. Small,
self-sustaining, family farms were the order of the day in most
cultures. Even as small farms grew larger and more specialized over
time, many of them still saved seeds or purchased them from other
farmers, which kept control of farming in the hands of the people.
But today everything has changed, as large chemical and agribusiness firms have acquired or merged with seed
companies and other agricultural input companies. They have successfully gained a foothold on genetically-modified (GM)
crops with transgenic traits.
These primary factors and several others have facilitated a crescendo towards the global domination of agriculture by
corporations, and thus the world's
food supply.
The
dismal state in which we find ourselves today did not come overnight,
of course, but it did pick up rapid speed after the introduction of GM
crops in the mid-1990s. Since that time, multinational corporations like
Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta have seized a significant amount of control over the global seed
industry, which has greatly limited agricultural diversity and
freedom.
The ability to patent both
seeds and seed traits has also added injury to insult, as the ability to obtain
natural or heirloom seeds is becoming increasingly difficult, and many
farmers feel they have no choice but to go with the flow.
Professor
Philip H. Howard from the Department of Community, Agriculture,
Recreation and Resource Studies at Michigan State University published a
study in 2009 entitled
Visualizing Consolidation in the Global Seed Industry: 1996 - 2008 that analyzes the trend in
agriculture towards corporate dominance.
The report, which was featured in a special issue of the journal
Renewable Agriculture,
provides both an extensive data analysis of agriculture's dramatic
transformation over the past several decades, as well as a
highly-informative visual analysis of this truly shocking hostile
takeover situation.
The 'Big Six" pharmaceutical and chemical companies have acquired, created joint ventures with hundreds of seed companies over the past 15 years
In
order to help assist his readers in understanding the state of the seed
industry, Prof. Howard developed a very informative graphic that
displays the reality of who really controls the seed industry.
Monsanto,
DuPont,
Syngenta, Bayer, Dow, and BASF collectively own or partially-own
hundreds of formerly-independent seed companies -- and Monsanto, of
course, dominates them all.
You can view the graphic for yourself at the following link:
http://www.naturalnews.com/files/se...As
you will see, the blue circles in the diagram represent seed companies,
while the red circles -- which happen to all be chemical or
pharmaceutical companies -- control the vast majority of them. Solid
gray arrows indicate complete ownership of a company, while gray lines
indicate partial ownership.
One of the most obvious first
impressions to be gathered from the diagram is Monsanto's excessive and
widespread control over the seed industry. According to Prof. Howard's
analysis, Monsanto acquired more than 50 seed companies just during the
time represented by his study period, which spans the years between 1996
and 2008.
Monsanto had little-to-no involvement in the seed
industry prior to the mid-1980s, but since that time has been rapidly
eating up seed companies and furthering its development and control over
the
food supply
through GMOs. Today, Monsanto is the world's largest seed company, and
the transnational behemoth continues to acquire or otherwise create
"partnerships" with various independent seed companies that are still in
existence.
Behind Monsanto, the other five of the "Big Six" that Prof. Howard illustrates -- DuPont, Syngenta,
Bayer,
Dow, and BASF -- collectively own or control a great portion of the
remaining major seed companies not owned or controlled by Monsanto. And
one of the biggest factors that has contributed to this dismal setup is
GMOs and transgenic, patentable seed traits that are shared among the industry players.
The
"Big Six" each have agreements with one or more of the others; their
overall success has largely hinged on GMOs and increased control of
agricultural inputs
The only thing worse than Monsanto and the
dominance of the seed market are the cozy relationships with one
another. Prof. Howard's analysis reveals that every company in the "Big
Six" has at least one mutual relationship with one another, and they
together share corporate control of the seed industry.
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