The debate over the safety of genetically modified crops has been heating up in the United 

States.  Europeans have been suspicious about this technology all along, but the United States has only 

recently begun to seriously consider how these high-tech food crops should be regulated and whether 

they are safe or not.  In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences appointed a committee to look into 

these very important issues.  The most upsetting aspect of this debate is how important bio-engineered

food is for developing countries.  The news and media show a barrage of images of starving children 

in Africa and other parts of the world and the public is induced and coerced into believing that 

genetically modified crops would be a less expensive way to solve world hunger.  When 

people go through their lives ignorant to the truth and uneducated about the issues that directly affect 

them, it is difficult to convince them otherwise.  Many people prefer to ignore the truth because it is 

easier to avoid activism and proactive efforts.  The masses exist comfortably numb to the serious issues

of the world.  I decided to give a voice to the countries all over the world that have no one to speak up 

for their rights to safe food, real food, and uncontaminated water supplies.

      Unfortunately, world hunger is a proponent of genetically modified food and hunger is a chronic 

plague that exists in the world today.  My research in this area led me to some startling and even 

shocking data.  First of all, Monsanto holds 87% of the patents on GMO’s, (Genetically Modified 

Organisms).  Monsanto has a branch of Genomics that studies the genome.  The genome is the entire 

genetic makeup of a particular organism, and genomics is the study of the genome itself.  This research 

is exciting to Monsanto.

    Monsanto has the power to research and analyze the structure of the genome, mapping how 

the genes are arranged, then associating genes or clusters of genes with specific traits of the organism. 

In agriculture, this means identifying the clusters associated with traits like yield, drought resistance, 

food quality, insect resistance/herbicide tolerance.  By helping identify important genes in crop plants, 

genomics leads to improved varieties of those crops, whether through genetic modification 

(biotechnology) or selective, marker-assisted breeding.  Through Monsanto’s research facilities and a 

network of Monsanto offers subscriptions to the Monsanto Fund, a philanthropic arm of the Monsanto 

Company.  It claims to improve the lives of people by bridging the gap between their needs and 

their resources.  They seek corporate contributions and philanthropy, long a tradition at Monsanto. 

Corporate contributions remain a vital part of Monsanto’s tactics to improve welfare of the earth and 

its people.  Monsanto’s priority areas are 1) Agricultural Abundance, 2) The Environment, 3) Science

Education, and 4) Our Communities. They seek to increase the number of business partnerships using 

minorities, women, and disadvantaged business enterprises (M/W/DBE) in their procurement 

nationwide and their ultimate goals is an inclusive vendor process which values and engages all qualified 

and certified M/W/DBE) diverse perspectives for conducting business support. 

            Increasingly, Monsanto claims to be dedicated to providing more farmers around the world 

access to the improved techniques, knowledge and partnerships that will allow them to be more 

productive and profitable.  Some areas of interest: 1) Increasing agricultural productivity, yields and 

nutritional value, 2) Capital projects increased infrastructure and farmer’s linkages to local market, 

3) Reducing the pressures of agriculture on fragile areas, 4) Training, information dissemination,

extension services.  Monsanto works with the Buhle Farmer’s Academy and Delmas, South Africa. 

The United States has never grown so much food.  Scarcity is down, food is cheap, and enough food  

produced to provide for every woman, man, and child, yet in the world’s richest nation, more than 36 

million people, including 14 million children, experience hunger daily. These statistics fuel Monsanto’s 

effort to capitalize on depravity and corner the market on the world’s food supply.

            Controversy surrounds Monsanto and its constituents due to their lack of regard for human 

beings while claiming to work on their behalf.  In the agricultural sciences, the controversy over 

genetically-modified crops, and the ecological risks as well as human health concerns should be are the 

forefront of the debate and it is more about money, control, and power.  I believe the issue is one of 

big regulatory challenges of the millennium.  The big regulatory challenge of the last decade was

chemical products and carcinogens that were causing cancer in lab animals and people all around the 

world.  The competition regarding life science products is getting out of control.  If we as citizens turn a 

blind eye to the challenges of this situation today, the ramifications of doing nothing will affect the world 

globally tomorrow.  Most people do not realize that many of our major research universities are 

increasingly becoming Siamese twins to the very companies that are producing these products.

            Radically, we as university students are being used and manipulated into creating products and 

new paradigms that will shape the world in the future.  We are signing over our rights to the patents  

large corporations hold on “our” research, creations, and innovations.  Intellectual property rights will  

be the wave of the future, never going away. For example, research associates at University of 

California at Berkeley, in the school of natural resources entered into a strategic partnership with one   

single life science partner, Novartis, which produces a tremendous number of genetically modified  

products and it just so happens they are conveniently linked with Monsanto.  The limits placed on

Berkeley scientists to do objective and ethical research on the possible ecological health risks of 

Novartis products is an issue worth investigating.  Results such as 25 rats getting cancer from certain 

products are withheld from the public.  When the School of Natural Resources at Berkeley even subtly 

move toward disclosure they're shut down legally by binding patents and confidential information laws. 

This is dangerous business.  The research necessary to uncover the ecological or health risks 

associated with Novartis’ genetically modified seeds is much more important than revenue.  The real   

problematic here is that patents are not the preserve of private industry.  The existence of public R&D  

institutions that in fact have applied for and acquired patents are seeking to work in developing 

countries. 

      The University of Cape Town, has applied for patents.  On the west side of Chicago The Univ 

of Illinois at Chicago has an entire division of Intellectual Property that holds over 98% of the student’s 

research under their patents.  This activity needs to be scrutinized and investigated.  What do students 

have to claim as their own after they graduate and move toward self-sufficiency in market culture in 

pursuit of fame, power, and money?  Cuba has a number of public R * D institutions that own patents. 

Argentina has a number of public institutions that in fact own patents and the real issue are the 

implications for the future and how these patents will be used in the future? 

      While the world hunts CEO’s of Enron and Arthur Andersen scandals, they hunt Osama Bin 

Laden, and settle for Saddam Hussein, National Security and Bush’s safety overrides the misuse of 

patents, genetically modified food, and the cornering the market on the world’s food and water supply 

gets swallowed up in political rhetoric.  America has an economic interest in developing countries 

because it can capitalize on that need.  America offers incentives to private industry to direct

their resources toward any country in need for their own monetary gain.  The GMO patents held in 

America today are not automatically viable to the poor.  If you examine the issue of herbicide resistant 

crops they are geared toward the large-scale farmers who can afford to invest in herbicide use. 

      What about the small farmer?  He is being exploited by patents and herbicide resistant technology, 

and genetically modified seed.  The entire system should be dismantled now before the world suffers 

global paralysis and starvation.  The public, the public universities, governmental non-governmental 

entities of the world have not removed the obstacles and interactions between other entities doing 

research in this controversial field.  The world is at the mercy of giants like Monsanto and 

pharmaceutical companies that license patents and hold the humanitarian use licensing rights to 

everything they manufacture.

      If the universities that developed the existing AIDS drugs had kept a humanitarian use licensing 

right to their products they would be in control of that drug today and the cost of them would not have 

skyrocketed from private control. People must wake up and educate themselves on what essentially 

affects the world globally.  Patents are used in Africa are used on a royalty basis and Africa can decide 

what they will accept.  The Zambian government would not accept genetically modified food even with 

2.5 million Zambians facing severefood shortages because their president Levy Mwanawasa has 

described GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organisms) as “POISON.”  He is acting on behalf of his 

countrymen and their safety and wellbeing supercedes what Monsanto passes off as

“GMO’s: The World’s Answer To Hunger.”  Levy Mwanawasa is a visionary and he will not be lulled 

into a false sense of security about GMO’s when his people will be dying from side effects, false 

promises, and “selling suicide” technology. Christian Aid and Christian fundamentalist have permeated 

history with their shiny trinkets and religious relics.  Levy Mwanawasa, president of Zambia sees the 

“man behind the curtain and every button he is pushing” and he is watching him like

a hawk while others ignore his bio-engineered food production.  He knows that as fewer companies 

come to dominate each step in food production, whether supplying farmers with seeds and chemicals, 

processing food, or retailing through supermarkets, there are fewer checks and balances in the system. 

      Eventually, no checks and balances in the system will be conducted until, nothing will be checked 

and it will be too lateto reverse it.  Monsanto has patents in these areas:

1.            General Biotechnology

2.            Insect-Protected (Bt) Corn

3.            Insect-Protected (Bt) Cotton

4.            Insect-Protected (Bt) Potato

5.            Roundup Ready  ® Canola

6.            Roundup Ready ® Corn

7.            Roundup Ready ® Cotton

8.            Roundup Ready ® Sugarbeet

9.            Genomics

10.          Elite Germplasm Technology

11.          Biotechnology Trait Technology

12.          Genes and Genetic Markers Technoloyg

13.          DNA Identity Tag Insertion Into Their GMO’s Technology

14.          Plasmid Restriction Enzyme Technology 

                Shockingly, Monsanto has now transferred their interest from GMO’s to busting the water 

cartel.  The water barons control the water supplies of the world.  The World Water Forum is 

addressing aggressive corporate campaigns for control of the world’s water.  The conveners of the  

world Water Forum, the World Water Council, and Global Water partnership, tried hard to sell the  

idea that a consensus behind their control, distribution, and conservation of the world’s water.  On 

March 16-22, 2003, in Kyoto, Japan, the third meeting of the World Water Forum (WWF) will come 

at a time when there is growing alarm over the scarcity of water worldwide and a crisis that is only 

expected to get worse.  People do not realize that fierce battles all over the world are being fought to 

control this precious resource.  While environmentalists say water is a basic human and environmental 

right to be protected by the communities and people around the globe; corporations, governmental 

allies, and Monsanto believe it is a valuable commodity to be controlled by the market. 

      Globally, the mission to control this resource must be addressed.  The goal to promote the 

privatization of water resources is dangerous and when it is endorsed publicly and privately in self

serving partnerships, it should be scrutinized and regulated immediately.  The World Water Forum, 

World Water Council and Global Water partnership should be examined as well.  Monsanto

convinced the world it had its answer to world hunger while covertly cornering the market on the 

technology of genetically modified organisms, what keeps the water forums, councils from doing the  

same thing?  Nothing, keeps them from cornering the market on the worlds most valuable and precious 

resource.  We cannot trust human beings to self-regulate and mandate self.  A broader coalition of 

organizations will be required to facilitate change. 

            In a 2001 Federal Court of Canada decided that Monsanto owned patents on “Roundup 

Ready” genetically modified canola seed.  Monsanto’s genetically modified canola seed so that farmers 

would be able to spray its herbicide “Roundup” on their canola without it killing the canola itself.  The 

herbicide kills only the weeds that compete with the canola crop.  Monsanto used lies to get farmers 

they sell their seed to and herbicide to, were required to sign a contract.  February 25, 2003,

Monsanto received a registration patent from the (EPA) Environmental Protection Agency, allowing 

commercialization of the first biotechnological corn designed to control corn rootworm pest.  They 

have cornered the market on hybrid corn.  The product they created called “YieldGard Rootworm” 

reduced the exposure to insecticides.  An additional product called “YieldGard Corn Borer” 

eradicates  damage to the corn by a built-in resistance to rootworm.  The YieldGard Rootworm corn   

contains a protein from bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a common soil attacking corn rootworm larvae, 

allowing the corn plant to naturally protect its roots over and over again.  Its nicknamed “billion $ bug”  

the United States loses $1 billion dollars annually to Monsanto, who has stacked combinations of the 

products and a monopoly on the seed, crop, and the herbicide.  In a 4-year process Monsanto 

collaborated with universities and governments scientists called the “NCR-46” to become the leading 

global provider of technology based solutions and products alleging to improve farm productivity and 

food quality.  This is a terminator technology.  Monsanto has made the United States dependent on its 

technology if we plan to eat on a daily basis, well into the future. 

            Functionally, technology is the wave of the future and adding vitamins and nutrients to food 

for underdeveloped countries is costly.  Genetic pollution is irreversible. Monsanto’s technology has 

irreversible dangers.  Genetic pollution is irreversible as plants grow and reproduce.  It is

contamination of conventional seed lots with GMO’s and occurs during breeding, propagation, and 

processing of seeds.  Genetically modified crops begin to pollinate non-genetically modified organisms. 

Genes flow from crop to crop and to wild relatives that can cause crops to be resistant to a range of 

herbicides.  The huge drawback is that genetically engineered cultivation makes farmers dependent on 

big seed companies and will have to pay additional cost to avoid contamination.  The demand for the 

public to call for policies of zero tolerance should be legislated.  It should be the right of every citizen, 

consumer, country, and farmer to reject and refuse GMO’s, and having their environment protected 

from irreversible damage.  To date, there is a 0.3 to 0.7% contamination of seeds and there should be a

0.1% contamination of seeds by law and compliance controls (ERS Report, 2003). 

            Genetically modified cotton boosted the yields of African American farmers in South Africa’s 

KwaZulu-Natal province.  An 89% increase in crops compared to its conventional counterpart yielded 

increases up to 129%.  In the process, labor was reduced as dramatically as the crop increased.  The 

excitement of real farm data, as opposed to the traditional trial data was a powerful bargaining tool. It 

was reported to be the first study in sub-Saharan Africa and farmers were ecstatic about the results. 

Monsanto convinced the KwaZulu-Natal province that this technology, the saving of labor, and

reduction of the need for pesticide spraying was necessary in a region ravaged by HIV/AIDS.  The 

correlation Monsanto makes between these two completely opposite issues is revealing its true interest 

in the province, MONEY!

      Monsanto’s GM cotton (Bt) technology is being sent to India, the Makhathini region, the Vunisa 

Cotton Company and other cotton farmers all over the globe.  Europe rejects Monsanto’s terminator 

technology.  Europe is creating tough laws on labeling genetically modified foods that will force 

detectable GM protein DNA to be labeled and unfortunately it will allow others with the DNA labels  

go unlabelled.  Monsanto would have put the slaves out of business.  The technology of Monsanto is a 

short-term strategy that restricts farmers more than it will ever help them.  Also linked with Monsanto  

(KAR) Kenya Agricultural Research Institute as they seek to collaborate with the existence and 

support of the acquisition of agricultural biotechnology.  Ethiopia is next.

      Monsanto produced golden rice with vitamin “A” added to it that has turned the rice yellow. 

The Asian nations of the world are rejecting this rice.  They have been raised on white rice and the 

GMO is offensive to them.  The splicing of vitamin A into regular rice under the veil of adding nutrients 

are a great idea in the abstract.  If the vitamin is rejected in a population whose diet has consisted of 

white rice for generations what are the implications of its use?  What are the consequences?  What are 

the health risks?  What are the environmental risks?  Will the world stand idly by and allow Monsanto  

used them as guinea pigs for untested technology? 

            The International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC, a non-profit agricultural 

research group is examining the activities of Monsanto carefully.  They are looking at the implications  

Ethiopia’s infrastructure that permits food to be moved from one region to another.  Ethiopia right now 

has surplus production in some regions; deficit production in others and because food cannot be move 

people are starving in the areas where the rain doesn’t come.  Monsanto has capitalized on this 

problem as well. 

      The United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) reports that in 2000, twelve percent of all 

American households were “food insecure.”  The estimation of the scarcity of food in American 

households was one in ten households could not lead active, healthy lives due to the lack of food and 

not having enough to eat.  Families in 4.2 million households (8.5 million people) had to skip or reduce  

meals.  These numbers are startling considering food reserves that exist throughout the world today. 

The stockpiles of food that exist within the government alone could feed the nation.  The government 

runs several programs that cater to the needs of minorities and immigrants in the United States (USDA 

Report, 2000). 

      Additionally, the U.S.D.A reports that in 2000, nearly one in five children (10 million) went hungry. 

Almost three million kids endured a more severe form of hunger or ate less including skipping meals. 

Not surprisingly, those most likely to face hunger are the most vulnerable in our society, families with 

poverty-level incomes, single mothers and children, as well as the elderly.  Several  programs such 

as WIC, (Women, Infants, Children), TANF, (Temporary Aide to Needy Families), ADFC, (Aid to 

Dependent Families and Children) have programs that have billions of dollars to give.  These govt 

programs issue cash, food stamp stipends, and coupons for food and yet the government claims it has 

no resources to deal with the issue of hunger in the world.  The GSS (General Social Survey) of 1996 

reported that the greatest number of Americans going hungry were Caucasians.  In 2000, over 16 

million Caucasian Americans did not have enough to eat, and 4.5 million skipped meals or reduced  

portions (GSS, 1996).

      Proportionally, African-American and Latino households suffered from hunger more often than the 

national average.  Some 7.7 million African-American families and over 8 million Latino families 

worried about food (GSS, 1996).  Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy 

worked to highlight “root causes” based solutions to hunger and poverty around the world, with a 

commitment to establish fundamental human right to have food (Food First, 2002).  If the world does 

not stop the Monsanto Monster today, it may not be able to survive without it tomorrow.