Bayer-Monsanto
Greenwashing
The #Monsatan Factor
"#Monsatan" is a Twitter hashtag in regular use. The widespread use of this term by environmental activists reflects the depths of the company's PR problem and the extent of its need for greenwashing. With Bayer's acquisition of Monsanto in 2016, Bloomberg explicitly addressed this issue in the article: "Monsanto’s #Monsatan Factor and What Bayer Can Do About It."[1]
According to Urban Dictionary:
Monsatan refers to the evil empire constructed by the Monsanto Corporation. Farmers started using this term around 2000 when the company began charging tech fees for genetically modified soybeans with resistance to Roundup herbicide and raised the price of their Roundup chemicals at the same time. In recent years the term has enjoyed expanded usage when describing Monsanto's efforts to impact the entire food chain with their genetically modified products.[2]
Verra
Climate-Smart Commodities
Bayer-Monsanto is a major participant in the USDA's greenwashing Climate-Smart Commodities program.
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture and food giants such as Land O’Lakes, Corteva, Bayer, and Cargill are paying farmers millions of dollars to sow rye, clover, radishes or other crops after, or even before, they harvest their corn and soybeans."[3]
Bayer's own info on its "Carbon Initiative" can be found here: <https://www.bayer.com/en/agriculture/carbon-program-united-states> <https://www.bayer.com/en/us/bayer-carbon-program-a-new-revenue-stream-for-farmers> <https://www.bayer.com/en/agriculture/article/carbon-zero-future-for-agriculture> <https://www.bayer.com/en/us/enhanced-carbon-program>
$100 Billion Opportunity
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4580865-bayer-ag-potential-to-double-over-12-18-months
National Corn Growers Association
The National Corn Growers Association (NGCA)'s May 2021 Podcast Interview with Brett Begemann, the COO of Bayer Crop Science (and a 35 year veteran (former VP) of Monsanto), began by describing their mission as giving farmers a "say... with key leaders who are shaping the future of agriculture."
Jon Doggett, the CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, conducted the interview, and minimized controversy surrounding Monsanto-Bayer's toxic polluting RoundUp herbicide as a "minor issue", proclaiming that "we (the NCGA) absolutely believe glyphosate is an essential tool for farmers to have" and thanking him with a "debt of gratitude" for "defending this chemical" - especially in the context of environmental opposition and of efforts to greenwash RoundUp with "carbon farming".
Bayer-Monsanto's COO used the platform to pontificate that "farmers are going to be able to rely on glyphosate and, in our case Roundup now and well into the future" and didn't pass miss the opportunity to greenwash the massive carbon emissions of Big Ag: "this industry of agriculture has done as much or more than any other industry to improve our carbon footprint over the past 50 years."[4]
Ka Pae Aina
Mokulele farm
Bayer-Monsanto's Mokulele farm on Ka Pae Aina tests new strains of genetically modified corn seed and sprays pesticides/ insecticides on the crops.[5]
2014 Lawsuit
"In a plea agreement submitted to the Honolulu district court on November 21 [2019], Monsanto-Bayer pleaded guilty to illegally spraying one of the world’s most toxic pesticides, Methyl Parathion, in Maui in 2014, six months after the US Environmental Protection Agency banned it. In addition, the company admitted to using the pesticide in a manner that endangered the lives of the field workers who did the spraying. It was also found guilty of illegally storing, transporting and disposing of the chemical after the ban."[6]
As a result of the guilty plea Monsanto-Bayer was ordered to pay 6.2 million dollars in criminal fines and an additional 4 million in community service payments. "The proposal, however, did not impose personal fines or prison sentences on any Monsanto employees."[7]
2020 Lawsuit
Monsanto was charged with 30 environmental crimes after letting workers go into corn crops that had been sprayed with a chemical named Forfeit 280 and for illegally storing certain agriculture chemicals on Maui and Molokai. Federal law states 6 days must passed after spraying the chemical before anyone is allowed to enter the area.[8]
Turtle Island
Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Dump
From the Oregon Encyclopedia:
The Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Disposal site—located thirty-five miles east of Christmas Valley and sixty miles north of Lakeview—has contributed a controversial environmental and financial legacy to Oregon. The isolated, fenced-off, ten-acre site contains covered trenches that hold the remnants of 25,000 fifty-five-gallon drums full of chemical waste.
In 1969, Chemical Waste Storage and Disposition Inc., a Beaverton company, was granted a permit by the Oregon Department of Agriculture to begin dumping herbicidal chemicals at the facility. The chemicals included dioxins and phenols used for the toxic Agent Orange defoliant, which the military deployed during the Vietnam War. In 1971, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environmental Quality halted deliveries to the disposal site in response to charges that the company was a “public nuisance.” The company's workers were charged with using “improper handling practices,” and barrels at the site were unattended and leaking....
In 2009, through further legal action, the State of Oregon received $700,000 from Bayer CropScience—a successor corporation of the waste’s producer—to compensate for prior and future cleanup work on the site, estimated at $2.45 million. The cleanup work included bulldozing a layer of gravel over the leaking barrels and monitoring groundwater contamination. Lake County commissioners and the Oregon Natural Desert Association unsuccessfully lobbied for a comprehensive—and expensive—cleanup operation....
As of 2011, there are no plans for or legal requirement to initiate a comprehensive cleanup. The Department of Environmental Quality has deemed the site safe because of its seclusion and the barbed wire fence that surrounds it.[9]
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkali_Lake_Chemical_Waste_Dump
Pesticides
Agent Orange
RoundUp
Lastest cancer lawsuit news:
Genetic Engineering
RoundUp Ready
Soil Microbes
See new 2023 report by Friends of the Earth[10]
Sources
- ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-20/monsanto-s-monsatan-factor-and-what-bayer-needs-to-do-about-it#xj4y7vzkg
- ↑ https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Monsatan
- ↑ https://thefern.org/2022/12/a-pillar-of-the-climate-smart-agriculture-movement-is-on-shaky-ground/
- ↑ https://ncga.com/stay-informed/media/in-the-news/article/2021/03/ep17-short-stature-corn-and-other-new-ag-tech-with-bayer-crop-sciences-brett-begemann
- ↑ https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/toxic-drift/
- ↑ https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/monsanto-guilty-of-spraying-banned-pesticide-on-maui-fields/
- ↑ https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/monsanto-guilty-of-spraying-banned-pesticide-on-maui-fields/
- ↑ https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-crime-hawaii-honolulu-ed13f915250b1e1fbb4ffb7ed2e5ab71
- ↑ https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/alkali_lake_chemical_waste_disposal_site/
- ↑ https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GE_Microbes_Report_Final.pdf