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GE - MONSANTO - Handled with CARE?

RAFI News Release - 9 March 1999 
 Rural Advancement Foundation International 
 <http://www.rafi.org/>http://www.rafi.org 
 
 
 *** MONSANTO - Handled with CARE? *** 
 *** or, CARE - Handled by MONSANTO? *** 
 
 MAJOR U.S. RELIEF AGENCY HOLDS TALKS WITH TROUBLED 
 AGBIOTECH MULTINATIONAL - WHO'S HELPING WHO? 
 
 
 CARE, the high-profile U.S. food aid non-profit, is holding talks 
 today 
 with Monsanto Corporation at the company's world headquarters in St. 
 Louis, 
 Missouri (US). According to information received by RAFI, Monsanto's 
 CEO 
 Robert Shapiro contacted CARE's President, Peter Bell, inviting CARE 
 officials to discuss ways in which Monsanto may be able to use its 
 technologies for the benefit of food security in the South. Whether 
 this is 
 an attempt to resurrect Monsanto's scheme to provide micro-credit 
 ("soft") 
 loans to Third World farmers in order to market its proprietary 
 pesticides 
 and genetically-modified seeds remains to be seen. 
 
 Monsanto is one of the world's leading Gene Giants - dominant in both 
 crop 
 chemicals and seeds. The company's best known product, Roundup 
 (glyphosate), is the world's top selling herbicide and a multi-billion 
 dollar profit engine for Monsanto. The company's patents on Roundup 
 are 
 expiring, however, and Monsanto is looking for new ways to maintain 
 its 
 market share and to advance sales of its controversial transgenic 
 (genetically-modified) soybean, maize, cotton, and potato varieties. 
 Using 
 genetic engineering, Monsanto has bred seeds that tolerate Roundup 
 spraying. It is estimated that the contentious market strategy has won 
 Monsanto at least 85% of the booming U.S. transgenic seed market, and 
 experts suggest, a similar share of the global transgenic market. 
 
 * Cash 'n CARE? In June 1998, Monsanto announced that it would develop 
 a 
 special microcredit programme with the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh that 
 would have made it financially feasible for cash-starved farmers to 
 take 
 out loans to buy Monsanto's advanced technology products. The Grameen 
 Bank 
 has won international accolades for its championing of credit 
 programmes to 
 rural women who would not normally be seen as credit-worthy by 
 conventional 
 banks. Within a month of the Monsanto-Grameen announcement, however, 
 the 
 Bangladeshi institution cancelled the deal bowing to intense public 
 pressure within South Asia and around the world. 
 
 * Once More with Feeling? "At the time, we heard rumours that CARE and 
 possibly some other development aid agencies were discussing similar 
 deals 
 with Monsanto" Pat Mooney, RAFI's executive director says, "but we 
 were 
 told that CARE backed away from the table when Grameen threw in the 
 towel." 
 "Now we are informed that an international team of CARE officials from 
 their New York office, but also from some of their major regional 
 offices, 
 have gone to St. Louis to discuss a major initiative with Monsanto," 
 Mooney 
 adds, "This could be a real problem." 
 
 GMO's in Every Pot? Last year, more than 27.8 million hectares of 
 farmland 
 around the world was sown to genetically modified crops. Seventy seven 
 percent of this land was sown to transgenic seeds designed to tolerate 
 herbicide spraying. While the biggest market for biotech seed is in 
 the USA 
 and Canada, South countries such as Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, 
 and 
 China have also adopted the controversial seeds. Trials of Monsanto's 
 transgenic seeds in India have led to mass demonstrations and intense 
 debate in the media and in government. Similar debates are underway in 
 Brazil. In Europe, environmentalists, farmers, and consumers have 
 joined 
 together to oppose the use of transgenic seeds. 
 
 * GMO's Handled by CARE? Blocked in Europe, is Monsanto trying to use 
 well-known aid agencies to win acceptance for its GMOs among farmers 
 and 
 consumers in the South? "Monsanto officials genuinely believe they 
 have 
 products that will solve the problem of food shortages in the next 
 century," Hope Shand of RAFI says. "The company may not be acting 
 cynically. They believe they can make money and solve hunger through 
 GMOs 
 at the same time," Shand explains, "If the meeting with CARE is to use 
 the 
 food aid agency to test and distribute their genetically-altered seeds 
 among poor farmers, both CARE and Monsanto are making a terrible 
 mistake." 
 What exactly the goal is for the St. Louis talks? Are they to 
 establish 
 soft loan programmes tied to Monsanto products, or to use CARE's field 
 offices to facilitate trials of genetically-engineered 
 herbicide-tolerant 
 seeds? "Either way," Pat Mooney concludes, "neither party has the 
 credibility to pull this venture off. CARE will be lambasted for 
 jeopardizing the food security of farmers and Monsanto will be accused 
 of 
 using CARE as 'cheap labour' for its commercial goals. Whatever their 
 intent, this indeed will be the result. I've talked with CARE 
 negotiators 
 in New York and I'm hopeful that they understand the issues and will 
 not 
 let their good name be used to pressure farmers into adopting 
 Monsanto's 
 unsustainable approach to agriculture." 
 
 CARE Bears? Monsanto is transforming itself from being a traditional 
 chemical company into a dominant player in the Life Industry. In 
 recent 
 years, Monsanto has spent more than $8.5 billion in acquiring seed 
 companies across the world. Many market analyst believe however, that 
 Monsanto has over-extended itself and is now weighed under by a huge 
 debt 
 burden. In the midst of the world's longest running bull market, 
 Monsanto 
 is on some investor's bear lists. Last year, Monsanto announced that 
 it 
 would merge with American Home Products - another 
 chemicals-turned-biotech 
 corporation more than twice Monsanto's size. The deal was eventually 
 called 
 off. Last week, the New York Times reported that Monsanto was holding 
 preliminary discussions with DuPont - a vastly larger multinational 
 now 
 attempting to extricate itself from energy subsidiaries in order to 
 buy 
 into the Life Industry. The message to many investors is that Monsanto 
 is a 
 company in trouble and looking for allies. 
 
 ------ 
 
 Monsanto, headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri (US) has 32,000 
 employees, a 
 market capitalization of $28 billion and 1998 revenues of $9 billion. 
 The 
 company is reportedly in merger discussions with DuPont. 
 
 CARE, headquarters in New York (US) is a major non-profit, 
 international 
 relief organization. In 1998, CARE delivered $339 million in aid to 
 over 
 35.3 million people in 51 countries. 
 
 RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International, is an 
 international 
 civil society organization headquartered in Canada. RAFI is dedicated 
 to 
 the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and to the 
 socially 
 responsible development of technologies useful to rural societies. 
 RAFI is 
 concerned about the loss of agricultural biodiversity, and the impact 
 of 
 intellectual property on farmers and food security. 
 
 For More Information: 
 
 Pat Mooney Hope Shand 
 Executive Director, RAFI Director of Research, RAFI 
 110 Osborne Street, Suite 202 Centre for Public Service 
 WINNIPEG MB R3L 1Y5 Gettysburg College 
 CANADA Box 2456 
 Tel: (204) 453-5259 GETTYSBURG PA 17325 
 Fax: (204) 925-8034 USA 
 E-mail: rafi@rafi.org Tel: (717) 337-6482 
 Fax: (717) 337-6499 
 E-mail: hope@rafi.org