Class action Lawsuit against Monsanto and Monsanto’s ‘zombie wheat’ is ‘return of the walking bread’
According to centerforfoodsafety.org, a class action lawsuit was filed on the behalf of Pacific Northwest wheat farmers and Center for Food Safety (CFS) after Oregon farmers suffered depressed prices of wheat due to discovery of illegal GM wheat resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup.
Apparently, Monsanto’s genetically modified wheat has not been approved for commercial production in the US. After the discovery of Monsanto’s GE crop in Oregon field, other countries including South Korea, Japan and European Union put a ban on US GMO wheat.
Many farmers, health activists and experts have argued that planting GE crops can contaminate organic and conventionally grown crops. It many cases that has been the case and Monsanto’s GE crops have ruined and contaminated the farmer’s original crops. Ironically, Monsanto has been suing farmers for contaminating their crops with GMOs and over the years, hundreds of farmers have been forced to pay Monsanto their biotechnology fee.
However, in this case, Monsanto has been conducting field tests on its genetically glyphostae-resistant wheat in 16 different states from 1998 to 2005 but they never commercialized their crops. In 2004, due to market resistant and major outcry by the public, Monsanto had to give up its persistent on approving GE wheat.
All these year, previous contaminations of GE corn and GE rice have cost farmers over $1 billion in loss. But this time, farmers are waking up that Monsanto can push them through bankruptcy by its reckless and irresponsible GE policies.
The Centers for Food Safety and Washington wheat farmers are representing board of class farmers affected by contamination and demanding that Monsanto should take responsibility towards its action and clean up the GE contaminates. The farmers are also seeking compensation for diminished prices and their loss in export of GE wheat.
“We farmers cannot stand idly while companies like Monsanto destroy our export markets and our economy, these reckless open-air test plots of GE wheat must be put to an end” said Tom Stahl, 4th generation Washington wheat farmer.
Also, Andrew Kimbrell, the executive director for Centers for Food Safety said that “Monsanto has put our farmer’s wheat export market at grave risk. Billions of dollars, and our food supply, is at risk because of Monsanto’s negligence. They must be held accountable”.
According to centerforfoodsafety.org, Martha Crouch, Ph.D., Plant Sciences and a consultant for CFS said that the discovery of unapproved Roundup Ready wheat in an Oregon farm is a proof that Monsanto is incompetent to keep their engineered genes under control.
Colbert: Monsanto’s ‘zombie wheat’ is ‘return of the walking bread’
Stephan Colbert who has had a long history of standing up against corporations like ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs in his show mentioned how the a defenseless multinational corporation like Monsanto is being unfairly attacked because of a little slip-up of its spontaneous herbicide-resistant “Roundup Ready” wheat with commercial wheat in a farm in Oregon.
He also pointed out how after the market rejection, the GE wheat crops were supposed to be destroyed back in 2005.
Colbert also said how everyone needs to relax since there’s nothing to fear from Monsanto’s genetically modified un-killable mystery wheat, or what he calls “the amber waves of Franken-grain.”
He also mentioned that people are calling Monsanto’s wheat “Zombie wheat” and the return of the waling bread, yet the Washington policies liek Monsanto’s protection Act is exempting Monsanto from being hold liable in the court of law in case of a lawsuit against GE crops. Recently, Monsanto’s Protection Act was added as biotech rider inside the 2013 Agricultural Appropriations Bill.
Who pushed for Monsanto’s Protection Act?
According to motherjones.com, Sen. Roy Blunt was the man who pushed the rider into the Agricultural Appropriations bill and he even worked with giant biotech company Monsanto to craft the rider.
According to OpenSecrets, Senator Blunt’s ties to Monsanto shines so bright since Monsanto first stated bribing Blunt back in 2008 by giving him $10,000 donation when Blunt was still serving in the House of representative. In 2010, Blunt ran successfully for the Senate and he was given $44,250 by Monsanto and in 2012 the giant pesticide company, Monsanto enriched Blunt’s campaigns again by $64,250.
But Senator Blunt isn’t the only one on the Congress who is apparently on Monsanto’s payroll. Recently, 71 member of the US House of Representative voted “No” on a farm bill that will allow the states to mandate GMO labeling. All these senates received considerable amount of donations from the giant biotech company Monsanto: http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/march-against-Monsanto-politicians-paid-monsanto.php#MonsantoRepresentative
Sources:
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/04/sen-roy-blunt-monsantos-man-washington
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/2284/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-monsanto
