Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company they deliver agricultural products that support Farmers all around the world that's how Monsanto describes itself on its own website which is full of positive words like empowerment sharing and conservation and yet in 2011 they were voted the most evil Corporation in the world by reers of natural [Music] news [Music] now that might not sound surprising after all Monsanto produced genetically modified crops herbicides and more so they're a natural Target for the readers of natural news but they got 51% of the vote second was the Federal Reserve with 20 and BP only managed to get 9% even in the year after to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster so why do people think Monsanto is quite so evil let's start with a little history Monsanto was founded as a chemical company in 1901 its first ever product was sacarin a sugar substitute that was used by Coca-Cola in the 1920s it began to expand producing synthetic goods and chemicals including pesticides and herbicides each one carries a th000 gallons of defol which is very like ordinary weed killer in common domestic use in America it comes in three main types agent orange agent blue and agent white by the 1960s Monsanto were one of nine contractors producing agent orange which was used by the US military during the Vietnam war it was meant to defoliate the thick jungle to reveal vet conqu positions and it did but it also killed or maimed 400,000 people and more than half a million children have been and still are being born with birth defects American officials say it doesn't hurt humans or animals or have any lasting effects on sir and vegetation Monsanto stresses that they were only responsible for producing it not where or how it was used in the 1930s they began manufacturing polychorinated biphenols which were used for coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment pcbs were produced until the 1970s when they were banned because they are cogenic and cause problems with the liver immune systems reproductive systems skin eyes brains and endocrine systems in fact they're so toxic that they still pollute the environment today at least four Monsanto factories and one former Monsanto site are now listed as super fun sites in the US that means that the Environmental Protection Agency ranks them as among the worst spots in the country and as a national priority hazards at the sites include pcbs arsenic cadmium radium and dioxins which are found in the components used in the historic manufacturer of Agent [Music] Orange then there's also the controversy of times Beach Missouri which was effectively wiped off the map after chemical waste mismanagement the whole town had to be relocated by the Environmental Protection Agency the times Beach Action Group reportedly found evidence of monsanto's PC B is in the soil around the town but the company denies that its products had anything to do with the disaster but all that stuff's in the past right even the director of public affairs Brad Mitchell told organic lifestyle magazine that what Monsanto did was wrong but the company wasn't as environmentally sophisticated then as it is now the company are very keen to point out that that was old Monsanto they relaunched in 2001 focusing just on agriculture so why is it that people still think that they're [Music] evil well first up there's the argument over genetically modified crops Monsanto were the first company to modify a plant cell in the 1980s and have since produced many GM seeds there was a public outcry against GM foods in the 1990s stirred by the Press who created a fear of Franken foods that have horrific consequences for the entire food chain there's been an ongoing battle ever since between the two sides despite much of the scientific Community saying that there's little evidence to suggest that GM crops are indeed damaging to human health then again the European Union has been so against GM crops that Monsanto and others like BASF have decided to drop plans for GM cultivation there either way a lot of people resent the fact that they're not given the choice in the UK and much of the EU GM foods do have to be labeled but in the US they don't and if people are really worried about what they're ingesting then perhaps they should have the right to choose next up there's the herbicides and pesticides in 2012 a French farmer won his case against Monsanto after a Court ruled that he had been poisoned by their pesticide lasso which is now banned in France following an EU directive but many activists also question the safety of glyphosate based herbicides like monsanto's Roundup but Monsanto says that it is safe [Music] and it's not just about human health what about the bees Recent research found that pesticides including some produced by Monsanto containing neonicotinoids were increasing something called Nosa virus in be colonies and that was contributing to an increase in what's called colony collapse disorder basically they were killing bees on mass earlier this year the European Union voted to ban the use of pesticides containing neonicotinoids in an attempt to end the dramatic fall in Bee populations Monsanto has defended its record on bees saying we are committed to supporting honeybee health and researching solutions for these complex [Music] issues next up is the proprietary control of seeds and crops Monsanto designs GMCs to be resistant to Roundup and Roundup alone meaning that it has to be used on their products in the 1970s the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said control oil and you control Nations control food and you control the people and Monsanto alongside other multinationals have been repeatedly accused of trying to control the global food supply now the company themselves argue that as the world's population grows exponentially industrial farming has to be developed to cope with the strain on natural resources like water that there products are simply there to help with the demand for more food more cotton more of pretty much everything by the year 2050 there will be 9 billion people on Earth 9 billion people who must be clothed fueled fed and the world is consuming more than it's producing so we must grow more food in the next 50 years than has been grown in the last 10,000 but a report by the for food safety a campaign group revealed that three companies Monsanto Dupont and senta control 53% of the world's commercial Seed [Music] Market and on top of all that Monsanto have been accused of aggressively targeting Farmers to protect their ownership by February this year the company had won more than $23 million from the 142 patent infring ment lawsuits it had filed against 410 farmers and 56 small businesses in the US but Monsanto says it never targets farmers who have only Trace Amounts of their patented crops in their fields having said that in 2004 they did Sue a Canadian farmer called Percy schmeiser who claimed his Fields had been accidentally or naturally seeded with Monsanto GM seed the Canadian Supreme Court ruled against the farmer the company argued that they have to protect their intellectual property in order to innovate with new products and to pump money into research in fact they say they invest $2.6 million every single day into their research but looming behind in the background is the transpacific partnership agreement many fear that these multinationals will be able to gain an even stronger grip on intellectual property rights now if you don't know what the trans-pacific partnership agreement is there's a full explanation over there but it's basically a trade agreement that is unprecedented in its size and scope the chapter on intellectual property was leaked recently by Wicky leaks and it showed that intellectual property rights are set to be strengthened Way Beyond anything else that exists at the moment giving more and more power to corporations the chief agricultural negotiator for the us at the TPP is a former Monsanto lobbyist called Islam sadik and lobbying is yet another point that Monsanto get pulled up on in the US at least they spend a vast amount of money on lobbying and employ an army of lobbyists the most infamous example is law HR 933 more commonly referred to as the Monsanto protection act critics point to section 735 saying it was written in collusion with Monsanto and that it effectively stops federal courts from being able to Pro prevent the sale of GM crops even if there are health issues arising now both of those claims are refuted strongly by the company but whatever you think about Monsanto what about this argument from the author Jenna wenrich she argues that all of this could be a cultural problem westerners expect cheap food readily available at all times of the year vast monocultures and genetically modified crops are inherently unnatural but they do satisfy our insatiable desire to consume she argues that we need to start supporting local produce organic farms and return to a seasonal more traditional farming and if you can do that maybe you can cut Monsanto and all the other multinationals out to the equation