10 Years Of GM Watch - Quiztime:
The Questions And Answers
15-09-2008
We've recently launched a series of GM Watch quizzes. Here
are the answers to the first two, both of which drew a great response so thanks
to all who entered.
QUIZ 1: So Who's
designing your food?
This first quiz came about as a fun way to celebrate 10 years of GM Watch but
there is a more serious side. Most people if asked to nominate the greatest
calamities of the 20th Century, would place the holocaust and the development of
nuclear weapons right at the top of their lists. As our quiz makes clear, the
corporations now designing our food played a significant role in both. They
also, of course, helped bring the world a toxic legacy that includes napalm,
agent orange, dioxin, and PCBs. As for their standards of business ethics...
1. Which biotech corporation was involved in research on uranium for the
Manhattan Project and operated a nuclear facility for the US government until
the late 1980s?
ANSWER: Monsanto
People Description: In 1901, John F. Queeny borrowed $5,000 to start a manufacturing plant to produce saccharin. He named the company after his wife, whose maiden name was Olga Mendez Monsanto. In 1903 and 1905, the entire production of saccharin was sent to a new company in Georgia called Coca-Cola. In the early 1900s, vanilla and caffeine were also produced. In 1917, the company started producing aspirin. During WWI, Monsanto could no longer import its raw materials from Europe, so it started making its own, which was a major turning point for the company.
2. Name two biotech corporations that were once part
of the German chemical firm at the financial core of the Nazi regime and which
supplied Zyklon-B during the extermination phase of the Holocaust?
ANSWER: Bayer and BASF
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: IG Farben
IG Farben (short for Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG,
"syndicate of dyestuff corporations"
3. Which biotech firm other than Monsanto was a major supplier of Agent
Orange, as well as manufacturing napalm?
ANSWER: Dow
Don’t be fooled by Dow’s warm and fuzzy propaganda: its
lust for profit can been measured in the cancers, deformations, lost lives and
ruined dreams its products have caused. How many Bhopals has this company
created? Read more about them below
Monsanto, Agent Orange and Dioxins
4. In relation to which Alabama town, where the undertaker who lived
across the street from the Monsanto plant said he always thought he was burying
too many children, was the company found guilty of conduct "so outrageous in
character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency
so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society"?
ANSWER: Anniston
Monsanto's Global Pollution Legacy
5. What happened on October 21 2007 to Valmir Mota de Oliveira, also
known as Keno, during a protest at an experimental GMO farm owned by Syngenta?
ANSWER: He was killed with two shots to the chest at point-blank range by
militiamen employed by Syngenta. (The company denies responsibility)
Syngenta's Stormtroopers
6. In 2005 the Bollywood star, Nana Patekar toured
India's main cotton growing area of Maharashtra, promoting Monsanto's Bt cotton
to farmers. What made him announce the following year that he would no longer
support Monsanto or promote its Bollgard Bt cotton?
ANSWER: Two reasons were given in press reports: the large scale losses
caused to cotton farmers across the state and the impact of Bt Cotton
cultivation on farmer suicides.
7. Monsanto says, "Integrity is the foundation for
all that we do". How many current and former Indonesian government officials and
their family members are known to have received illicit payments on the
company's behalf?
ANSWER: At least 140, according to the US Securities & Exchange
Commission.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
8. Who was in overall charge of business operations in Indonesia when the
bribes scandal got underway?
ANSWER: Hugh Grant, Monsanto's current Chairman, Chief Executive Officer
and President. He was managing director of Monsanto's Asia Pacific division.
Eco sounding
9. Which country has a bilateral agreement with the US for the
development of its agriculture, including the promotion of GMOs, overseen by a
board that includes Monsanto, ADM and Wal-Mart?
ANSWER: India (Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture)
Ripping up the rulebook Bilateral and unilateral deals are the new
avatars of 'free trade' and guarantors of corporate rule
10. Which Health Canada scientist told a Canadian Senate committee of
being in a meeting where officials from Monsanto made an offer of between $1-2
million to the scientists from Health Canada -- an offer that she told the
senators could only have been interpreted as a bribe. Additionally, she also
recounted how notes and files critical of scientific data provided by Monsanto
were stolen from a locked filing cabinet in her office.
ANSWER: Dr. Margaret Haydon
Monsanto Accused of Attempt to Bribe
Health Canada for rBGH (Posilac) Approval
QUIZ 2: Farming in a GM wonderland
We're off to see the biotech equivalent of the Wizard of Oz...
1. Many pro-GM commentators hail the technology as the solution to the
current food crisis because of its ability to reduce fertilizer use and help
farmers cope with problems like drought, salinity or flooding. After 20 years of
GM research, how many GM drought tolerant, or salt tolerant, or flood tolerant,
or fertilizer-reducing crops are there on the market worldwide?
ANSWER: None.
NOTES/SOURCES: See, for instance, the commentary by former EPA biotech
specialist Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman, Genetic engineering - a crop of hyperbole,
San Diego Union Tribune, 18 June 2008
Genetic engineering – a crop of hyperbole
2. There have been tens of thousands of articles in the world's media
about 'miracle' crops genetically engineered for enhanced appearance, flavour,
nutrition, or to be allergen-free, or to combat problems like obesity or to
contain edible vaccines that protect against major diseases like cancer. How
many of these GM crops are there on the market worldwide?
ANSWER: None.
NOTES/SOURCES: In his book Genetically Modified Language, Prof. Guy Cook notes
how a study he conducted of UK press coverage of GM found that largely
uncritical stories about speculative GM solutions to intractable problems (e.g.
GM allergy-free peanuts, GM apples to fight tooth decay) were widely published
in all types of newspapers, even those with editorial lines skeptical of GM.
Genetically Modified Language - Professor Bullsh*t unspun!
3. When published in April 2008, which appraisal of global agriculture,
sponsored by the World Bank and the U.N., and undertaken on a scale comparable
to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concluded that GM crops have
at best variable impacts on yields and would not play a substantial role in
addressing climate change, loss of biodiversity, hunger or poverty?
ANSWER: IAASTD -
International Assessment of Agricultural knowledge,
Science and Technology for Development
NOTES/SOURCES: For a good short summary see, IAASTD: Overhaul of agriculture
systems needed, GM crops not the solution, by Lim Li Ching,
Sustainable Food Monitor, 2007.
4. More than 50% of the GM crops grown worldwide are farmed in the United
States, and by far the most widely grown crop is herbicide-tolerant soyabeans.
Based on U.S. Department of Agriculture trend data and numerous field studies,
by roughly how much has GM soya increased yield for U.S. farmers compared to
conventional (non-GM) varieties?
ANSWER: Zero - it may even have decreased yields compared to non-GM
varieties.
NOTES/SOURCES: See, for instance, the commentary by Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman,
Genetic engineering - a crop of hyperbole, San Diego Union Tribune, 18 June 2008
Genetic engineering – a crop of hyperbole
5. Who said the following about GM crops when promoting them as a
solution to the food crisis? "We've been using them for 10 years in the United
States and they have a proven effectiveness in increasing yields, in lowering
the use of fertilizer, in providing better water and soil management and also
increasing taste and appearance. So, you know, those are all good things."
ANSWER: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.
NOTES/SOURCES: See:
At UN summit, US offers three-prong approach to food
crisis, Voice of America, 3 June 2008
6. What word did Prof. Dennis Murphy - the head of biotechnology at the
University of Glamorgan, recently use to describe claims about GM crops solving
the problem of drought or feeding the world?
ANSWER: "Bullshit".
NOTES/SOURCES:
Prof. Murphy is quoted in this strongly pro-GM article,
GM: it's safe, but it's not a saviour, Spiked, 7 July 2008
7. Monsanto and its supporters claim that GM crops have been widely
adopted in countries like the United States because of their economic benefits
for farmers. Which organization in its review of GM crop cultivation in the U.S.
commented, "Perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain
the rapid adoption of [GM] crops when farm financial impacts appear to be mixed
or even negative"?
ANSWER: USDA - United States department for Agriculture (USDA/ERS)
NOTES/SOURCES:
Jorge Fernandez-Cornejo and William D. McBride, Adoption
of Bioengineered Crops, Agricultural Economic Report No. AER810, May 2002
8. The Director of Corporate Affairs for Monsanto India says the increase
in GM cotton acres there "bear testimony to the success of this technology and
the benefit that farmers derive from it." According to Washington University
researcher Glenn Stone's multi-year study of the behaviour of cotton farmers in
a key cotton growing area of India, what underlay the rapid spread of GM cotton
there?
ANSWER: Seed fads.
NOTES/SOURCES: Stone argues that far from farmers carefully assessing the
technology before adopting it more widely, the process is more like a "craze".
He argues that GM cotton has contributed to a disruption of farmers' process of
learning, as they rely less on experimentation and observation and more on
advertising and a kind of herd mentality where everybody copies everyone else,
leading to blind adoption. See: Glenn Davis Stone, Agricultural Deskilling and
the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal, Current Anthropology,
Volume 48, Number 1, February 2007
Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of
Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal
Articles about this research here
Cotton seed confusion in poor countries
9. The wife of which South African farmer who has been flown around the
world by Monsanto to preach the benefits of GM cotton and detail how it has
transformed his family's life, admitted on camera that they made no profit from
the crop?
ANSWER: TJ Buthelezi
NOTES/SOURCES: See the film,
A Disaster in Search of Success: Bt Cotton in Global
South
For a profile of TJ Buthelezi South
African farmer, Thembitshe Joseph Buthelezi, has a long established relationship
with Monsanto and the biotech industry. With
their assistance he has been brought to Washington, Brussels, Pretoria, St
Louis, London, Johannesburg, and Philadelphia to help promote GM foods.
10. What was surprising about the posters that appeared in many places in
Madhya Pradesh, India, featuring a man who said he'd gained great benefits from
growing GM cotton and urging others to do the same?
ANSWER: He was not a farmer.
NOTES/SOURCES: He was found on investigation to be a paan shop owner - a
roadside vendor of betel leaves and cigarettes.
See: New report - Farmers lied to and lured into Bt
cotton
11. Why was Gary Rinehart surprised to be publicly harassed over
violating Monsanto's patent on GM soybeans, and subsequently to have the company
file a federal lawsuit against him?
ANSWER: He was not a farmer.
NOTES/SOURCES: "Rinehart wasn't a farmer. He wasn't a seed dealer. He hadn't
planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small - a really small - country
store…", Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Investigation:
Monsanto's Harvest of Fear, Vanity Fair, May 2008
12. What is the annual budget that Monsanto devotes to harassing,
intimidating, suing - and in some cases bankrupting - American farmers over
alleged improper use of its patented seeds?
ANSWER: 10 million dollars.
NOTES/SOURCES:
See p.6 of the report, Monsanto vs US farmers, The Center
for Food Safety, 2005
Source: GMWATCH