Monsanto, Moe Parr and Food Inc.

After watching the documentary film Food Inc. [imdb] nobody can deny that it is quite a biased and tendentious approach to the american food industry.

But on the other hand, it is impossible not to become shocked and even outraged by some food industry strategies. In comparison the the Microsoft monopoly policy seems almost a childs thing.

And the company that gets the worse part in this film is Monsanto.

In the movie it is said that "Monsanto declined to participate". In the Monsanto blog there is another point of view. According to "Darren", the events came like this:

"(...)I took the initial call from one of the film’s L.A.-based producers, Elise Pearlstein, asking my company to be a participant a number of months ago.

When I got the call, I asked a number of questions: “Who would be in it? Who would present the opposing view? Who was funding the film? Would the film present balance and fairness or present one side of the story?”

Over the course of a few weeks, Elise and I talked and e-mailed several times, but I never felt I had those key questions answered. Despite this, we invited Elise and a crew to a trade show to learn more about Monsanto, agriculture and talk with farmers. They opted not to come to the show.

By this time, as my dad would say, I had an inkling something wasn’t right. Given the one-sided view I watched play out on the silver screen that night, I would say my intuition proved right. But, bottom line, we didn’t decline to participate.".

Accepting this is the truth, you can't say Monsanto "declined to participate", but neither you can say that they had any interest in participating.

But talking about what is really said in the film, the worse part for Monsanto is the one referent to Moe Parr.

Moe Parr is a seed cleaner in Indiana, USA. In February 2007, Monsanto initiated a lawsuit against him. The biotech company claimed that Moe had encouraged Genetically Modified soybean farmers to save their seed. Moe is one of many farmers in North America who've faced coercion from Monsanto through legal and economic pressure.

Here comes the first interesting point: the US government modified the law to "protect" genetically modified seeds, they forbid keeping them, which is something simply aberrant; so you buy Monsanto seeds, you plant them, you grow your beans, and then you just can't keep these seeds for the next year, because legally they are just not yours. So, according the law, you can buy the seeds, pay them, but they are just not yours.

But some farmers just prefer to keep using the traditional seeds rather than paying Monsato for theirs. But to do this, they need to clean the seeds in order to keep them viable for the next season. Here is where Monsanto found the key to force this farmers to come to their "New Vision for Agriculture". To press charges against the people who owned the "seed cleaners". Moe Parr was one of them.

Officially, according to Monsanto, Mr.Parr was denounced because of:

"- Moe Parr had historically received clear communication about the patent law around Roundup Ready soybeans and knowingly disregarded this information by confusing farmers about the law regarding patents.

- Affidavits from local farmers allege that Mr. Parr misled some of his customers into breaking patent law by convincing them to save patented seed."

Even more, "The injunction also makes clear that Mr. Parr will honor the patent by informing customers it is illegal to save Roundup Ready seed--requiring customers to certify their seed is not a patented product and providing samples to Monsanto for testing". So Mr.Parr has to become a sort of policeman to defend the interests of Monsanto.

But the most terrifying of everything is to see how Monsanto can use the courts just as another field for "marketing".