the sky above monsanto by Vertigogen, on Flickr

In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a lot of news surrounding Monsanto these days. First, Food, Inc. dealt quite a blow.

Then a competitor sued them for the right to use GMO tech in seeds of their own. That failed, but the legal ramifications are far from settled.

There’s been outcry about the sudden and unreasonable increased cost of GMO seeds.

A re-analyzed report shows consumption of GMO foods can cause organ damage.

A new genetic manipulation, SmartStax is due to hit fields this spring. No longer satisfied with mere Roundup resistance, Monsanto has partnered with Dow Chemical to create an organism that repels insects as well as provides herbicide protection. Until now, the most genes artificially added to a single plant was three, but Smartstax includes eight. Smartstax is a full-on investment in the increased yield promise yet to be realized by genetic modification. But, if consumers won’t buy the food produced by these modifications, farmers won’t buy the seeds, and if farmers won’t buy the seeds, billions of research dollars are lost.

Toward that end, Monsanto has launched quite a campaign. You might have seen the ad. We saw it during the recent football playoffs, but the version playing in my part of the country does not mention Monsanto, but instead, sends viewers to a website, America’s Famers (dot) com. Lots of earth tones, photos of happy, smiling family farmers and “get the real facts” links adorn the site.

What’s next? That depends who you ask. Ask Monsanto and you’ll hear about the unrealized promise of feeding the world just over the next hill (five years away—it’s always just five years from now. Always.)  Ask someone savvy in the dangers of eating these foods and you might hear a prayer that the nationwide experiment perpetrated on us without our knowledge or consent is winding down. Ask a farmer and…well, it’s hard to say.

But it’s a hot topic in 2010 and bears close scrutiny! Stay tuned, folks!

January 20 This just in!! The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Monsanto’s appeal to a 2007 ban of genetically modified alfalfa. This case has far-reaching effects, not only because it concerns over 22 million acres of crop grown in the United States, all of which would be subject to cross-contamination from these transgene products which are used to feed livestock, further contaminating the food chain; but also because this case could pave the way for Monsanto to secure rights to genetically modified sugar beets.

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