Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: 109 Nobel Laureates sign a letter slamming Greenpeace. [View all]Lithos
(26,403 posts)Monsanto is not wholly comprised of scientists, all doing their best to serve the greater good of humanity. It first and foremost is a corporation designed to maximize shareholder profit. Monsanto does this by creating products designed often times for the manufacturers and not the farmers themselves. It also trademarks and does other things with these products which help create a monopoly. Sometimes the products are good, sometimes they are not. The bad science aspect comes in where scientists take the short term focus and lose sight of the bigger picture.
One issue with this type of corporate control of seeds is the decrease in options for farmers as these strains are often times created for the benefits of the manufacturers and not the consumers. Example: the wide spread domination by a heavily modified short-dwarf wheat designed for maximum gluten yield and minimum effort for the mill. The problem is this wheat is not as nutritious as the older varieties. In essence, manufacturers and the seed companies decided to maximize their profits over the nutritional benefits. It also puts more strain on water and other limited resources. Good science to get there, but bad science in that it fails humanity.
Another issue is that this standardization also creates other issues - visit the banana, whose primary variety in the global market is the Cavendish. The Cavendish was standardized and optimized for yield and shipment. However, this variety is under attack by Panama Wilt with the disease threatening to remove a major food item from the global market.
See also, this from the UN which talks about the loss of available agrobiodiversity for the farmer:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5609e/y5609e02.htm