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Saving my critique of "Monsanto: The True Cost of Our Food" by Our Changing Climate

Nesslig20

Active Member
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Several months ago, I made series of long replies to the youtuber "Our Changing Climate" under his video about Monsanto. I do not particularly care for Monsanto (now part of Bayer), nor any other amoral mega corporation. However, I am fully aware that Monsanto and the so-called "GMOs" are often treated as inseparable things, and as a result many arguments against Monsanto inevitably relies on PRATTs about GMOs (and glyphosate, other pesticides, etc)...and sure enough...this youtube channel falls victim to the same pitfalls. It's not an entire train wreck though, but still. I just had to comment on this.



Introduction
I am currently pursuing a master's degree on the topic of plant biotechnology, so I also have some concerns about this topic myself. I am also a regular viewer of your videos, which I enjoy and find very informative. However, while I agree with the overall message of this video - being that a monopolized corporate control of agriculture, the impact of industrialized farming, as well as the pollution that they are responsible for are important issues to be addressed - but there are a few points in this video where important information is left out, which could give the wrong impression. There are also instances where (to be blunt) you repeat gross misinformation, often cited from unreliable sources, which have been refuted many years ago. And...to be clear...I am not hired to defend Monsanto. As I am still a student, I have never worked there, not even for an internship, nor do I intend to after graduating. I want work in the public sector…although...as I intend to remain anonymous, I am unable to confirm all this personal background about myself. Still, I expect to be called a "shill" by someone else in the comments regardless. What I care about is scientific accuracy, and evil corporations can be soundly criticized without bending or breaking it.

Agent Orange
This was and remains indeed absolutely horrible. The concoction of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T used as an effective defoliants to deprive the Vietnam army the coverage they used for guerrilla warfare, as well as the food supply for them and the population. But the most horrifying part of agent orange that is still in effect to this day is the unintended by-product TCDD, a very potent and long-lasting carcinogen that is responsible for the ailments like cancer and birth defects. While Monsanto was one of the producers, and while it remains an amoral big corporation deserving of severe criticism - I do not see how anyone can blame Monsanto as responsible for agent orange. The U.S. army began developing the agent in 1945 and was first used by the British during the Malayan emergency [1948-1960]. When the U.S. military started using it in 1965 (when the Vietnam war really escalated) they began contracting several companies, Monsanto being just one of nine, to keep up with the U.S. Military’s demand. Also…”fun” fact…Monsanto warned the U.S. government that the agent was contaminated with the toxic substance, as early as 1952. [Source: Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts page 17] So, IMO the U.S. government and military are fully responsible for agent orange and its use, while Monsanto (as well as the other companies) can be fairly criticized for being compliant participants and for later denying the serious health effects of the product. Furthermore, the chemical devision of Monsanto that produced agent orange budded off to start its own company, Solutia, in 1997. The Monsanto that remained focuses almost exclusively in biotechnology. So, the Monsanto (part of Bayer) of today isn’t the same as the Monsanto that produced agent orange back then. This is why the emphasis on the agent-orange and Monsanto connection, which is being re-told ad nauseam, seems to be done just for the sake of poisoning the well…to me at least. It is rather like in criticizing Volkswagen you start by talking about its connection with Nazi’s and when it manufactured many of their military vehicles during WWII. Like, sure…Volkswagen deserves criticism for the 2015 emission scandal among other things…but why bother make the Nazi connection?

Agricultural Warfare?
“Monsanto introduced a militaristic mentality to farming by introducing to farming by waging war on the soil, insects and weeds"
uhh…firstly…I take issue with using the “warfare” description of how farmers manage pests, because it is obvious that you did this deliberately to make the audience associate this with use of agent orange in warfare - so to me this is nothing but an emotional appeal. Secondly, Monsanto didn’t introduce this “militaristic mentality” - that being - farmers fighting against pests to protect their crops. That has existed since the beginning of agriculture. People have used pesticides and other forms of pest control for thousands of years in one form or another. It’s virtually impossible to grow enough food without preventing crop damage by pests, or competition for sunlight and nutrients with weeds. You have to deal with them in some way or another. Pulling weeds is one way to “wage war”, and - since I have worked in a greenhouse myself with sowing, planting and pulling weeds - I can attest that this is an arduous battle indeed. Also, one could make the argument that this “war” has existed ever since there were plants and animals that feed on them. Plants cannot run away, so one common way they can defend themselves against pests is by making themselves taste bad, and or toxic. In order words, they make their own pesticides as secondary metabolites. You can say they engage in “chemical warfare”. Examples include: The Glucosinolates of brassica crops that gives them their pungent tastes, cyanogenic compounds in apple and almond seeds, noxious alkaloids in Nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, etc) most notably coffee and tobacco that contains caffeine and nicotine that are neurotoxins to insects (neonicotinoids are named after their chemical similarity to nicotine)…you name it! So to describe “the farming mentality introduced by Monsanto” as the only one that is “militaristic” or “war-like” in this sense is very misleading to say the least.

Glyphosate claims

#1 Kills beneficial soil microbes

I have checked out the POLITICO citation for this claim. While I did find links to studies on the effects glyphosate has on earthworm activity and glyphosate residue persistence, I did not find any link to studies on soil microbes. In the POLITICO article, there were some statements about soil microbes, but these were not specific enough such that I could find the original source. What I could find were some studies that shows the negative effect of glyphosate on soil bacteria is rather limited. In soil-free media, glyphosate kills bacteria relatively quickly, but in the actual soil, glyphosate tends to bind to soil colloids such as clay particles. This tends to shield it away from the bacteria. Hence why the same effect in soil-free media isn’t observed when glyphosate is applied to bacteria in the soil. [source: Non-Target Effects of Glyphosate on Soil Microbes] [source: Effects of a glyphosate-based herbicide on soil animal trophic groups and associated ecosystem functioning in a northern agricultural field]. And a 2016 article found that glyphosate had no effect on crops regarding their macronutrients or exoenzymes (signs of microbial activity) in the soil [Source: Impact of glyphosate-resistant corn, glyphosate applications and tillage on soil nutrient ratios, exoenzyme activities and nutrient acquisition ratios].

Regarding the “earthworm paper" that was cited, Andrew Kniss has a good breakdown on the problems with this study. The main flaw of that study is that the control that they used was inappropriate. In the test field, plants were killed with herbicide, but in the control, no plants were killed. A better control would be to kill an equal amount of plant matter, but without using herbicides. The reason being that in this case you cannot rule out decomposing plant matter as the sole cause for the observed effect. The observations that they noted could’ve been entirely due to the fact that they killed a lot of plants, not from the herbicide itself. [Source: Dead plants are probably bad for earthworms]. Furthermore, a more recent meta-analyse
“did not find any significant effect of the use of glyphosate on earthworm populations and both abundance and biomass tended to be even greater when this herbicide was used in the fields (on average 35% increase compared with the overall mean).”
[source: Conventional tillage decreases the abundance and biomass of earthworms and alters their community structure in a global meta‐analysis]. It is also clear that no-till farming, which glyphosate facilitates, has tremendous positive effects on the soil. Traditional weed management, such as tillage, turns out to be much more destructive. Glyphosate of course has its own issues, but in order to assess this fairly, we need to look at the pros as well as the cons. Glyphosate has toxic effects, but since it is comparatively benign, it’s use has led to lower chronic toxicity in agriculture. [source: Long-term trends in the intensity and relative toxicity of herbicide use]. So the likely consequences of a global ban of glyphosate would likely include:
1. Global farm income drops by $6.67 billion USD
2. global soybean, Corn and Canola production drops by 18.6 million tonnes, 3.1million tonnes and 1.44 million tonnes respectively.
3. Contrary to what some may expect, the use of herbicides increases by 8.2 million kg, resulting in 12.4% increased negative impact on the environment as measured by the Environmental Impact Quotient, because glyphosate is more environmentally benign than the herbicides that would replace it.
4. Carbon dioxide emissions increases that is equivalent to 11.8 million cars on the road, resulting from increased fuel usage and decreased soil carbon sequestration due to more frequent herbicide applications and soil tillage to control weeds.
5. Land use increases by an additional 762.000 hectares, including 167.000 hectares of deforestation.
[source: The contribution of glyphosate to agriculture and potential impact of restrictions on use at the global level]

#2 Milkweed and Monarch butterfly decline
Indeed, glyphosate, as a herbicide, kills milkweed and its widespread use has led to the decline in the habitat of the monarch butterfly. However, the issue is much more nuanced. Firstly, I wouldn’t describe milkweed as a “beneficial plant” at least not for the farmers. It’s a weed after all, which farmers don’t want to have in their field. Glyphosate is simply doing its job in this regard. So it is more accurate to say that efficient weed control is what kills milkweed. If you ban glyphosate, the weeds still need to be managed somehow, likely with the use of a much more toxic herbicide, or destructive tillage. If this happens, then milkweed is still being killed and the monarch butterfly is still in trouble. Or, if weeds aren’t managed, then we are looking at a trade-off. More weed (like milkweed) means lower yields, which means taking more land for agriculture to compensate for this loss and thereby increased habitat loss for biodiversity as a whole. So the solution isn’t to outright ban glyphosate. Ted Nordhaus says it right:
“Ultimately, the only way to have more monarch butterflies without reducing agricultural output or saving monarchs at the expense of other species is to create more monarch habitat outside of cornfields. This is an effort that a lot of people more concerned about monarch preservation as opposed to scoring ideological points about the food system have begun to focus on.”

#3 Glyphosate kills people
Oh boy…here it gets ugly. The WHO IARC has classified glyphosate as a type 2A or “probable carcinogen” but we need to unpack exactly what that means. For that we need to establish the difference between “hazard” and “risk”. A hazard is the potential for harm, while risk is the likelihood for causing harm. The IARC scale of type 1, 2a, 2b, etc only concerns the hazards of substances and practices, but not risk. This is why in type 1 carcinogens, you can find things like alcoholic beverages, camp fire smoke, tobacco, and plutonium side by side. They all pose a hazard, i.e alcoholic beverage, smoke and plutonium have the potential to cause cancer, however the risks (likelihood) of them causing cancer are definitely not equal. It is possible to drink alcohol in moderate amounts and be fine. Type 2a means that the potential for harm isn’t firmly established, but that there is evidence that leans towards the conclusion that it is hazardous. Within this category, we have alongside glyphosate, shift work (circadian disruption) and very hot beverages like tea and coffee. Furthermore, most other governmental agencies don’t classify glyphosate as a carcinogen. The EFSA, EPA, PMRA, WHO/FAO and the ECHA for example. What the PMRA for example did, which the IARC did not, was taking risk into account in their assessment. As they said themselves:
“The level of human exposure, which determines the actual risks, was not taking into account [by the IARC]”.
Also, the whole story behind the decision process of the IARC makes their type 2a conclusion highly dubious.
1) They didn’t look at all the data that was available.
2) Very shady, the IARC edited mentions to data that were contrary to the conclusion OUT of the final report, which were present in earlier drafts. [Source: Reuters - In glyphosate review, WHO cancer agency edited out “non-carcinogenic” findings] and more.
3) Even shadier, Christopher Portier, one of the advisers of IARC behind this decision, didn’t disclose his conflict of interest of him having signed a lucrative contract with a litigation team that were preparing to sue Monsanto. [Source: Congress of the United States, Ramazzini Institute and its affiliates, IARC: questions on scientific transparency]

For a more thorough review, I recommend Myles Power’s video on this


and KNOW IDEAS MEDIA’s video


About the 41% increased risk of NHL study. That is a doozy. It is a meta-analysis, basically a review of the literature and compare different studies to come up with a consensus. One single study may draw one conclusion, but there may be problems associated with it, and other better studies could point to a different conclusion. Hence meta-analysis tend to be more reliable. Emphasis on “tend”, the issue here lies in how the authors of this study picked the studies. Normally, you have to check each study for the quality and potential shortcomings and make adequate comparisons between the ones that have more or less the same methodology (otherwise they aren’t comparable). You also shouldn’t just arbitrarily pick and choose the studies that make the conclusions you want to hear. You may suspect what the problem here is. There is a plethora of studies on glyphosate safety, and most show no increased risks regarding cancer rates, which is why (as mentioned before) most agencies have come tot he same conclusion. A good overview of what the studies show is again given by Andrew Kniss [Source: Glyphosate and Cancer: What does the data say?] Scrolling down a bit you can see a good graph that summarises why you can’t rely on a single study most of the time. The conclusions of the studies are all over the place, but they tend to hover around the 1.0 line (no difference in effect). Kniss points out that the outliers that show “increased cancer” rates tend to be “case control” studies, which (while useful) tend to be subject to recall-bias and low sample sizes. A more reliable method is cohort studies, with tens of thousands of test subjects, which show no increased rates. [Sources: Cancer incidence among glyphosate-exposed pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study] AND [Glyphosate Use and Cancer Incidence in the Agricultural Health Study] The 41% study looked at 5 case-control studies and 1 cohort study (which shows no cancer risks associated with glyphosate) (see also this), and for some reason the authors were inclined to denigrate the cohort study, but they do not scrutinise the 5 case control studies on the same standard, even though the cohort study is the most reliable one, which observed over 54.000 farmers. They also cherry picked one aspect of the Cohort study that showed a slightly positive increase in relative risk (but the 95% confidence interval still overlapped well beyond this on both sides) whilst ignoring the others results that shows the releative risks were below 1.0. So, by cherry picking, they came up with a conclusion that ran contrary to the original study that way. This is why this study didn’t make any waves in the literature. It doesn’t present anything new, except for cherry picked data. But, of course, it blew up in the media. This meta-analysis is a big mess. There is a lot more to say about this, but you can look up Geoffrey Kabat comments [source: Remember the questionable study claiming glyphosate boosts cancer risk 41%? Lead author reasserts her claim, EPA refutes it, and we take a second look] or Rebecca Watson’s video:


CEO claims glyphosate is safe, despite having settled for lawsuits saying the exact opposite
The results of court cases are notoriously unreliable to determine whether a claim is scientifically established. A good example were the many cases of parents claiming that vaccine caused harm to their children that were and are often settled, but that very often has no bearing on whether those “damages” are scientifically established. The whole “vaccine court” was made, because of the many false litigation claims aimed at vaccines that almost eliminated vaccines all together. I also find the issue of predatory lawyers - taking advantage of cancer patients - very troubling. Look up for example Timothy Litzenburg, who attempted to extort a company for 200 million dollars with the threat of sending dozens of cancer patients as ammunition for his litigation campaign against them. The profit motive goes both ways it seems. So, again, Monsanto remains an amoral corporation and the people at the top of it are scumbags, but the CEO is certainly not contradicting himself here. Science is not done in court.

Neonicotinoids and bee colony collapse disorder
I also don’t have a positive view of neonicotinoids. I rather prefer large scale farming to move towards integrated pest management, where (preferably the most benign) pesticides are used only when the alternative is worse [i.e. smart pesticide use]. Having said that, we still need to take a straight look at the facts about how the usages of neonicotinoids affects bee population. The particular study you cited seems to have many issues associated with it, as outlined by Joe Ballenger [source: Are Neonicotinoids the Sole Factor Responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder?] It is certainly not controversial that neonicotinoids directly applied on bees will have negative effects, but that doesn’t reflect the real life settings, so how this relates to colony collapse disorder and wild bee populations is not as clear. There doesn’t seem to be a one main cause responsible for this. There is good evidence to suggest that bees are put under stress mainly by the combination of habitat loss (lack of flowers in particular), the varroa destructor mite, as well as the many diseases it carries, viruses in particular, and the fungal pathogen Nosema ceranae. Neonicotinoids in particular seem to be a relatively minor influencer, particularly as a interactive effect with other factors, like making bees more susciptible to the fungal pathogen. [source: Report on the National Stakeholders Conference on Honey Bee Health]. It is the case that neonicotinoids are mostly used as seed coating, which seems to have a limited or no effect on bees, [source: EPA says pesticide harms bees in some cases] except when the dust from the seed coats are able to be carried by the wind, so that has to be mitigated. [source: ICPBR-Working Group Risks posed by dusts: overview of the area and recommendations]. The more worrisome pesticides are the Pyrethroids miticides, which are applied directly on the colonies to counter the mites. But overall, when looking at each factor individually, the single biggest problem seems to be the varroa mites, exaggerated by the honey bee trade with Europe [source: Bee virus spread manmade and emanates from Europe] and they are likely allowed to spread by hobby beekeepers who don’t have the know how to prevent it, as well as to properly manage the hives in general. [source: A pan-European epidemiological study reveals honey bee colony survival depends on beekeeper education and disease control]. Also, while commercial honey bees face health issues, the number of hive and honey production remains mostly stable, because the beekeepers can compensate for the losses by splitting hives more often or buy more queens. Although, this certainly doesn’t solve the real health problems of bees and this brings other problems with it (i.e. low genetic diversity), it means that the honey bee in particular is not really “decimated”. On the other hand, wild bees are more threatened since they also are effected by the same issues, sometimes more so (we provide the habitat for our bees, but not for the wild ones) AND by competition from and diseases spread by commercial honey bees that humans keep as livestock (and are thus mostly invasive). [source: How the Bees You Know are Killing the Bees You Don’t].

Monsanto v. Schmeiser
Oh boy…here it goes ugly again. The common myth being told is that Percy’s field was accidentally contaminated with the roundup-ready canola by wind blown pollen, and that this accidental contamination is why he got sued. Your recount of this story is more accurate, in that he was sued for the reuse of seeds, not accidental contamination, but it is not accurate to say that Schmeiser “accidentally” reused the seeds. His field contained up to 95% roundup-ready canola, which is far higher than you can reasonably expect from him accidentally reusing the seeds. This is what actually happened. Schmeiser was sparying weeds prior to sowing, a practice that is known as a “spring burn”. Schmeiser noticed that volunteer canola plants survived the spraying, which prompted him to harvest and save the seeds, which explains why most of the canola plants were round-up ready. So Schmeiser’s reuse of the seeds was intentional, not accidental. The court decided that this constituted the “use” of Monsanto’s patented GM material, with a 5-4 majority. However, the court also ruled with a 9-0 majority that Schmeiser did not have to pay Monsanto anything, because Schmeiser didn’t obtain any benefit from his usage of these plants.

Also, the “rule” of not allowing to reuse seeds isn’t new due to Monsanto. Farmers re-buying seeds each season has been the practice in modern agriculture when the first hybrid seeds were developed, which are high yielding, but the offspring of hybrids are unreliable in this regard, so it is much more profitable to buy the hybrids each year. Also, patented seeds aren’t unique to Monsanto, nor to GMO. Seed companies tend to always have patents associated with their products, and strict rules about how to use them.

The biggest sin: Using Vandana Shiva as a source and India suicides
This is where my jaw dropped to the floor. Vandana Shiva is…to put it mildly…and unreliable source. [someone else in the comments also made similar remarks]. She makes absurd claims about GMO foods, like how they - somehow - cause sterility in plants, which - paradoxically [since sterility doesn’t get passed on for obvious reasons] - would spread throughout nature and end the world. She recently made the absurd claim that the SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus behind the current pandemic) are due to new viruses being formed by old viruses that are hybridising with the viral promoters that are used in GMOs. She also made this claim regarding the SARS epidemic. This makes absolutely no sense for several reasons. For one, the coronavirus doesn’t rely on DNA promoters since it is an +ssRNA virus. Sometimes I am wondering whether Vandana is really this level of ignorant, or whether she knows that she is making up this stuff as she goes. In either case, she isn’t trustworthy to say the least.

Having said that, I have looked up the success/failure of bt cotton (as well as other bt crops) in India (and other countries) using more reliable sources. These give a completely different picture. Data from 2002-2008 showed that Bt cotton has provided large and sustainable benefits for India, and small holder farmers in particular, by increasing yield per acre by 24% via reduced pest damage, and 50% gain in profit, and improved their standard of living. [Source: Economic impacts and impact dynamics of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton in India]. Furthermore “On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries.” [source: A Meta-Analysis of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Crops]. These go completely counter to your claim that it has led to increased pesticide use. Also, your graph of costs is very strange. You don’t give a source for this, and I couldn’t find where you got this from, but even taking it for granted, it just shows the cost per acre. The increase in seed cost is to be expected, but the labour and fertiliser costs is also expected when farming becomes more intensive (perhaps made possible due to in part of the adoption of bt plants), but these increase in costs can be compensated with increased productivity…though you have claimed that yields are the same or down, the sources I have read show otherwise.
“An overview of bt cotton in India specifically: GM IR cotton has been planted commercially in India since 2002. In 2016, 10.42 million ha were planted to GM IR cotton which is equal to 96% of total plantings. The main impact of using GM IR cotton has been major increases in yield. With respect to cost of production, the average cost of the technology (seed premium: $49/ha to $54/ha) up to 2006 was greater than the average insecticide cost savings of $31/ha-$58/ha resulting in a net increase in costs of production. Following the reduction in the seed premium in 2006 to between $12/ha- $20/ha, farmers have made a net cost saving of $16/ha-$25/ha. The average seed premium for the period 2002-2016 is equal to about $17/ha. Coupled with the yield gains, important net gains to levels of profitability have been achieved of between $82/ha and $356/ha (the average increase in farm income 2002-2016 has been $207/ha). At the national level, the aggregate farm income gain in 2016 was $1.52 billion and cumulatively since 2002 the farm income gains have been $21.12 billion (Table 34). The impact on total cotton production was an increase of 23% in 2016.”
[source: GM crops: global socio-economic and environmental impacts 1996- 2016 pages 67-68] Regarding the suicide rates, there is little to no connection with that and bt crops. The suicide rates was already rising 5 years before its introduction and that the introduction was effective in India overall, but that in the context that it was introduced did indeed generate some disappointing results in some districts and seasons, which may have indirectly contributed to farmer indebtedness, but this failure was mainly the result of the context or environment in which it was planted…so bt cotton is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for farmer suicides. Many other factors were likely the main cause. [source: Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India Reviewing the Evidence] [source: Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India an Evidence-based assessment] The suicide are manly attributed to credit crunches in the agrarian sector and increases debt burden from increased competition in banking seated that diverted lending away from agriculture. This created dire economic conditions for farmers in some Indian states. [source: Political Economy of Suicide: Financial Reforms, Credit Crunches and Farmer Suicides in India].

That’s it…my apologies for the long post, but I had to write this. I hope you understand that this isn't a personal attack against, you. It is constructive criticism. I have seen somewhere else in the comments that you intend to make a video on "GMOs" specifically. For that I hope you take better precautions while fact checking your claims and make sure that your sources are more reliable.
 
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arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
I think there are people now who have enough private money to buy all the cattle farms in the US and turn them into parking lots if they wanted too. Then we would all wish we could go back the good old days of corporate farming monopolies.
 
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