Despite Monsantos failings in the agricultural growth industry recently, the agricultural biotech company has seen successes in other area of business such as chemical herbicides and pesticides. For those unaware Monsanto is currently the worlds largest producer and distributor of such chemical compounds. And only recently has it come out that Monsanto has been working with american government agencies since 2000 on a secret drug eradication project taking place in the cocaine capital of the world, Colombia. Monsanto has been conducting aerial spraying of chemicals onto cocaine crops under the orders of the Drug Enforcement Agency. This project being one more addition to the ever growing american war on drugs. The chemical being applied is Glyphosate also known as roundup a lovely product created by the Monsanto corporation. For years this was the most used chemical in industrial farming in north america ; and at its highest rate over 150 million pounds were applied in one year, 2007 to be exact. Now the problem with a chemical such as this is that it comes from one of the most powerful companies world wide. This may not seem like a problem at first but when hundreds of millions of individuals put their lives in the hands of a company it becomes crucial that said company conducts its due diligence. Monsanto however has done the exact opposite, on two separate occasions the Environmental Protection Agency has found that Monsanto scientist have falsified data to get this chemical approved for residential and commercial use. Now when the US government flies planes over small towns and villages and drops tonnes of chemicals from the sky these chemicals tend to drift further than the coca fields. They fill up the water supplies, they contaminate local food sources and they enter the lungs of children and adults alike. In some towns over 80% of the youth population suffer from serious medical conditions directly related to these drug eradication programs. Now the Part of this story that really gets me is the irony. Since this program was introduced, the amount of cocaine production land has increased by 23% and is only rising. The government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a program that is fruitless at best.
Now the reason this is under gardening and horticulture is because glyphosate is a commercial product, people use it on their lawns and in their gardens with little concern for potential consequences. Everyday we go about using various products for this and that trusting that the companies which provide us our lovely products are doing their job ensuring that all these new sprays and lotions are safe for us to use. But this is naive assumption at best, government regulatory bodies fail at their basic task and companies are only concerned with one thing. Money rules this world.
Mon Jul 22, 2013 5:33 pm
