Reviewing F. William Engdahl’s "Seeds of Destruction" (Part III)

This is the third and final part of William Engdahl’s

powerfully important book about four Anglo-American

agribusiness giants and their aim to control world

food supply, make it all genetically engineered, and

use it as a geopolitical weapon. The story is chilling

and needs to be read in full to learn the type future

they plan for us. Parts I and II were published and

are available on this web site. Part III follows

below.

Food is Power

Rockefeller Foundation funding was the Gene

Revolution’s catalyst in 1985 with big aims - to learn

if GMO plants were commercially feasible and if so

spread them everywhere. It was the "new eugenics" and

the culmination of earlier research from the 1930s. It

was also based on the idea that human problems can be

"solved by genetic and chemical manipulations....as

the ultimate means of social control and social

engineering." Foundation scientists sought ways to do

it by reducing infinite life complexities to "simple,

deterministic and predictive models" under their

diabolical scheme - mapping gene structures to

"correct social and moral problems including crime,

poverty, hunger and political instability." With the

development of essential genetic engineering

techniques in 1973, they were on their way.

They’re based on what’s called recombitant DNA (rDNA),

and it works by genetically introducing foreign DNA

into plants to create genetically modified organisms,

but not without risks. London Institute of Science in

Society chief biologist, Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, explained the

dangers because the process is imprecise. "It is

uncontrollable and unreliable, and typically ends up

damaging and scrambling the host genome, with entirely

unpredictable consequences" that might unleash a

deadly unrecallable "Andromeda Strain." Research

continued anyway amidst lies that risks were minimal

and a promised future lay ahead. All that mattered

were huge potential profits and geopolitical gain so

let the good times roll and the chips fall where they

may.

One project was to map the rice genome. It launched a

17 year effort to spread GMO rice around the world

with Rockefeller Foundation money behind it. It spent

millions funding 46 worldwide science labs. It also

financed the training of hundreds of graduate students

and developed an "elite fraternity" of top scientific

researchers at Foundation-backed research institutes.

It was a diabolical scheme aiming big - to control the

staple food for 2.4 billion people and in the process

destroy the biological diversity of over 140,000

developed varieties that can withstand droughts, pests

and grow in every imaginable climate.

Asia was the prime target, and Engdahl explained the

sinister tale of a Philippines-based Foundation-funded

institute (IRRI). It had a gene bank with "every

significant rice variety known" that comprised

one-fifth of them all. IRRI let agribusiness giants

illegally use the seeds for exclusive patented genetic

modification so they could introduce them in markets

and dominate them by requiring farmers be licensed and

forced to pay annual royalty fees.

By 2000, a successful "Golden Rice" was developed that

was beta-carotene (Vitamin A) enriched. It was

marketed on the fraudulent claim that a daily bowl

could prevent blindness and other Vitamin A

deficiencies. It was a scam as other products are far

better sources of this nutrient and to get enough of

it from any type rice requires eating an impossible

nine kilograms daily (about 20 pounds). Nonetheless,

gene revolution backers were ready for their next

move: "the consolidation of global control over

humankind’s food supply" with a new tool to do it -

the WTO. Corporate giants wrote its rules favoring

them at the expense of developing nations shut out.

Unleashing GMO Seeds - A Revolution in World Food

Production Begins

Argentina became the first "guinea pig" nation in a

reckless experiment with untested and potentially

hazardous new foods. No matter, potential profits are

enormous so concerns for public safety and human

health are ignored. Let the revolution begin in real

time.

By the end of the 1980s, a global network of

genetically-trained molecular biologists were ready to

kick it off, Argentina was their first test

laboratory, and it was hailed as a "Second Green

Revolution." Look what followed. From 1996 to 2004,

worldwide GMO crop planting expanded to 167 million

acres, a 40-fold increase using 25% of total worldwide

arable land. An astonishing two-thirds of the acreage

(106 million acres) was in the US. By 2004, Argentina

was in second place with 34 million acres while

production is expanding in Brazil, China, Canada,

South Africa, Indonesia, India, the Philippines,

Colombia, Honduras, Spain and Eastern Europe (Poland,

Romania and Bulgaria). The revolution was on a roll

and looks unstoppable.

Argentina was an easy mark when Carlos Menem became

President. He’s a corporatist’s dream, a willing

Washington Consensus subject, and he even let David

Rockefeller’s New York and Washington friends draft

his economic program with Chicago School dogma at its

heart - privatizations, deregulation, local markets

open to imports, and cuts in already reduced social

services.

By the mid-1990s, Menem was "revolutioniz(ing)

Argentina’s traditional productive agriculture" to one

based on monoculture for global export. He took office

in July, 1989. By 1991, Argentina was already a

"secret experimental laboratory for developing

genetically engineered crops" with its people

unknowing human guinea pigs. In effect, the country’s

agriculture was handed to Monsanto, Dow, DuPont and

other GMO giants to exploit for profit with untested

and potentially hazardous new products. Things would

never be the same again.

In 1995, Monsanto introduced Roundup Ready (RR)

soybeans with its special gene gun-inserted bacterium

that allows the plant to survive being sprayed by the

glyphosate herbicide, Roundup. GMO soybeans are thus

protected from the same product used in Colombia to

eradicate drugs that also harms legal crops and humans

at the same time.

Foreign investors have large land holdings in

Argentina, the late 1990s - early 2000s economic

crisis made vast more amounts available, and

bankrupted farmers had to give it up for pennies on

the dollar. Corporate predators and Latifundista

landholders took full advantage, but look what for.

After Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans were licensed

in 1996, "a once-productive national family farm-based

agriculture system (was turned into) a neo-feudal

state system dominated by a handful of powerful,

wealthy" owners to exploit for profit. Menem went

along. In less than a decade, he allowed the nation’s

corn, wheat and cattle diversity to be replaced by

corporate-controlled monoculture. It was a Faustian

sellout, and it helped Monsanto’s stock price hit an

all-time high near year end 2007.

Earlier decades of diversity and crop rotation

preserved the country’s soil quality. That changed

after soybean monoculture moved in with its heavy

dependence on chemical fertilizers. Traditional

Argentine crops vanished, and cattle were forced into

cramped feedlots the way they are in the US. Engdahl

quoted a leading country agro-ecologist predicting

these practices will destroy the land in 50 years if

they continue. Nothing suggests a stoppage, and by

2004, nearly half the nation’s crop land was for

soybeans and over 90% of it solely for Monsanto’s

Roundup Ready brand. Engdahl put it this way:

"Argentina had become the world’s largest uncontrolled

experimental laboratory for GMO" and its people

unwitting lab rats.

Mechanized GMO soybean monoculture took over, the

country’s dairy farms were reduced by half, and

"hundreds of thousands of workers (were forced) off

the land" into poverty. Monsanto was on a roll and

used various exploitive schemes. Included were ploys

to ignore Argentine law against collecting royalty

payments. Smuggling Roundup soybean seeds illegally

into Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay also went

on sub rosa. In addition, the company got Menem to

allow it to collect "extended royalties" in 1999 even

though Argentine law prohibited the practice.

Monsanto then pressured the government to recognize

its "technology license fee." A Technology

Compensation Fund was established and managed by the

Ministry of Agriculture. It forced farmers to pay a

near-1% fee on GMO soybean sales. Monsanto and other

GMO seed suppliers got the funds. By 2005, Brazil’s

government relented. It legalized GMO seeds for the

first time, and by 2006, the US, Argentina and Brazil

accounted for over 81% of world soybean production. It

"ensure(s) that practically every animal in the world

fed soymeal (is) eating genetically engineered

soybeans." It also means everyone eating these animals

does the same thing unwittingly.

Argentina experienced more fallout as well that

threatens to spread. Its soybean monoculture affects

the countryside hugely. Traditional farmers close to

soybean ones are seriously harmed by aerial Roundup

spraying. Their crops are destroyed as that’s how this

herbicide works. It kills all plants without

gene-modified resistance. It also kills animals with

farmers reporting their chickens died and horses were

gravely harmed. Humans are affected as well and show

violent symptoms of nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and

herbicide-inflicted skin lesions. Other reports

claimed further fallout - animals born with severe

organ deformities, deformed bananas and sweet

potatoes, and lakes filled with dead fish. In

addition, rural families said their children developed

"grotesque blotches on their bodies."

Forest lands were also damaged as vast acreage was

cleared for soybean planting. Their loss "created an

explosion of medical problems because Roundup is

toxic, kills every non-GMO plant that grows and, it

harms animals and humans as well that come in contact

with it.

As for higher promised yields, results showed reduced

harvests of between 5% and 15% compared with

traditional soybean crops plus "vicious new weeds"

that need up to triple the amount of spraying to

destroy. By the time farmers learn this, it’s too

late. By 2004, GMO soybean plantings spread across the

country, they cost more to produce and yield less, and

Engdahl summarized farmers’ plight: "A more perfect

scheme of human bondage would be hard to imagine," and

it was even worse than that. Argentina was the first

test case "in a global plan that was decades in the

making and absolutely shocking and awesome in its

scope."

Iraq Gets American Seeds of Democracy

Democracy for Iraq meant erasing the "cradle of

civilization" for unfettered free market capitalism.

Iraq was conquered for its oil but also to make the

country a giant free trade paradise. The scheme was

diabolical, elaborate and ugly - blitzkrieg "shock and

awe," elaborate PsyOps, fear as a weapon, repressive

occupation, mass detention and torture, and the

fastest, most sweeping country remake in history. It

happened in weeks, Iraq no longer exists, the country

is a wasteland, its people are devastated, and a blank

slate was created for unrestrained corporate pillage

on a near- unimaginable scale.

Part of the scheme was for GMO agribusiness giants to

have free reign over that part of the economy - to

radically transform Iraq’s food production system into

a model for GMO seeds and plants. One hundred swiftly

implemented Bremer laws mandated it, but Iraqis had no

say about them as the country is now governed out of

Washington and its branch office inside the

heavily-fortified Green Zone in the largest US embassy

in the world by far.

Bremer laws imposed the harshest ever Chicago

School-style "shock therapy" of the kind that

devastated countries around the world since first

introduced in Chile under Pinochet in 1973. The

formula was familiar - mass firings of state employees

in the hundreds of thousands; unrestricted imports

with no tariffs, duties, inspections or taxes;

deregulation; and the largest state liquidation sale

and privatization plan since the Soviet Union

collapsed.

Corporate taxes were lowered as well from 40% to a

flat 15%, and foreign investors could own 100% of

Iraqi assets other than oil. They could also

repatriate all their profits, had no obligation to

reinvest in the country and wouldn’t be taxed. They

were further given 40 year leases, and the only Saddam

era laws remaining were those restricting trade unions

and collective bargaining. Foreign transnationals,

mainly US ones, swooped in and devoured everything.

Iraqis couldn’t compete, and the occupation laws

assured it.

Consider Bremer Order 81. It covered patents, their

duration and stated: "Farmers shall be prohibited from

re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety"

the edict covered. It gave plant varieties patent

holders absolute rights over farmers’ using their

seeds for 20 years. They’d be genetically engineered,

owned by transnationals, and Iraqi farmers using them

had to sign an agreement stipulating they’ll pay a

"technology fee" as well as an annual license fee.

Plant Variety Protection (PVP) was the core of this

order. It made seed saving and reuse illegal. Even

using "similar" seeds could result in severe fines and

imprisonment. GMO seeds got protection to displace

10,000 years of developed plant varieties being

sacrificed.

Iraq’s fertile valley between the Tigris and Euphrates

rivers is ideal for crop planting. Since 8000 BC,

farmers used it to develop "rich seeds of almost every

variety of wheat used in the world today." They were

erased through a GMO modernization and

industrialization scheme so agribusiness can get a

foothold in the region and supply the world market.

While Iraqis suffer and starve, GMO giants run the

country’s agriculture for export. Iraqi farmers are

now agribusiness serfs and are forced to grow products

foreign to the native diet like wheat designed for

pasta.

Bremer laws mandated it and are inviolable under

Article 26 of the US-drafted constitution. It states

that the Iraqi government is powerless to change laws

a foreign occupier made. To assure it, US-sympathizers

are in every ministry with those most trusted in key

ones. Engdahl sums up the damage to agriculture: "The

forced transformation of Iraq’s food production into

patented GMO crops is one of the clearest examples of

(how) Monsanto and other GMO giants are forcing

(these) crops onto an unwilling or unknowing world

population." They’re infesting the planet with them

one country at a time so it’s futile trying to undo

the damage they cause.

Planting the "Garden of Earthly Delights"

On January 1, 1995, the WTO was officially established

with powers to enforce its corporate-written laws on

member states. US agribusiness was already dominant,

but it now had a new unelected supranational body to

advance its private agenda on a global scale. WTO is a

"policeman" for global free trade and "a (predatory)

battering ram for the trillion dollar annual world

agribusiness" part of it for its giants. Its rules are

written with teeth for "punitive leverage" to levy

heavy financial and other penalties on rule violators.

Under them, agriculture is a priority because American

companies are dominant.

Cargill wrote the rules that Engdahl calls the

"Cargill Plan." They:

— ban all government farm programs and price supports

worldwide (but wink and nod at massive US subsidies);

— prohibit countries from imposing import controls to

defend their own agricultural production;

— ban agricultural export controls even in times of

famine so Cargill can dominate world export grain

trade; and

— forbid countries from restricting trade through

food safety laws called trade barriers; this demand

also opens world markets to unrestricted GMO food

imports with no need to prove their safety.

The International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy

Council lobby (IPC) worked with Cargill and US

agribusiness to advance this agenda. Four so-called

Group of Four QUAD countries took the lead - the US,

Canada, Japan and EU. Meeting in secret, they set

policy for all 134 WTO members that for agriculture

was drafted by US agribusiness giants like Cargill,

Monsanto, ADM and DuPont along with EU giants, Nestle

and Unilever. They were designed to erase national

laws and safeguards in favor of unrestricted free

markets favoring Global North countries.

Through patents, GMO giants control staple crop seeds

and need WTO leverage to force them on a skeptical

world. It’s done through WTO’s Agreement on

Agriculture (AoA) along with its Trade Related

Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Until the advent

of agribusiness, food production and its markets were

local. That’s now changed with corporate giants in

control and able to set prices by manipulating supply.

AoA rules were established to help. They also enforce

agribusiness’ highest priority - "a free and

integrated global market for its products." Included

are GMO ones the senior Bush administration ruled are

"substantially equivalent" to ordinary seeds and crops

and need no government regulation.

That provision is written into WTO rules under its

"Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS). It states

that national laws banning GMO products are "unfair

trade practices" even when they endanger human health.

Other WTO rules (called "Technical Barriers to Trade")

are in place as well. They prohibit GMO labeling so

consumers don’t know what they’re eating and can’t

avoid these potentially hazardous foods.

The 1996 Biosafety Protocol was drafted to solve this

problem, and it should be in place for that purpose.

Developing country demands, however, were "ambushed by

the powerful organized government and agribusiness

lobby." It sabotaged talks and insisted biosafety

measures be subordinate to WTO trade rules favoring

developed states. As a result, talks collapsed, safety

concerns are ignored, and the path was cleared for the

unrestricted spread of GMO seeds worldwide.

Under WTO’s TRIPS rules, all member states must pass

patent-protecting intellectual property laws that make

knowledge property. That, in turn, "open(s) the

floodgates" nearly everywhere for the proliferation of

GMO seeds and foods, even in violation of national

food safety laws.

GMO giants have powerful friends in government backing

their agenda. George Bush is one of them, and in 2003

he made the proliferation of GMO seeds his top

priority after the Iraq war. With that support, GMO

companies are pushing things to the limit with a

brazen example Engdahl gave involving the Texas

biotech company, RiceTec.

It schemed to patent Basmati rice, the dietary staple

across Asia for thousands of years. With IRRI

collusion, the company stole the seeds, patented them

under Rockefeller Foundation-crafted rules, and the

2001 Supreme Court decision in Ag Supply v. Pioneer

Hi-Bred made it possible. It "enshrined the principle

of allowing patents on plant forms and other forms of

life in (this) groundbreaking case." Under the ruling,

GMO plant breeds can be patented, and US government

agencies are complicit in helping agribusiness giants

ensure nothing stops them from doing it.

As a result, the GMO monoculture onslaught threatens

plant species diversity everywhere. With full

Washington and WTO backing, major biotech companies

are patenting every plant imaginable in GMO form. By

the beginning of the new millennium, Engdahl referred

to a "Gene Revolution (as a) monsoon force in world

agriculture" with four dominant companies controlling

GMOs and related agrichemical markets" - Monsanto,

DuPont, Dow Agrisciences and Syngenta in Switzerland

from the merger of the agriculture divisions of

Novartis and AstraZeneca.

The "world’s number one" is Monsanto. The company was

discussed in Part I of this review, and Engdahl quoted

its chairman saying his goal is a global fusion of

"three of the largest industries in the world -

agriculture, food and health - that now operate

(separately, but) changes....will lead to their

integration." That was over seven years ago. Now it’s

happening.

Engdahl covered pertinent information on the industry

that might otherwise have gone unnoticed - that the

three US GMO giants have a long sordid association

with the Pentagon supplying massively destructive

chemicals like Agent Orange, napalm and others. They

now want to be trusted with the most important things

we ingest - our food and drugs in the face of strong

evidence their GMO varieties harm human health and

their history of public safety concern is atrocious.

Like it or not, they’re advancing their agenda, and a

2004 Rockefeller Foundation report shows it. GM crop

production achieved nine consecutive double digit year

increases since 1996. More than eight million farmers

in 17 countries now plant them, over 90% in developing

nations. Far and away, the US is the world’s leader

"with aggressive Government promotion, absence of

labeling, and the domination of US farm production."

Here, "genetically engineered crops (have) essentially

taken over the American food chain." In 2004, over 85%

of soybeans were genetically modified, 45% of corn,

and since animal feed is mainly from these crops "the

entire meat production of the nation (and exports) has

been fed on genetically modified animal feed." What

animals eat, so do humans.

It gets even worse. Wind and air proliferate GM seeds

to adjacent fields, including organic ones that are

now to some degree contaminated. Engdahl explained

that "after just six years, an estimated 67% of all US

farm acreage has been (irremedially) contaminated with

genetically engineered seeds. The genie was out of the

bottle" as nothing known to science can reverse this

condition.

It renders the notion of pure organic impossible

except from perhaps very isolated farms that comprise

a small percent of the industry. Even so, organic

crops are safer than chemically-treated ones and

hugely preferable to any that are genetically

modified. That said, as the Gene Revolution advances

worldwide, the future of organic farming is imperiled

to the horror of people like this writer dependent on

them.

Consider further the way GMO giants gain market share

with government and WTO backing. It’s also helped by

imposing rigid licensing and technology agreements on

farmers who must pay annual fees. They’re binding and

enforced through Technology Use Agreements farmers

have to sign, and by so doing, entrap themselves in a

"new form of serfdom." Each year, they must buy new

seeds, and they’re forbidden to reuse any from

previous years as was customary before GMO

introductions. Failure to observe the agreements can

result in severe legal damages or even imprisonment

and possible loss of their land.

Complicit government agencies and clever marketing

schemes aid the "Gene Revolution" through "lies and

damn lies" that GMO crops have higher yields and can

solve world hunger problems. The evidence proves

otherwise. In addition, resistant "superweeds" develop

over time, crop yields drop, farmers must use greater

amounts of herbicides, they’re locked into high user

fees, and they end up losing money. Bottom line - the

case for "genetically engineered seeds for agriculture

had been based on a citadel of scientific fraud and

corporate lies." This information is hidden from the

public, and it’s too late once unwary farmers learn

they’ve been had.

Besides that, Russian science showed GMOs harm unborn

babies as over half the rat offsring fed a genetically

modified soybean diet died in their first three weeks

of life - six times the normal rate. Evidence was

growing on GMO dangers, and the industry was alarmed.

In 1999, it "required an extraordinary intervention by

its patron saint, the Rockefeller Foundation," to pull

its fat out of the fire.

Population Control - Terminators, Traitors,

Spermicidal Corn

Crucial to its strategy, GMO giants needed a "new

technology which would allow them to sell seed that

would not reproduce." They developed one called GURTs

(Genetic Use Restriction Technologies) that became

known as "Terminator" seeds. The process is patented,

it applies to all plant and seed species, and

replanting them doesn’t work. They won’t grow. It’s

the industry’s solution to controlling world food

production and assuring themselves big profits as a

result. What a discovery. Terminator corn, soybean and

other seeds have been "genetically modified to ’commit

suicide’ after one harvest season" by a

toxin-producing inbuilt gene.

A closely related technology is called T-GURT seeds,

or second generation Terminators, nicknamed "Traitor."

The technology relies on controlling both plant

fertility and its genetic characteristics with "an

inducible gene promoter" called a "gene switch." GMO

pest and disease-resistant crops only work by using a

specific chemical compound companies like Monsanto

make. Farmers buying seeds illegally won’t get the

compound to "turn on" the resistant gene. Traitor

technology thus creates a captive new market for the

GMO giants, and Traitor is cheaper to produce than

Terminator seeds.

Combined, these two technologies give agribusiness

giants unprecedented powers. "For the first time in

history, it (lets) three or four private multinational

seed companies....dictate terms to world farmers for

their seed." It’s a biological warfare tool almost

"too good to believe" in the face of open citizen

opposition the industry and US Department of

Agriculture (USDA) aim to quash.

Engdahl quoted USDA spokesman Willard Phelps from a

June, 1998 interview saying the agency wanted

Terminator technology to be "widely licensed and made

expeditiously available to many seed companies."

Hidden was the reason why - to introduce these seeds

to the developing world as the prime Rockefeller

Foundation strategy. Engdahl called it a "Trojan Horse

for Western GMO seed giants to get control over Third

World food supplies in areas with weak or non-existent

patent laws." It became an urgent Foundation priority

to spread the seeds worldwide to irreversibly capture

world markets. USDA fully backed the scheme.

That kind of muscle (along with WTO rules) is

overwhelming. It’s the tactic used when the US

departments of state and agriculture coordinate famine

relief using genetically engineered US surplus

commodities. Farmers getting GMO seeds aren’t told

what they are, they plant them unwittingly for the

next harvest, get hooked, and the proliferation isn’t

restricted to Africa. Through coercion, bribery and

other illegal tactics, the industry’s goal is to

introduce them everywhere but especially in highly

indebted developing states. In the case of Poland, it

was in a country with some of the richest European

soil that’s now spoiled by genetic contamination.

Consider how the scheme ties in with Rockefeller

Foundation population control strategy. In 2001, it

was aided when the privately-owned biotech company,

Epicyte, announced it successfully developed the

"ultimate GMO crop" - contraceptive corn. It was

called a solution to world "over-population," but news

about it vanished after Biolex acquired the company.

One way or other, the Rockefeller Foundation aims to

reduce population through human reproduction by

spreading GMO seeds. It’s doing it cooperatively with

the UN World Health Organization (WHO) by quietly

funding its "reproductive health" program through the

use of an innovative tetanus vaccine. Combined with

hCG natural hormones, it’s an abortion agent

preventing pregnancies, but women getting it aren’t

told. Neither is anything said about the Pentagon

viewing population reduction as a sophisticated form

of "biological warfare" (to) solve world hunger."

Avian Flu Panic and GMO Chickens

In 2005, George Bush duped the public into believing a

so-called Avian (bird flu) epidemic threatened a

pandemic if not addressed. The solution as always is

turn to the private sector and reward his friends. In

this case, he asked Congress to appropriate an

emergency $1 billion taxpayer dollars for a drug

Tamiflu. Unmentioned was a key fact. It was developed

and patented by Gilead Science and, that prior to

becoming Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld was its

chairman and still a major stockholder.

The scare combined with government funding and a

rising stock price stood to make him a fortune just as

Dick Cheney profited as Vice-President from his

Halliburton ties. Engdahl asked: "Was the avian flu

scare another Pentagon hoax" with an unknown aim?

Based on known and suppressed past government actions,

"a supposedly deadly" new flu strain "had to be

treated with more than a little suspicion."

It was being used to advance global agribusiness and

poultry factory farm interests "along the model of

Arkansas-based Tyson Foods." Consider the facts.

Factory farms are breeding grounds for potential

disease proliferation because of their cramped,

overcrowded conditions, but this was never mentioned

as a threat. Instead, small family-run free-ranging

chicken farmers were cited as culprits, especially in

Asia, when, in fact, that notion is at least very

unlikely.

Small farms like these are the safest, but an

industry-government propaganda campaign claimed

otherwise. The scheme is clear. Five multinational

giants dominate US chicken meat production and

processing - Tyson (the largest), Gold Kist, Pilgrim’s

Pride, ConAgra Poultry and Perdue Farms. They produce

chicken meat under "atrocious health and safety

conditions." According to the GAO, these plants had

"one of the highest rates of injury and illness of any

industry."

Cited was exposure to "dangerous chemicals, blood,

fecal matter, exacerbated by poor ventilation and

often extreme temperatures....(In addition, chickens

are tightly cramped and) prevented from moving or

getting any exercise on factory farms (so they can)

grow....much larger (and faster) than ever before."

Growth boosters are also used, they create health

problems, and growing numbers of animal experts

believe these farms, not small Asian ones, are the

real source of dangerous new diseases like avian flu.

That information is suppressed in the mainstream so

the public is duped.

It’s so chicken processing giants can globalize world

production with the avian flu scare "gift from heaven"

to help them. If small Asian chicken farmers can be

squeezed out, Tyson and the others can access the huge

Asian poultry market. That’s their aim and removing

competition their method with help from friends in

high places.

Creating the first GMO animal population is also part

of the scheme with the prospect of transforming world

chickens into GMO birds. Engdahl put it this way: "By

2006, riding the fear of an avian flu human epidemic,

the GMO or Gene Revolution players were clearly aiming

to conquer the world’s most important source of meat

protein, poultry." But another scheme to dominate

world food production also lay ahead. "Terminator was

about to come into the control of the world’s largest

GMO agribusiness seed giant."

Genetic Armageddon: Terminator and Patents on Pigs

In 2007, Monsanto acquired Delta & Pine Land (D&PL)to

complete its aborted 1999 takeover attempt. D&PL had

global Terminator patent rights and successfully

extended them on GURTs. The deal made Monsanto "the

overwhelming monopolist of agricultural seeds of

nearly every variety" that includes fruits and

vegetables from the company’s acquisition of Seminis a

year earlier. With that company, Monsanto is now first

in vegetables and fruits, second in agronomic crops,

and the world’s third largest agrochemical company.

With D&PL, the company has absolute control over the

majority of plant agricultural seeds as well. In

addition, they’re getting into the genetic engineering

and patenting of animal seeds.

In 2005, Monsanto applied to the WTO for international

patent rights for its claimed genetic engineering of a

means to identify pig genes derived from patented male

swine semen. The company also wants patents and the

right to collect license fees for particular farm

animals and livestock herds. If granted, "Any pigs

that would be produced using this reproductive

technique would be covered by these patents." Several

techniques are being used and patented as fast as GMO

lawyers can submit applications to lock up animal life

as intellectual property.

Companies like Monsanto and Cargill have invested huge

amounts to genetically modify animals for profit. They

thus want patent and licensing rights to the results

even though this represents a controversial goal to

patent life itself. A 1980 Supreme Court decision in

Diamond v. Chakrabarty, however, gave them an opening

by ruling "anything under the sun that is made by man"

is patentable. It paved the way for a landmark patent

of the "Harvard mouse" that was genetically engineered

to be susceptible to cancer.

Engdahl explained how four agribusiness giants used

"stealth, system, and a well-supported campaign of

lies and distortion" to progress toward Henry

Kissinger’s ultimate goal - controlling oil to control

nations and food to control people. The pursuit of

both are ongoing with little public knowledge of how

far advanced things are and how reckless the scheme is - to genetically engineer all plants and life forms

and to control world population by culling its

"unwanted" parts.

Afterward

A September, 2006 WTO tribunal ruled for the US and

against the EU. In so doing, it threatens to open this

important agricultural region to the "forced

introduction (of) genetically-manipulated plants and

food products." It recommended the WTO Dispute

Settlement Body (DSB) require the EU to conform with

its obligations under WTO’s SPS Agreement that lets

agribusiness ignore national laws and rights to

protect public health and safety. Failure to comply

can cost EU countries hundreds of millions of dollars

in annual fines, so this issue is crucial to both

sides.

At the time of Engdahl’s writing, it was unclear if

the "GMO juggernaut would be stopped globally." It’s

still uncertain, but as of December, only nine biotech

products are authorized for sale in the EU. So far,

most US corn exports are blocked and trade in other

products is hindered in spite of dozens of

applications pending in the pipeline with their fate

undecided.

Several EU countries, including France, Germany,

Austria and Denmark, even ban some EU-approved biotech

products to further cloud the outlook. Polls show why

with European public opinion strongly opposed to GMO

foods and ingredients with hostility levels in France

as high as 89% and 79% wanting governments to ban

them. This shows European consumers are far ahead of

Americans and much better protected (so far) by their

overall exclusion as well as having labeling

requirements for those allowed to be sold. That

provision is crucial as it empowers consumers to use

or avoid eating these foods. If enough people abstain,

food outlets won’t carry them.

Engdahl ends on a high note by observing how

vulnerable GMO giants are to criticism. Thrusting

untested products down consumer throats is "grounds

for organizing a global ban or moratorium on them" if

enough vocal opposition can be marshaled. Throughout

his book, he sounds the alarm with reams of carefully

documented facts on the industry, its products and

goals. Converting world agriculture to GMOs, allowing

agribusiness free reign over them, and combining that

scheme with a diabolical population culling agenda

adds up to solving world hunger through genocide and

endangering the rest of us in the process.

So far, Washington and the industry are on a roll

toward controlling oil and food. Hundreds of millions

around the world stand opposed, but it’s unclear if

that’s enough. Engdahl’s book is a wake-up call for

every friend of the earth to understand issues this

crucial can’t be left in the hands of unscrupulous

business giants and their supportive friends in high

places everywhere. The book has reams of ammunition

against them. It needs to be thoroughly read and used.

The stakes are much too high - human health and safety

must never be compromised for profit.

---

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at

lendmanstephen @sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com and

listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour

on TheMicroEffect.com Mondays at noon US central time.