Personally, I would start a startup (if I ever have the guts) for freedom. How could dealing with Monsanto differ from wearing golden handcuffs?
Also, there's a very good reason you put "green revolution" in quotes, and "agricultural productivity" deserved them in that context also.
The problem is we now have a food system that is:
- reliant on genetic monocultures
- quickly depleting our non-renewable water supplies
- heavily reliant on oil
- causing massive algal blooms and hypoxic zones
- destroying the thickness of the soil
- depleting the soil of micronutrients
- killing the mycorrhizae
The way we're going there is a very real possibility of 1 billion plus people dying in the next fifty years as part of a massive human dieback because of our current Monsanto-style food production.
Not to mention the fact that even today our food is largely devoid of any taste or real nutritional content, and is causing epidemic levels of obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc.
Tell me, since you obviously know so much about the worlds current problem with food.
Why is it that food production has gone up, yet the number of starving and hungry individuals throughout the world hasn't changed significantly?
The answer is there isn't a food abundance problem, there is a food availability problem. People don't grow crops and just give them away to the poor; the fact that monsanto has created genetically engineered foods that do things such as resist pesticides, so that large quantities of pesticides can be dumped onto crops without killing them, thus creating, "more food" because less is lost to pests, doesn't get any more food into the belly of starving people around the world.
In fact, the abundance of things like cheap corn around the world is one of the very reasons continents like africa can't ever seem to get on their feet; why would someone buy local african corn that's more expensive than cheaply grown american corn? Undercutting local economies with cheap food has not "feed the world" and does more damage than good.
Monsanto hasn't done a damn thing to allow, "the human population to grow while malnourishment shrinks", that's total absolute garbage.
I'd recommend you ask for more money from your monsanto employers, and if you don't work for them, maybe do some actual research into the company you are defending instead of spewing bullshit that looks like it's been copy pasted from a monsanto PR brochure.
Patenting genetics is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of, and you call this ambiguous? You are a fool.
Care to back that up with evidence?
The Global hunger index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hunger_Index), indicates that hunger has decreased over the past 20 years. Out of the 30 countries with the most hunger, only 3 have more hunger now than 20 years ago. Every country on that list has had hunger decrease of stay still, with the majority of them seeing less hunger.
The green revolution (as led by Norman Borlaug not Monsanto) may be able to take credit for some of the advances during the 60s and 70s but any advances due to Monsanto in recent years cannot be made up for by their completely unjust business practices as others have mentioned.
I am also disappointed in hearing that a YC company is going this direction.
people deal with monsanto voluntarily. nobody is making you buy their seeds. the fact that so many do suggest that their advances in gmos are indeed worth the cost.
If you invented a new kind of seed which was significantly more productive but cost billions in R&D to develop, what business model would you use instead?
Put in other words, is the objection to agricultural biotechnology in general (like the Green Revolution) or to Monsanto's specific implementation, and if so what are the top flaws in their approach in your view?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeis...
Using RoundUp means more herbicide sales for Monsanto.
Headpalm.
You DO realize that the point of the gene is to SELL ROUNDUP, right? Not using RoundUp on "RoundUp Ready!" crops kind of defeats the entire purpose.
"Sales for Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides peaked at about $4 billion in 2008 when the product line generated record gross profit of nearly $2 billion.
Roundup-branded glyphosate, commercialized by Monsanto in 1976, is one of the few blockbuster molecules developed by industry since the early 1970s. Methyl-tert butyl ether (MTBE), invented by Arco Chemical in the 1960s and commercialized in 1979, is the only other molecule developed by industry since the 1970s to generate sales of more than $1 billion/year."
http://www.chemweek.com/chem_ideas/Rob-Westervelt/Blog-Monsa...
I think even a cursory read of the thread would have indicated to a good-faith commenter that I know the basics of the difference between Roundup and the Roundup-ready GMO product.
And who do you think makes money when you do that?
Hint: It rhymes with "Monsanto".
> that I know the basics of the difference between Roundup and the Roundup-ready GMO product.
Not in dispute. Dispute is over your claim of them getting something for "nothing" because they used RoundUp.
Monsanto gets paid if they use RoundUp. RoundUp, unlike seeds, doesn't grow itself.
However, RoundUp seed patents begin expiring with soybeans first in 2014, and it looks like canola will follow a year or three later.
RoundUp (the herbicide) apparently accounts for 10% of Monsanto's revenue, but the corresponding seed will soon account for zero.
It's true that Monsanto has put a lot of money into R&D, and that they're occasionally misrepresented by extremists and farmers who want to give the appearance of being small businesses, but that hardly justifies most of what they've done. And if they're really in such a precarious position, attempting to achieve a "food monopoly" is even more irresponsible than it would be otherwise.
If the new crop is more expensive because of IP regulations, it is NOT an improvement.
There's just no way to reconcile feeding the poor with making massive profits on patents.
It's also misleading to focus on the crop itself; soil management is a far bigger issue. If your crop produces more, it means it depletes the soil more. Topsoil depletion is a huge issue wherever there is intensive modern farming.
The goal with patents is to control the food supply, not increase it.