Why is the USDA Subsidising Monsanto?

[nosmokes]

So here we have our government promoting Monsanto, one of the most criminally corrupt corporations on the planet, to contaminate our food stock and pollute our farmlands while at the same time more and more people are having to pay premium costs to buy organic to keep Monsanto's shit outta their food so they can eat something healthy and wholesome and not be a party to poisoning the earth in the process. Somethhing is very, very wrong with this picture.
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original

Seed controversy sprouts
Some say USDA's insurance break for Monsanto customers unfair

By Stephen J. Hedges | Washington Bureau
December 26, 2007
WASHINGTON - While the federal government doesn't usually endorse products, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has struck an unusual arrangement with agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. that gives farmers in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota a break on federal crop insurance premiums if they plant Monsanto-brand seed corn this spring.

The arrangement has raised some eyebrows, particularly among organic farm groups that argue the government agency should not be promoting corn that contains an herbicide; the Monsanto brands contain chemicals that kill weeds and insects.

Monsanto's deal is legal, note USDA officials who point out that such arrangements were encouraged in a 2000 crop insurance law that Congress enthusiastically passed. The idea is to give farmers a break on their insurance premiums if they use corn seeds that are higher yield and shown to resist insects and other threats.

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complete article here

[sentelle]

1. of course it does....

Many of the executives and decision-makers in the USDA are FROM Monsanto.

They leave their jobs at Big M to get Jobs in Government, just in time to approve their own work (now for the government) for human use.

(edited for link...)

http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/monfdausgovc.html

[skepticscott]

3. And then

after they leave their government jobs, they go back and work as lobbyists for big agribusiness

[Selatius]

2. When you have an army of parasitic lobbyists boring through Congress, anything's possible.

The Golden Rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. What are they insuring exactly?

What type of insurance is this?

[Cha]

5. Because the USDA 's

are corporateA$$holes just like mansanto.

I'm betting the dlcers in DC aren't any better so as to what to do about this Plantet destroying shite..I haven't the foggiest.

[Catchawave]

6. ...And what we can do :

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

Get busy :D

[Elidor]

8. Thanks!

I find their boilerplate fax to be a tad insipid, and since they probably get the same fax many, many times, I had to write my own:

Dear Mr. Grant:

I find your company's predatory attitude toward local farmers to be un-American. I look forward to the day when your company and their tools at the USDA are brought to heel by a progressive U.S. government.

Until then, please know that if there is indeed a hell, you will surely burn in it for all you have done to make this world a worse place to live in. Sincerely,

[NashVegas]

7. Higher Yield? Prove It

Most university-level studies I've seen call those claims into question.

[nosmokes]

9. Amen.

The only *proof* of higher yields comes from Monsanto and other AgBiotech corporations and their claims are based on the ideal and carefully monitored conditions of a few test plots. And considering the track record some of these companies have with managing results of their studies even these claims should be taken with a grain or lick of salt...