"I don't know of [another] company that chooses to sue
its own customer base," Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety
told Vanity Fair Magazine. "It's a very bizarre business strategy."
Yet the strategy appears to be working. Over 90 percent
of the soybeans, corn, canola and cotton grown in the United States are
patented genetically modified organisms (commonly known as GMOs). The
soybean variety that Bowman planted has proved popular with farmers
because it has been modified to survive multiple sprayings by Monsanto's
best-selling herbicide Roundup, whose active agent is glyphosate. While
Monsanto claims that GMOs increase crop yields, there is little
evidence that this is the case. The chemical giant turned seed company
also claims that the new technology decreases the need for
agrochemicals. Yet 85 percent of all GM crops are bred to be herbicide
resistant, which has meant that pesticide use is increasing as a result
of the spread of GM crops. What GMOs were designed to do - and indeed
accomplish - is create plants that can be grown efficiently in the
chemical-intensive large scale monocultures that dominate American
agriculture.
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