Documentary Description
Monsanto is a world leader in industrial agriculture, providing the
seeds for 90 percent of the world’s genetically modified crops. Once a
chemical company based in the US, Monsanto has transformed into an
international life sciences company, aiming to solve world hunger and
protect the environment.
Filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, however, exposes the company’s troubling past, in her recent film, The World According to Monsanto.
In an interview with The Real News Network, she discusses Monsanto’s
controversial practices from a producer of PCBs and Agent Orange to
genetically modified seeds and related herbicides.
Starting from the Internet over a period of three years Robin has
collected material for her documentary, going on to numerous interviews
with people of very different backgrounds. She traveled widely, from
Latin America, to Asia, through Europe and the United States, to
personally interview farmers and people in influential positions.
As an example of pro-Monsanto interviews, she talked at length with
Michael Taylor who has worked as a lawyer for Monsanto and also for the
Federal Drug Administration (FDA), where he had great influence on the
legalization of the genetically modified bovine growth hormone (BGH).
It also became FDA policy during Taylor’s tenure that GM seeds are
declared to be “substantially equivalent to non-GM seeds, hence
proclaiming proof of the harmlessness of GMs to be unnecessary. Michael
Taylor is a typical example of technocrats employed via ‘the revolving
door policy’. He is now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto
Corporation.
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