As Canadians, our climate is not able to support the growth of many of our favourite foods: bananas, oranges and other fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes cannot survive our harsh winters, or flourish in our mild summers. In our communities however, we are lucky enough to walk into almost any supermarket and find exotic foods during all seasons of the year: coconuts in January, and fresh pineapple in March. These foods are certainly not coming from inside our country, and thus little is known of the costs of importing these goods other than the considerably small fee we pay at the checkout counter.
The food industry starts off quite simply—a seed is all it takes. Everything we eat and rely on to fuel us day-by-day begins with a seed: grains, fruits, vegetables, and feed to nourish the livestock we consume. The growth process of a seed is commonly practiced throughout the world. The seed is planted, tended and harvested by gardeners and farmers and botanists everywhere, with the intent of producing food, but also with the intent of producing more seeds to be used in next year’s process. Once a farmer has a healthy crop, they also have seed to plant for the forthcoming harvesting season: it is how plants have evolved to regenerate themselves. In an ideal situation, once a farmer has purchased their original vat of seeds, considering their crop was in good health after the first season, they should have healthy seeds to plant for the following year. If a farmer is able to put forth an initial investment for the purchase of seeds, all crop yield is profit—an asset to their farm and business. Farmers in developing countries often do not have the money to put forth a lump sum investment at the start of their farming venture and thus are forced to purchase their seeds off companies willing to sell for the lowest market price.
Enter Monsanto.
Monsanto is a company known to have controversially purchased a patented technology off of an innovative agriculture company called Delta & Pine. This patent is known colloquially as the ‘terminator seed,’ or ‘suicide seeds’. These seeds are genetically engineered so that when crops are harvested, all regenerated seeds from this particular yield are sterile, and cannot be re-planted for next years season—they terminate the most significant genetic trait plants have: fertility. Because most seed companies expect their investors to be, for the most part, single purchasing clients, in order for them to make any profit seed prices have a set minimum market price. On the other hand, companies such as Monsanto with terminator seed technology, can afford to lower their prices below the competition’s rates, with the assurance that their clients will need to purchase more seeds the following planting season. We may see this as an easily avoidable issue—do not purchase seeds from companies with terminator seed technology. The reality is that small scale and subsistence farmers in lesser-developed countries don’t have the means of investing a lump sum of money into their business; making cheaper annual purchases is a more feasible option. This is how monopolizing companies such as Monsanto succeed.
The scope in which these seeds are affecting food security are much widespread than the small scale farms in which they are planted. It is estimated that a minimum of 1.4 billion people rely directly on the harvest of poor, small-scale farms—the target of terminator seed companies. There is also concern that these seeds will end up on the farmland of neighbouring farms to terminator seed users; not immediately harming natural crops, however sterilizing seeds for the forthcoming year’s harvest.
Narrowed down to its simplest form; farmers in lesser developed nations are left with no choice—they do not have the money, nor the education to attenuate their dependence on multinational companies that offer the cheapest prices for their products.
If people's 'Buy Local' Bumper stickers perviously meant nothing to you, consider Monsanto and their bully-like monopoly before you buy from Multi-National Corporations trying to save a buck.
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