The Monsanto Company was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best-known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in the 1970s. Later, the company became a major producer of genetically engineered crops. In 2018, the company ranked 199th on the Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
Twin Oaks Community is an ecovillage and intentional community of about one hundred people living on 450 acres (1.8 km2) in Louisa County, Virginia. It is a member of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. Founded in 1967, it is one of the longest-enduring and largest secular intentional communities in North America. The community's core values are cooperation, egalitarianism, nonviolence, sustainability, and income sharing. About 100 adults and 17 children live in the community.
Egalitarian communities are groups of people who have chosen to live together, with egalitarianism as one of their core values. A broad definition of egalitarianism is "equal access to resources and to decision-making power." For example, decision-making is done by consensus or another system in which each person has a voice; it is not done hierarchically with only one or a few people making choices that will affect the whole group. If the group shares assets, they are distributed equitably throughout the group, and each member has access to more-or-less the same resources as any other member. Egalitarian communities are a type of commune.
Percy Schmeiser was a Canadian businessman, farmer, and politician. In 1954, he took over the operations of the family owned farm, gas station, and farm equipment dealership. He renamed the farm equipment dealership Schmeiser's Garage and added a second farm equipment dealership in Humboldt, Saskatchewan in 1986 and oversaw their operations until their sale in 2003.
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives. It usually contains one seed, enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns are 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm on the fat side. Acorns take between 5 and 24 months to mature; see the list of Quercus species for details of oak classification, in which acorn morphology and phenology are important factors.
East Wind Community is an intentional community located in the Missouri Ozarks. Founded in 1974, it is a secular and democratic community in which members hold all community assets in common. Each member is also given food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, and a monthly stipend. All major decisions are made by direct democratic processes with managers for various positions being elected annually.
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE) is a cooperatively-owned seed company. SESE is a source for heirloom seeds and other open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds with an emphasis on vegetables, flowers, and herbs that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic region. SESE also supports seed saving and traditional seed breeding through their product line, through lectures and workshops, and by working with over 50 small seed-growing farmers in the Mid-Atlantic and other parts of the United States. SESE publishes an intermittent email newsletter and blog for gardeners, as well as the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Catalog and Garden Guide.
Since the advent of genetic engineering in the 1970s, concerns have been raised about the dangers of the technology. Laws, regulations, and treaties were created in the years following to contain genetically modified organisms and prevent their escape. Nevertheless, there are several examples of failure to keep GM crops separate from conventional ones.
Genetically modified food controversies are disputes over the use of foods and other goods derived from genetically modified crops instead of conventional crops, and other uses of genetic engineering in food production. The disputes involve consumers, farmers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. The key areas of controversy related to genetically modified food are whether such food should be labeled, the role of government regulators, the objectivity of scientific research and publication, the effect of genetically modified crops on health and the environment, the effect on pesticide resistance, the impact of such crops for farmers, and the role of the crops in feeding the world population. In addition, products derived from GMO organisms play a role in the production of ethanol fuels and pharmaceuticals.
Kommune Niederkaufungen is one of the largest intentional communities in Germany. Founded in 1986, it is an egalitarian, left-wing, income-sharing commune with consensus decision-making. It is situated in a complex of former farm buildings in the historic centre of the village of Niederkaufungen (Kaufungen), seven kilometres from the city of Kassel (Hessen). It has grown from 15 founder members to 62 adults and nearly 20 children and teenagers (2009). It is a member of "Kommuja", the German network of political communes and egalitarian communities.
The Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC) is a group of egalitarian communities which have joined together with the common purpose of creating a lifestyle based on equality, cooperation, and harmony with the Earth. A central principal of these communities is that in exchange for a members working quota the community pays for all aspects of their life style. Members do not typically get salaries; instead, they have small allowances with which they may buy luxury items. They live, work and socialize within the community but are free to leave whenever they would like.
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is a 501c3, U.S. non-profit advocacy organization, based in Washington, D.C. It maintains an office in San Francisco, California, and Portland, Oregon. CFS's mission is to empower people, support farmers, and protect the earth from the harmful impacts of industrial agriculture through groundbreaking legal, scientific, and grassroots action. It was founded in 1997.
Mendocino County, California, was the first jurisdiction in the United States to ban the cultivation, production or distribution of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The ordinance, entitled Measure H, was passed by referendum on March 2, 2004. Initiated by the group "GMO Free Mendocino", the campaign was a highly publicized grassroots effort by local farmers and environmental groups who contend that the potential risks of GMOs to human health and the ecosystem have not yet been fully understood. The measure was met with opposition by several interest groups representing the biotechnology industry, The California Plant Health Association and CropLife America, a Washington-based consortium whose clients represent some of the largest food distributors in the nation, including Monsanto, DuPont and Dow Chemical. Since the enactment of the ordinance, Mendocino County has been added to an international list of "GMO free zones." Pre-emptive statutes banning local municipalities from such ordinances have now become widespread with adoption in sixteen states.
Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139 (2010), is a United States Supreme Court case decided 7-1 in favor of Monsanto. The decision allowed Monsanto to sell genetically modified alfalfa seeds to farmers, and allowed farmers to plant them, grow crops, harvest them, and sell the crop into the food supply. The case came about because the use of the seeds was approved by regulatory authorities; the approval was challenged in district court by Geertson Seed Farms and other groups who were concerned that the genetically modified alfalfa would spread too easily, and the challengers won. Monsanto appealed the district court decision and lost, and appealed again to the Supreme Court, where Monsanto won, thus upholding the original approval and allowing the seeds to be sold.
The March Against Monsanto was an international grassroots movement and protest against Monsanto, a producer of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide. The movement was founded by Tami Canal in response to the failure of California Proposition 37, a ballot initiative which would have required labeling food products made from GMOs. Advocates support mandatory labeling laws for food made from GMOs.
Genetic engineering in Hawaii is a hotly contested political topic. The Hawaiian islands counties of Kauai, Hawaii and Maui passed or considered laws restricting the practice within their borders due to concerns about the health, the environment and impacts on conventional and organic agriculture.
GMO OMG is a 2013 American pseudoscientific documentary film which takes a negative view towards the use of genetically modified organisms used in the production of food, in the United States. The film focuses on Monsanto, a multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, and their role in the food industry alongside the effects of GMOs and how they are generated.
GMO conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food. These conspiracy theories include claims that agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, have suppressed data showing that GMOs cause harm, deliberately cause food shortages to promote the use of GM food, or have co-opted government agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration or scientific societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Percy is a 2020 Canadian-American-Indian biographical drama film, directed by Clark Johnson from a screenplay by Garfield Lindsay Miller and Hilary Pryor. It stars Christopher Walken, Christina Ricci, Zach Braff, Luke Kirby, Adam Beach, Martin Donovan, Roberta Maxwell and Peter Stebbings. The film follows 70-year-old small-town Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, who takes on a giant corporation after their GMOs interfere with his crops.
Ira Wallace is a gardener, teacher and author. She manages Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, a cooperatively-owned seed company.
