Food, Inc. Page #7

That's how corn

was developed

from a useless grass

for the most part

to the extremely

productive plant it is today.

The idea that any corporation

could own a food crop

is a very new idea.

It wasn't until the 1980s

that the Supreme Court said

you could patent life.

And that opened

the floodgates--

efforts to patent the most valuable

parts of life,

which is to say the crops

on which we depend.

Monsanto is a chemical company.

They produced DDT,

Agent Orange in Vietnam,

and then they developed

a product called "Roundup."

We started hearing rumblings

about genetically-engineered soybeans

that could resist

the application of Roundup.

When the Roundup was

sprayed over top of it,

it killed

every weed out there

except for this

Roundup Ready soybean.

I can remember

when the first prohibition

against seed saving

came into being.

Most farmers were just

absolutely disgusted

with the whole concept.

It's been interesting

over the course

of 11 years

to watch us go

from utter contempt

for the notion

that we can't save

our own seed

to acceptance.

What happens if a farmer

saves the seeds?

Well, you know,

really there's

only one company involved

in this now

and that's Monsanto.

Monsanto is...

They've got a team

of private investigators

that kind of roam

the country

and they've got

a little 1-800 hotline

they take calls on.

If they get a call

and somebody alleges

that somebody saved seed,

they'll send an investigator out

to look into the matter.

If you save your own seed,

you're gonna get a call

from somebody

from Monsanto.

Two men drove in my driveway

at 7:
00,

presented

a black card to me

and they never told me

that they were from Monsanto.

They said that they had

had a surveillance team,

caught me

cleaning beans.

I found it necessary to get up

at 3:
00 and 4:00

in the morning

before the investigators are

on the road following me.

They were--

I'm gonna say maybe ex-military

or ex-police.

They were large

and they were intimidating.

I don't know whether they had

their surveillance team

or whether it was my neighbor that

turned me in. I don't know.

Now as I turned to walk in the house,

one of them said--

I could hear in the back--

"He's guilty."

It's a real ingenious device

designed back in the 1800s,

and Monsanto's gonna

close all of them out.

So how many seed cleaners

are out there

in the country

do you think?

In the state of Indiana,

there may be six.

Maybe.

I'm not aware of--

- How many there used to be?

- Oh my golly. Every county had three.

Have they all been

put out of business?

There's nobody left.

When Monsanto soybeans

first came on the market,

I just never

really switched over.

I was getting

pretty good yield

with the conventional

soybeans I'd been using,

so I thought "Well,

I'll just stay where I'm at."

My neighbors

all around me are all GMOs.

If the pollen goes in,

if the seed moves in,

I am still held

accountable.

When you genetically

modify a crop, you own it.

We've never had this

in agriculture.

Used to be that your

land-grant universities,

they developed what

was called public seed.

The vast majority

of the plant breeding

was actually done

in these public institutions

Monsanto is very much like Microsoft.

The same way Microsoft owns

the intellectual property

behind most computers

in America,

they set out to own

the intellectual property

behind most of the food

in America.

Public plant breeding is

a thing of the past.

There virtually are

no public seeds anymore.

There's only like four or five varieties

that I can actually plant.

Now I have some

of the last soybeans

coming out

of the state of Illinois--

- That are not GMO.

- Public variety. Public variety.

When it comes to the point that I can't

buy any more certified seed,

what do I do?

What are my options?

I acquired this list

that was mailed to me.

The black list here is Monsanto's

unauthorized growers list.

Wow.

Either farmers that have

judgments against them,

or businesses,

or else it's--

or it's farmers that have not submitted

their paperwork,

will not turn over

their records.

For my case,

that's why I'm on there--

'cause I would not

turn over my records.

- Am I on this list?

- Yes, you are.

Wow.

I see two of the farmers

that I work for on here.

This list-- now it comes down

to the point

where I cannot buy

Monsanto products, okay?

Right.

So it's coming down to

"What can I plant?"

Monsanto is suing me

on the basis

that I'm encouraging the farmer

to break the patent law

by cleaning

their own seed.

I haven't been

in a courtroom yet

and my bill is

already $25,000.

People that were

friends of mine

now are reticent

to even talk with me.

We've been friends

for 50 years,

and now we can hardly be

seen together.

Right.

I don't think

I'm really guilty,

but it was cheaper

to pay the fine

than it was

to try to fight it.

- It gnaws at you...

- Sure.

...because if you think

you're right at something,

but yet you admit

you're wrong.

Monsanto falsely accused us

of violating their patent

and breach of contract.

None of it was true.

You go into a market,

you find a dominant farmer

and if you can ruin them, you scare

the rest of them to following the line.

My family spent $400,000

fighting the battle, pretrial.

And we were told

it would take another million

to take the thing to trial.

We settled out of court.

The way the system appeared

to work to me was

Lady Justice had

the scales

and you piled cash

on the scales

and the one that piled

the most cash on the scales,

hired the most experts

and was most willing

to tell the biggest lies,

that was the winner.

That seems to be how our justice system

functions now.

It's terrible.

It's terrible.

How can a farmer

defend himself against

a multinational corporation

like Monsanto?

I talked to a young man

just three days ago.

They'd been

to his farm, you know?

And this poor kid,

he's just starting out.

His fiance was there.

I talked to her

and tried to give them

the best advice I could.

Unfortunately the best advice

I could give them was

"Try to get out of this thing

with your skin intact.

Don't fight 'em.

You've got to roll over

and give them what they want,

'cause you can't defend yourself."

In the case of Monsanto,

their control is so dominant.

If you want to be

in production agriculture,

you're gonna be

in bed with Monsanto.

They own the soybean.

They are going to

control that product

from seed

to the supermarket.

They are, in effect,

gaining control of food.

There has been

this revolving door

between Monsanto's

corporate offices

and the various regulatory

and judicial bodies that

have made the key decisions.

Justice Clarence Thomas

was a Monsanto attorney.

That wouldn't be

such a big deal

if it weren't

for one court case

that really decided

this whole seed-saving issue.

Justice Clarence Thomas

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