Seed: The Untold Story Page #4

The big concerns are Cancers

that pesticides are

associated with.

My whole entry into this

area was because of Atrazine.

The actual manufacturer

hired me to look at Atrazine.

Novartis told me

I couldn't talk to

people about my research.

I couldn't publish it

and I couldn't write it

and I thought, what do you mean?

Then they started trying

to manipulate data.

And that's when I realized,

I've helped the

chemical industry

keep this chemical in the

market that I know is bad.

And go home to my wife and kids

and go "Oh, guess

what I did today."

I did a study that

confused all the sciences

and now people don't know

that this chemical's bad.

Novartis and Syngenta

spent millions fighting me.

And when you look Novartis

and Syngenta's strategy,

the first thing that they

say is discredit Hayes.

They couldn't prove

my science was bad.

They wrote down a

checklist of things

they were going to do to me,

to hurt my students,

to investigate my wife.

They actually wrote it down!

The first page in the

secret spy evil handbook

is don't write it down

or you eat it or it

self destruct, right?

I do everything I can in

a position that I'm in.

But you know what some

of the dangers are,

being an academic and

speaking out for what's right.

We all have to do it.

(waves crashing calmly)

(soft, relaxing music)

We live in the most self

sustainable place on earth.

We can grow any plant

from Kakela to Hanalei.

It's such a cycle

of life around here

with the ocean and the land.

Hawaiians knew from

the beginning of time.

Our whole world revolves

around Aloha A'ina,

giving back to the land

because the land gives to us.

Native Hawaiians have this

incredible agricultural system

able to sustain three

times today's population.

In the 1800s, plantation

agriculture happened in Hawaii,

and what you see is

private land ownership

happening in Hawaii.

(moves into calm

and serene music)

The original missionary families

are still the primary

private landowners.

The descendants of the

original missionaries

open up the first

sugar cane plantations.

The last sugar cane mill

on this island closed down

eight years ago.

And in its place biotech

chemical seed companies came in

and took over agriculture.

They say sugar ruled

Hawaii, sugar was king.

Well, now I would say

the biotech industry,

these chemical companies

are king in Hawaii.

(sings in Hawaiian)

I live in a community

that consists of

pure Native Hawaiian

native speakers.

I have waited for an

opportunity to own my own home.

And not just own my own home,

but a space as a single

mother to raise my children.

Many Hawaiians die waiting

for their opportunity

at an Hawaiian homestead.

I moved out here and at the

time sugar was just moving out

and the fields around

us were fallow.

I started to see

different fields pop up

that I've never seen before.

It alarmed me.

I had no idea what was,

what was happening,

what was taking

the place of sugar.

Then I started to experience

very bad allergies,

migraines and illnesses,

just not being able

to get over colds.

My doctor said, "Oh you have

full blown adult asthma."

What I started to see

that the farmers were

spraying pesticides.

(moves into calm

but somber music)

They are spraying things at

night while we are sleeping.

My two daughters wake up with

blood-soaked pillows.

There's hundreds and

hundreds of acres

where these chemical

corporations test their seed.

18 tons of restricted

pesticides being dumped,

right next to schools

and neighborhoods.

I'm a teacher at Waimea

Canyon Middle School

for the past 18 years.

There's ag lands

adjacent to our campus.

It is literally 100 yards

up wind from our school.

That's the field that

they were spraying

and we can actually

feel the mists.

I contacted Syngenta and said

we believe that

drift is occurring.

During PE,

a cloud of gases came over them

and kids just started dropping.

(car horn honks)

There was chaos on

campus, it was horrific.

(emergency vehicle

sirens blare out)

There wasn't enough

room in the health room.

About 140 children were

seeking assistance.

There was this effort by

administrators and politicians

to whitewash it over,

and immediately

in the newspaper,

you know, school evacuated

because of stink weed,

and that became the

specious explanation,

that became the story.

Teachers came

together and stood up.

"Stop poisoning our children".

Monsanto, Dow, Dupont,

and Hawaii and elsewhere,

they've got a blank

check to experiment

with any chemical they

want on these test plots.

You've got the most

toxic insecticides

by the U.S. Department

of Agriculture.

(calm but serious strings music)

The seed companies,

the chemical companies,

especially Monsanto,

use every means of control

to manipulate our government

and other governments.

They pour huge amounts of

money into political campaigns.

They pour huge amounts

of money into lobbying.

They have many of their

own people embedded

in the key decision making

roles in the U.S. Government.

In 1992,

the approval of genetically

engineered crops

was done by Michael Taylor,

who was a lawyer for Monsanto

and went right from Monsanto

to working for the government.

Tom Vilsack was named

the Biotechnology

Industrial Organization's

governor of the year.

His law firm defended

Monsanto in the Supreme Court

and he became the

Secretary of Agriculture.

Here you have somebody

who's in control

of agricultural policy,

absolutely linked to the hip

to the biotechnology industry

and to Monsanto's interests

The revolving door between

Monsanto and government

is going to fast,

it's almost dizzying.

The corporations,

they said we wanna

really own these seeds.

We want patents on life.

It was fast tracked

to the Supreme Court.

It was a five-four decision

with Clarence Thomas,

in the lead of the five,

saying "Yes, you can patent

seeds, you can patent life."

Very few people know,

but Clarence Thomas

was a Monsanto lawyer.

When I first heard about

the idea of patenting a seed,

or any kind of plant,

I was absolutely

horrified and I thought,

surely that'll never be allowed.

You can't own nature.

(soft and calm violin music)

Under section 101

of the Patent Act,

which defines what can be

patented in the United States,

you can only patent a

machine, a manufacture,

or an inventor's

composition of matter.

And I fail to see how a

seed can be either of those.

Monsanto takes one gene out

of tens of thousands of genes,

changes that, and says "No, no,

now we own the whole plant."

It's one of the most

extraordinary giveaways,

giving corporations the

natural reproduction

of all life forms,

saying you can make a profit

on every one of

those reproductions.

So they don't just

own the seeds,

they own all of the

offspring of those seeds,

and patent them forever.

(calm and somber music)

The threat is there

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