Over the past couple weeks my Corporate Responsibility class has been watching the documentary "The Corporation." This documentary has opened my eyes to see what kind of unethical decisions large corporations have been making. One corporation that I’ve been familiar with over the past few years is Monsanto. After watching this documentary, my high dislike for this corporation has come back with a vengeance.
The awful lies and decisions this corporation has made will make anyone's stomach turn. The "It's very good for the environment." quote from a spokesperson from Monsanto is not true. The main ingredient in Roundup Pesticide is Glyphosate, is one of the most toxic and dangerous pesticides on Earth. No pesticide is good for the environment, in fact, they are very bad. The main reason people buy pesticides is to kill bugs or ‘pests’, if this chemical is good for the environment, why can it kill? When pesticides are used, and it rains, these pesticides will pollute rivers and the surrounding soil. It is known that pesticide’s cause animal defects, plant endangerment, and malfunctions in plants.
The seeds that Monsanto has created are Roundup resistant. This means that once you’ve used roundup pesticide, you’ll have to use their seeds because the pesticide you used will harm everything else. This will drive up the sales of these seeds and will make Monsanto more successful. Many people have criticized Monsanto for creating genetically modified food, and the fact that the seeds aren’t all natural but scientifically changed.
Monsanto also has been in many sticky situations with the law. Recently, 50 cases against Monsanto were started claiming that Monsanto’s products caused cancer. The plaintiffs in these lawsuits said that their property and soil were polluted with Monsanto’s product and later found out they had cancer. It has been proven that some of the active ingredients in Monsanto’s products were used in the Agent Orange that was used to kill off plant life during the Vietnam War. Although there has been a lot more law suits against Monsanto for many other reasons, it seems that it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong, Monsanto always wins. It’s not right that people are losing because this corporation has the money to win every time.
I found this website outlining the top 5 contributions that Monsanto has made that aren’t exactly the greatest. It’s quite fascinating to read and will surprise you as some of these I had no idea that Monsanto were the creator’s.
http://blog.foodfacts.com/index.php/2011/08/26/monsantos-5-evil-contributions/
This company certainly has gone through many hard situations and I couldn’t possibly write about all of them in this blog. The complete list of all the things that Monsanto has done is outlined in a timeline at this website:
http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtml#timeline
I disagree with many of this company’s habits, promises, and the way they run things. I feel they take advantage of their customers and the environment and I hope they get help sometime in the future to change their ways because the problems they have caused already such as the cancer and the environmental pollution cannot be changed. So by changing now, hopefully they can prevent any further damage and troubles. Monsanto is just an example of the many corporations that may not be as peachy as they seem and everyone should do their research before they purchase products to make sure they aren't harming themselves, family and not contributing to a deceiving corporation.
- Sara Davey
