Food Inc Rough Transcript Notes

The way we eat changed more in last 50 yrs more than the last 10,000

The film opens with imagery of Agrarian America, all natural, pictures of farmers, farms, picket fence, green grass.. land lakes butter. Spinning of pastoral fantasy

Modern supermarket stocks around 47,000 products

No seasons in supermarket tomatoes all yr round because they’re picked when green and ripened with ethylene gas.  We’re eating ‘notional tomatoes’.

Meat aisle – showing meat without bones

Deliberate veil evil curtain dropped between us and where food coming from

Industry doesn’t want you to know the truth

Robert Kenner director of Food inc.

Follow back from shrink wrapped packs.. Factory not farm.   Meat being processed by huge multinational corporations…

Chickens on hangers, processing plants, poor workers all being abused

Food is much more dangerous ways being hidden

Small group of multinationals control seed to supermarket and what we’re allowed to say, know. Not just health.

Don’t want farmers talking. Don’t’ want this story told

Fast Food to all food

Eric Schlosser editor of fast food nation

Eating his favorite meal, hamburger French fries

He had no idea that a handful of companies have changed what we eat and how we make our food

Eating burgers all  his life without having any idea where it comes from

Idea of world deliberately hidden from us, investigative reporter

Lift the veil.

Whole industrial food system began with fast food 30’s drive in.

MacDonald’s had successful drive in cut costs, sacked car hops, got rid of most items on menu. Factory system applied to restaurant kitchen, each worker do one thing over and over.

Less skilled, easier to fire, pay low wage. Inexpensive food tasted good huge success.

That mentality of uniformity, conformity cheapness has unintended consequences, flash to horrible farms of cattle…

MacDonalds largest purchaser of ground beef, want burgers to taste same, change how beef is produced

Largest purchaser of potatoes one of largest purchaser of pork chicken tomatoes lettuce apples

Subsidies

$113 billion 97 – 2003 subsidies to wheat, rice,corn, soy.  48 billion to corn.  Apples and sugar beets [for sweetener] got 48 million. [I got this information elsewhere!]

Big fast food chains want big suppliers.

Handful of companies control food system.

1970 top five beef packers controlled 25% of the market today Tyson Cargill Swift National Meat control 80% of market

Pork slaughtering and processing run by Smithfield

Farm Fresh bacon… Farmer this farmer that..

Never had food companies this big

Tyson biggest meat packing co in history of world

Changed way chickens are raised.  Used to take 70 days to raise a chicken now 48 days white meat popular so they redesigned chicken 1950 v 2008

It changed the farmer.. picture of chickens on horrible rollers,…

National Chicken Council Richard Lobb comments

“Other industries following achieve tremendous economies… We’re not producing chickens, producing food highly mechanised.. all birds almost exactly same size

Produce lot of food small amount of land very affordable price.  What’s wrong with that..?”

Southern Chicken Grower

Tobacco southern crop when it died out the southern farmers turned to chickens.  Guy driving by with dog in truck says smells like money to me. He’s a Tyson grower… poor uneducated

16 chicken houses.. Chucks son has 4 over top of hill.. came in here and helped this whole community out… I’ve got 300,000 chickens…

Contract with Tyson’s…They’ve got all science figured out.. you can grow chicken in 49 days why wait 3 months. More money in your pocket.    They are victims  Chickens never see sunlight.. pretty much in dark all the time…

Grower wanted to show inside chicken houses.. Tyson said NO.

Someone did… she was fed up with it..

It would be nice if yall could see what we really do.. we can’t let you… Tyson wouldn’t be interviewed.

Dozens of farmers asked to show inside houses, none would except

Woman Chicken Factory Farmer

I understand why they don’t want to talk.. company can stop them

Perque grower Carole Morison made up mind to say what she has to say… to point that it doesn’t matter, something has to be said.. risking her livelihood. Uses old style houses with open windows, not vents…

Walking amongst chickens wearing face mask. Says ‘Nasty in here, dust, faeces, mass production like assembly line… when they grow from chick in 7 weeks 5/5 lb chicken bones and internal organs can’t keep up.. they collapse… can’t hold the weight.

Picking out dead ones.. happens every day…

That’s normal.. dead chickens

Antibiotics passes through chicken, bacteria builds up resistance so antibiotics aren’t working she’s allergic to antiboitics.. can’t take them

Chicken Pickup

Middle of the night, using undocumented workers. dark so chickens less resistant

African American used to do it now they use latino.. undocumented workers… they don’t have any rights, not gonna complain.. they like these kind of workers.. image of workers kicking chickens, if they get sick, all chickens go to plant for processing…

Carole shown walking through the mass of faeces. Picking dead chickens…

Companies keep farmers under thumb

Debt

One poultry house costs  $280,000 300,000 per house, initial investment, company come back with demands of upgrades new equipment.. no choice.. have to do it or threatened with loss of contract.  Keep farmers in control.. spending money, debt building… no say in business degrading… like being a slave… Perdue declined to be interviewed…

Carole’s contract terminated when refused to upgrade to dark tunnel ventilated houses…

Typical grower has invested $500,000 and  earns 18,000 a year..

POOR CHICKEN FARMERS jawing over a beer DELETED SCENE

If people went in these chicken houses see what we do lot of people that raise chickens.

Bought a worm farm one time didn’t work out.  Month or two after we married what did just get myself into awful smell.

Fifteen thousand dollars first gas bill. First big thing where I made 8,000 more than I made in a year Then  you gotta pay the bills.   Sometimes less than normal wages..

Saw brick homes, two new cars and a boat… what kind of money does them people make.. 2 dodge pickups where are them people now. Were broke .. keep signing their name… all it takes is credit. There are some good jobs also a lot of lobs  just survival.. and that’s what poultry is.

Film asks  How could that be better invested…

PRODUCING VEGGIES,

Michael Pollan author of Omnivore’s Dilemma…

Only few crops involved, only few companies

Following food back to source cornfields in Iowa.

Clever rearrangement of corn

Troy Roush Vice President American Corn Growers association farmer with sad and uncomfortable look on his face

20 bushels of corn 200 bushels fertilizer, pesticide makers credit for this.

In US 30% of land base planted with corn. Driven by gov policy.  Produce corn below cost of production, paid to over produce Corn, Tyson Smithfield interest to lobby congress to give us kind of farm bills we now have

It’s not a Farm Bill it’s a Food bill

Codified rules of food economy

Grow crops like corn cos they can be stored.

Grow as much as they can..get big, consolidate… subsidize by bushel… corn mountains

Tax payer pays twice, we are subsidizing, in disguise of cheap but paying on both ends.. subsidy they don’t see.. and with health ramifications

NOTE Remember film Solent Green feeding people humans, scooping up off of street, making them into green wafers, Charlton Heston cop discovered.

Poison disguised as food.. services modern medical industry…Food Drug Admin

Genetic Engineering

Crops utilization research – Larry Johnson

Flavors bring pieces together engineer new foods that don’t stale, don’t develop grain mold.  The biggest advance high fructose corn syrup… go look on supermarket shelf 90% of them contain corn or soy bean ingredients.

Design animals consumers want to have.. Testing on consumers.  How feed efficient that animal grows.  Produce perfect pork chop. I like a little fat, if it’s lean and the price is good I’ll buy it.

Producers and genetics companies have done an incredible job of taking the fat out of meat and so we have a very lean source of protein. Surge for leanness overshadowed need for flavor..coming back to that.. adding in flavour.  All animals are bred artificially…

North Carolina Pork Council.

Semen stored in cooler, introduced into animals.

Used to do all natural matings would have had to have 60 males now only 3 males and we use them for stimulation and heat detection.

Not naturally mated for 10 years.  Swine Teaching Farm Iowa University

Want more consistency so all animals coming out of one sire.. horrible pig pens… He says he cares for animals.   We cut third of labor out.. inside pigs instead of outside. Business has to become more and more efficient competing with other meat proteins.. chicken most efficient.. cost inputs versus what selling product for.. Constantly looking at per unit cost out of the door.. in business for profit… gotta feed our families and send our kids to college..

Housing sows in individual gestation crates contentious issue with animal rights..not as productive housed in open pen systems.. environmentalists like it cost hey think it’s natural and they interact.. lot of time beating crap out of each other [his excuse for keeping them in crates] .. We may outlaw gestation crates in US to buy pork chops created in gestation crates in China.  Activists will tell you raise your price. I don’t set my price..I have to accept what market is telling me what animal is worth.

People want to humanize livestock production.. we care about them but it’s still business.. he’s crying…says of pigs  ‘what kind of emotions they have haven’t had one tell me yet…’

Sad pigs in crates…

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP

It’s in all these products or these products are made from HFCS –  unless it says NOT.

Tomato Ketchup, Coca Cola, Cheezits, Twinkies, batteries, Welches juice, Sweet n low Tropicana,  Huggies, jellies, Skippy French’s charcoal Motrin meat xanthan gun, citrus cloud emulsion, di glycerides, ascorbic acid, saccharin, calcium serrate, maltodextrin sucrose xanthan gum fructose alpha-tocopherol, cellulose, xylitol, gluten fibersol ethyl acetate, white vinegar, fumaric acid, citric acid, baking powder, vanilla extract, semolina, sorbic acid, starch, margarine, polydextrose, inosital zein

Feed it to animals main component in animal ingredients, tilapia farm salmon fish eat corn.

So much cheap corn allowed us to drive down price of meat.. average American 200 lbs of meat per person per year not possible without diet of cheap grain.

Since we’re selling corn below price of production. Feed operator can buy it at a fraction of what it costs to grow.. animals sucked off farms in Midwest, spider web of roads and train tracks moving corn to CAFo Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.. Cows not designed by evolution to eat corn.  Michael Pollan says corn makes them fat

Ruminant Nutrition expert Allen Tremble, reaching into cows ruminant compartment

See liquid part, micro organisms bacteria millions of them.. animals evolved on consuming grass research indicted high corn diet results in e-coli acid resistant

Feed corn to cattle e-coli evolves.. mutation occurs… and strain called e-coli 157H7 appears.   Product of diet feeding cattle, feed lot life.. faeces all day… manure… if one cow has it the other cows will get it.. get to slaughter house, hides caked with manure… slaughter house slaughters 400 animals an hour.. cant keep it from carcasses.

Now this thing that wasn’t in the world is in the food system

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Fast food nightmare, News shows excerpts. 2 yr old child ate jack in the box tainted meet, beef recalls 1998, 2001,half million 19 million pounds nationwide, spinach apple juice

Run off from factory farms..

Spinach scare raw bag 20^th e-coli out break 2006 in decade.

Bush admin Chief staff USDA former chief lobbyist of beef industry

Head of FDA former exec vice president of national food processers association

Con Agra recalled peanut butter aware of products 2 yrs before recall.

1972 FDA conducted 50,000 [inspections  in 2006 they conducted only

9,164

2007 22 million pounds beef recalled.

In the 70’s thousands of slaughter houses

Today 13 slaughterhouses process majority of  beef

Pieces of thousands of different cattle in hamburger…

Regulatory agencies toothless, and that’s how the industry wants them

Colorado

Mother and daughter go to  Washington to USDA Kevin’s law USDA.  Barbara Kowalcyx lost her son.

Patricia Buck food safety advocate

Reduced funding for FDA rely on self policing lost system

E coli 157H7

Industrial food system greater efficiency new step new problems.

Take cattle off corn diet, they’d shed 80% of e-coli.  When it has systematic problem, the solution is not to go back and see what’s wrong, but come up with high tech fixes.

Beef Products Inc. BPI

South Sioux City Nebraska

Computer control centre.. Chicago, Georgia, Utah, Kansas Nebraska Texas, LA, Ohio. All levels of gear

Eloon Roth founder of BPI

Shows his hi-tech Factories…

Food safety sampling we’re ahead of everybody. Lessen incidence of e-coli.   Ammonia ammonia hydroxide kills bacteria, used as a processing tool…

I’m a mechanic – I design machinery… meat mechanically reclaimed… into boxes.. final product hamburger filler… cleaned with ammonia

70% of burgers in country have this filler we aim for  5 yrs hundred percent usage

We’re gonna eat competitors

Marriage of science and technology for the worst possible ends. Defying nature.. my comment

THE DOLLAR MENU

Poor Latino family ordering from Burger King. 1 bottle of milk 5 rodeo cheeseburgers, 2 chicken sandwiches, 2 small sprites large dr pepper $11 .48.

Mother says we don’t think about healthy eating… burger king

I know food is really unhealthy but I don’t have time to cook leave at 6 get home at 9 or 10 at night. What do you do when you have only a dollar to spend and two kids to feed..go to market and find something that’s cheap or go to drive through…

I feel guilty feeding her this, but This is what’s gonna fill her up

Family in market… apples, greens broccoli, 1.29 lb, too expensive…kid wants pears..99 cents a pound only 2 per pound… 2 for a dollar…same cost as hamburger

Find candy that’s cheaper, chips cheaper, 5 pepsi for $5..two burgers for same price ..

Commentator says why would they buy it when you can get a double cheeseburger.. Can’t get head of broccoli it’s too expensive.

Skewed food system to bad calories

Reason calories are cheaper cos they are ones that are heavily subsidised

Directly tied to farm policies.. snacking calories come from commodity crops, wheat corn soy beans

Predictor of obesity is income level.

Blames obesity on crisis of personal responsibility.. engineered food presses evolutionary buttons

Salt fat sugar hardwired. These 3 tastes.. rare in nature.. sugar available in tremendous quantities..

High fructose refined carbos… wearing down of system by which body metabolizes sugar..

Poor family, diabetic… mediation costs 138dollars..100 something for another monthly.. takes a lot of income… Dilemma - paying for medicine to be healthy or buying veggies to be healthy

Kids in school… canvassed who in your family has diabetes. Most had 4 people in family who are diabetic

California Centre for public health advocacy Rosa de Soto

These people should be smart enough to not eat it everyday… Diabetes… Affordable fast food… Woman standing in Mall says used to be Albertsons here no longer here… full service supermarkets don’t’ want to come into communities where they won’t make as much money.

5 x more fast food stores..than grocery stores.. no choice..

Diabetes figures

One in 3 people after 2000 will get diabetes

In minorities it goes down to 1 in 2

Everything we’ve done in modern industrial agriculture faster fatter bigger cheaper, e coli, type 2 diabetes and ecological health of the earth

JOEL SALATIN ON THE FARM

In industrial system everything that was an asset has become a liability.. What’s pigs job.. they create compost. Cows eating through feeder gates..cows dropping fifty pounds of material out of back end..builds up… through winter..accumulates with addition of manure urine, chips sawdust.. as it builds we add corn to it.. pigs go for fermented grain embedded and churn it all up and oxygenate it aerobic dance like… jane fonda…

After that you’ve got this aerobic composting so entire lounging area becomes huge aerobic compost pile.. end up with wonderfully warm soil type compost material, pigs done all the work..

We don’t need machines when we can let animals do the work.. honors and respects pigness of pig.. and physiological distinctiveness.. creates philosophical building block for honoring and respecting your gifts and talents and another cultures’s talents.

Chicken is inpenitent rogue.. free spirit… chickens fertilize too…

Outsourcing decisions are made in corporate boardrooms where people make decisions and don’t live with consequences..

Scene of Joel’s cattle roaming on pastures…

Everything is grass based.. don’t eat corn or dead cows or chicken manure… or dead chickens… grass forage ,clover grass herbs.. herbivores..

If cattle eat corn, you have to harvest corn, transport it and then haul manure somewhere

Here the manure falls on the land and fertilizing, mowing, don’t have to harvest… all real time real silver dollars..

Industrial food system gradually became so noisy smelly not person friendly place that people who operate don’t want anyone to go there and see ugly truth.

We lost integrity and accountability.

Put glass walls on all of mega processing facilities and we would have a different food system..

Processing chickens… stick n bucket, cut throat quickly… allowed ourselves to become so disconnected and ignorant about something that is as intimate as food we eat.

What a difference out in fresh air sunshine processing chickens.. the authorities say this is unsanitary because open to air.. tried to close us down cos ‘unsanitary’ can you imagine…

Had em cultured at local micro biology lab

133 CFU compared to chickens in local store which are at 3600 local store.

Can you really feed the world like this?

Such a  spacious argument.. because yes we’re every bit as efficient and especially if you fog in all inefficiencies of industrial system

Farmers market people say ‘Whaaaaaat?  3 dollars a dozen for eggs when they’re drinking a 75 cent can of soda.

How successful they have been at hitting bullseye of wrong target.

Cattle learned how to plant fertilize and harvest corn using GPS technology and no one sits back and asks should we be feeding cattle corn?

Culture of technicians.. how of it.. no one is stepping back and saying WHY

A culture uses pig as pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated will probably view individuals in its community and other cultures in community of nations with same type of disdain, disrespect and same type of controlling mentality

CATTLE FEEDING NATURALLY deleted scene

Joel Salatin standing in what he calls salad bar pasture.   Nettle, considered weed but chickens love it, wide leaf plantain medicinal blood cleanser, red clover, queen of clover legumes, nitro fixin, dandelion.. orchard grass.. seed head of narrow leaf plantain cows pluck it out. White clover.. second best and Timothy… there’s your salad bar that’s what cow is being able to eat…legume, medicinal grass, all adding something nutritional to her..

In fifty years, when we came to this land it wouldn’t support but 20 cows ran out of grass never set piece on a piece of vegetation.  Never ploughed never planted a seed now can support 100 cows. Regenerative redemptive healing systems, building soil, using earthworms, covering ground with green material that cools air that absorbs heat and doesn’t radiate heat is antithesis of global warming and epitomy of everything that is right.  It is beautiful.

Cut to Smithfield meat processing largest slaughterhouse in world.

Ex Army guy..used towork for Smithfield.  Says it’s dangerous to people, get run over by hogs.. Another worker speaks of how a guy died and they didn’t even give him 5 mins of silence.. work conditions on kill floor is impossible.. 75 hogs falling off racks, racks squeak… it caught him bounced against wall.

One woman got hit, went to the mercy room and had miscarriage…was told later you didn’t call in and fired her. She said, I wasn’t about to call in as I was having miscarriage.

They get told when sick, if you don’t return to work by x date..termination.

One guy was scheduled for surgery… they knew it and then sent him a letter telling him they overpaid him on last disability check and they took money sent to them for insurance payment so his insurance wasn’t paid and he went and had major surgery thinking he had insurance.. owes $184k.

People can’t afford to leave, they know it and that’s what they hold over you.

Midnight outside the plant.  Union people lobbying. Workers harassed arrested.. ex GI decided not to hide it and campaigns with Eduardo Pena.   Plant is flagship…gonna determine if they are good union jobs.

Tar Heel in middle of economically depressed area.. Eduardo Pena union organizer

The authorities are picking and choosing workers to exploit.. initially local work force was the poor black and white – got through them quickly and then started bussing workers from Bensfield SC to Clayton NC to draw circle 100 miles  Shot by hidden cameras..

Same mentality to workers as they do towards hog… don’t have to worry about comfort temporary cos hogs gonna be killed same with workers don’t worry about longevity.. everything has an end.   2005 they got unionized after 15 years.

32,000 hogs slaughtered a day.. in some kind of compression chamber…crush them…

Employees get infections in fingernails and separate from fingers, covered with blood feces, urine.. easy to get hurt down there…

Same movement, treated as human machine..

Ex GI said it’s more dangerous than front line…

100 years ago, beef trust wielded enormous power, immigrants from eastern Europe being abused in absence of government regulations, horrible disfiguring industries.. things got better, Teddy Roosevelt took on beef trust, labor unions organized and turned meat packing into one of best industrial jobs in US

By 50’s being meat packing worker like auto worker, good wage, benefits , pension.. then meat packing companies  like IBP borrowed same labor practises as fast food, cutting wages, making sure no unions, speeding pu production repetitive tasks.. Meatpacking now one of most dangerous jobs…

New set of immigrants, undocumented workers.

Most of them were corn farmers in Mexico. Flooding of Mexican market with cheap American corn put million and a half Mexican farmers out of work… so meat packers like IBP National Beef Monfort advertised and recruited in Mexico. IBP set up bus service to bring workers into the US.. Government turned blind eye torecruitment of immigrants.. now anti immigrant movement.. cracking down on workers.. raiding their homes at night.. Lip service at expense of people.

Tar Heel -  Eduardo Pena.. immigrants being arrested in the middle of the night… at trailer park… taken from families.. agreement between Smithfield

Get rid of 15 workers per day, no massive raids, so it doesn’t affect production…

No one arresting Smithfield managers who are colluding.

Pay cheapest price for food workers some of whom have been here for 10 fifteen years processing your holiday ham and bacon now getting picked up like criminals.. and companies making billions of dollars..

Smithfield refused interview

COSTS HIDDEN

We’re willing to subsidise food system to create mystique of cheap food when it’s very expensive food  if you add up environmental, societal and health costs. It s not honest food, not produced, priced, processed honestly…

Switch to Joel Salatin – packing his meat.

5 hour drive 3/400 miles worth it… guy buying Joel’s food.

Salatin says he has no desire to scale up or get bigger. He wants to produce best food in world and heal  and if in doing so more people come to  our corner and want stuff heavean help me to figure out how to meet need without compromising integrity. As soon  as you grasp for that growth, Walmart, gonna view customer, product, business differently.. everything that is the most important…

Deleted scene

Stoneyfield Yogurt guy talking about HYPOXIA  off coast of New Orleans size of NJ, run off..all oxygen sucked off no life at bottom of sea.. 400 of dead zones around the world..the number is growing.. costs of agriculture… Now convinced that when you invest in soil invest in water table you get a better return.. Organic is not an alternative.. conventional is a radical alternative..

Not using toxins… saving and creating viable future for more farmers… yet so meet consumers who want yogurt with double dose of pesticides… many reasons don’t go to organic is cos it costs too much..by having large retailers, we topple only barrier to having  organic food economy.. when sold where all food is sold.. when it’s all organic..that’s when we’ll know we’ve arrived…

Natural Products Expo

New organic line of popcorn.. soymilk  Stonyfield farm… origins or organic farmers..growing 20% annually fastest segments in food industry.. not gonna get rid of capitalism…

If we attempt to make enemy and only gonna buy food from most perfect system within hundred miles, never gonna get there....

Business source of pollution….

Talks about idealism of 70s in group New Alchemy renegade biologists…

Preaching to converted..

Mass production.. 7 cow farm…wanted to prove that business could be part of solution to problems and prove could ge highly profitable.. massive warehouses 2008, Stoneyfield no 3 yogurt brand in America and among most profitable…

Danona 23 billion food conglomerate acquired them…original owner still runs biz.

Shows how big conglomerates have taken over small organics.  Points them out Kashi is owned by Kellogs, Toms is owned by Colegate.

Are they able to keep their soul… jury is out…

Don’t grow organically grow by acquisition.. Coke Pepsi

Vermont farm.. Walmart enters organic space, thrilled.. dreamed of day he could sit down with corporate titans…

Now big companies are calling for relaxation of organic standards..

TURN OF CENTURY

Average American farmer … can feed 126 people.. most productive humans that have ever lived..

Changes are invisible…

Who knows a farmer

Way of life has been revolutionized

SEED TO SUPERMARKET

10k years ago, saving seeds planting again following year.. Troy Roush American Corn Growers association

Idea that any corporation can own food crop was unknon until 80’s supreme court said you could  patent life Justice Clarence Thomas set precedent for gene patenting.

Monsanto is a chemical company who made DDT Agent Orange and roundup..

GMO soy beans resist roundup.. sprayed killed everyweed except for round up ready soy bean.

1996  when Mnsanto began selling Round-up-ready soybeans only 2% of soybeans inUS contained their patented gene

By 2008 over over 90% of soybeans in the US contained Monsanto’s patented gene

First prohibitions against seed saving had  most farmers disgusted..

11 years watch they’ve gone from utter contempt to acceptance. .

What happens if they save the seeds. Only one company involved.. guy looks very emotional.  He says what can you do, Monsanto has a team of 75 Private investigators and a 1800 hotline they take calls on.. ifsomeone alleges someone is saving seed,send investigator tolookintom atter..if yousave your own seed you’re gonna get a call from somebody from Monsanto.

Staff of 75 devoted so investigating farms. Anyone caught saving seeds can be investigated for patent defraud.

One guy in shadows telling his story.  2 men drove into driveway, said that they had a a surveillance team on him. He found it necessary to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning before they’re on the road following him.

Team consist of Ex military ex police large and intimidating…

Was it team or neighbor who shopped him.

He’s guilty… Moe Parr seed cleaner

Seed cleaning machine Ingenious device designed in 1800

Monsantos gonna close all of  em out

6 seed cleaners left in country before every county had 3

When Monsanto seed came out one farmer never switched over.. but his fields have been contaminated by GMO.. pollen blows in he is still held accountable

He must prove he did not violate M’s patents.

When you genetically modify a crop, you own it..

Vast majority of plant breeding done in plant institutions

Microsoft owns intellectual property behind most computers…

Public plant breeding is a thing of the past.. no public seeds

Only 4/5 varieties actually plant..

He got hold of some of last soy beans coming out of Illinois

He acquired a list mailed to him which was a blacklist of Monsanto’s unauthorised grow list, farmers with judgements against them or farmers not submitted their paperwork

He’s on this list and it means he cannot buy Monsanto products.. so what can he plant?

GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR PERMACULTURE my note

Monsanto suing the seed cleaner..

Moe Parr had not  been in courtroom yet and bill is already 25,000 dollars some of his riends for 50 years can’ be seen together. As condition of settlement one of the farmers was told he can’t speak publicly.. Cheaper to pay fine than trying to fight it.

Monsanto accused us of violating patent.. breach of contract none of it true.. go to market find dominant farmer ruin him scare rest of them ..Head of Corn Growers association spent 400,000 dollars fighting it pre trial… it would take another million to trial… so he settled out of court.. He says that the one who piled most cash and the ones willing to tell biggest lies.. wins.. How can a farmer defend himself.

He said he talked to young man.. poor kid just starting out… best advice is try to get out of this thing and if you stay in don’t fight em, roll over.. can’t defend yourself… control so dominant, if you want to be in production agriculture you gotta be in bed with them.

They control product from seed to supermarket..

Monsanto declined to be interviewed..

The Evil The Veil

Been revolving door between corporate offices and various regulatory offices

Justice Clarence Thomas Attorney Monsanto 76 -79

Supreme Court Justice 1991 present

Allowed seed saving restrictions

Bush key players

Donald Rumsfeld Searle CE)

Searle bought by Monsanto – Aspartame

John Ashcroft  - Missouri Senator donations from Monsanto

Clinton Administration

Mickey Kantor Board of directors Monsanto 2000 - 02

Robert Shapiro CEO Monsanto 95 – 2000

Both on Clintons Advisory Board

Wendell Murphy North Carolina State Senator 89 – 93

Hogs largest pork slaughterhouse Smithfield Board of Directors 2000 – now

Margaret Miller Chemical Lab supervisor Monsanto 85 – 89

FDA Branch Chief 89 – present

Linda Fisher V Gov & Public Affairs 95 – 2000 Monsanto

EPA Deputy Administrator 2001 03

Michael Taylor King and Spaulding Lawyer 84 – 91 Monsanto advised Monsanto on genetically modified food labeling

Dep commissioner Policy FDA 91 94

Oversaw FDA’s decision not to label GMO

Vice President for Public Policy 98 – 2000 Monsanto

Centralized power being used against people really producing food and it’s against workers who work in the industry while consumers deliberately being kept in the dark what they’re eating and where it comes form

SB63

In courtroom where the consumer people are asking for all cloned foods to be labelled as cloned foods. FDA wants to allow them not to.

Objections from woman representing California Farm Bureau.  Their reasons are they’re concerned that  labelling creates fear in consumers mind SB63 consumer right to know measure passed State Legislature AND  vetoed by Schwarzenegger

They didn’t want to show

Calorie information

Transfat

Country of origin labelled

Not to label gmo food

70% of processed food has some GMO

They don’t want you to know and have made it against law to criticise products

Kevin’s mother scared to death.

She is interviewed and asked tell me how you changed how you eat… as a result of your son’s death. She says you’d better talk talk to attorney.  I don’t want the meat and poultry industry coming after me.  I get asked this all the time. My reaction used to be I don’t care let them sue the mother of a dead child.. BUT veggie libel laws are different

Food industry has different protections

OPRAH SUED

Mad Cow Disease Oprah said on her show  ‘it’s just stopped me cold from eating another burger’

Texas cattleman sued her for disparaging a food product.

6 yrs of litigation 1 million in law suits she won.  Now she’s advised to shut up.

In Colorado you can be convicted under veggie libel law and go to prison for criticising ground beef being produced in state of Colorado

Illegal to publish photo of any industrial food operation

Cheeseburger bills difficult for you to sue them . These companies have legions of attorneys, may sue even though they can’t win, to send a message…

Maurice Parr versus Monsanto Technologies [seed cleaning guy]

Monsanto suing Moe Parr for inducing farmers to break the patent law through his seed cleaning business.

He gave up couldn’t pay the legal fees. Dec 07

Scared him that they have every check he has written on every bank account in last 10 years.  Shows them questioning him, Doyou Own land, how many acres do you own.

He says these people who buy my services are not just customers, they are personal friends  Shows him naming names, he has to say what they farm.

First case in which seed company suing person who does cleaning of seed.

Have any customers told you they want to use your seed cleaning services. He names names

He is finished out of business.

He gave up defending himself because he can no longer pay legal bills

Shocks to the system

Dedicated to single virtue of efficiency, small no of crops, small no of companies.. system is more precarious.  Breakdown is inevitable.

Modern production agriculture dependant on large amounts of fuel.   Big corn farm uses 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year.  We eat a lot of oil without knowing it.

75 gallons of oil to bring a steer to slaughter

Machine has no resilience to deal with shocks such as spike in oil.. Food prices 3.9% higher, corn leaps to 12 year high.

US sold grain cheaply anywhere in world, farmers in other countries not subsidised could not compete.. capacity to grow and sell compromised.

Worlds running out of food and nobody’s talking about it

Food crisis already brought down one government

Cows brutalized to get to feet for slaughter

Cow poo washing down river

No tools in place to track origin of latest salmonella outbreak

Every time one of these stories Americans learn a little more.. and every time they turn away in revulsion and start looking for alternatives.

Average consumer does not feel very powerful.   Recipients of whatever industry has put out there for them to consume.

Voting for local or not organic.

Walmart introduced rBST free milk.   CUSTOMERS CAN CHANGE the big stores.

To eat well costs more than to eat badly  some people simply don’t have the money.

We need CHANGES AT POLICY LEVEL so that Carrots are a better deal than chips

JOEL SALATIN Imagine what it would be as a national policy if we said we’d only be successful if we had fewer people going to hospital next year rather than last year. Idea is to have such nutritionally dense unadulterated food.that people felt better had more energy weren’t sick.  That’s a noble goal.

KEVINS MOM Can’t change fact that Kevin’s dead.   Woman whose child died effect change

AMERICAN CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION GUY

Farmers work on delivery to marketplace what marketplace demands.. if you want $2 milk that’s what we produce. If customers dDemand good wholesome food we’ll deliver, we’re ingenious guys, I promise you.. nearly in tears

You can vote to change the system

Buy from companies that treat workers animals and the environment with respect.

Choose foods in season, organic, know what’s in it read labels

Buy

1500 miles from the farm to supermarket

Buy foods grown locally

Buy at farmers markets

Plant a garden

Cook a meal with family and eat together

Everyone has a right to healthyfood

Farmers market

School lunches

FDA and USDA supposed to protect us ask them to reintroduce Kevin’s law

Ask for food that will keep us and the planet healthy

You can change the world with every bite.