Monsanto Ethical Issues

In this day and age many countries are trying to find a way to create crops that would grow faster and produce a greater yield in hopes to make more money. This has lead to many countries starting to use GMO crops to boost the production in their countries. One of the problems with using GMO crops is if it is ethically right or wrong. I believe that it is not ethically right because it is destroying the environment, shifting the animal population and negatively impacting the people in those countries. I will argue my stance on using GMO crops with John Rawls and focusing on three different events that happened in India and Mexico. The John Rawls ethic benchmark is defined as: Justice as fairness means negative rights are preserved, there
is equal opportunity for jobs, and the least advantaged are helped as much as possible while preserving negative rights and equal opportunity. Through this benchmark we can see that the use of GMO in India and Mexico are both violate the concept of Rawls. This can be seen in the case of the use of GMO crops causing those who are at a disadvantage become more so with no help from the government. In India’s case this can be seen when Monsanto sends Bt cotton seeds to southern Punjab and the more than 350,000 acres fail in 11 districts. This failure resulted in causing massive chemical pollution in the soil of the farms as well as shift in pest. The shift in pest is due to Bt cotton is modified to stop bollworms, but by doing so allowed other pests to emerge and take its place. Not only did the government not help the people, the Prime Minister in 2003 worked with the USAID and US embassy to try and stop the GEAC from rejecting 1000 million tons of corn soya blend seeds. A similar incident happened in Mexico in the city of Oaxaca where the people have been growing corn for centuries, but because the Mexican government wanted to increase their trade in corn introduced transgenic corn seed to the people. The difference is that this then caused the corn produced in the city to be of low quality making them inconsumable and only useful as cattle fee, oil, and syrup. This led the people to be heavily dependent on imported foods from other countries and poorer diets since the Mexican government ignored their cries for help. Another example of GMO crops being used in India unethically would be in 2002 when the GEAC made a deal with Monsanto when they first bought the Bt cotton crops.
The problem with the deal was that the GEAC knew that the crops were ecologically hazardous and that the claims GM Corporation was making were false. Not only did they know they were wrong the made a deal for seed for Southern Punjab and then another deal for a year’s worth of seeds for Northern Punjab. Due to the massive failure of the crop the Punjab Agriculture University tried to step in and stop people from buying the seeds and creating the crop, but Monsanto continue to sell them to the people and farmers who did not know the adverse effects would smuggle the seeds in. This then caused the soil that the seeds are planted in to be saturated with chemicals seeing how the crops required pesticide 4-5 times a day. Now with the lower yield and chemically saturated soil many farmers are stuck growing the Bt cotton, and getting poorer at the same time because the Bt cotton seeds cost more than the cotton is being sold for. A similar event was happening in Mexico but the difference is that the no Mexican government tried to stop the spread of the seeds, and those with larger farm lands actually promoted the use of the transgenic corn seeds. This resulted in many of the poorer farmers to go out of business or lose their land because they could not afford the expensive seeds or grow enough to cover the cost of selling
fewer crops. With no help for the poor the richer farmers took advantage of this by expanding their farms and buying the land from the poorer farmers, and some even went further to also hire the original farmers to work for them on the land that was bought. The last example would be the research that four universities did on the Bt cotton in India.
The University found that with the repelling of the bollworm, it has caused a massive influx of pests that can harm the crops that are not repelled by 205-300%. Also even though the crop is advertised to repel bollworms, the bollworms are actually starting to develop a resistance the Bt cotton. A similar case of the crop destroying the ecosystem was happening in Mexico but on a different scale, one that caused the people to not be able to grow the original edible local corn anymore. Researchers have found that the transgenic corn has caused the soil to be contaminated to the point when the old corn were to planted they would grow out to be inedible like the transgenic corn. Also the pollination of the transgenic corn has started to infect other cities that have not originally grown the transgenic corn. The researchers consider this a type of invisible
pollution. Although the intentions of creating crops that would create high yield and lower the use of pesticide it is easily seen that, once the crop does not work out that the company only cares about making profit. This is also a very good example where an engineer has created a product that is ideal in experimental but does not hold up when put into actual practice. Through the events that have happened in both India and Mexico it can be seen that the even though it may start out with equal opportunity the poorer farmers are being mistreated. As time progresses the mistreatment can be seen with the obvious class division between farmers with the government turning a blind eye and making a profit.