[Community_garden] Constructive Engagement With the Opposition - Monsanto - To Win

[adam36055 at aol.com]

Demonization doesn't work - constructive engagement is a great tool. We don't have the power to crush Monsanto, but we have to engage to win the fight instead of bemoaning how bad they are.  This is a multi-national engaged in a profit-driven business that wants a monopoly.  That's capitalism, the force of the market - our job is to make that monopoly stop its policy of selling  one-time seeds and knocking out traditional seed companies illegal.  
 
This is a  political task , and that requires ....
 
Constructive engagement.  
 
Part of the reason that the US is in such a mess in Iraq is that those in power  have not listened, not engaged in constructive engagement with its opponents.  As the old Florientine saying goes, "You keep your friends close, your enemies closer."
 
Demonization and rejection are fine, but you don't get anything done that way - you have to get close enough to effect change. 
 
We have a fairly intransigent opponent in Monsanto, the patented one-time seeds, chemical agriculture and a mind-set that is bottom line and profit centered.  We can either ignore the opponent and "do our own thing", i.e., continue seed saving, planting and being righteously "green," while the opponent, in this case Monsanto, wreaks havoc on the eco-system. 
 
Or we do everything we do and more to foster good organic processes and work, reach out politically to our elected representatives to make one-time seeds an unacceptable product to use, first in North American agriculture, and then internationally.  
 
Take the tobacco industry as a model, in which a goliath has been forced to change its business practices, and the marketplace in which the product can be used has been constricted, and the operations of the company made less and less profitable.  
 
And the use of the products are perceived as being less, and less good to use.  
 
But you have to know the opponent, not demonize him, but understand him as he really is - and then bring him close, using his own tools against him.  
 
It's a large seed company that has to change its profit making business plan, not "Alien."  But the first part is to go to its website http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto/layout/ and see how it sees itself, and wants to be seen. 
 
Then you go from there - as community gardeners we know how to engage Goliath to get what we need.  
 
Demonization is easy - it's rejection.  Creating change requires both direct and indirect opposition AND engagement. 
 
We don't use "Round Up," or their seeds - which is a start. As are good organic practices. But here we have to get the guys who sell us food, regulate agriculture and FDA rules to come to our vision of what the world needs to be.  
 
And getting the juggernaut of groups like Monsanto to change their business plan. 
 
Any other suggestions?
 
Best regards, 
 
Adam Honigman
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: landscapediva at sbcglobal.net
To: sgarrett at u.washington.edu; community_garden at list.communitygarden.org; adam36055 at aol.com
Sent: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 6:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Stakhanovite Cuban Green Revolution?


Boy did that arrow miss the target....That's my whole point that I feel is being missed. 
 
If Cuba is the only example (and the best one for the moment) of being "Green" then what do we really have? I feel they made strides where no one else did but the fact remains there are the hungry, I never said they were perfect and everything was coming up roses. And yes sadly enough if the embargo was lifted they would have the pie in the sky attitude and coming running back and they would become like all walking bi-peds or shall I say sheep and follow the lead of good advertising. THERE IS NO GREEN REVOLUTION FOLKS, unless we choose to make it for ourselves. Step by step, bit by bit. 
 
Everywhere, anywhere you look. I can walk out onto the street tomorrow and find someone in our wonderful land called America and find a soul who is in need. I used Cuba as an illustration...and the only consensus I get is "yes we cut them off 40 years ago"...and your point being what? Would they be better off if we didn't cut them off? My point is they had to be resourceful, maybe not perfect, but resourceful and it is the closest thing we do have as a green revolution. 
 
I go back to my original statement, it is the government, not gardening for lack of food. It is the haves and not the have not's. It's the powers to be not lack of seeds or upcoming technology. It's about being human and nothing more. And those who hold the "cash" are "king". It all depends where you place your value and I am sure you can tell which side of the fence I am on. 
 
I feel Monsanto, like any big conglomerate is developing seeds that need high chemical input in order to sustain themselves plus seed saving can not be done. This makes the grower dependant on always going back to the source to replenish their stock and their chemical sheds. Maybe today it is affordable but what is to say the price doesn't go up once they have a foot hold into the market? Kind of like what is going on with the price of gas these days (just another example folks, not a topic to be focused on) This does not make them independent in any sense of the word and give them the freedom to grow all the food in the world to save the hungry. Do you really think that Monsanto, this huge corporation is only in it for the good of mankind? I'm not buying it...That's a crock..... 
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