Monsanto and the government are one.

[29] The claims were identified as "unproven" by the debunking website snopes.com.

[23], A 2015 internet hoax purporting to show that Monsanto was creating genetically modified cannabis to supply to the cannabis industry. To be sure, both of those caveats are being abridged big time.

[6] Some anti-GMO activists claimed that Monsanto infiltrated both the American Food and Drug Administration and the American Association for the Advancement of Science which is why the two organizations have supported the scientific evidence for the safety of the genetically engineered food available for human consumption. [7] A work seeking to explore risk perception over GMOs in Turkey identified a belief among the conservative political and religious figures who were opposed to GMOs that GMOs were "a conspiracy by Jewish Multinational Companies and Israel for world domination"[8] while a Latvian study showed that a segment of the population of that country believed that GMOs were part of a greater conspiracy theory to poison the population of the country.[9].
The GMO issue is primarily a property rights issue and a personal identity issue. They seem to have a lot of clout. What can farmers possibly do to prevent cross contamination? The government is synonymous with the biggest players; it's not a balanced entity. This is not a belief that the authors' share, but there are smart people of high character who do believe this conspiracy theory, and their side of the story deserves to be heard. We could ask that question on a host of different items, from McDonald's to Coca-Cola.

— Joel Salatin. U.S. ambassadors around the world, paid for by my taxes and representing my citizenship, are strong-arming countries to buy Monsanto products. Joel Salatin, proprietor of Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and a self-described "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-lunatic-farmer.". Tainted crops are a huge problem. [15] Michael Shermer and Pat Linse, writing for Skeptic magazine, specify that in terms of political ideology, "GMO conspiracy theories are embraced primarily by those on the left.

If I have no stuff, then stealing no longer exists. I don't agree with much of anything they say or do.

[14] In the compendium Agricultural and Food Controversies, the authors who are social scientists and food scientists trace the conspiracy theory relating in particular to Monsanto back to events in the early 1990s: There are some well-qualified dissenting scientists and a motivated group of food activists behind them, pushing back against GM food. Just don't use them. Monsanto continued to operate a nuclear facility for the U.S. government until the late 1980s. To not be able to guarantee the fidelity of my crops or production due to promiscuous GMO trespass not only destroys my market, it destroys my personal identifying distinctive. GMO conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food (also referred to as genetically modified organisms or "GMOs"). Civil society adapted the counter rhetoric of insincerity, claiming that scientists had some kind of “hidden agenda” behind their claim, such as eagerness to just earn money from their patents on GMOs.

Pastured livestock can cure a multitude of ills. These conspiracy theories include claims that agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, have suppressed data showing that GMOs cause harm, deliberately cause food shortages to promote the use of GM food, or have co-opted government agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration or scientific societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. But real progress has been stymied by the paranoid and misinformed, who clamor that GMOs, which are biologically no different than "natural" foods, are somehow poisonous. GMOs (genetically modified organisms) produced by big ag-biotech companies are responsible for farmer suicides in India. In our convoluted cultural thinking; however, we have decided that not only is the owner of the trampling bull not liable for damages, the flower bed owner must pay a royalty to the bull owner for the privilege of having his flowers trampled. The charge that big food interests take advantage of poverty to open new markets for GM food is restated by conspiracy theorists, who describe a deliberate macroeconomic creation of food shortages in impoverished nations in order to open the door to GM food. THE DAILY MEAL ® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF TRIBUNE PUBLISHING. Moreover, they believe that the FDA follows the substantial equivalence rule not because of the science, but because the FDA was corrupted by corporate influence. Such commentators include Michael Shermer (writer of a monthly Skeptic column series for Scientific American),[1] Mark Lynas (an environmental activist and writer who opposed GMOs for years and recently switched positions),[2] and Jon Entine (the founder and head of an advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the case in favor of genetic engineering in agriculture and biotechnology). Critics charge that GM food ("Frankenfood") is profitable to industry not only because it can be patented but because crop uniformity will eventually drive up pesticide demand. Social critic Margit Stange contextualized certain arguments adopted by GMO conspiracy theorists as being part of the larger controversy surrounding the subject: The corporate push for genetically modified food arouses great suspicion.

Philosopher Giovanni Tagliabue argued that promoters of GMO conspiracy theories were being taken advantage of by anti-environmental corporate interests: This ideological and political anti-corporate worldview, although sometimes almost paranoid, is legitimate. GMOs do not respect property lines.

GMOs such as golden rice—rice modified to contain high levels of beta carotene in order to compensate for the vitamin A deficiency which kills hundreds of thousands of children around the world and blinds many more every year—and drought resistant crops, which will become increasingly vital in the global south due to climate change, have vast potential to help those who don't shop at Whole Foods. Political science professors Joseph Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent in their book American Conspiracy Theories summarized the people that have adopted GMO conspiracy theories thusly: Another prototypical conspiratorial movement involves those opposed to genetically modified organisms (GMO), in essence a protest against the genetic engineering of food. [22] Anti-GMO/chemtrail blogger Barbara H. Peterson, a retired correctional officer and rancher, complained that Monsanto "has painted those of us attempting to shed light on the dangers of genetically modified/engineered organisms (GMOs) as 'conspiracy theorists'...." She went on to attack Monsanto's suggestion that sabotage could be a possible explanation for the discovery of a few plants of experimental genetically modified wheat found inexplicably growing on a farm in Oregon as being a conspiracy theory itself. These conspiracy theories include claims that agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, have suppressed data showing that GMOs cause harm, deliberately cause food shortages to promote the … Absolutely. It is not hard to imagine a company rewarding lenient regulators with a nice job, and food activists have websites listing powerful government officials and their relation to Monsanto and other corporations. They believe a GM crop is not substantially equivalent to traditional crops.

For example, in commenting on the Séralini affair, an incident that involved the retraction of a much-criticized paper which claimed harmful effects of GMOs in lab rats, American biologist PZ Myers said that anti-GMO activists were claiming the retraction was a part of "a conspiracy to Hide the Truth™". That's simple. Time for our yearly reminder: Monsanto has not and is not working on GMO marijuana", "A wacky conspiracy is circulating about Zika and GMOs — and it needs to stop", "MOSTLY FALSE: Zika Virus Caused by GMO Mosquitos", "Publisher's Platform: Chipotle Must Denounce Mike Adam's Conspiracy Theory", "Chipotle fans have a wacky conspiracy theory about the chain's E. coli outbreaks", "Conspiracies against progress: why the rise of the modern conspiracy theory should concern us all", "The Anti-Vaccine And Anti-GMO Movements Are Inextricably Linked And Cause Preventable Suffering", "OPINION PIECE Counterproductive consequences of 'anti-GMO' activism", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GMO_conspiracy_theories&oldid=985204790#GMO_cannabis_hoax, Science and technology-related conspiracy theories, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 24 October 2020, at 16:02.
Bottom line: if our agriculture went to a nature-template protocol, we wouldn't need 80 percent of the grain currently being produced. Both [the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements] cite cherry-picked, discredited, and retracted scientific studies, such as the 1998 Andrew Wakefield study linking the MMR vaccine with autism, and the 2012 Gilles-Éric Séralini rat study linking genetically engineered crops with cancer, while ignoring the vast bodies of evidence against them.... And both lead to injustice....It may seem that surely the anti-GMO movement is benign albeit wrong, innocuous compared to anti-vaccine atrocities. "Making something that is supposed to be pure into something impure makes it suspect in the marketplace and makes it perform differently under use." The problem is that Monsanto purchases tax, liability, and marketplace concessions that create a prejudicial playing field for my production. That's why factory organic livestock is not nearly as good as pastured GMO-grain-augmented livestock. How do you feel about animal GMO seed consumption and the effects it could have on the quality of meat?