New Book Calls Wal-Mart’s Food Model ‘Unsustainable’

Mr. Goldschmidt

I question whether you have read the book.  You should have named your article “book REVIEW calls Wal-Mart’s food model unsustainable.” If you are telling me that there wasn’t a single quote in the entire book to support your argument, I must question either your story or your reading skills.  You should also note that you have a typo in your title: Walmart changed the spelling of their name last month.

Regards,

Jim

They didn’t change their website ,so don’t worry about it

Social Responsibility?

You should have stopped right there!  This is a meaningless term or concept for someone like RDS.  For people with his mindset, it’s every person for himself/herself!

Mr. Goldschmidt

That’s Ms. Goldschmidt…

From the October 2004 Idaho Observer:

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Gene-engineered seeds of destruction—

A new danger to basic human freedom

by F. William Engdahl

I would like to address the issue of genetically modified foods, or “GM crops,” as it is often called in English. The right and ability of every country to produce food to feed its population is under attack.

Here the nature of the threat is deliberately obscured by concerted efforts of governments, international organizations such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO, as well as a handful of powerful agribusiness corporations.

Much has been written on the subject of GM plants and food. What is little-discussed is the geopolitical, or more precisely, the geo-economical strategic significance of the recent spread of GM crops from the United States, now to Asia, Africa, Latin America and the EU itself.

First, though, what GM foods are not: They are not a miracle variety of crops that will end world hunger or malnutrition. They are not a safe alternative to the use of chemical pesticides to make food safer for human diets. Nor has there been any serious, independent scientific long-term studies to determine the human safety of a diet based on GM plants and animals fed with GM soybeans, corn and other plants.

Dr. Arpad Pustzai, the world’s leading scientist doing research on GM effects on animals at Scotland’s Rowett Institute, found alarming evidence of danger to their organs, including the brain. He was fired in 1997 for saying so, on the direct intervention of Tony Blair and Monsanto.

Few scientists today dare to risk their career by speaking out. And too many take large university financial research grants from Monsanto and the other GM giants to produce “friendly” research. The arguments in favour of using GM foods are based on lies, fraud and political intimidation. Today the U.S. State Department AID program refuses emergency famine aid in Africa except in the form of GM crops.

GM plants as they are spread to every corner of our planet, are being spread with virtually no regulation of their health or other consequences. Most information about effects of GM foods comes from Monsanto and companies with an interest in promoting their use. The few independent studies that exist and testimony of farmers suggest GM crops need significantly more pesticide and typically produce lower yields, even harvest failure in cases of various cotton crops in India.

GMs are not “wonder food.” So what is the issue of GM crops? Why did President Bush, in June 2003, just after the fall of Baghdad, make GM crops a strategic priority?

Today, fewer than half a dozen giant multinational companies control the world market in GM seeds—Monsanto, Cargill and DuPont of the USA, Syngenta of Switzerland and one or two other smaller players. Monsanto is by far the dominant player, selling some 91 percent of all GM seeds and most herbicide, with a total monopoly of GM seeds for certain crops like soybeans.

Since the Thatcher Revolution in England in the 1970s and the Reagan era, what is called “free market” economics has been raised to the level of religious dogma in the industrial world, starting with Britain and the U.S. With the spread of GM seeds, this “marketization” process has taken on a dangerous new dimension: Everything is being made into a commodity and priced according to its “market,” even fresh water.

As a result of the genetic engineering revolution, for the first time in mankind’s history the entire planet is threatened with the commercial control of most of world food supply by a handful of private corporations—most of which are controlled by U.S. or UK financial groups.

Jim Mcdougal

I question whether it makes any difference if Alex read the book or not. What does make a difference is that Paul Roberts wrote it.

Do you dispute that Wal-Mart’s business model contributes to the degradation of whatever it touches, and that includes food?

Walmart changed the spelling of their name last month.

Wal-Mart? WalMart? Walmart? Wal*Mart? or WalMart*? Comments like that insure you a place on the WMW Imbecile List.

The stakes here are so high that British Environment Secretary Michael Meacher was fired by Prime Minister Tony Blair in June, 2003, for refusing to endorse GM crops without long-term government studies of the possible effects on humans, animals and the environment.

What’s new and alarming about GM crops is the fact that a handful of private corporations, led by Monsanto, have used their influence in Washington, D.C. and in the World Trade Organization (WTO) to patent and claim monopoly rights on the basic food seed supply of humankind.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman is a former director of a Monsanto subsidiary. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s old company, G.D. Searle is part of Monsanto. Monsanto enjoys a status in Washington, D.C., that few corporations outside Halliburton enjoy.

Be very clear. This is not an issue of the private sector engaging in free competition. Governments, starting with the U.S., have enabled the creation of these staggering monopoly rights over human food production. This is a perverse anti-competitive policy being spread in the name of “free market,” against governments or independent farmers trying to control their own food independence.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in December, 2001 that a private company, Pioneer Hi-Bred seeds of DuPont, had the right to patent plants based on a genetically modified alteration, and prohibit others from selling seeds of any related varieties without paying a royalty fee to DuPont. That was an ominous ruling.

Genetic engineering, or biotech, became a large growth industry in the U.S. after 1986. That year, vice-President George Bush, the father of today’s Bush, hosted a private White House meeting with the heads of Monsanto to discuss the “deregulation” of biotechnology, on the argument it would stimulate growth and create jobs. As president in 1991, the same Bush issued an executive ruling declaring that GM products need not have any special control for health or safety. Bush ruled that GM corn or other plants were “substantially equivalent” to normal soybeans or corn and, hence, should “not be hampered by unnecessary regulation.”

This executive order meant GM products have no effective regulation today. The U.S. government refuses even to label foods having GM. This opened the floodgates to Monsanto, Cargill, Syngenta and the agribusiness multination. ~~William F. Engdahl,"The Seeds of Destruction.~~~~~~~Note: I posted additional information about “Frankenfoods” on an earlier thread about Archer Daniels Miidland,here.

What’s in a name?

Wal-Mart? WalMart? Walmart? Wal*Mart? or WalMart*?

Didn’t the great Yogi Berra once remark, “A company by any other name would stink as much!” If not, he should have!

more b.s. and propaganda like usual on here and fools like screwed by,ken,ddrb and etc buy it all proving how stupid and dumb they are.

...fools like screwed by,ken,ddrb...

I know you are but what am I? ~ Pee Wee Herman