Submission + - Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear (vanityfair.com)
GilliamOS writes: Living in Iowa, escaping corn is no easy feat; Escaping Monsanto is even harder. Every farmer I know and have talked to say they cannot escape them, even if they give them no business. They are to farming what Microsoft is to computers, except they are allowed to kill, poison, and pollute on a scale that can make even the least of us concerned about the environment cringe. Allowed by the US Patent system, they have turned seed research that used to done by public universities into IP and patented technology, and they stop at nothing to protect their seeds. Saving seeds, a practice that allowed farmers to ensure they can plant crops in the next season, is no longer permitted. They are the inventors of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and Dioxin, two of the most toxic non-military chemicals known to man, yet they also control some 90% of our seed for crops.