This is a documentary that will shake you and might make you want to ask questions. This is not the first documentary unraveling the deceitful tactics of profit/power-driven corporations, amid the weaknesses of the individuals whose job is to protect and serve the people. The issues Marie-Monique Robin raised in The World According to Monsanto are fundamental to the future of applied molecular genetic research, the welfare of humankind and the preservation of environmental diversity. She brings an ethical, social, economical and environmental perspectives that should have been at the heart of the research and development, regulatory and commercialization processes.

These principles have been sacrificed on the altar of self-profit and world dominance. The stakes: the hundreds of $ billions that represent the agricultural business worldwide (food, clothe and fuel). The arm: patents. The perpetrators: Monsanto and its numerous allies, usually former or future Monsanto execs. The victims: well, the victims, … say you? Let’s imagine for a minute looks like. Imagine a world in which one company controls a crucial part of the food supply business. Imagine a world in which there is one grain/ seed supplier to buy from, a world in which these seeds can only grow if the farmer uses a specific family of fertilizers and herbicides manufactured by the very same company that makes and distributes the seeds. Imagine a world in which these grains are engineered to be super crops, genetically modified to resist a wide variety of insects and … herbicides but are also invasive to indigenous related-species in a way they share man created genetically modified structure with them but with the crucial difference that the indigenous crop are unable to adapt. Imagine a world in which the health of people and animals, the balance of the environmental are not protected. Imagine that the manufacturer of these engineered seeds is the same that produced the deadly Agent Orange, the highly persistent and toxic chemical PCB and the very controversial rBGH growth hormone and never warned the public of the health and environmental risks – although it has been proven they knew.

The woman who made this documentary is Marie-Monique Robin, a French journalist who was revealed to the public with the “Eyes Thieves” (Les Voleurs d’Yeux) a documentary bringing light to the international organ trafficking (whioch was shown at the United Nations and made her the recipient of the Albert Londres Prize in 1995) and “The Deaths Squad, the French School” about French military ties with South American dictatorships. That might offer you a glimpse at her personality, not the person to sit behind a desk all day – although the first images of her new documentary portrays her this way – and not someone shy of asking questions and looking for answers. Le Monde Selon Monsanto has been featured on ARTE, a German-French TV network. The sub title suggests controversies: “A documentary Americans won’t ever see”.

I believe very much in biotechnologies. They have a crucial role to play to help us adapt to a different environment: shortage of resources (droughts/ water), need for higher productivity (yields), global population increase, climate change (fuel/ energy). Christian Velot, a molecular genetic researcher said: “we have to differentiate the research of biotechnology, and especially molecular genetics and what comes to your plate. Biotechnology has and will bring breakthrough technologies to cure diseases but releasing uncontrollable genetically modified organisms in nature creates uncontrollable risks”. Regulatory agencies should be more adamant about the potential risks and offer the consumers (us) the right to choose.

A last word about Monsanto and GMOs. I have been able to avoid trans fat, ultra-pasteurized, processed and artificially denatured food thank to proper labeling. Why so much secrecy around GMOs? Shouldn’t my consumer rights, and along mine billions of other people’s be respected? Personally, I do not want GMOs at their current state of development to be unleashed in nature, to find their way to my plate, and definitely not to my kids’.

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