The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

monsanto weaves its web, 1995–1999 193discovery to people in the business. Dick Mahoney, the CEO at the time,thought immediately of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, which controlled 20percent of the American seed market (40 percent for corn and 10 percentfor soybeans). Founded in Des Moines in 1926 by Henry Wallace (vice presidentof the United States from 1941 to 1945), the company was known primarilyfor having invented the hybrid corn varieties that made its fortune.The underlying principle was that instead of allowing corn to be pollinatednaturally through the air, they forced plants to inbreed to obtain purelines with stable genetic characteristics. The results were hybrids that producedhigher yields but whose seeds were practically sterile. For seed dealers,this was a godsend because farmers were forced to buy their seeds everyyear. This hybridization technique worked only for allogamous plants, thatis, plants produced by fertilization of the ovum of one plant by pollen fromanother plant, not for autogamous plants such as wheat or soybeans, whereeach plant reproduces itself with its internal male and female organs. I willlater describe how this detail did not escape Monsanto, which got around itby means of the patent system.In 2002, Daniel Charles reported in detail the amazing story of Monsanto’smutation in the 1990s in Lords of the Harvest, which is the basis forwhat follows. When Robert Shapiro, who was then head of Monsanto’s agriculturaldivision, met Tom Urban, chief executive of Pioneer Hi-Bred International,to give him a sales pitch for his Roundup Ready gene, he wasreceived coolly: “‘Congratulations! You’ve got a gene! Guess what? We’ve gotfifty thousand genes! ...You don’t hold the keys to the market. We do! Youought to pay us for the right to put your gene in our varieties!’” 32 At the time,Shapiro had no choice: after years of costly research, the company’s instructionswere that finally it was time to bring in some money. A first agreementwas signed with Pioneer, which agreed to introduce the Roundup Readygene into its soybean varieties. In return, remembering his success withNutraSweet for Diet Coke, Shapiro got an agreement to have “RoundupReady” printed on the seed bags. But in the end, there was nothing to boastabout. As Charles points out: “The Roundup Ready gene had become a vehicleto sell more of Monsanto’s chemicals, but little more.” 33A second set of negotiations then began over the other genetic characteristicthat Monsanto had in its arsenal: the Bt gene, which was an urgentmatter, because several companies were claiming authorship (leading to aninterminable patent battle). In this case, the GMO was not associated with