The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

paraguay, brazil, argentina: the “united soy republic” 289to potatoes in Ireland. The great famine of 1845–49 that killed off a largepart of the population and drove tens of thousands of people into exile wasdue particularly to the lack of biodiversity, which favored the development ofthe blight that no natural barrier was able to stop.”“What is Monsanto’s long-term objective?”“I think the company is seeking to control the food produced in the world.To do that, it has to get its hands on the seeds in the locations where theyare used by farmers. First it appropriates the seeds, then the processing ofgrains, then the supermarkets, and in the end it controls the entire foodchain. The seeds are the first link in the chain: whoever controls seeds controlsthe food supply and thereby controls mankind.”A month before I traveled to Paraguay in January 2007, I had been able toobserve the effects of this terrible logic on the other side of the planet in aneven more dramatic context, in India, where the cultivation of Monsanto’stransgenic cotton had become associated with death—the subject of thenext chapter.