Even Oxford University Is Mixed up With Corrupt Monsanto | Alternet
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Food
Even Oxford University Is Mixed up With Corrupt Monsanto
An unscientific report completely discounts Monsanto’s role in climatic and ecological damage.
By John W. Roulac / AlterNet
November 4, 2017, 9:30 PM GMT
A University of Oxford thinktank, the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), has come out with a report, “Grazed and Confused,” that likens 100-percent grass-fed beef to that produced on a 10,000-cow confined animal feedlot operation (CAFO) like Harris Ranch on Interstate 5 in Central California—calling them basically the same in climate impacts.
Think, for a moment, how absurd that is. One has to wonder why this Oxford thinktank is being so deferential to Monsanto and the GMO/fertilizer industry, which profits via the planet-killing, health-destroying CAFO model.
The Monsanto Connection to Oxford University
It seems that Monsanto has a deep and enduring connection to the University of Oxford (UO). Monsanto has paid out to UO through various business ventures more than $50M pounds ($75M US).
Also, Oxford University Press has published a flattering book, written by Robert Paarlberg, full of Monsanto puffery: Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know.
In 2006, the Guardian reported that UO professor and Oxford resident Dr. Richard Droll wrote and testified that Monsanto chemicals did not cause cancer, while he “was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto, then a major chemical company and now better known for its GM crops business.”
Oxford University has advertised a Monsanto Senior Research Fellowship.
The distinguished and well-respected U.K. Sustainable Food Trust was also critical of the report, stating:
The report focuses exclusively on greenhouse gas emissions, and while it does accept that grassland can sequester carbon, it fails to understand the vital necessity of returning degraded cropland to rotations that include grass and grazing animals, in order to rebuild carbon and organic matter levels, and the potential of integrating grazing livestock production with crop production in genuine mixed farming systems, to address a wide range of the food system problems currently faced…The only sustainable way to obtain food from grassland is to graze it with ruminants. With the growing global population it would be irresponsible not to do that.
In one conclusion, the FCRN report states, “Grain-fed intensive livestock systems use less land and so cause less damaging land use change.” Yet the destruction of forest and savannah lands in South America for soybean farms to feed CAFO animals is in the millions of hectares. GMO corn and soy are two of the most damaging systems for land and habitat that the world has ever seen.
Cows eat grass; therefore they don’t need to consume vast amounts of GMO corn and soybeans. Less GMO corn planted means less cancer-linked, soil-killing RoundUp being sprayed. If consumers can understand that pasture-raised beef is better for them than CAFO meat, they’ll change their buying preferences and sales of beneficial pasture-raised beef will go up, while Monsanto profits from agricultural products with a multitude of negative impacts for animals, humans and the environment will go down.
Ces rapports payés par les industries sont en fait des supports pour la promotion cachée des médias. Il s’agit de se cacher derrière une « science » qui ne dit pas d’où viennent ses financemets et quelles sont ses allégeances. Et puis les rapports ne passent jamais devant des instances de contrôle...
After the “Grazed and Confused” report came out, it began spreading virally across the web. One headline in the New York Post read: “Your Grass-Fed Burger Is Making Climate Change Worse.”
To quote from this article:
Environmentally conscious meat eaters have touted grass-fed meat as a solution to help negate the impact of cows on the environment. But unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Raising grass-fed cows also leads to deforestation—another big climate change issue—as farmers chop down forests in order to expand their pastures.