The World According to Monsanto

Explores the prominence that Monsanto has around the globe, how it is often misleading about the safety of its products, and scandals that the company has been involved in. It discusses biotechnology, the affect of 'roundup ready' crops, and the effects that Monsanto has on farmers, communities and consumers around the globe. I liked the diversity of people interviewed for the film, and how it was filmed on location in different areas that are experiencing the negative effects of Monsanto. One thing I didn’t like about this documentary was how it kept showing the woman at the computer looking up things on Google. This is effective in showing how accessible and widespread this information is (search results would show thousands of hits), however it became boring very quickly. It would be effective enough to use that method a couple of times, but it kept going back to it throughout the movie. It also made their research methods seem less reliable. Obviously they did not solely use google to do their research, and all the sources that they showed that came up on google were reliable sources, it just didn’t seem professional to consistently refer back to google, and I felt that they could have shown the documents and highlighted text without constantly showing the woman searching on google, as this would make it far less monotonous and would allow the movie to flow better. The part of the film that I found most interesting was the affects that genetically altered corn is having on traditional farming families in Mexico. They have a local and sustainable food system and Monsanto’s modified seeds are threatening their food sovereignty. I personally do not trust Monsanto one bit, and am concerned for the future of our food system. Monsanto is putting our health, environment, and food security at risk. If we let them control our food system, they basically have control over our lives. This film briefly touched on gene patents, but didn’t talk about the issue of farmers being sued if Monsanto finds plants with their gene in farmer’s fields, or terminator seeds (plants that won’t reproduce, so farmers cannot save seeds, and must rely on Monsanto to buy their seeds every year. This film showed many problems of Monsanto, yet there are even more to explore. This corporation cannot be trusted and I will write an entire blog about it later. This film served as a reminder of Monsanto’s power and made me want to start growing more of my own food.