Windup Girl, Terminator Seeds and Monsanto Alfalfa

I've been following the recent Monsanto GMO Alfalfa flap closely, especially since I just finished the book The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. The short version: Monsanto was able to get FDA approval for their GMO alfalfa in the face of what ought to have been overwhelming (and rightfully so) regulatory obstacles. Like testing. And recusion of conflict of interest. And corruption.

For two good articles see “Why Monsanto Always Wins,” by Mike Ludwig, Tuesday 22 February 2011 < http://www.truth-out.org/why-monsanto-always-wins67976> and “USDA Approved Monsanto Alfalfa Despite Warnings of New Pathogen Discovered in Genetically Engineered Crops” by Mike Ludwig, Friday 25 February 2011 <>.

Windup Girl reads like an indictment of Monsanto and its ilk (Astra Zeneca et al) from a future whose agriculture has been irrevocably damaged/destroyed by corporate/genetically modified foods, especially monopolies on seedbanks. In the novel, and in a couple short stories as well (The Calorie Man especially) Bacigalupi pictures a world after the end of cheap fossil fuels. The energy sector may have collapsed to an astounding degree (the energy of wound springs, with some industrial oomph, are the main form of energy in the world; coal is expensive and clearly tied to the global warming nightmare that has come and has flooded New York and other vulnerable cities and lands). But in addition, the multinational corporations like Agri-Gen control all the biotech patents for plants and these now form the basis for the world economy. The problem? Once the cheap fossil fuel ran out, the multinationals (based clearly on Monsanto, DuPont, Astra-Zeneca etc) moved in and cornered huge parts of the market for seeds, so that no farmers can farm using their own seeds without retribution. The result? A global collapse as unforseen diseases ravage the GMO crops, and scientists (using computers that suck huge amounts of expensive energy) barely stay ahead of the next devastating mutation of viruses and plant diseases.

This world is pretty damned grim. It turns out that some other tensions, like ethnic and colonial tensions. are made worse by scarcity and the effects of rapacious corporate food capitalism.

The novel does for a future look at Monsanto what the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man does for the US State Department: it shows the utter violence, greed, and ruthlessness that are regularly brought to bear on second and third world countries in pursuit of market control, and thus political control. I also found myself picking up Naomi Klein's excellent book The Shock Doctrine, and leafing through it thinking that her notion of "disaster capitalism" is both accurate and suggestive. Beginning with Chile, the US has first benefited from producing "disasters" like the overthrow of allende, and then applied similar techniques to actual disasters like Katrina and the Sri Lankan tsunami, and to foreign policy application of "shock and awe" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wikipedia includes a summary of the Irish Times review, which "offers a précis for Klein’s central argument—that the neoconservative project is not about "implanting of democracy" but a repressive prescription for the maximising of global profit for a small elite. "Neocons see the ideal ratio of super-rich to permanent-poor as consistent with an uber-class of business oligarchs and their political cronies from the top 20%". The remaining 80% of the world’s population, the "disposable poor", would subsist in "planned misery" unable to afford adequate housing, privatised education or healthcare."

This view of the world is consolidated in The Windup Girl, in ways the neocons cannot even imagine. For their world view has been forced onto not only governments but environments, ecosystems, with unimaginably horrific results. The two "prequel" stories that Bacigalupi wrote, "The Calorie Man" and "Yellow Card Man," can be found in his collection Pump Six and Other Stories. Both books are published by Night Shade Books.