Hightower Lowdown

Once again, here comes the Monsanto Medicine Show! This corporate flimflammer is hawking yet another brand of pricey biotech snake oil, guaranteed to work miracles. Monsanto promises that its latest high-tech hocus-pocus will allow farmers to grow crops without water. Amazing! Well, at least not much water. "More crop per drop" is the PR slogan, exploiting public fears about global warming and food shortages to sell corn it has genetically altered to survive in a drought.

It's a miracle plant, they say--a drought-tolerant crop that even Momma Nature hasn't been able to produce in millions of years of evolution! But--shazaam--we made it in our handy gene-splicing machine in no time at all! It's just what those poor people of Africa need, say the hucksters, so step right up and buy a ton of our magic corn seed!

Not so fast. What are these mystery genes? Monsanto won't say. From what species of plants or animals did you take the genes? Trade secret, says Monsanto. What happens when the pollen of this frankencorn gets loose in nature, and what are you doing to prevent that? Trust us, says Monsanto. Why not just push for better water management, which is easier, more effective, less costly, and won't endanger our health? We can't profit from that, says Monsanto. Well what about labeling this corn? No way, says Monsanto, because then consumers wouldn't buy it.

Like other biotech "miracles," this one amounts to a kernel of corporate greed suspended in unexamined dangers, coated with secrecy, and tainted with deceit.