Monsanto

By Christina Sarich | Natural Society

Here’s one for the history books, and a slap on the wrist for stock-holders like Bill Gates and George Soros. Monsanto stock has been downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ after an annual seed dealer industry survey showed bleak returns.

This may be the most depressing news in seven years for Monsanto, but great news for the seed industry, which has been monopolized by the chemical peddler since the early 1990s. The target price for (MON +0.1%) has been lowered from $140 to $127. Conditions affecting the downgrade include “greater discounting, reduced trait purchases, reduced spending on seeds, and share gains for non-major seeds brands” – with hardly a mention of the grass-roots, and international efforts of people to shine a light on Monsanto’s illegal influence on the world seed market.

“We are downgrading Monsanto from Buy to Neutral, due to the findings from our seventh Annual Seed Dealer Survey, which came back the most negative for the seed industry in the history of the survey,” Chris Shaw of Monness Crespi Hardt wrote. “The unprecedented results of this year’s survey has led us to be more cautious on Monsanto’s outlook for the current seed selling season.”

The firm who conducted the survey said the 50-plus dealers who responded are seeing challenging industry conditions – including greater discounting as a second straight year of significantly lower farm profits forces farmers to watch their spending closely, including on seeds. Could this be due to the outright false advertising by Monsanto that their GMO seeds would increase yields and be impervious to glyphosate and other herbicides?

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/huge-win-monsanto-stock-downgraded-worse-sales-7-years/

From the front lines of the war against Monsanto and GMOs, here’s footage from the March Against Monsanto in Austin, Texas, May 25th 2013.

By Rosanna Xia

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday as part of a global series of marches against seed giant Monsanto Co. and genetically modified foods.

Organizers said the “March Against Monsanto” demonstrations were being held in some 300 cities in more than 44 countries this weekend. The event — a social media-generated call to action against genetically modified foods and the multinational corporations that produce them — marked the first such global, unified protest for this cause, organizers said.

In Pershing Square in downtown L.A., a diverse crowd marched toward City Hall at about 11 a.m. Many carried colorful signs with messages such as “Label GMOs, it’s our right to know” and “Real Food 4 Real People.” One adult protester arrived in a cow-print onesie and a sign that said: “Happy cows do not eat GMOs.”

The event temporarily closed Hill Street between 1st and 5th streets as the group marched to City Hall. Rallies and speeches will be held until 5 p.m. Saturday, with volunteers distributing information about health and political concerns regarding genetically modified foods, said Dorothy Muehlmann, 30, of Corona, who organized the L.A. march with about 30 volunteers and help from groups such as Occupy L.A. and Anonymous.
[Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-monsanto-protest-20130525,0,6534145.story]