Tuesday, NPR's Marketplace program reported that Germany has moved to ban Monsanto's "MON-810" strain of genetically modified corn.
This--if it holds up--is a significant win for the sustainable agriculture movement, and a significant loss for one of the most environmentally reprehensible companies on the planet, Monsanto.
But today, Inky99 points us at a new story showing (surprise!) that Monsanto is trying to sue their way into Germany anyway.
Inky ends by saying that somehow, the world has to stand up to Monsanto. I say WE have to stand up to Monsanto, and I've got an idea for how to do it, over the flip.
So what, as individuals, can we do to stop Monsanto? After all, odds are nobody reading this post is on Monsanto's board of directors.
But we could be.
Monsanto's stock (NYSE: "MON") closed yesterday at $82.31 per share, with a market capitalization of 44 billion dollars, and 545,749,000 shares outstanding.
That's a lot of shares, and that's a lot of money. But if we imagine that there are maybe 100 million people in the United States who care about sustainability (probably a conservative estimate), and another 50 million or so in Europe who care, then for $300 per person we could literally buy enough of Monsanto's stock to control the company.
In reality, it wouldn't even take that much. If some group were to come into existence to lead this effort, if they were to do it publicly, loudly, and in the open, it would probably cause a precipitous drop in Monsanto's share price. After all, the people holding Monsanto stock now are the ones betting on that evil business model. If we come along and say "we're going to force that model to change," then their bet becomes a bad bet and they'll dump the stock. If nothing else, it signals long term uncertainty about Monsanto's profit margins, which achieves the same effect.
Hey, if wall street types can make a killing by killing other people's companies through naked short selling, why the hell shouldn't we take Monsanto into our own hands in similar--if more above-board--fashion?
When we take over, we can re-organize Monsanto into a non-for-profit sustainability company, working to preserve seed diversity worldwide and subsidize seed acquisition for subsistence farmers in underdeveloped nations. What a beautiful dream: turn the world's worst abuser of sustainable agriculture into its biggest supporter.
All it would take is the collective power of the masses to put their money where their mouths are, before Monsanto ends up doing to the worldwide food production system what the mortgage bankers and other greedy financial types did to the worldwide financial system.
I think it would be awesome if OrangeClouds115, Michael Pollan, and the other big names in the sustainability movement were to get behind something like this. I'm unemployed at the moment, but hell, even I could scrape together enough to chip in for a few shares.
[This diary has been adapted from material originally posted at The Advocate]