Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Evil of Monsanto

Before Xu Chengliang and Yan Jun left, Lu Yu told them that if they needed any security gear, they could simply draw up a list and hand it to Liu Shichang, who would take care of the purchase.

Lu Yu did not know much about such things, and said that as long as they thought it was necessary and it was legal for civilian use, they need not worry about the price.

After all, better equipment would not only protect them well, but also indirectly protect him.

Xu Chengliang and Yan Jun nodded, saying they would go back and investigate in detail before finalizing the list.

They had spent all that time in the army, and knew little about civilian equipment.

Lu Yu could understand that well; if it were military gear, the two of them would surely speak with authority.

After a few more idle remarks, the pair headed off to the resettlement office. In their words, anything worth doing demanded efficiency.

A soldier’s way through and through.

...

Lu Yu had nothing much to do in the River Beyond Nebula, so he went upstairs to Yunhan Technology.

He chatted with Ge Yuncong about technical matters and discussed programming ideas with a few coders, and the time passed quickly enough.

Only after he got home, finished his run, and washed up did he finally rest.

The next day, he went to the library to read.

As Lu Yu had read more books recently, he had gained a deeper understanding of botany and biology, and a clearer grasp of genetic modification as well.

On Blue Star, more than thirty years ago, foreign genes had first been successfully inserted into plants.

From that moment on, genetically modified crops gave humanity new hope of ushering in a second Green Revolution.

Many people hoped that genetically modified crops could greatly increase grain yields, thereby providing vast amounts of energy and fiber and solving the global food crisis.

They hoped farmers’ incomes would rise, environmental pollution would fall, and a greener world would be created.

...

Yet hope is always beautiful.

After years of development, by around 2012, only a few varieties had truly succeeded in the genetically modified crop market.

Even then, they were still mainly crops carrying insect-resistant genes and herbicide-resistant genes.

Back when those products were launched, they sparked fierce debate and reflection across the world.

Many feared that genetically modified crops would harm the existing ecological environment, and they worried about their food safety.

In truth, those concerns were not all groundless.

...

It all began with a company called Monsanto in the United States.

Monsanto was a multinational agricultural company founded in 1901.

Its true rise came during the war between the United States and South Vietnam.

At that time, in order to wipe out the guerrillas hidden in the jungle, the American military used enormous quantities of Orange Agent produced by Monsanto, named for the orange barrels in which it was stored.

Orange Agent contained a chemical toxin commonly known as dioxin, which posed severe harm to both human beings and the environment.

Where it fell, not a blade of grass could grow; those who survived would often be born deformed.

Between 1962 and 1970, the American military sprayed nearly 72 million liters of this herbicide over South Vietnam.

As a result, in the areas sprayed after the war, large numbers of babies were born with congenital deformities, not to mention the many who died directly because of it.

After that, in 1970, Monsanto developed the powerful herbicide glyphosate and launched it on the market in 1974.

Glyphosate, later used on a vast global scale, was classified in 2015 by the cancer research agency under the World Health Organization as a probable carcinogen.

Of course, this may also have been the work of another company, but the fact remains that glyphosate is harmful.

That other company was Bayer of Prussia. Many may not have heard of it, but everyone knows the aspirin it produces, and it was also the creator of heroin.

Its four pillars are polymers, pharmaceuticals and health care, chemicals, and agriculture. In 2016, it generated 46.769 billion euros in revenue.

In September 2016, it announced an acquisition agreement with Monsanto, with a purchase price of 63 billion dollars.

...

That was not the end of it. After the Vietnam War, Monsanto transformed itself into the world’s largest criminal force disguised as high technology.

Its weapon was genetically modified seeds, used to control agricultural production across nations and force more countries and peoples to endure a war without smoke or gunfire.

Using its original genetic engineering methods, the agrobacterium method and the gene gun method, Monsanto inserted toxic microbial and viral genes into crops, or spliced in foreign genes entirely unrelated to the original plant.

Only years later, through scientific research and practical production experience around the world, was it finally determined that Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds did not increase yields, were not safe, and wasted resources.

Only then did many countries begin to enact laws, completely or partially banning the planting of Monsanto’s genetically modified crops.

Not until recent years, with the advance of genetic engineering, have some of those policies gradually been relaxed.

...

Since 1980, Monsanto had established offices in the national capital, the metropolis, the southern city, and the harbor city, among other places.

As in many other countries, it successively established ties with institutions such as the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture, gradually clearing the way for genetically modified seeds to enter the country without obstruction.

And among the few successful varieties mentioned earlier was the genetically modified soybean introduced by Monsanto.

In 2001, the country joined the World Trade Organization and began importing genetically modified soybeans produced in the United States on a large scale.

From 2003 onward, the country imported genetically modified soybeans for thirteen consecutive years, including 52.34 million tons in 2010 and 95.53 million tons in 2016.

Once an exporter of soybeans, the country gradually became the largest importer in the world, and the direct result was a year-by-year reduction in soybean cultivation area.

Each year, 70 to 80 percent of the soybeans consumed domestically were imported genetically modified soybeans, most of which flowed into edible oil processing enterprises with foreign capital behind them.

Their products were priced lower than those of domestic traditional soybean oil processors, and the low prices quickly captured most of the market, with 85 percent controlled by the four major foreign grain traders.

Domestic oil and fat enterprises saw their profits plummet and their operations fall into hardship.

...

Sensing an opportunity, the four major international grain traders, A B C D, A D M, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus, as foreign-invested companies enjoying favorable policies, had already established crushing and processing enterprises in the country using imported soybeans as raw material.

To survive, domestic oil and fat enterprises also began entering the soybean oil extraction business, and crushing plants sprang up everywhere.

As processing capacity expanded, soybean supplies suddenly grew tight.

In 2004, some domestic crushing companies decided to form a purchasing delegation to travel to the United States to buy soybeans and strengthen their bargaining power.

On the eve of their departure, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that the annual soybean crop had failed.

That very day, soybean prices on the American futures market surged from 220 dollars per ton to 391 dollars per ton.

Then, shortly after the domestic purchasing delegation returned home after signing huge procurement contracts, the United States Department of Agriculture came forward to clarify that new data showed soybean production would increase sharply.

Soybean futures fell rapidly, crashing to 266 dollars.

Savagely fleeced, domestic enterprises suffered heavy losses, and some were forced into bankruptcy proceedings.

...

The four major grain traders seized the chance to provide “timely assistance,” allowing those domestic crushing companies on the brink of collapse to continue operating, on the condition that they transfer equity.

Thus, the four grain traders took the opportunity to acquire and control a large number of domestic crushing and processing enterprises, completing their布局 of the domestic soybean processing industry.

Among the country’s ninety-seven large-scale oil processing enterprises, foreign capital controlled sixty-four, accounting for 80 percent of the processing capacity for imported soybeans.

After laying out every link of the domestic soybean industry chain, from raw materials to processing and market, the international soybean futures market again stirred into turmoil.

Under this influence, domestic soybean futures prices rose from 2,600 yuan at the beginning of 2007 to 4,100 yuan by year’s end.

In 2008, amid the global food crisis, they continued soaring, reaching a peak of 5,240 yuan in July.

In just eighteen months, the price had doubled.

This was not driven by demand, but by market monopoly.

The fluctuations in international grain prices left many small countries in bitter distress, and some were even plunged into turmoil.

As the world’s largest soybean importer, the country itself paid hundreds of billions of dollars more because of the price surge.

...

This was only the tip of the iceberg of the food war triggered by Monsanto’s genetically modified soybeans launched in 1995.

And that says nothing of the genetically modified corn introduced later.

There is a saying: whoever controls a nation’s food controls the nation.

Though somewhat one-sided, it is not without truth.

For many years, therefore, the authorities had repeatedly stressed food security and introduced numerous policies.

Looking at information he had never encountered before, Lu Yu thought that Deng Qiang ought to go abroad and fleece the sheep hard.

Release two limited editions and fleece them for all they are worth.

...

He had drifted a little far, so returning to the subject of genetic engineering, while Monsanto had done many evil deeds, it also brought genetic engineering into the sight of many research institutions, prompting them to begin their own studies.

The genetic engineering methods Monsanto initially used were the agrobacterium method and the gene gun method.

They simply inserted toxic microbial and viral genes into crops, or spliced in foreign genes that had nothing whatsoever to do with the original plant.

They did not use the technology for the right purpose; they used it to do evil.

Only after more research institutions joined in did crops carrying insect-resistant genes and herbicide-resistant genes gradually emerge, becoming the varieties now widely planted.

Although they had not fulfilled the most ideal vision of developing crops rich in super nutrients and greatly increasing grain yields to solve food shortages, they still helped agriculture to some extent, because their insect resistance and other traits improved yields to a certain degree and reduced the use of pesticides.

...

As research continued, a new generation of genetically modified crops was later introduced, such as apples that did not brown and golden rice, as well as golden bananas rich in various nutrients.

This generation of technology was crop gene-editing technology.

Earlier genetic engineering inserted foreign genes into a plant’s genome to produce new traits.

The new generation of gene-editing technology, by contrast, achieved gene knockouts, insertions, and other changes, rewriting the genetic code according to human intent.

The earliest gene-editing techniques could only be achieved through physical and chemical mutagenesis, homologous recombination, and similar methods.

These methods either edited at random locations or required vast amounts of manpower and material resources, with drawbacks such as high cost and long cycles.

Only the advent of CRISPR-Cas9 solved these difficulties.

How to explain this technology clearly?

CRISPR is a chain of gene sequences within bacteria, and the entire CRISPR system includes a series of proteins related to its function.

CRISPR-Cas9 is a rather ingenious technology.

It uses RNA in the CRISPR system to guide the Cas protein to cut the target DNA at that precise step.

It is, in effect, destroying its own gene to achieve the purpose of gene knockout.

This technology is extremely useful: it saves time and is highly accurate. One need only introduce two strands of gene sequence into the cell to accomplish the goal of gene knockout.

Calling it gene-editing technology, however, still leaves it many light-years away from what most people imagine when they think of freely editing genes.

A more accurate description would be gene manipulation technology.

It is still far from editing genes as casually as one edits words.