Is child labor an appropriate outcome from a St. Louis based company? Is it appropriate to accept the product of that labor? More importantly, is it inappropriate to question the indirect cause of this child labor?
Monsanto has "high-tech cottonseeds genetically engineered" to need to be hand cross pollinated in order to breed. The best hands for this are children's and so that is what is happening according to Forbes and Grist, links below. Among the many issues with this is the chemical's needed to keep these synthetic and expensive seeds going are no less harmful to children than adults. Davuluri Venkateshwarlu, head of Glocal, says in Forbes that "farmers spray the fields with pesticides like Nuvacron, banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and endosulfan, methomyl and Metasystox, considered by the EPA to be highly toxic." Company policy is one thing. Action resulting from systemic structure is entirely another. This is a margin of error I do not deem appropriate. Now, how to fix it?
Forbes Article on Child Labor
Grist Article expanding on the Forbes story
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