9 Watch the film clip and fill in the script with the expressions given below.

came on the market • conventional • genetically • Illinois • intellectual property • Microsoft • plant breeding • public • public institutions • seeds • seed moves in • varieties

When Monsanto soybeans first 1. ............................................, I just really never switched over. I was getting pretty good yield with the 2. ............................................ soybeans I’d been using, so I thought, well, I’ll just stay where I’m at. My neighbours all around me are all GMOs. If the pollen blows in, if the 3. ............................................, I am still held accountable. When you 4. ............................................ modify a crop, you own it. We’ve never had this in agriculture. It used to be that your land-granted universities, they developed what was called 5. ............................................ seed. The vast majority of the plant breeding was actually done in these 6. ............................................. Monsanto’s very much like 7. ............................................. The same way Microsoft owns the 8. ............................................ behind most computers in America, they set out to own the intellectual property behind most of the food in America. Public 9. ............................................ is a thing of the past. There virtually actually are no public 10. ............................................ anymore. There’s only like 4 or 5 11. ............................................ that I can actually plant. Now I have some of the last soybeans coming out of the state of 12. .............................................

10 Decide if the statements are true or false and correct the false ones.
1. The fields surrounding his crops are not GMOs.
▢ T ▢ F
2. Whoever genetically modifies a crop, becomes its owner.
▢ T ▢ F
3. In the past, almost all public seeds were produced by private corporations.
▢ T ▢ F
4. Monsanto has a patent licence for GMO seeds.
▢ T ▢ F
5. Today, public seeds have disappeared.
▢ T ▢ F
6. In Illinois there are more than a dozen varieties of public seeds.
▢ T ▢ F

AFTER WATCHING

11 Read the text and answer the questions.

Reaction to the Movie: Monsanto v. Food, Inc.

Anyone who has seen the documentary Food Inc. knows that Monsanto looks like a criminal. Its bioengineered soybeans, designed to be unaffected by Monsanto weedkiller Roundup, command 93% of the US crop. Nonetheless, Monsanto took farmers to court to increase its market share even more. Monsanto executives declined to comment then, but, in retrospect, CEO Hugh Grant now says he should have, since, if he had, he might have mitigated the film’s impact. Grant has a different opinion on Monsanto’s role in agriculture, of course. From his point of view, the company is working on the side of angels, helping to create commodity crops to feed today’s population and the 2 billion more people who might occupy the planet by 2030. He is proud that Monsanto scientists were the first to have a patented genetically modified plant on the market, and he is excited about new efforts to bioengineer wheat and vegetables, too, as well as the next generation of super beans and corn.
Abstract from: https://www.veggiegardener.com/threads/ monsanto-v-food-inc-businessweek.1817/

1. How much of the US soybean crop is controlled by Monsanto?
2. Why were farmers taken to court by Monsanto?
3. What reaction to the documentary did Monsanto executives have?
4. Does CEO Hugh Grant agree now?
5. What is meant by saying that Monsanto is working “on the side of angels”?
6. Why is CEO Hugh Grant proud of Monsanto scientists?

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