Bruce Dalgarno's public record:
- Highlights
of Dalgarno's secret obligations to Monsanto as exposed by CBC
- On
the GMO wheat debate, having contracted and supped with Monsanto,
Dalgarno discredits farmers abilities to make sound decisions
- If
the market is king, who wins, who loses
- Winnipeg
Free Press gives Dalgarno's version regarding his contract with
Monsanto
- Arthur
Schafer's Article on MCGA Directors' Conflict of Interest
- See Also: The Wide Canola basis -
On Whose Side is Bruce Dalgarno?
Highlights
of Dalgarno's secret obligations to Monsanto as exposed by CBC.
This letter will confirm our mutual
understanding and agreement regarding the terms and conditions
under which you will serve on the Roundup Ready Wheat Grower
Advisory Panel (hereinafter referred to as "the Panel")
for Monsanto Canada Inc. (hereinafter referred to as
"Monsanto").
The functions of the Panel will be to:
To assist in ensuring the positive
introduction of Roundup Ready Wheat in Canada.
To solicit and provide input to Monsanto from
farm colleagues, farm associations and other industry
stakeholders on the opportunities and the issues to maximize the
value of Roundup Ready Wheat to Canadian Agriculture.
To provide input to Monsanto on strategies to
build the Canadian agricultural industry, and downstream
customer acceptance to agricultural biotechnology and
biotechnology products.
-and-
- As compensation for your services rendered hereunder,
Monsanto will pay you a fee of $150 per day, for each day
required to participate in meetings during this Agreement plus
reasonable and customary travel and other expenses incurred by
you in connection with providing services to Monsanto.
The Panel will be convened on an ad hoc basis at mutually
convenient times with the present expectation of meeting at
least twice per year.
- As a member of the Panel, you will have access to Monsanto
confidential information relating to present and future
products of interest to Monsanto and to research, commercial
development, marketing and other business plans of Monsanto,
relating to such products. You agree that all such
information will be held in confidence by you and not
disclosed to others or used for your benefit or for any
purpose other than in connection with the Agreement without
our prior written consent. Your obligation with regard
to the confidentiality and nonuse of such information shall
continue during the term of the Agreement and for a period of
ten (10) years thereafter, but shall not extend to any
information which:
- is publicly known or later becomes publicly through
no breach of this Agreement, or
- was in your possession prior to receipt from
Monsanto as evidenced by your written records; or
- is received by you from a third party having
no obligation of confidentiality to Monsanto regarding the
disclosure of such information.
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On
the GMO wheat debate, having contracted and supped with Monsanto,
Dalgarno discredits farmers abilities to make sound decisions.
Manitoba Cooperator November 15, 2001
Delegates at the first annual members' meeting
of Agrigore United, Canada's largest grain company, told their new
board last week that they don't want any the genetically modified
crops developed wihtout market acceptance.
"We don't want to destroy our
markets. Let's make sure that we can sell it before we grow
it," said Bill Ridgeway, the Manitoba farmer who presented
the resolution.
"In the movies it works to say, if you
build it they'll come, but in actual operation I've never seen it
happen," Ridgeway told delegates who, after some debate,
strongly endorsed the proposal to delay gene-spliced crops.
The group of farmers and shareholders from the
Canadian Prairies were meeting face to face for the first time
just one week after the official merger between United Grain
Growers and Agricore Co-operative that produced Agricore United.
The grain merchandiser, seed developer and crop
input retailer will handle about 12 million tonnes of grains and
oilseeds or about 40 percent of Western Canada's market share.
Ridgeway said his resolution did not apply to
oilseed crops that were already transgenic, including soybeans and
canola.
Canada is the world's largest producer and
exporter of canola, the Canadian variant of rapeseed. While
about half of the country's annual canola production is
genetically modified (GM) to tolerate certain herbicides, because
Canada has a bulk handling system, the entire crop is classified
as transgenic.
The farmers attending the meeting urged Agricore
United's board of directors, many of whom are also growers, to
lobby for more work on an identity-preserved system that can
effectively segregate GM and non-GMO varieties, an initiative that
the Canadian commission has already undertaken.
The Agricore United delegates' resolution, along
with a motion to halt plans to create genetically modified wheat,
an endeavor that has been spearheaded by US biotech giant Monsanto
Co., are non-binding, aimed at advising management on future
policy direction.
"I think it's a prudent and conservative
approach to take on the technology, given that in some respects
it's like a Pandora's box," Agricore United chief executive
Brain Hayward told Reuters after the session.
"The genie goes out of the bottle.
You can't go and put it back in easily," said Hayward.
The delegates who opposed the resolution said
they had faith in the current, science-based criteria for
approving the release and regulating consumer safety of GM crops.
"I
don't think that we as farmers and businessmen in Western Canada
have the expertise to oppose the science of licensing," said
Bruce Dalgarno, another Manitoba delegate.
Agricore United said it has recently met with
Monsanto and was given reassurances that Roundup Ready wheat would
not be released until there was commercial acceptance of the
product.
"When
you look at the distribution of it, no one is going to bring a
product forward, and Monsanto has talked about this on their
wheat, if there is not a pull from the consumer," said
Dalgarno.
But for
some of the canola farmers gathered here, the loss of the European
market, part of a three year consumer driven freeze on imports of
GM crops, was a lingering memory.
There
was also talk of China's new GM import regime, confusion over
which had helped halt almost all Canadian canola shipments to that
market so far during the crop year.
But some
delegates said that any move towards a consumer-driven approach
and away from scientific testing would be a setback to the
industry, much of which has embraced GM technology because of its
agronomic and economic benefits.
"We're
asking our regulatory agencies to put an intangible into the
registration process. If we did that, what we would be doing
is telling the world that our arguments relative to GMOs with
Europe have been wrong and they were correct," said Albert
Wagner, an Alberta farmer.
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If
the market is king, who wins, who loses? Dalgarno and Cargill, regarding the $62 Canola
basis saying "it would correct itself"?
Letter to the FIW Editor:
re Barb Isman's apology of crushers low prices to farmers and
supported by Bruce Dalgaro:
When under the corporate friendly (but) farmer
unfriendly caption "Canola prices bad, crush margins
good" Barb Isman, Canola Council president unashamedly
claims, "one is not the result of the other (10.11.05)",
FIW's earlier remember-worthy words "a good newspaper prints
the truth and what people say, with the two not necessarily the
same" sprang immediately to mind!
First, by entry level economic definition,
margin (or basis) is nothing more complicated than the elementary
mathematically relationship between Canola oil's price minus
inputs! Accordingly, for any fixed price for oil, crush
margins increase as canola drops!
Second, in her corporate friendly, farmer unfriendly role -
representing crushers - farmers' low prices are still not low
enough, adding "While farmers may feel there's too much
canola around", a euphemism for Canola prices too low,
"Canada's canola customers feel there hasn't been
enough". Translation: prices paid by crushers are still not
low enough!
Third, by way of diversion, she fingers several
nations for having self-serving higher tariffs on oil than on
canola, when in reality she is advancing Canadian crusher's
interests over farmers, knowing crushers are running near capacity
and these tariffs really only begin to pinch when future Canadian
crush expansion plans come on stream. Crushers already represent
50% of farm-gate sales, selling nearly all their crush into
tariff-free countries of Canada, Mexico and the US. USA
alone accounts for "75% of Canada's exported canola oil
(Dawson/FIW 17.11.05)"!
Fortunately, Beingessner advances first-rate
farmer friendly information when recently, in reply to a farmer
asking "Just who sets the (farm commodity) prices
anyway?" he reported an economist answered "Well, the
lowest seller does (17.11.05)" adding Canada's banks and farm
suppliers often exercise "compulsion and little freedom in
the (farmer's) transaction".
With Isman above, pushing even lower farm-gate
prices and crushers seeking expanded market tariff-free
opportunities by engaging a full-time lobbyist (ibid. Dawson) how
come she makes no mention of the more than obvious, that since the
private trade excluded farmers from making deliveries against the
futures, farm-gate canola basis have risen to two, three and four
times above a fair return?
Given all the above, exactly whom is Canola
director Bruce Dalgarno representing when in December 2003 with a
$62 unpopular basis, he and Cargill are quoted saying "it
would correct itself"? Later, at the Canola AGM, John
Boercher much more correctly stated "it's a license to
steal".
In conclusion, applying Beingessner's insight, I
advance the following truism. Whenever the Canola industry
collectively sells somewhat less than what farmers have to offer,
whether they have a bin-busting bumper crop or only a truck-load,
the thousands of farmers are structurally coerced into chasing
each other to the elevator drive-way offering a lower basis than
the next. No-one can say so differently and make it stick!
Eduard Hiebert
St Francois Xavier
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Winnipeg
Free Press gives Dalgarno's version regarding his contract with
Monsanto
Winnipeg Free Press November 14, 2002 p.
A9
By Helen Fallding
CLOSE ties between farm leaders and the company
developing the world's first genetically-modified wheat are in
danger of influencing debate over the controversial technology, a
critic charges.
St. Francois Xavier farmer Eduard Hiebert was
upset to discover recently that a fellow board member on the
Manitoba Canola Growers Association is on Monsanto's grower
advisory panel on Roundup Ready wheat.
The panel is designed to "assist in
ensuring the positive introduction of Roundup Ready wheat in
Canada," according to an agreement signed by farmers that
binds them to keep Monsanto's company secrets confidential for 10
years.
The biotechnology giant is on the verge of
applying for federal government approval of the new wheat, which
is genetically altered to resist Monsanto's popular Roundup
herbicide.
Because most of Canada's export markets say they
will shun genetically-modified wheat, Monsanto has agreed not to
commercialize Roundup Ready wheat until a market develops and
there is a way to segregate it from conventional wheat.
Hiebert said he did not realize Newdale farmer
Bruce Dalgarno was on the Monsanto panel, whose members have met
for a couple of two-day sessions and been paid $150 a day for
their input.
Hiebert is also disturbed that the canola
association's president, Ernie Sirski, and his wife, accepted a
Monsanto-funded trip last year to the World Congress on
Conservation Agriculture in Spain.
Critical of GM canola and wheat, Hiebert worries
that farmers in influential positions will favour Monsanto's
products "because of perhaps some kind of bowl of soup they
got in the past."
He also fears loyalty to Monsanto will colour
decisions of the Manitoba Canola Growers Association board.
Sirski said he does not see any conflict of
interest when board members get involved in other activities as
individual farmers.
"It would take more than a trip to Spain to
prostitute myself for a chemical company," he said.
The Roundup Ready wheat panel has four members
from each of the three Prairie provinces. Manitoba's other
members are: Max Polon, a director for the Manitoba Seed Growers
Association; David Pizzey; and Edward Cook.
Monsanto spokeswoman Trish Jordan said the
company wants to get feedback -- both positive and negative --
that will help improve its strategy for introducing Roundup Ready
wheat.
The contract with Monsanto explicitly states
that members cannot promote Roundup Ready wheat because of
government rules about products not yet on the market.
However, members are free to publicly state
their opinions about genetically modified wheat in general.
Pollen, who notified the Seed Growers
Association when he joined the panel, said he does not understand
the opposition to new crop biotechnology.
Brandon farmer Don Bromley, who chairs a
biotechnology committee for Keystone Agricultural Producers,
attended the first few advisory panel meetings but refused to sign
the confidentiality agreement.
However, Bromley sees nothing wrong with meeting
with companies to give them feedback.
Bromley believes some genetically modified wheat
will be useful to
farmers -- but not Roundup Ready wheat.
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Arthur
Schafer's Article on MCGA Directors' Conflict of Interest
WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Sunday, December 8th, 2002
"I can't be bought for..."
What happens when farm leaders meet agri-business
ARTHUR SCHAFER
Main Street, Moose Jaw, is a long way from Wall
Street, New York City. And the Manitoba Canola Growers Association
doesn't have a lot in common with Merrill Lynch Securities.
Nevertheless, the ethical issue currently
dominating the attention of corporate America -- conflict of
interest -- is now stirring controversy across the Prairie
provinces. It has come to light that a number of Western farm
leaders *have financial ties to the multinational chemical giant
Monsanto. Because these leaders are accepting money and travel
from Monsanto at the same time they serve as board members of
leading farm organizations, they have been accused of being in a
conflict-of-interest situation.
[Editorial Comment: Except for Dave
Sefton formerly of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, all the other Monsanto
panel members initially exposed by CBC as having signed the
agreement, besides being involved in many different organizations
have at least one common element to all of them. Each of them is
involved with the Western Canadian Wheat Growers association, in
many cases having held positions at the national or provincial
executive level.]
First, some background to this story. Monsanto is spending a lot
of money to persuade the federal government that it should license
genetically modified (GM) wheat. A big part of Monsanto's campaign
hinges on persuading western farmers to support the introduction
of GM wheat to Prairie agriculture. This is proving to be a tough
sell. Many western wheat farmers fear that licensing GM, or
"Roundup Ready" wheat would destroy Canada's most
valuable wheat, export markets. Europeans, for example, won't
touch the stuff. Since there's no safe and sure way to segregate
GM wheat from conventional wheat, all Canadian wheat runs the risk
of being banned from Europe.
Understandably, feelings on this issue are
passionate. There's a lot at stake.
Some Manitoba farmer leaders, such as Ernie
Sirski and his wife, have accepted Monsanto-funded travel
(Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 14). The Sirskis were treated to an
all-expenses-paid trip to Spain last year to attend the World
Congress on Conservation Agriculture. Mr. Sirski is president of
the Manitoba Canola Growers' Association. Another board member is
a paid member of Monsanto's grower advisory panel on Roundup Ready
Wheat. He is paid $150 per day to advise Monsanto on how to win
the support of his fellow farmers for the introduction of GM
wheat. The Monsanto Roundup Ready wheat panel has four members
from each Prairie province -- all receiving similar benefits.
Not surprisingly, the beneficiaries see nothing
morally troubling about the situation. Mr. Sirski, for example, is
quoted as saying: "It would take more than a trip to Spain to
prostitute myself for a chemical company."
In thinking about how best to respond to this
issue, Canadian farmers could study not only the crisis of
confidence now plaguing Wall Street, but also the record of the
Canadian medical community, which is awash in such
conflict-of-interest issues. 'Big Pharma' spends more than $20,000
annually per Canadian physician on gifts, including free meals,
money to attend educational sessions, travel and consulting fees.
I have lectured across Canada on the ethics of
doctors accepting gifts from drug companies. Interestingly, I have
never met a doctor who admitted that he or she had been influenced
in any way by drug-company generosity. When confronted on the
issue, they invariably reply, as did Mr. Sirski: "I can't be
bought for... (fill in the blank: a fancy dinner, laptop computer,
Caribbean holiday, whatever)."
Are doctors and farmers incorruptible in the
objectivity of their judgment, as they insist? Or, could it be
that the drug and chemical companies recognize something
fundamental about human nature?
This is a rhetorical question. What drug and
chemical companies understand is that much of social life is based
on reciprocity. The need to return kindness for kindness, favour
for favour, benefit for benefit, is a basic motivator in virtually
every human society. It behooves us, therefore, to reflect upon
the fact that every dollar of the millions that the drug companies
invest in gifts to physicians and hospitals -- and every dollar
that chemical and food companies invest in gifts to universities,
farm organizations and individual farmers -- is viewed by the
companies as an important part of their corporate strategy. They
are buying goodwill. They are buying influence with people who
have decision-making power.
To put this point in another way, every gift and
payment from agri-businesses to farmers and their organizations
comes with strings attached. Strings that are sometimes as heavy
as an iron chain, even when the recipients don't recognize that
their chain is being jerked.
All farm-organization directors have an
obligation to put the interests of their members first. They have
a "fiduciary duty" to exercise their judgment
impartially and objectively in the best interest of members.
Money, however, has a tendency to influence people's judgment. So,
when board members accept money or other benefits from a private
corporation (such as Monsanto) about whose products they must
officially make evaluative judgments, no one can be certain that
their judgment is not being influenced by their vested interest.
They may bend over backwards not to be influenced, and sometimes
they will succeed. Nevertheless, because human motivation is often
complex, there is always a risk that this conflict-of-interest
situation will result in a violation of their moral duty.
Farm leaders who accept benefits from
agri-business have acquired a "vested interest" that has
the potential to conflict with their duty to put the interest of
their membership first. Consciously or unconsciously, their
judgment may be skewed.
With the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal in the
U.S., we saw that accountants' conflicts of interest led to
disastrous consequences for shareholders and employees. With the
Olivieri scandal at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, we
saw that when hospitals and universities solicit donations from
drug companies, they can too easily lose sight of their primary
duty, which is to protect research integrity and patient safety.
Farmers are discovering that they had better
protect the independence and integrity of their own organizations,
or they too could face disastrous consequences.
Professor Arthur Schafer is Director of the
Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of
Manitoba.
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