5 Ways to Defund Monsanto Through Universities

Whether you’re a University student or just a concerned anti-Monsanto activist, your voice is vitally important when it comes to getting rid of genetically modified foods from the world supply. All it takes is a few courageous steps to let your university or college know that you don’t support investments in Monsanto and other biotech companies.

Following are several ways to get your institution of higher education to divest from one of the most hated companies on the planet:

• 1. Write a letter to your dean stating that all research grants funded by Monsanto should be refused. If he or she won’t listen, write a letter to the finance chairs, or better yet, do both. A department chair can’t do as much as some executives at a university, but they can certainly speak for students in important meetings where stockholders are present. Instead of just bothering your department chair about getting the classes you want, let them know that you are paying attention to how the University invests the money you are giving them for tuition.

• 2. All Monsanto-endowed chairs for professors should be eliminated ASAP. Demand to know what chairs are funded by Monsanto’s money and picket for the removal of those chairs.

Related: Sorry Monsanto – Organic Food Demand is BOOMING

• 3. Does your school offer Monsanto-funded student scholarships? Who needs them! They are essentially buying your allegiance to the poisoning of the world. You can find funds to go to school from a company who isn’t killing the pollinators and ruining the soil, too. Collegescholarships.org has lots of other options.

• 4. If your University holds Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, or other biotech stock, demand that they divest immediately. Stanford university students and professors recently had great luck convincing their University to divest $18 billion from coal stocks that were contributing to polluting the planet. Now – it’s Monsanto’s turn.

• 5. Demand that your University stop licensing patents to biotech seed companies who want to ‘own’ the natural world. Monsanto recently denied that they infringed on an Iowa State University patent on a low-lineolic acid soybean, but you can bet they’ll sue farmers for ‘planting’ their patented seeds when they didn’t want to in the first place, and their organic crops were cross-pollinated due to Monsanto’s negligent GMO seed creation. If they can’t patent their product, then they won’t be as interested in selling it.