April 11, 2022
Today I attended a webinar called “Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future” featuring Bart Elmore, an environmental history professor and author of Seed Money. It was put on by the College of Arts and Sciences and moderated by Nicholas Breyfogle, a history professor at Ohio State. The Monsanto company started by producing the caffeine for Coca-Cola, and then moved onto different pesticides and other chemicals. People didn’t know how dangerous some of these chemicals were and they caused real problems when they got into the food people eat.
I wanted to attend this event because I really enjoyed when Elmore came to speak at a Community Meeting and I wanted to learn more. There is a lot of talk about chemistry and other scientific terms that I don’t understand, but he speaks in a way that makes it accessible to everyone. One part I really liked was when Elmore was talking about John Queeny, the man who started Monsanto in 1901, and his family. He related it to his own family, and really focused throughout the writing of his book on telling all sides of Queeny’s story. This is related to my life because I want to know what chemicals I am ingesting, as much as I can. I’m sure there are dangerous chemicals used in everyday items today that we don’t even know about. I think it’s important that scientists and CEO’s alike are doing the best they can for people with the information that they have at the time.