Mahalo Civil Beat for posting this. I hope this helps put some limitations (like disclosure, buffer zones, banishment) on the influence of the pesticide cartels. I mention, though, that your statement that, "Fears about the harmful effects of eating G.M. foods have proved to be largely without scientific basis," misses one of the main misgivings of GMOs and that is not so much the eating of GMO food as completely inadvertently ingesting the pesticides used in GMO cultivation. A tremendous amount of those pesticides (e.g. glyphosate aka Monsanto Roundup, and Syngenta's atrazine) get inside the unsuspecting via pollution of our drinking water supplies, pesticide drift on the wind, and pollution of the aina.