Monsanto Set to Halt GMO Push in Europe 2nd June

Mon­san­to plans to halt lob­by­ing for its genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied plant vari­eties in Europe due to low demand from local farm­ers, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the US agri­cul­tur­al giant told a Ger­man dai­ly.

“We are no longer work­ing on lob­by­ing for more cul­ti­va­tion in Europe,” Bran­don Mitch­n­er a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Monsanto’s Euro­pean branch, Tageszeitung, said in an inter­view set to be pub­lished on Sat­ur­day.

“Cur­rent­ly we do not plan to apply for the approval of new genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops. The rea­son is, among oth­er things, low demand of the farm­ers,” he con­tin­ued.

A spokes­woman for Mon­san­to Ger­many, Ursu­la Luttmer-Ouazane, admit­ted that Mon­san­to rec­og­nizes that GMO crops were cur­rent­ly not embraced on the Euro­pean mar­ket.

“We’ve under­stood that such plants don’t have any broad accep­tance in Euro­pean soci­eties,” Luttmer-Ouazane said. “It is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to fight against wind­mills,” she added.

A spokesper­son for the Ger­man Min­istry of Econ­o­my and Tech­nolo­gies described the move as an “entre­pre­neur­ial deci­sion” which need­ed no fur­ther com­ment. The min­istry added, how­ev­er, it has long made its oppo­si­tion to gene mod­i­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies known.

“The promis­es of the GM indus­try have not come true for Euro­pean agri­cul­ture, nor have they for the agri­cul­ture in devel­op­ing and emerg­ing economies,” the min­istry said in a state­ment.

Eight nation­al gov­ern­ments in the Euro­pean Union have already banned Monsanto’s MON810 maize and oth­er forms of GMO cul­ti­va­tion in their coun­tries under an envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion pro­vi­sion known as the ‘Safe­guard Clause’.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly fierce protests in Ger­many prompt­ed the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the mea­sures in 2009 due to con­cerns that such cul­ti­va­tion could lead to eco­log­i­cal degra­da­tion.

Monsanto’s rivals, such as Bay­er Crop­Science, BASF and Syn­gen­ta, had by and large pulled out of the Ger­man mar­ket because of large-scale pub­lic oppo­si­tion, the Ger­man dai­ly report­ed.

Aus­tria, Bul­gar­ia, France, Greece, Hun­gary, Lux­em­bourg and most recent­ly Poland are among oth­er EU mem­ber states enforc­ing the ban. In April, Italy joined the ranks of EU states look­ing to ban the cul­ti­va­tion of GM crops on its soil.

The announce­ment comes amidst a series of recent pub­lic rela­tions bat­tles that have brought the US firm con­sid­er­able world­wide atten­tion.

On Wednes­day, the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) said it had con­duct­ed genet­ic tests on wheat from an 80-acre farm in Ore­gon this past April. The tests revealed the wheat was an exper­i­men­tal vari­ety cre­at­ed by Mon­san­to that had nev­er been approved for sale.

The dis­cov­ery prompt­ed Japan­ese author­i­ties to can­cel part of a ten­der offer to buy US west­ern white wheat and have sus­pend­ed imports of both that vari­ety and feed wheat, while sev­er­al oth­er large importers of US-wheat through­out Asia said they were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

The Euro­pean Union for its part said it will test any incom­ing ship­ments, with plans to block those con­tain­ing GMO wheat.

The USDA announce­ment fol­lowed a mas­sive, glob­al “March Against Mon­san­to” held on Sat­ur­day that saw demon­stra­tions against the Mis­souri-based firm in 52 coun­tries.  Orga­niz­ers for the glob­al protest said around 2 mil­lion pro­test­ers showed up at ral­lies being held in 436 cities to protest against the seed giant and the genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food.