Monsanto Admits Defeat in France, Biotech Corn Contaminates

26/1/12

France has held firm in its oppo­si­tion to Monsanto’s genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied MON 810 maize – and the agri-chem­i­cal multi­na­tion­al has admit­ted defeat.

Mon­san­to had been putting legal pres­sure on the French gov­ern­ment to lift its 2008 cul­ti­va­tion ban on MON 810, first­ly with a suc­cess­ful appeal to the Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice, then with a fol­low-up case heard in France’s own high­est court, the Coun­cil of State.

But despite both these insti­tu­tions rul­ing that the ban was “insuf­fi­cient­ly jus­ti­fied in law”, the French Gov­ern­ment, backed by Pres­i­dent Sarkozy, has insist­ed that it will still not allow cul­ti­va­tion of the biotech maize.

Now Mon­san­to has announced that it would not be sell­ing seeds for MON810 in France this year.

France’s stand – and Monsanto’s capit­u­la­tion – has been warm­ly wel­comed by anti-GM lob­by­ists GM Freeze, whose cam­paign direc­tor Pete Riley said: “The deci­sion by Mon­san­to not to mar­ket MON810 seeds in France in 2012 is yet anoth­er sign that Mon­san­to has failed to con­vince the pub­lic or pol­i­cy mak­ers that there is any ben­e­fit to grow­ing to grow­ing GM crops.

“This needs to be acknowl­edged by indus­try and politi­cians and there should be a big shift to agri­cul­tur­al research and devel­op­ment which address­es the future sus­tain­abil­i­ty of farm­ing in Europe. EU pol­i­cy needs to for­get about the bot­tom line of biotech cor­po­ra­tions and focus on devel­op­ing agro-eco­log­i­cal farm­ing which pro­vides for the needs of farm­ers, con­sumers, the envi­ron­ment and future gen­er­a­tions.”

Five oth­er EU coun­tries – Ger­many, Greece, Aus­tria, Lux­em­bourg and Hun­gary – have cur­rent bans on MON810 cul­ti­va­tion in place, and the issue has recent­ly been com­pli­cat­ed by anoth­er Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice rul­ing requir­ing hon­ey con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with GM pollen to be ful­ly autho­rised as a nov­el prod­uct and labelled as such before it can be sold.

— And from ear­li­er in the month: Mon­san­to attacked by Anony­mous hack­ers! In a thread of hack events from the Anony­mous group, the most recent tar­get has been Monsanto.com. Anony­mous, which briefly knocked the FBI and Jus­tice Depart­ment web­sites offline as well as Music Indus­try web­sites in retal­i­a­tion for the US shut­down of file-shar­ing site Megau­pload, is a shad­owy group of amaz­ing inter­na­tion­al hack­ers. Anony­mous Mes­sage To Mon­san­to: We fight for farm­ers! – Video Tran­script (Cross-Post­ed from Organ­ic Com­mon Sense): “To the free-think­ing cit­i­zens of the world: Anony­mous stands with the farm­ers and food orga­ni­za­tions denounc­ing the prac­tices of Mon­san­to We applaud the brav­ery of the orga­ni­za­tions and cit­i­zens who are stand­ing up to Mon­san­to, and we stand unit­ed with you against this oppres­sive cor­po­rate abuse. Mon­san­to is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the world with chem­i­cals and genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food crops for prof­it while claim­ing to feed the hun­gry and pro­tect the envi­ron­ment. Anony­mous is every­one, Any­one who can not stand for injus­tice and decides to do some­thing about it, We are all over the Earth and here to stay. To Mon­san­to, we demand you STOP the fol­low­ing: * Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the glob­al food chain with GMO’s. * Intim­i­dat­ing small farm­ers with bul­ly­ing and law­suits. * Prop­a­gat­ing the use of destruc­tive pes­ti­cides and her­bi­cides across the globe. * Using “Ter­mi­na­tor Tech­nol­o­gy”, which ren­ders plants ster­ile. * Attempt­ing to hijack UN cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions for your own fis­cal ben­e­fit. * Reduc­ing farm­land to desert through mono­cul­ture and the use of syn­thet­ic fer­til­iz­ers. * Inspir­ing sui­cides of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Indi­an farm­ers. * Caus­ing birth defects by con­tin­u­ing to pro­duce the pes­ti­cide “Round-up” * Attempt­ing to bribe foriegn offi­cials * Infil­trat­ing anti-GMO groups Mon­san­to, these crimes will not go unpun­ished. Anony­mous will not spare you nor any­one in sup­port of your oppres­sive ille­gal busi­ness prac­tices. AGRA, a great exam­ple: In 2006, AGRA, Alliance for a Green Rev­o­lu­tion in Africa, was estab­lished with fund­ing from Bill Gates and The Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion. Among the oth­er found­ing mem­bers of, AGRA, we find: Mon­san­to, Novar­tis, Sanofi-Aven­tis, Glax­o­SmithK­line, Proc­ter and Gam­ble, Mer­ck, Mosa­ic, Pfiz­er, Sum­it­o­mo Chem­i­cal and Yara. The fact that these cor­po­ra­tions are either chem­i­cal or phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers is no coin­ci­dence. The peo­ple of the world see you, Mon­san­to. Anony­mous sees you. Seeds of Oppor­tunism, Cli­mate change offers these busi­ness­es a per­fect excuse to prey on the poor­est coun­tries by swoop­ing in to “res­cue” the farm­ers and peo­ple with their GMO crops and chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides. These cor­po­ra­tions erad­i­cate the tra­di­tion­al ways of the country’s agri­cul­ture for the sake of enor­mous prof­its. The intro­duc­tion of GMOs dras­ti­cal­ly affects a local farm­ers income, as the price of chem­i­cals required for GMOs and seeds from Mon­san­to crip­ples the farmer’s mea­ger prof­it mar­gins. There are even many cas­es of Mon­san­to suing small farm­ers after pollen from their GMO crops acci­den­tal­ly cross with the farmer’s crops. Because Mon­san­to has a patent on theri brand of seed, they claim the farmer is in vio­la­tion of patent laws. These dis­gust­ing and inhu­mane prac­tices will not be tol­er­at­ed. Anony­mous urges all con­cerned cit­i­zens to stand up for these farm­ers, stand up for the future of your own food. Protest, orga­nize, spread info to your friends! SAY NO TO POISONOUS CHEMICALS IN YOUR FOOD! SAY NO TO GMO! SAY NO TO MONSANTO! We are Anony­mous We are legion We do not for­give We do not for­get Expect us” Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project, an anti-biotech group found­ed by Earth First! activists, also not­ed in a post on the attack that Mon­san­to was also one of the orig­i­nal founders of the GE tree com­pa­ny Arbor­Gen. The Pres­i­dent and CEO of Arbor­Gen, Bar­bara Wells, led Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready soy divi­sion in Brazil. GMO soy in Brazil and oth­er parts of Latin Amer­i­ca has tak­en over vast swaths of Ama­zon and oth­er for­est land, and has dis­placed or poi­soned many com­mu­ni­ties there. Find out more about their cam­paign against Arbor­Gen here. We fight for farm­ers video — http://youtu.be/Q1A-DYK4M4Q DOS attack on Mon­san­to — http://youtu.be/3XutsnEe4VY