Wee demo in Glasgow against Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant. He will be back in June 09. Will you also you here?

Mon­san­to Chief Exec Hugh Grant came to Glas­gow today. He and Scot­tish Enter­pris­es were not so hap­py to find out that a few con­cerned cit­i­zens were there and were leaflet­ing the staff call­ing for his dis­missal from his role on the inter­na­tion­al advi­so­ry board. see press release below for some details. He comes twice a year for these meet­ings. Prob­a­bly the only time aside from Mon­san­to AGMs (in St Louis, US) that any­one who wants to have a word with him knows when and where he will be. The next mtg is in June 09. We will be there to greet the Mon­san­to CEO. Will you join us the next time? Con­tact details at end of the PR, Cheers!

Press release: Com­mon Action Scot­land: Tues­day 4 Novem­ber 2008, Glas­gow

Con­tro­ver­sial Mon­san­to Chief Exec Hugh Grant in Glas­gow this week

Con­tro­ver­sial Mon­san­to Chief Exec Hugh Grant is expect­ed to be in Glas­gow this week in his role as an advi­sor to the Scot­tish Enter­prise Agency. How­ev­er civ­il soci­ety group Com­mon Action Scot­land are demand­ing that Scot­tish Enter­prise boss­es dis­miss the Mon­san­to CEO from its advi­so­ry board and are chal­leng­ing Mr Grant to attend a pub­lic meet­ing to answer for the dam­age caused by his com­pa­ny and its busi­ness prac­tices.

Lind­say Keenan spokesper­son for Com­mon Action Scot­land said today:
“It is not appro­pri­ate to have the Chief Exec­u­tive of Mon­san­to as an advi­sor to Scot­tish Enter­prise. Hugh Grant rep­re­sents a com­pa­ny that has lied and cheat­ed and that has caused can­cers, birth-defects and deaths in order to save a dol­lar. Today Mon­san­to prod­ucts con­tribute direct­ly to inflat­ed prices of food on the glob­al mar­ket and to world hunger. Hugh Grant and Mon­san­to are an inter­na­tion­al dis­grace not a role mod­el for Scot­tish Enter­pris­es. We have asked Jack Per­ry the head of Scot­tish Enter­prise and Jim Math­er MSP, the Scot­tish Enter­prise Min­is­ter to imme­di­ate­ly dis­miss Hugh Grant from his advi­so­ry role”.

Mr Grant is due in Glas­gow this week for a meet­ing of the Scot­tish Enter­prise Inter­na­tion­al Advi­so­ry Board. Despite a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request Scot­tish Enter­prise have refused to con­firm exact­ly which day the meet­ing will take place but did con­firm it is expect­ed to be in Glas­gow in the first week of Novem­ber. Mr Grants office con­firmed that he is expect­ed to attend. Hugh Grant was born in Larkhall Glas­gow and grad­u­at­ed from Glas­gow and Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ties. Since 2003 he has been the Chair­man, Pres­i­dent and CEO of the US based chem­i­cals and genet­ic engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny Mon­san­to. Based in St Louis, US he trav­els the world rep­re­sent­ing Mon­san­to and vis­its Glas­gow twice a year for these meet­ings.

Keenan cont’d, “Mr Grants com­pa­ny, Mon­san­to, has in the past been respon­si­ble for pro­duc­ing some of the worlds most tox­ic chem­i­cals includ­ing PCBs and Agent Orange. Amongst oth­er seri­ous crimes it has pre­vi­ous­ly been caught fal­si­fy­ing sci­en­tif­ic reports and brib­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Today Mon­san­to is the worlds largest chem­i­cal com­pa­ny and is respon­si­ble for more than 90% of the genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied seeds sold in the world. Mon­san­to prod­ucts and Monsanto’s way of doing busi­ness destroy soil health, destroy food secu­ri­ty and con­tribute sub­stan­tial­ly to world hunger and envi­ron­men­tal dam­age”.

Hugh Grant uses his role with Scot­tish Enter­prise as part of his CV pre­sum­ably because it opens doors for him and helps to give Mon­san­to what it most craves, the pub­lic accep­tance that despite its great wealth and pow­er it is oth­er­wise denied. Mr Grants posi­tion with Scot­tish Enter­prise gives the impres­sion that Mon­san­to is sup­port­ed in Scot­land when in fact the evi­dence of pub­lic, farmer, food indus­try, polit­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic opin­ion over the last ten years makes it absolute­ly clear that there is no place for Mon­san­to or its prod­ucts in Scot­land (or indeed in Europe).

Keenan cont’d, “Hugh Grant is the smooth talk­ing face of a very ugly cor­po­ra­tion. His smooth talk­ing style and his Glasgow/Edinburgh/transatlantic brogue has charmed the US stock mar­kets and politi­cians on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr Grant has helped pushed up prof­its for Mon­san­to and for him­self but at what price to real peo­ples lives and to the envi­ron­ment?

Com­mon Action Scot­land has tried on a num­ber of occa­sions to get Mr Grant to agree to attend a pub­lic meet­ing in Glasgow/Scotland. How­ev­er he shows no signs of being will­ing to be held pub­licly account­able. We note that if he is not will­ing to attend a pub­lic dis­cus­sion despite the glob­al impor­tance of his com­pa­ny to the health and food secu­ri­ty of so many peo­ple then this should pro­vide fur­ther evi­dence of his unsuit­abil­i­ty to be an advi­sor to a Scot­tish tax pay­er fund­ed pub­lic body. “What does Hugh Grant/Monsanto have to hide?”

There is an over­whelm­ing body of evi­dence avail­able to sup­port the case that Mon­san­to and its CEO are not good role mod­els for Scot­tish busi­ness. Amongst a wealth of oth­er pub­licly avail­able fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion the recent­ly released doc­u­men­tary called the World Accord­ing To Mon­san­to by direc­tor Marie Monique Robin sums up the real­i­ty behind Mon­san­to.

The crimes Mon­san­to has com­mit­ted, the lives it has dam­aged, the lies its spokes­peo­ple and exec­u­tives have told and the mas­sive influ­ence that it has are laid out clear­ly. And it is per­haps the first doc­u­men­tary that real­ly gets behind the approval process for GM foods in the US and reveals the manip­u­lat­ing hand of Mon­san­to at all lev­els. A copy can be obtained from French film­mak­ers ARTE www.arteboutique.com
It can also be found in 10 parts on Utube at
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CMleWZXhi6s

We would rec­om­mend that Jack Per­ry and Jim Math­er view this doc­u­men­tary to get some under­stand­ing of Mon­san­to. We fur­ther rec­om­mend that it be screened at the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment and on Scot­tish TV so that we all may judge. Mon­san­to refused to be inter­viewed for the doc­u­men­tary but the direc­tor Marie Monique Robin has indi­cat­ed to Com­mon Action Scot­land that she would be will­ing to attend a pub­lic meet­ing in Scot­land to dis­cuss her find­ings with Mr Grant, if he is will­ing.

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact:

Lind­say Keenan (Direc­tor)
Com­mon Action Scot­land
1 Cun­ning­hame Road, Kil­barchan, Scot­land, PA10 2EE
Office: 0141 577 0057 Mobile: 0750 392 0125
Email: commonactionscotland@yahoo.co.uk