Will the destructive profit motive triumph in Europe, even as America – beset by high rates of cancer, heart disease and obesity – imports GM free foods?

In April Bloomberg business news carried news of American consumers increasingly seeking milk and food products free of GM ingredients and of the surge in GM-free imports – 33% imported from sensible Romania where many communes and four cities have declared themselves GMO-free. In an increasingly urgent quest to restore profit, the BBC reports that the Beijing News and the Beijing Times, urge Chinese shoppers to “discard their prejudice” against GM foods as part of a government campaign. An online search will show many reports that imports of GM food have been rejected or ‘approval suspended’ by China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

So the industry turns yet again to Europe. On the sadly emasculated Farming Today radio programme, a spokesman with a clear vested interest (see endnote) says that it’s now ‘morally wrong’ not to allow farmers to use GM technology to feed a growing population.

Are Monsanto’s insecticides and herbicides beyond reproach?

One argument on the blurb is that farming that relies on pesticides is no longer acceptable. It fails to mention insect resistance to use of Monsanto’s insecticides and the fact that Monsanto’s seeds rely on the use of its herbicide Roundup (toxic glyphosate) which a report published recently in the journal Lancet Oncology, by researchers for WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, said was probably carcinogenic to humans, farmers, forestry workers and domestic gardeners – a damaging conclusion which Monsanto has called on WHO to retract.

In addition to this health concern there is the environmental and agricultural problem recorded earlier on this site, which carried recent news of Monsanto’s reduced profits due to increasing weed resistance to Roundup; USDA records that 14 glyphosate resistant weed species have been documented in the US.

Lying by implication – the writer has been driven to capitalise for emphasis

Representations made on the BBC website by Stephen Tindale:

• scientists should be able to develop GM technology – whereas there are BATTALIONS of highly paid scientists doing just that;

• those who oppose it presented as weak-minded idiots. Campaigners are reported as saying – on the blurb – that not enough is yet known about its potential harm to the environment and the public – whereas there are MASSES of evidence of potential harm; for one example see links to WHO and USDA evidence of weed resistance.

How often must all these tired allegations be refuted? Will campaigners eventually cease though sheer boredom (the writer is wilting) – and will the destructive profit motive triumph?

–

In 2005 after leaving Greenpeace, Stephen Tindale announced his support for nuclear power and GM crop technology. He co-founded ‘currently unfunded’ Climate Answers, has been a consultant for RWE, one of Europe’s five leading companies, generating electricity from gas, coal, nuclear and renewables, and is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for European Reform in which corporate donor, Bayer, represents GM interests.

–

Will Monsanto manage to restore its profits, flagging because of weed resistance to Roundup?

A Lancashire farmer sent news, later reported by the FT’s Emiko Terazono, that the agricultural seeds and chemicals group, Monsanto, hopes to buy a rival Swiss agrochemical company, Syngenta.

For years, a large proportion of Monsanto’ profits came from genetically modified glyphosate-tolerant Roundup Ready seeds. The chemical glyphosate, which was put on the market in the 1970s under the trade name Roundup, had become one of the most widely used herbicides in growing soyabean and corn.

However, increasing weed resistance to Roundup has been threatening the US agrigroup’s revenues, and herbicide sales data shows farmers are already reducing their glyphosate use for other herbicides, even if they are more expensive. The Economics of Glyphosate Resistance Management in Corn and Soybean Production, on the US Department of Agriculture’s website, recorded in April that 14 glyphosate resistant weed species have been documented in the US.

As the advice given is to rotate different herbicides, Monsanto would be enabled to do this after acquiring Syngenta, by adding the wide range of herbicides listed in Syngenta’s product guide, to its increasingly problematic Roundup herbicide.

Earlier this year the World Health Organisation said that glyphosate was “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans” – a claim Monsanto rejects. See the Press release: IARC Monographs Volume 112: evaluation of five organophosphate insecticides and herbicides” (PDF). International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization. March 20, 2015.

Analysts estimate that acquiring Syngenta, the world’s largest crop chemical producer would give Monsanto control of almost a third of that sector – a similar ratio to its share of the global seeds business.

Bloomberg comments that slower growth and lower commodity prices are putting pressure on the agricultural-chemical industry to consolidate. It predicts that this deal would set the stage for even more mergers and acquisitions.

NGO SumOfUs works to limit the power of massive agribusiness corporations and has set up a petition opposing the proposed purchase, saying:

“No single corporation should be allowed to wield the sort of power that comes from a near-monopoly on our global food system”.

–