Monsanto Co. said Thursday it will largely drop its bid to grow some of its genetically modified crops in Europe.
The world's largest seed-maker has nine pending applications with the European Commission, the executive body for the European Union. A spokesman said the company plans to withdraw eight of those applications.
The requests "have been going nowhere fast for several years," said Brandon Mitchener, a spokesman for the St. Louis-based company's European entity. "There’s no end in sight ... due to political obstructionism."
Many European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, have bans in place against genetically-modified organisms. Public sentiment has been divided and intense over safety and environmental concerns related to cultivated crops that have been genetically engineered. Scientists have largely said these types of crops are "safe". But also many scientists do not agree.
The issue has long simmered in Europe. In 2007, seed-maker Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. of Johnston, Iowa, sued the European Commission, criticizing the body for failing to act quickly on approval requests to cultivate the company's crops.
A spokesperson for the European Commission declined by email to comment on Monsanto's move, but said the pending applications had been greenlighted by the commission's Food Safety Agency.
Note EU-Digest: one can only hope that European Parliamentarians won't get swayed by US Chemical Industry lobbyists who are spending millions of euro's on convincing EU politicians to buy their chemically altered, polluted and dangerous foods and seeds. Lets us also not forget the Monsanto Bhopal disaster in India.
The globalization of agriculture in general has dramatically increased poverty in many developing countries, as crop subsidies in other nations began to affect agriculture, driving down crop profits.
Third world farmers have lost billions of dollars over the years from having to compete in the global agricultural marketplace rather than grow their own biodiverse crops to feed their own people. Global corporations have literally robbed many developing countries of its self-reliance and self-sustenance in the name of "ending poverty" by thrusting upon them a system of monopolized and genetically modified organisms in agriculture. This marketplace is now mainly controlled and operated by multi-national corporations like Monsanto.
Read more: Monsanto withdraws bids to grow GMO crops in Europe - latimes.com
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