It is no more a farmer’s issue alone, it’s a matter of the consumers’ right to food safety. You and I wouldn’t even be able to separate/choose a normal Brinjal from/over a GM one, if Bt Brinjal – a GM crop produced by the mighty agri-MNC Monsanto – is let through by our corrupt regulatory body.
The Monsanto Company is a US based multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation.It is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate marketed as "Roundup". Monsanto is also the leading producer of geneticaly engineered (GE) seed, holding 90% market share for various crops. It is headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri.
Agracetus, owned by Monsanto, exclusively produces Roundup Ready soybean seed for the commercial market. In 2005, it finalized purchase of Seminis Inc., making it the world's largest conventional seed company.
Monsanto's development and marketing of gentically engineered seed and bovine growth hormone, as well as its aggressive litigation and political lobbying practices, have made the company controversial around the world and a primary target of the anit-globalization movement and environmental activists.
The 1940s saw Monsanto become a leading manufacturer of plastics, including polysyrene, and synthetic fibers. Since then, it has remained one of the top 10 US chemical companies. Other major products have included the herbicides 2,4,5-T, DDT, and Agent Orange used primarily during the Vietnam War as a defoliant agent (later proven to be highly carcinogenic to any who come into contact with the solution), the excitotoxin, aspartame (NutraSweet), bovine somatotropin (bovine growth hormone (BST), and PCBs. Also in this decade, Monsanto operated the Dayton Project, and later Mound Laboratory in Miamisburg, Ohio, for the Manhattan Project the development of the first nuclear weapons and, after 1947, the Atomic Energy Commission.
U.S. Genetically Modified Corn Is Assailed - NAFTA Report Calls Grain a Threat to Mexico; Administration Disputes Study
A scientific panel of international experts has concluded that the unintended spread of U.S. genetically modified corn in Mexico -- where the species originated and modified plants are not allowed -- poses a potential threat that should be limited or stopped. But the United States yesterday attacked the report and its conclusions as unscientific, and made clear it did not intend to accept the recommendations.
"How would Americans feel if we started getting living transgenic seeds that had been judged to be safe by the Cuban government but not the American government?" asked Norman C. Ellstrand, a University of California at Riverside geneticist and member of the NAFTA-appointed panel. "We would be outraged, and so are many Mexicans. Like us, they have the right to make up their own minds about genetically modified crops." [read more]
Let’s put up strong resistance, demanding a ban on GM food and crops until they are proven safe for human consumption by independent, long-term studies.
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