Title: Monsanto on verge of $US40 million GMO bailout in Europe: Report
[The Natural Independent 28 Nov 2012 by Nicholas Tamasi] -- The genetically modified food industry’s biggest player, Monsanto, is reportedly set to receive $US 40 million worth of financial support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development according to the website bankwatch.org. The monetary assists/bailout will be offered for contracts made by the U.S. GMO giant with medium and large farmers and distributors in countries such as Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary. It was not clear in the article what impact GMO bans in places such as Hungary and Russia would have on the situation. The funds will go to companies that cannot pay for either seeds or the wide variety of agrochemicals sold by Monsanto that they had originally committed to buy but aren’t able to afford. The news is not likely to be well received by the legions of anti-GMO activists in Europe and other affected areas. Genetically modified organisms have been linked to various negative health effects including allergies and even organ damage and cancer. Russia banned American GMO imports following a French study showing massive tumors in lab rats that consumed GMO corn as well as Monsanto’s Roundup, its controversial, signature weed killing chemical that has also been linked to cancer. The announcement is the latest in a series of events and articles showing that Monsanto is seen as “too big to fail” by powerful government interests from the U.S. to Europe even as the movement for GMO freedom grows by the day. Wikileaks earlier revealed that United States diplomats essentially work for Monsanto to push their products and seeds around the world. President Barack Obama has appointed two former top Monsanto employees, Michael Taylor and Tom Vilsack, to high ranking food/safety positions in the U.S. government. ${imageDescription} Comment
European activists are known to march by the thousands against GMOs, as they wish to keep their food supply free of the lab-created U.S. crops despite best attempts by the European Union and other bodies to usurp the wishes of the people. Recently, French protesters burned GM soy that had been imported as animal feed and Italian protesters burned experimental GMO trees.
The French cancer study woke up thousands of people to the likely dangers of GMO foods, but perhaps most alarming is how they are crowding out virtually all other types of crops and food in general.
The media often refuses to mention that GMOs cross contaminate all other crops nearby, ruining biodiversity and hurting organic and conventional farmers who receive higher prices for their crops if they’re certified to be non-GMO. Many farmers have even been sued for patent infringement by Monsanto when the company’s “intellectual property” i.e. patented materials are found within their plants, materials they never wanted in the first place. The organic farmers have argued in several lawsuits that the burden to prevent cross contamination should be on Monsanto, especially since they are the ones responsible for all cross contamination in the first place.
In response to news of the GMO bailout, CEE Bankwatch, “together with 157 NGOs from all over the world, are this week sending a letter to the management of the EBRD arguing against the approval of this financial aid package for Monsanto and calling on the bank to reassess its approach to food security, moving from a focus on promoting large-scale industrial farming towards encouraging more sustainable, biodiversity friendly and smaller scale farms,” according to the article.
