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MONSANTO GM-CORN HARVEST FAILS MASSIVELY IN SOUTH AFRICA

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MONSANTO GM-CORN HARVEST FAILS MASSIVELY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Digital Journal, March 29 2009. By Adriana Stuijt:

_http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/270101_

(http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/270101)

 

South African farmers suffered millions of dollars in lost income when 82,000

hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) failed to produce hardly any

seeds.The plants look lush and healthy from the outside. Monsanto has offered

compensation.

 

Monsanto blames the failure of the three varieties of corn planted on these

farms, in three South African provinces,on alleged 'underfertilisation

processes

in the laboratory " . Some 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the three

varieties of Monsanto corn this year, have reported extensive seedless corn

problems.

 

Urgent investigation demanded

 

However environmental activitist Marian Mayet, director of the Africa-centre

for

biosecurity in Johannesburg, demands an urgent government investigation and

an

immediate ban on all GM-foods, blaming the crop failure on Monsanto's

genetically-manipulated technology.

 

Willem Pelser, journalist of the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport, writes from

Nelspruit that Monsanto has immediately offered the farmers compensation in

three provinces - North West, Free State and Mpumalanga. The damage-estimates

are being undertaken right now by the local farmers' cooperative, Grain-SA.

Monsanto claims that 'less than 25%' of three different corn varieties were

'insufficiently fertilised in the laboratory'.

 

80% crop failure

 

However Mayet says Monsanto was grossly understating the problem.According to

her own information, some farms have suffered up to 80% crop failures. The

centre is strongly opposed to GM-food and biologically-manipulated

technology in

general.

 

" Monsanto says they just made a mistake in the laboratory, however we say

that

biotechnology is a failure.You cannot make a 'mistake' with three different

varieties of corn.'

 

Demands urgent government investigation:

 

" We have been warning against GM-technology for years, we have been warning

Monsanto that there will be problems,' said Mayet. She calls for an urgent

government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods in South

Africa.

 

Of the 1,000 South African farmers who planted Monsanto's GM-maize this

year,

280 suffered extensive crop failure, writes Rapport.

 

Monsanto's local spokeswoman Magda du Toit said the 'company is engaged in

establishing the exact extent of the damage on the farms'. She did not want

to

speculate on the extent of the financial losses suffered right now.

 

Managing director of Monsanto in Africa, Kobus Lindeque, said however that

'less

than 25% of the Monsanto-seeded farms are involved in the loss'. He says

there

will be 'a review of the seed-production methods of the three varieties

involved

in the failure, and we will made the necessary adjustments.'

 

He denied that the problem was caused in any way by 'bio-technology'.

Instead,

there had been 'insufficient fertilisation during the seed-production

process'.

 

He also they were 'satisfied with Monsanto's handling of the case,' and said

Grain-SA was 'closely involved in the claims-adjustment methodology' between

the

farmers and Monsanto.

 

Farmers told Rapport that Monsanto was 'bending over backwards to try and

accommodate them in solving the problem.

 

" It's a very good gesture to immediately offer to compensate the farmers for

losses they suffered,' said Kobus van Coller, one of the Free State farmers

who

discovered that his maize cobs were practically seedless this week.

 

" One can't see from the outside whether a plant is unseeded. One must open up

the cob leaves to establish the problem,' he said. The seedless cobs show no

sign of disease or any kind of fungus. They just have very few seeds, often

none

at all.

 

The South African supermarket-chain Woolworths already banned GM-foods from

its

shelves in 2000. However South African farmers have been producing GM-corn

for

years: they were among the first countries other than the United States to

start

using the Monsanto products.

 

The South African government does not require any labelling of GM-foods.

Corn is

the main staple food for South Africa's 48-million people.

 

The three maize varieties which failed to produce seeds were designed with a

built-in resistance to weed-killers, and manipulated to increase yields per

hectare, Rapport writes [in Afrikaans].

 

_http://jv.news24.com/Rapport/Suid-Afrika/0,,752-2460_2493233,00.html_

(http://jv.news24.com/Rapport/Suid-Afrika/0,,752-2460_2493233,00.html)

 

 

 

 

 

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