MONSANTO  THREATENS  ARGENTINA etc

Argentina is constantly portrayed by biotech boosters as hot for this technology. Yet Monsanto's agriculture director for southern Latin America says of Argentina:

"The risk that we're running is that as a country we could be left behind in a technology that we had the opportunity to latch onto first, and now it seems like we want to give it up".

That sounds more like cold feet than hot for GMOs!

But the article below also makes it clear that any attempt on Argentina's part to regulate GMO commercialisation on its own terms will be met with corporate intimidation with the corporate gene giant saying it "may close some operations in  Argentina if the government does not loosen restrictions on genetically modified (GM) food production".

Monanto's threats as to what may happen in Argentina, if it doesn't get its way, is highly reminiscent of the way in which Monsanto and Novartis are known to have previously threatened the Republic of Ireland over its resistance to speeding up GM beet approval.  In that case, the Gene Giants threatened a withdrawl of all non-GM beet seed to Irish farmers by Novartis, commenting :

"Given the importance of Novartis on the Irish market, this would have serious implications for the Irish sugar beet industry" - a major ag industry in Ireland.
[http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer1/blackmail.html]

And if this is how Monsanto deals with the likes of Argentina - one of the world's agricultural giants, one can imagine how poorer countries likely to fare at the hands of the corporate bullies.
 
Two Reuters' items -- thanks to Luke Anderson for these:

1.    Argentine GM policy endangers investment - Monsanto
2.    EU close to agreement on new genetic crop law

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1.    Argentine GM policy endangers investment - Monsanto
       Reuters News Service, December 13, 2000

BUENOS AIRES - Agribusiness giant Monsanto Co may close some operations in  Argentina if the government does not loosen restrictions on genetically modified (GM) food production, a company official said.

Argentina's policy of authorizing new GM products only if they have been approved in European Union endangers Monsanto's projects including an $8 million cotton seed processing plant joint venture, said MiguelPotocnik, Monsanto's agriculture director for southern Latin America.

"This investment is in danger and if (the cotton seeds) don't get approved it  could be yet another plant that closes in Argentina," Potocnik told Reuters in a recent interview.

U.S.-based Monsanto produces herbicides such as Roundup, seeds and related  genetic trait products to help farmers grow crops with higher yields while controlling weeds, insects and diseases.

The company's "Roundup Ready" cotton has not been authorized by Argentina's  Agriculture Ministry, which is trying to balance local interests with the  increasing hostility abroad toward GM products.

Organizations like Greenpeace have rallied public sentiment, especially in  Europe, against what they derisively describe as "Frankenstein foods" on the grounds that not enough is known about gene-altered crops to deem them safe.

Argentina is the world's second-largest producer of GM crops but concern has grown about their viability as its No. 1 trading partner Brazil has lately stiffened its ban on GM crops and their importation.  "The risk that we're running is that as a country we could be left behind in  a technology that we had the opportunity to latch onto first, and now it seems like we want to give it up," Potocnik said.

About 90 percent of Argentina's 10 million-hectare soybean crop sprouts from Monsanto's seeds.
An Agriculture Ministry spokesman told Reuters recently that Argentina's GM policy had allowed it to gain the upper hand over the United States in  exporting corn to Spain.

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2.     EU close to agreement on new genetic crop law
        Reuters News Service, France 13 December 2000

STRASBOURG - The European Union is close to a compromise on new stricter
rules for genetically modified products, the European Parliament said on Tuesday.

The new rules, which update 10-year-old regulations, have been delayed by disagreements between the European Parliament and EU governments.  But a compromise is now close at hand, the parliament said in a statement.  It is not clear, however, whether agreement on the new law would actually  lead to a lifting of the de facto EU moratorium on new genetically modified (GM) crops that has angered the United States, the world's major GM crop grower.

The EU has not authorised any new GM crops since April 1998 due to growing fears they might pose health or environmental risks.

In June 1999, a majority of EU environment ministers informally agreed to block further approvals until EU legislation was revised. But French Environment Minister Dominique Voynet said earlier this year the  EU should continue to block the authorisation of new GM crops even after the
new stricter rules are in place because the measures will not go far enough.

Under the compromise, the parliament and EU governments agreed that GM products undergoing trials should be registered and details made available to  the public. The parliament will also urge the EU's executive Commission to bring forward  by July 2001 a legislative proposal for implementing the Cartagena Protocol  on Biosafety, which says that importing countries should be notified of and give their consent to any imports of GM products.

The European Commission is also expected to pledge to bring forward proposals next year on labelling and traceability of GMO products.  Under these proposals, products containing GM products would be labelled and  it would be possible to establish where the GM ingredients came from.

Such proposals could go some way to meeting the concerns of Voynet and other ministers.