Monsanto gives up on GM foods in Europe

LONDON: GM giant Monsanto is effectively pulling out of Europe after years of delays in trying to secure approval for “Frankenstein food” crops.

The US- based company is dropping all of its requests to launch insect and pesticide-resistant forms of corn, sugar beet and soya beans. Campaigners said Monsanto had simply realised that the vast majority of people in Europe would not eat the foods.

Biotech firms have been deterred from growing genetocally modified crops in Europe by the tightest controls in the world. But Britain’s environment secretary, science minister and chief scientist have publicly given the crops their blessing and last month Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said Brussels was putting British jobs at risk by dragging its feet over GM crops.

He also made the extraordinary claim that millions of children in the developing world were “dying or going blind” because the controversial technique had not been more widely adopted.

EU member states have long been split on GM, leading to delays in the licensing of new strains. Only a handful of applications have been approved and the seven being withdrawn by Monsanto have been lodged for a cumulative total of 50 years.

Its European arm will now focus on conventional crops and weed killer. Other GM companies, such as Bayer CropScience, Syngenta and BASF have also scaled back or dropped efforts to get crops accepted in Europe.

Earlier this year German firm BASF abandoned plans for blightresistant potatoes.

Campaign group GM Freeze welcomed Monsanto’s announcement but pointed out the firm’s GM crops will still be used in animal feed and biofuels. The decision will not affect Monsanto’s existing European GM crop, an insect-resistant maize. MON 810 is Europe’s only genetically modified plant cultivated commercially and is grown for animal feed in Spain. – Daily Mail