GM progress being made in Europe, says Monsanto chief

[nosmokes]

These guys are as bad as Shrubco when it comes to bald faced lies. Germany just passed stronger anti-GM legislation banning a GMO corn among other things and FRance is very close to passing similar legislation. The claim that farmers are going to lead the charge because of *significant progress* is dubious at best. So far claims of GMOs much greater yields have been more than a bit overblown and generally any gain made in yield is offset cost wise by the need for extra amendments and pesticides making the use of GMOs for the farmer at best a zero sum game if you don't take into account the degradation of the soil.
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original-foodnavigator

GM progress being made in Europe, says Monsanto chief

5/31/2007 - Europe is edging slowly towards GM acceptance, according to Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant, who underscored the continent's strategic importance and said his company is laying the groundwork should a policy-change come to pass.



Grant's comments, reported in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, were made at the Sanford Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York yesterday.


The newspaper cited Grant as saying Monsanto does not count on broad regulatory approvals in its financial projections, but the at the company is "laying the groundwork to take advantage of policy change if one should come".

European consumers been averse to genetically-modified foods since the concept was introduced in the 1990s, and acceptance has not been helped by the EU's slow approvals process.

The last time a crop was actually positively approved was in 1998. Three crops, one from Monsanto and two from a Pioneer-Dow AgroSciences joint venture, are up for debate next week. These do not seek the go ahead for cultivation in the EU, but rather for crops grown elsewhere to be used in feed and food processing in the bloc.

But Grant expects that farmers will play a key role in encouraging acceptance.

Biotech crops are being planted in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

"When farmers actually experience on their farm and their field, they don't go back," he said. "…From a farm perspective there is significant progress."






















complete article here

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Gotta have good news for the shareholders . . . .

[nosmokes]

2. I think it goes deeper than that.

Much of the so called support of engineered foods is actually like the GOP grass roots groups that sprout overnight, very well organized and well funded. Often what purports to be independent scientific sources expounding on the benefits of GMOs and what a saving grace they're going to be on a bit of investigation turn out to be just a front for Monsanto or another bio-tech corp.