Posted on 04/17/2009 9:28:02 AM PDT by Squidpup
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'.
And Grain-SA's Nico Hawkins says they 'are still support GM-technology; 'We will support any technology which will improve production.' see
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.
transpiration = Transportation (DOT)
But there will be depts of transpiration and respiration in our future.
Why do you say it is a monopoly. As I understand it, they do have competitors—Dow/Pioneer for one.
For now. Think Thinsulate.
My 5th grade teacher told us there would new be anything better than goosedown. My mother was told the atom would never be split.
The problem is, if you can produce a variety of food in the marketplace that doesn’t seed, for whatever reason and these varieties become the standard...what are you left to fall back on should something like this happen? If “natural” and yes I am quoting that because while not bioengineered, no modern cultivate crop ios from from having been manipulated by human intervention at some point along the way, plants aren’t being grown, you don’t have seed for the next year.
No idea what would happen on a commercial level, but I keep hearing ads for Heirloom seeds & I bought some Heirloom tomatoeslast year. Yum.
According to the source, Monsanto is alreasdy compensating the farmers. By doing so they are acknowledging fault, so if they try to stiff anyone a lawsuit against them will be open and shut.
and upon cross pollination with local varieties... the seedlessness spreads and within a few generations, you have crops that won’t produce more seeds.
at which point, famine is within sight
Again, I would have misgivings about doing any business where “village elders” make the law.
bttt
So far I haven’t been impressed!
The gsins in agriculture are pretty small so far, in large part because we suffer from chronic overproduction.
“The seedless cobs show no sign of disease or any kind of fungus. They just have very few seeds, often none at all.”
RUH ROH!
;-)
“They just have to market it as “new diet corn”!”
Sell it to the Muslims as ‘organic toilet paper’.
With luck, a bidding war between Mad Mo’s followers and local Hippy types might break out.
Good thought! :)
Isn’t it great that this is what they want to do to us here in America too?
Okay,,, a couple of comments:
1) Monsanto also sells seed that doesn’t carry the ‘Terminator’ Gene,, and I didn’t read anything that indicated this seed carried that gene.
2) Corn seed is not treated with fertilizer before it is planted. Fertilizer is applied to the SOIL prior to planting the seed.
3) Corn is polinated, with the assistance of BREEZE, not Bees, when the pollen from the tassle settles onto the silks which emerge from the ear.
4) High temps at the time of polination is not a desirable situation, as the high heat interfers with polination.
I am not an agronomist. But my youngest son is. He and his father are both CCA’s (Certified Crop Advisors). I’ve been farming for 45 years, and know just a little bit about how things work in a cornfield.
There is definitely MORE TO THIS STORY than what is being reported in this article.
Ignorant whacknut with a very clear and obvious agenda.
So would I. What does that have to do with a centralized state like South Africa?
“Monsanto is the devil.”
Oh really? I just thot they were a publically held corporation—i.e. MON, based in St. Louis.
*
No, Monsanto really is the devil.
SA is barely one step removed.
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