African Experts Reject Monsanto’s Drought-Resistant GM Maize

ByChristina Sarich Hours Published on Hours Updated on

Might Monsanto play a role in California’s drought? If the company isn’t causing it directly, it at least plans to profit from it. To whit – the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), just lodged an appeal to South African Agriculture, Water Affairs, and Forestry Minister, Senzeni Zokwana, against the general release approval of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) maize, MON87460.

MON87460, a genetically modified corn meant to withstand drought conditions, has been deemed fit to plant by the Executive Council (EC). The approval by the EC means that Monsanto can sell the GM maize seed to farmers in South Africa for cultivation.

African law states that administrative decision-making must be based on rigorous food safety, environmental, and socio-economic assessments of the potential adverse effects of a GM or any crop, and should be taking into account international biosafety best practices. This is not what happened when MON87460 was given a green light. As usual, Monsanto provided its own, biased scientific evidence to the EC, and this is all that was used to give their GM maize approval.

The ‘drought-resistant’ corn will introduce unnatural and novel proteins into the environment. The ACB is extremely concerned about the absence of peer reviewed scientific data and evidence supporting the claims of Monsanto, that the corn will grow in water-limited and drought-prone Africa.

Specifically, there is a concern that the trials were conducted with conventionally-bred drought tolerant maize varieties into which the so-called transgenic drought-tolerant trait was introduced. If so, then the inherent drought-tolerant characteristics of the conventional maize (meaning corn that is already good at growing in drought-prone Africa without GM meddling) would confer an unfair, skewed, and ‘dishonest’ advantage to the GM variety.

There are multiple socio-economic risks as well, especially for small farmers. After all, they can’t stand to risk the chance that Monsanto’s ‘drought-resistant’ corn doesn’t work in Africa’s arid environment. They could literally lose the farm over taking that gamble.

Related posts:

  1. Monsanto Caught Pushing GMOs on Independent African Farmers
  2. Monsanto Earnings Fall 34% as Farmers Reject GMO Crops
  3. Fail: Brazilian GMO Maize Resistant to Pests Just 3 Years After Market Approval
  4. Report: Monsanto’s Latest GM Maize Doesn’t Reduce Pests or Increase Yields
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Featured at over 3,000 different alternative-health and consciousness-raising websites over the past decade, Christina Sarich has written over 10 books on curing cancer without chemo, brain hacking, habit formation, nutrition, yoga, positive psychology, brain entrainment with binaural beats, and meditation. She is an India-trained yoga teacher, technical writer, and author of Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga.

6 Comments

  1. Monsanto’s claims of GMOs being necessary for drought-resistant maize (or anything else) are fullabulla. Even the Monsanto shills at the USDA admitted that GMO drought-resistant stuff doesn’t out-perform natural varieties that have Already adapted to the local climate.

    Reply
  2. blank jerry bolwang Mohlamonyane says:

    can anyone out there advise me , I am farmer who plant maize every year. when I purchase seed I am always told that the seed will tolerate an average rain, but I end up losing again and again because of lack of enough rain. so I am interested in this drought tolerant seed. I never planted them , so can anyone tell me whether it does exist and how do they perform in drought areas as my area. and where can I buy the seeds. I am in dennilton area that’s next to Groblersdal.

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