Studie "The GMO-emperor has no clothes" (engl.) - Nabu

increasing seed and pesticide costs, which will
push them deeper into debt and suicide.
Monsanto was caught undertaking illegal GM
corn trials in the states of Bihar and Karnataka.
According to India’s Biosafety Laws, states must
approve trials; however, Monsanto had not
sought any such approval. The Chief Minister of
Bihar wrote to the Environment Minster to stop
the trials.
In February 2010, the Minister of Environment
of India, Jairam Ramesh, after conducting
public hearings across the country, ordered a
moratorium on the commercial release of Bt
Brinjal (eggplant). The hearing process exposed
the unscientific basis on which genetically
engineered crops are being commercialized and
the regulatory chaos and corruption in biosafety.
Monsanto is on the board of the US-India
Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, a bilateral
free trade agriculture agreement. This is one
example of how it gains access and exercises
undue influence on the U.S government and the
government of India.
Japan
There is currently no commercial cultivation
of GM crops in Japan; however, because Japan
imports approximately 60 percent of its food
and much of it is GMO, people are consuming
GMO foods.
Monsanto works with the U.S. government
to minimize any labeling standards in Japan.
As a result, labeling requirements are not
comprehensive. For example—there are no
mandatory rules to label oil products, most of
which contain GM soy, corn, or canola. Japan
also does not require labeling for animal feed.
And, Japan now allows food with GMO residues
of up to 5 percent to be labeled as “non GMO.”
GMOs are also entering Japan via food and seed
imports. GM canola seeds, spilled in transport,
are a particular problem and have crossed
with existing agricultural crops, weeds, and
edible plants. Wild-growing canola has been
contaminated by the GM canola and trans-gene
hybridization has occurred with food crops such
as broccoli and weeds such as tumble mustard.
When contamination is found, Monsanto claims
its patent rights, but does not take responsibility
for the threat to biodiversity caused by the spilled
GM canola.
* Debbie Barker, International Program Director,
Center for Food Safety, Washington D.C. Formerly
served as the co-director of the International Forum on
Globalization (IFG), a think tank that analyses and
critiques forms of economic globalization from 1996
to 2008. She recently authored ‘The Wheel of Life:
Food, Climate, Human Rights and the Economy’
issued by the CFS and the Heinrich the Heinrich Böll
Stiftung Foundation and ‘The Predictable Rise and
Fall of Global Industrial Agricultur’e, which highlights
international policies causing ecological and social harm,
and provides alternative strategies to the current food
system.
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