Monsanto to Abort its Pursuit of More GM Crops in Europe

Biotech giant Monsanto announced Thursday that it will abandon its mission to get more genetically modified crops growing on European farms due to widespread and popular opposition to genetically modified organisms.

Instead, the world's largest seed corporation will invest "several hundred million dollars" on getting its arms into more of the natural seed market in Europe, as well as concentrating on getting approval for more imports of GM food.

"We will no longer be pursuing approvals for cultivation of new biotech crops in Europe," Monsanto, which has its headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., said in a statement.

"Instead, we will focus on enabling imports of biotech crops into the EU and the growth of our current business there."

The company said that its business in Europe is "strong and growing."

"In order to better serve farmers in Europe we will be investing several hundred million dollars in Europe over a decade to expand our conventional seed production and breeding," a Monsanto spokesperson told The Daily Telegraph.

Monsanto's retreat from the pursuit of growing more GM crops comes not long after another large biotech firm, Germany's BASF, also abandoned its attempts to expand the unpopular GM food market in Europe.

Pending applications for a variety of GM crops -- including six types of corn, a variety of soybean and a modified sugar beet -- will be withdrawn shortly, according to Monsanto.

An unnamed source at Monsanto told The Telegraph that the move to withdraw the applications for approval to cultivate new GM crops comes from frustrations with the delays in the approval process. The European Union has not approved a GM crop for cultivation since 1998.

"As the EU today is effectively a conventional seed market we have been progressively de-emphasizing cultivation of biotech crops in Europe," the source told The Telegraph.

"Amongst other things, this means we are no longer seeking approval to commercialize biotech seeds in the EU," the source said. "We intend to withdraw pending regulatory applications for commercial cultivation of new biotech crops in the EU."

Currently, Monsanto only sells one biotech seed product - a species of corn engineered to be resistant to a pest called the European corn borer. This corn species -- known as MON 810 -- is modified with a gene that produces a toxin that is poisonous to insects in the Lepidoptera order, which includes the corn borer.

MON 810 accounts for about one percent of all the corn cultivated in the EU, according to the Telegraph.

Last September, scientists from the University of Caen published a study showing that rats fed on a diet containing NK 603 -- a corn seed variety resistant to Monsanto's Roundup weed-killer -- died earlier than rats fed a standard diet, according to Russia Today.

Protests against Monsanto are frequent and worldwide. One of the latest anti-Monsanto campaigns is Monsanto Video Revolt, a collaborative effort to raise awareness over the controversial practices employed by Monsanto. The Revolt will take place online July 24.

Monsanto contends that it is in the business of serving farmers and that the presence of its products around the globe provides jobs as well as food.

The Telegraph reports that Monsanto is planning to invest about $300 million for expansions of corn production plants in France, Hungary, Romania and Turkey, a move that will reportedly create 150 new full-time jobs and many more seasonal jobs.