Wednesday December 15, 10:22 am Eastern Time
INTERVIEW-French farmer blames Monsanto for GM woe
By Greg Frost
PARIS, Dec 15 (Reuters) - A French farmer named in a class action lawsuit
against Monsanto Co (NYSE:MTC - news) said he blames the life-sciences
giant's involvement in genetically modified (GM) crops for miring him in a
legal dispute dating back to 1997.
Patrick de Kochko, an organic farmer in southwest France and the only
non-American named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the lawyers who filed the
landmark antitrust suit against Monsanto on Tuesday asked him to join as a
plaintiff because of legal problems over his 1996 soybean crop.
De Kochko said he believes a unit of Monsanto sold him soybean seeds
containing GM material, which then contaminated his crop and made it
difficult for him to market his soybeans.
``The lawyers were looking for someone who had experienced damages because
of GM seeds, and that's what happened to me,'' de Kochko said in a telephone
interview with Reuters.
``I'm just a modest peasant...(but) the principle that disturbs me is that
people create these things which then escape into the environment and then
they don't care what happens with them,'' he said.
De Kochko, who farms some 45 hectares, said he bought seeds for his 1996
organic soybean crop from Asgrow, a seed company that now belongs to
Monsanto.
He said he had no reason to think the seeds used to produce the soybean crop
were contaminated with GM substances.
Organic crops are grown without the use of chemicals and are not supposed to
contain any GM products.
Demand for organic soybeans has soared as consumers in Europe and Japan look
for alternatives to GM crops amid consumer concerns about their possible
effects on human health.
Indeed, organic farmers believe bioengineered food poses a threat to their
lifestyle, partly amid fears it could weaken the natural techniques organic
farmers use to produce their crops.
GM SURPRISE
De Kochko said he was surprised when a tofu manufacturer in Germany who had
bought some of his crop from a cooperative contacted him in 1997 to say that
consumer fraud officials had found traces of GM material in the beans.
De Kochko said the German authorities traced the contaminated soybeans back
to his crop, although he believes the contamination could have come from
imported soybeans used by the German manufacturer which were mixed with his
own.
``The problem is it's difficult to know the origin of the contamination.
It's not definitive that the pollution came from France,'' de Kochko said.
But he also said he has since learned that Asgrow only guaranteed the purity
of its seeds to 99 percent, meaning there was a possibility some of the
seeds he bought may have been contaminated.
De Kochko said he has filed a separate lawsuit in France against as yet
unnamed parties to find out why his soybeans may have contained GM material.
He said that while he is currently the only named non-U.S. plaintiff in the
lawsuit against Monsanto, more could emerge.
``There are other international producers who have suffered similar
damages,'' de Kochko said.
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Washington accuses Monsanto of trying to
monopolise GM crops and failing to thoroughly test the products for safety.