1.German biotech giant flees Europe
2.Chemical giant BASF flees Europe – no bad potatoes here please!

NOTE: Two excellent commentaries on the real lessons of BASF's departure from Europe.
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1.German biotech giant flees Europe
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman
Ground Truth, 23 January 2012
http://www.panna.org/blog/german-biotech-giant-flees-europe

Last week the giant German pesticide and biotech company (and largest chemical company in the world), BASF, announced its decision to pack up and flee Europe.

Why? For 13 years, ordinary Europeans have stood firm in challenging the right of biotech companies to dump their risky genetically engineered (GE) seeds onto their fields and have steadfastly rejected the intrusion of GE foods onto their plates. They built up an informed and powerful citizens' movement that has made itself heard, even over the din of the monied GE lobby. For this, hearty congratulations are due to our cousins across the Atlantic!

[inset: "We have no chance of a successful commercialization of GM plants in Europe." Stefan Marcinowski, BASF Board member.]

Unfortunately, BASF is headed straight for a research park here in the U.S. namely the Research Triangle in North Carolina, which has become a hub for the biotech industry. BASF will be joining over 70 agricultural technology companies there, the Winston-Salem Journal reports, including Bayer CropScience and Syngenta.

Not too far off in St. Louis is Monsanto, which BASF is collaborating with on (among other things) a new dicamba-resistant GE crop line. This is yet one more in the pipeline of ecologically disastrous herbicide-resistant GE crops I've been writing about lately.

Americans rejecting GE too

UC Berkeley professor of microbial ecology, Ignacio Chapela, explains what's behind BASF's decision to pull out of Europe in Counter Punch:

"The future holds very little promise for GMOs altogether, and BASF is only the first [company] to have the capacity to recognize the thirty years of bad investments”¦The reasons for the failure of BASF's products in Europe are many and very diverse, but the fundamental truth stands that over the decades no real benefit has offset the proven harm caused by GMOs."
http://bit.ly/zZYGjl

Indeed. And for this very reason, finally even on this side of the Atlantic where industry influence often seems to drown out everything else Americans from all walks of life are saying "no" to GMOs and to corporate influence over our food and farm policies. 

See, for example:

*Naomi Starkman's latest piece in the Huffington Post about surging consumer demand for a GE label and the Just Label It campaign;
http://huff.to/xNvFUa
http://justlabelit.org/

*the new video on our right to know what’s in our food, by Food Inc. filmmaker Robert Kenner;
http://bit.ly/AA8Icu

*the Missouri Farmers' Union policy statement on biotechnology;
http://bit.ly/zoO5ur

*the lawsuit filed against Monsanto last year by 83 family farmers, independent seed businesses and agricultural organizations representing over 300,000 farmers.
http://www.pubpat.org/mtdoppfiled.htm

With BASF moving into our backyard, and teaming up with the rest of the Big 6 chemical companies, we've got our work cut out for us.

Shred the GE welcome mat

The impacts of BASF's move go beyond Europe and the U.S., Chapela reminds us. "As we celebrate the lifting of perhaps one third of the pressure upon Europe to give in to GMOs, let's not forget those places where they will continue to be used as the effective spear-head of corporate biological mining of other lands."

The implications of BASF relocating to the United States are not limited to intensified pressure on U.S. farmers and farm policy, although I can already hear the clatter of even more industry coins pouring into Congress tills. The additional impacts we can expect as BASF uses its North American base to push deeper into Latin American and Asian markets include a likely increase in violent acts against Indigenous and peasant farmers who resist the GE invasion (as has happened in Brazil), further threats to the regions' precious agricultural and biological diversity, and erosion of small-scale farmers’ livelihoods.

BASF is one of the world's Big 6 pesticide companies recently indicted for human rights abuses at an international People's Permanent Tribunal. Now it's up to us to transform our outrage at these abuses, take inspiration from our European cousins' perseverance and success, and tear up the GE welcome mat that's been out for far too long here at home.
http://bit.ly/tbjRFD
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2.Chemical giant BASF flees Europe – no bad potatoes here please!
Marco Contiero
Greenpeace, 23 January 2012
http://www.truefood.org.au/newsandevents/?news=140

The biggest chemical company in the world, BASF, is moving to the US because Europeans don't want its genetically engineered potatoes.

Just days ago, the company announced its decision to move its main laboratory for the development of genetically engineered (GE) crops to the US. BASF said the move was a business decision based on the acknowledgment of the market failure of BASF's flagship crop, the antibiotic-resistant potato Amflora. After the enormous political and media coverage Amflora turned out to be a commercial flop! 

This is very good news for Europe. But why did BASF take this decision and what does it mean for the future of GE crops in Europe?

In its press release BASF stated it had decided to “halt the development and commercialisation of all [genetically modified] products that are targeted solely for cultivation in the European markets”. The short explanation for this move was for BASF to take advantage of the practically non-existent regulatory system for GE crops in the US, which would result in increased profits. But there is much more to it than that. It has been increasingly difficult for BASF to disregard the public opposition to GE crops. According to the latest official figures 70 percent of European citizens find GE crops 'unnatural' and 61 percent of them oppose the development of these crops. And let's not forget that Greenpeace twice gathered one million signatures against GE crops and that several EU member states have banned the only two GE crops authorised for cultivation in Europe. 

BASF itself acknowledged the power of the people when it said that the opposition is not only coming from Greenpeace activists opposing the commercialisation of GE crops but also from "the majority of consumers, farmers and politicians". This contradicts the dozens of so-called 'industry sources' (often disguised as independent commentators) that often portray European farmers as desperately willing to plant GE seeds on their soil. 

Regardless of this BASF said that the move from Europe is a natural development and that it will concentrate its work on the Americas and "the growth markets in Asia". The growth markets in Asia? What growth markets? Could BASF be referring to the ground-breaking Indian decision to put a moratorium on the approval of the Bt Brinjal (eggplant) in 2010? Or the decision of the government of Thailand to keep their rice GE-free? Or could BASF even be referring to the Chinese government's declaration to suspend until further notice any commercialisation of GE-rice?!

Clearly not. But the masterpiece of BASF's media spin in their press release must be their distortion of terminology. They equate 'biotechnology' and 'genetic engineering'. This is wrong. No-one in Europe, and certainly not Greenpeace, is against biotechnology. If we were we would be against producing beer.  And let me say here Greenpeace is not against producing beer, nor any of the other biotechnologies that improve our lives. Greenpeace has only ever expressed very serious scientific concerns and flagged the many environmental, economic and political problems with GE crops. Greenpeace is not against 'biotechnology', we are against bad biotechnology like GE crops. There are several other plant biotechnologies available. Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) for instance, which is also known as Smart Breeding which is more effective, cheaper and less risky than GE.

Greenpeace supports Smart Breeding not only because it doesn’t pose the health and environmental risks of GE crops, but also because it is cheaper which makes it easier for public institutions to use it.

So where does all this leave us? BASF's decision sends a strong signal once and hopefully for all that there is no market for GE crops in Europe. What we want to see from now on is a substantial shift in the research and development agenda of Europe. Politicians, research institutions and private foundations must acknowledge the market failure of GE crops and start investing massively in solutions-based research, firstly in agro-ecology and secondly in advanced plant breeding using modern biotechnologies like Smart Breeding. The citizens want a GE-free Europe, the farmers want it, politicians want it and Greenpeace definitely wants it. Sorry BASF, no bad potatoes here!  

Marco Contiero, EU Policy Director – Sustainable Agriculture & Genetic Engineering, Greenpeace European Unit & Lasse Bruun, Senior Campaigner – Sustainable Agriculture & Genetic Engineering, Greenpeace International