In the latest attack on a U.S. company’s biotech research unit in Brazil last Friday, it was the women’s turn.
On March 7, an estimated 300 Brazilian women activists raided a research unit of U.S. agricultural biotech company Monsanto, destroying an experimental field of genetically modified corn and a tree nursery, according to a Reuters report.
The group of activists protested the Brazilian government’s decision last month to give clearance for two varieties of GMO (genetically modified organism) corn for commercial use — MON 810, produced by Monsanto, and Liberty Link, made by Germany’s Bayer CropScience.
The temporary occupation of the facilities, located in Santa Cruz das Palmeiras, in Sao Paulo state, lasted around 30 minutes, a spokesman for Via Campesina, a group defending peasants and land reform, told Reuters by telephone.
"The authorization of these varieties shows once more that (President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s) government favors agribusiness and big foreign companies, abandoning land reform and family farming," Via Campesina said in a statement to Reuters.
The invasion is one in a series planned through this week by the group to mark International Women’s Day (officially observed Saturday, March 8) with a struggle against agribusiness and monoculture, the spokesman said.
Monsanto condemned the invasion in a statement, saying that "in a democratic regime, disagreements, ideological or not, should be expressed through legal ways."
The two varieties were the first GMO corn to receive final clearance for commercial use in Brazil. Monsanto soybean and cotton GMO varieties have been legal in the country for several years. Monsanto said small farmers could benefit the most from biotechnology, according to Reuters.
(Source: Reuters)
