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Syngenta: ‘No merit’ to nearly 1,000 GMO lawsuits in court

 

 

By JO ANN HUSTIS

Illinois Correspondent

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the face of nearly 1,000 legal complaints charging Swiss-based Syngenta with contaminating the nation’s corn with genetically modified (GMO) seed carrying the MIR 162 trait, U.S. spokesman Paul Minehart says the company believes there’s no merit to the complaints.

"(And) Syngenta strongly upholds the right of growers to have access to approved new technologies that can increase both their productivity and their profitability," Minehart noted in a Feb.18 email interview with Farm World.

Syngenta is a global Swiss agribusiness dealing in seeds and agrochemicals, biotechnology and genomic research. The lawsuits charge the company with selling GMO seed corn with the MIR 162 trait both nationwide and to foreign markets, including China, a major importer, while knowing the trait had yet to be approved by the Chinese Farm Ministry.

MIR 162 is genetically engineered to protect corn plants against damage from more than a dozen insect species such as corn borers and rootworms. China first refused to accept MIR corn in late 2013, and then began taking it after receiving a safety certificate from its regulatory authorities on Dec. 22, 2014.

Court documents show Syngenta spent up to seven years and $200 million developing the MIR 162 trait, then began selling it commercially as Agrisure Viptera in the United States in 2011, following USDA approval in 2010, the Minneapolis Star Tribune noted last month.

"Syngenta commercialized the trait in full compliance with regulatory and legal requirements," Minehart stated in the interview. "Syngenta has been fully transparent in commercializing the trait over the last four years. During this time, Agrisure Viptera has demonstrated major benefits for growers, preventing significant yield and grain quality losses resulting from damage by a broad spectrum of lepidopteron pests."

The lawsuits seek several million dollars in economic damages allegedly arising from the hiatus. Minehart said Syngenta will continue to assess its legal options. "But we don’t envision counterclaims against individual farmers," he stated. "We are committed to helping growers by delivering safe and effective innovations like Agrisure Viptera that help increase crop productivity and yield."

From Texas to Indiana, Alabama through the Midwest, the Carolinas, Kansas, Nebraska and Ohio, law firms are advertising their availability to consult with people considering legal action against Syngenta. These include GMO and non-GMO farmers, grain elevator operators, distributors, landlords, exporters and transporters, the ads note. A federal court panel that manages lawsuits involving large numbers of plaintiffs last month assigned Senior Judge John Lungstrum of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas in Kansas City to oversee the Syngenta cases in a consolidated action, the Star Tribune reported.

Mark Schneidewind of Joliet, Ill., longtime director of the Will County Farm Bureau, said last week the organization is "taking a step back on this" in regard to any involvement in the Syngenta issue.

"They’re not for it. They’re not against it. Right now, they’re in a neutral position on it," he noted of his organization. "It’s up to the individuals what they want to do, but as the Will County Farm Bureau, we’re not going to be signing on. We think that since China has said it is okay now for the market, we’ll sit back and let it go."

Proving claims charging loss of income stemming from China’s hiatus could be a difficult process, in Schneidewind’s opinion. "It’s not impossible, but it will be difficult to do that. That’s why there are so many attorneys out there, soliciting people to join in the class action lawsuits. But we’re not telling anybody no. It’s up to them. We as an organization are not stepping onto it."

John Hinrichs, facility manager at Prairie Creek Grain Co., Inc. in Elwood, Ill., said the MIR incident made an impact on the corn market for sure. "We didn’t have any (corn containers) that we sent over (to China) and they got rejected," he said. "But some of our local people were affected by multiple containers sitting on the docks overseas. They actually had to wind up going to a different location so they didn’t lose the money because they weren’t paying them for the containers."

3/5/2015