Monsanto May Sue Activists For Destroying Brazil Soy Crop

Dow Jones Newswires 29jan01

SAO PAULO -- Monsanto (MON), the U.S. agribusiness and biotechnology giant, may sue the leaders of last week's occupation and partial destruction of its experimental transgenic soybean farm in southern Brazil local media reported Monday.

Led by French activist farmer Jose Bove and Joao Pedro Stedile, of Brazil's Landless Workers Movement, some 1,300 farmers occupied the farm last Friday and destroyed some two hectares of soybeans in Nao Me Toques, 800 kilometers southwest of Sao Paulo, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The two were among the more than 3,000 opponents of globalization at the World Social Forum being held in the state capital of Porto Alegre.

According to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, Monsanto will ask authorities to determine the exact extent of the damage caused during the 20-hour-long occupation and then begin legal proceeding against Bove and Stedile.

Monsanto's press office said the company wouldn't comment on the newspaper's report.

"I would love to be sued by Monsanto," Bove told the newspaper. "It will give me a chance to return to Brazil and tell the courts how important it is to fight against transgenics."

Transgenics refers to genetically engineered plants or seeds.

The use of genetically engineered products in agriculture is banned in Brazil. Legislation dealing with the matter is still in Congress.

Activists at the Social Forum said as much as 30% of grain production in Brazil, one of the world's major producers, could have been grown from genetically-engineered seeds, smuggled in from neighboring countries.

Opponents of genetically altered food say there is still insufficient information on their long term effects.