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German, French Farmers Destroy GMO Contaminated Rapeseed Crops

Thursday, March 7, 2019

French and German farmers have been forced to dig up thousands of hectares of rapeseed fields after authorities found an illegal genetically modified (GM) strain mixed in with the natural seeds they had bought from Bayer-Monsanto, according to RT World News on February 07. Authorities discovered the illegal seeds in three separate batches of rapeseed seeds last fall, but the public has only just been notified. 
While Bayer issued a recall, by the time the farmers learned of it some of the seeds had already been planted, covering 8,000 hectares in France and 3,000 hectares in Germany.  Bayer-Monsanto estimated the number of rogue seeds at just about 0.005 percent of the total volume of rapeseed seeds sold to both nations under the brand name Dekalb, but each country has a ban on GMO cultivation, with strict penalties for “accidental” contamination of standard crops.  According to Bayer’s French COO Catherine Lamboley, farmers had also been barred from growing rapeseed next year “to avoid a re-emergence of the GM strain”.  The company had offered to compensate farmers at a rate of €2,000/ha, which would total to around €20M between both countries.

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