US Farmers Launch Billion Dollar Class Action Suit Against Syngenta Over Chinese GMO Corn Scandal [View all]

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/10/14/us-farmers-launch-billion-dollar-class-action-suit-syngenta-chinese-gmo-corn-scandal/


Syngenta may have single-handedly destroyed the corn export business that US farmers count on, while depressing local domestic corn prices. Now, the biotech giant will have to face a $1 billion claim in Federal Court being launched by farmers in three different states.

China has recently rejected huge shipments of US-grown GMO corn largely because Syngenta released a genetically altered variety before its was approved for consumption or sale in Chinese markets.

Volnek Farms of Omaha claims that Syngenta, the Hopkins Minnesota-based biotech company that is responsible for covering up the true toxicity of Atrazine, has “completely destroyed US exports of corn to China.”

Cronin Inc. and Jim Ruba Jr. from Sioux City, Iowa claim that they do not even use GM corn, but they have been hurt by Syngenta’s actions because their GMO variety, Viptera, cross-bred with their non-GMO corn crops. They also claim that Syngenta’s statements were misleading relating to the approval status of MIR162 corn in China, and this has hurt farmers who did plant that variety. The long-term ramifications of this strain of GMO corn will continue to depress the corn markets both here and in foreign markets for years.

In a Springfield, Illinois Federal Court, similar claims will be made, that Syngenta’s Agrisure Viptera (MIR162) first released for planting n 2009 to prevent insects such as corn borer and corn rootworm form destroying crops, may have been approved by US regulatory agencies, but Syngenta claimed that they would be accepted in foreign markets too, before those agencies had in fact cleared the GM crops for import.