No, that's not a typo of some sort. It really is happening, the agri giant Syngenta is filing a lawsuit against, get ready for this, the European Union. At first i wondered how do you sue a continent, but I found out that there is a European Justice Court in Luxembourg that hears cases of this magnitude. The case is all about the EU attempting to protect the people, citizens of the EU itself. That protection is no where near comprehensive enough for me, but it is a beginning. One that will never happen here in America as the political machine controlling such things takes way way too much money in the form of graft and kickbacks to ever pass laws or make policies that would protect American citizens. The issue, neonicotinide insecticides. The European Commission voted earlier this year to ban their use for two years in all of the EU. The ban takes effect on December 1 of this year. Syngenta manufactures neonicontinide insecticides. The company would prefer to continue to sell the stuff to Europena farmers and not just sit on their hands and inventories.
The company has a website, and they talk about the bee problem. (Syngenta propaganda) They talk about how in their field trials, and in lab tests, the stuff never killed bees. I don't know, but I thought that was what an insecticide did, it killed insects. And when you use a neonicotinide insect killer that persists in the ground for years, is absorbed readily by the roots of growing plants, is measured in the pollen and nectar of fruiting plants in the incredibly low area of single digit parts per billion and still has the power to have that magical LD50 kill rate. In the neighborhood of 1 to 2 PARTS PER BILLION!
Syngenta reports that their own tests prove that their "Cruiser" pesticide does not kill bees.
The Syngenta website also states some other interesting things. The claim is that Syngenta supports biodiversity as it is the foundation of sustainable agriculture. Syngenta manufactures Genetically Modified crops, the very antithesis of biodiversity. If all farmers grow three of four varieties of a crop instead of locally adapted strains that were derived over generations of breeding for a specific micro climate and soil then you pretty much lose any biodiversity and set the world up for huge problems should a crop fail, like from insects, disease, or infection. All things that are possible in a world of crops that are genetically similar and where evolution is promoting the growth of resistant pests, weeds and diseases.
The website also goes into detail about the Atrazine lawsuit and how Syngenta is greatly disappointed that for once an honest judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit against Syngenta over the Holiday Shores debacle. They settled earlier this year, for a paltry sum, and as always, the lawyers made more than the water companies did. The lawsuit was about how to meet EPA standards of providing water that had less than 3 parts per billion of Atrazine in it they had to build huge filtration systems to remove the toxic stuff from the water supplies as it is widely used by farmers all over the place as a weed killer. The thing is, we know it is toxic, the EPA says so, it runs off the land in huge amounts, persists for years and years, destroys aquatic life wherever it is, and is legal to make and use everywhere in the US.
Next on the Syngenta website is the statement that agricultural biotechnology is necessary in our modern world as it is the only method to improve productivity and to ensure higher quality crops grown in sustainable and environmentally safe methods. I don't know if you the reader has ever read anything else about GM crops or not, but that whole statement is just unbelievable flawed. GM crops are proven in laboratory testing to be inferior nutritionally. European farming methods have far and above out produced American and Canadian use of GM crops, high amounts of herbicide and pesticide usage. (Try this one, I write about GM crops a lot)
One of the weird things about the Syngenta website is their position on child labor. They claim they are against it and do not ever use it. Wow, I had never heard of this aspect of GM crop production before, so I did a search on Google for Syngenta, child labor. And I learned a lot. Seems that they have been deep in lawsuits and criminal activity for using child labor in the manufacture of the GM seeds for years. So, the normal thing to do for big companies, deny it ever happened. I wish I could just say the same thing, I never married that woman. Sigh, it just isn't true though, no matter how hard I wish it never happened, it did.
Last is this direct quote, "Organic production methods and organic food products represent a
legitimate personal choice and occupy a valid position in the market.
However, there is no evidence that organic agriculture is safer or more
environmentally-friendly than other types of production, or that it is
resource-efficient enough to meet the demands of today and the future."
Amish farmers regularly exceed production levels than of chemical GM farms, using horses. Yeah, a little more time involved, but then there are similar examples of people using modern techniques and organic farms become considerably more profitable than traditional chemical GM farms. I guess the point of all of this is that Syngenta, not unlike Monsanto, my ex-wife, my eldest brother and most politicos; all feel that they are in fact not only without fault, incapable of error, and above the law as well. If in fact Syngenta goes to court with this lawsuit, they have the backing to get numerous scientists to write whatever they want them to and those reports will show the same findings, that insecticides don't kill insects.
If that were true, why do they sell them then.
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