Five Million Nigerians Oppose Monsanto's Plans to Introduce GMO Cotton and Corn

[villager]

Millions of Nigerians are urging the Nigerian government to reject Monsanto’s attempts to introduce genetically modified (GMO) cotton and maize into the country’s food and farming systems.

One-hundred organizations representing more than 5 million Nigerians, including farmers, faith-based organisations, civil society groups, students and local community groups, have submitted a joint objection to the country’s National Biosafety Management Agency (NABMA) expressing serious concerns about human health and environmental risks of genetically altered crops.

The groups’ petition follows Monsanto Agricultural Nigeria Limited’s own application to NAMBA that seeks to release GMO cotton (Bt cotton, event MON 15985) into the city of Zaria as well as surrounding towns. Another application seeks confined field trials of two GMO corn varieties (NK603 and stacked event MON 89034 x NK603) in multiple locations in Nigeria.

In a press release, the groups said they are particularly alarmed about the commercial release of Bt cotton into Nigeria, which is being phased out in Burkina Faso due to the “inferior lint quality” of the GMO cultivars.

“We are totally shocked that it should come so soon after peer-reviewed studies have showed that the technology has failed dismally in Burkina Faso,” Nnimmo Bassey, the director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, one of the leading opposition groups, said in a statement. “It has brought nothing but economic misery to the cotton sector there and is being phased out in that country where compensation is being sought from Monsanto.”

<snip>

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/five-million-nigerians-oppose-monsanto-s-plans-to-introduce-gmo-cotton-and-corn

[AngryAmish]

1. As if such a thing as "Nigerians" exist.

Tribal societies are tribal.

[villager]

2. You are free to go to Nigeria and tell them none of them exist.

It would be very "Monsanto-like" of you, actually.

[AngryAmish]

4. Swish!

[villager]

6. As in you're full of hot air?

True enough.

[jillan]

13. .....

[marions ghost]

3. Thank You

Nigerians

[villager]

5. Breaking: Nigerians don't actually exist!

According to posters in this very thread, they are as "real" as Bigfoot! Or less real.

Therefore, a Western corporation is free to do whatever it wants to these non-existent "others!"

[marions ghost]

7. They seem to have a very large collective voice

for people who don't exist. They seem to be pushing back on Big Agra.

Smart.

[villager]

8. But they are tribal "others" -- not a real country at all!

Therefore, Western corporations should be given a free hand to deal with these tribal tribalists!

[marions ghost]

10. Yeah but those tribal people reject our exploitation

Why Don't They Love Monsanto?

(And America is not tribal (?) OK we're balkanized in a different way--but we still call it a country...)

[AxionExcel]

9. Whatever, whoever, you can be sure the GMO pimps will label them "stupid"

for wanting to control their own lives and land...the way they label the 92% majority of Americans as 'stupid' for wanting knowledge about what they are feeding themselves and their children.

The 'stupid' gambit - also known as the Republican IGNORANCE IMPERATIVE - is working for Donald Trump, so the GMO Cadre thinks it will work for them.

[villager]

11. You mean, after declaring that they don't really exist, the back-up is that if they *do*

...they are "stupid?"

Well, makes sense for an Imperialist agenda. These tribal "others" can't really know what's best for them, can they?

[AxionExcel]

12. You got it. Big Ag- and its chemical, pharmaceutical and GMO inputs - are Neo-Colonialist profiteers

"Dominated by giant entities like Cargill, Monsanto, Dupont and ADM, Big Ag’s staff regularly pass through revolving doors into and out of government regulatory departments, shaping official attitudes and policies around their way of growing and distributing of food.

"These multinational business behemoths then compete relentlessly with one another for an enlarged share of the global market, much like nations competed in the colonial era for control of large swaths of land and resources in Africa, Asia and Central and South America.

“Neo-colonialism” is, in fact the term used by Dr. Vandana Shiva and most commentators to describe this enduring pattern of behaviour. Giant food corporations strive to gain hegemony over national work forces and resource sectors as well as government policymakers and regulators."

(Watch now as the Ad Hominem corporate Talking Points about Dr. Shiva begin 'mysteriously' to appear. As always. She is a brilliant, articulate woman. That makes her a favorite target. The Borg cannot abide that. No doubt Donald Trump - and the GMO Happy Borg Contingent - will again call her stupid, tell her to get back in the kitchen, and refuse to face the FACTS she presents so cogently).

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/05/opinion/vandana-shivas-organic-food-advocacy-inspires-bc-farmers

[AxionExcel]

14. Yet another dimension of the Great Problem, Inc.

[Scalded Nun]

15. They put us to shame

For disparate groups/tribes/etc., at least they can figure out how to come together for their mutual benefit.

That is something we in this country have not figured out.

[chapdrum]

16. As if that will make a difference.

Sadly.

Like the old saying about Sinatra: "It's Monsanto's world; we just live in it."

Artificial entities have taken over.

[killbotfactory]

17. What? They think a strain of cotton invented in a US lab doesn't work as well...

as strains of cotton that have been selectively bred to work well in local conditions? Just because a neighboring nation who farmers tried it came to those conclusions?

Luddites.