Monsanto, Cargill’s Ukraine Takeover Could Open the GMO Floodgates for Europe and Other Nations

 

Guest Post by Nogenics with special thanks to J.P. Sottile

That same day the former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych, was deposed, the fledgling new Ukraine government had miraculously found time to sign a major and complicated deal with the oligarchic U.S. agribusiness behemoth Cargill, who has been in Ukraine for over two decades.[1]according to a Financial Times article.  [2]

This came on the heels of the former president Yanukovych rejecting the infamous trade deal with the European Union that just came two months earlier to his overthrow. Unfazed by his decision, as if Cargill was looking through a crystal ball, they went out and paid with all confidence $200 million to buy a stake in Ukraine’s largest land farmer UkrLandFarming which happens to be the world’s eighth largest crop grower and second-largest egg producer.

Cargill had earlier invested in grain elevators & acquiring a major a Ukrainian animal feed company [3] back in 2011. Not to be outdone by Cargill, biotech Company DuPont, equipment manufacturer John Deere, Pharma giant Eli Lilly and the notorious Monsanto have all been carving out their own macro fiefdoms in Ukraine.

As Reuters reported [4] in May 2013, Monsanto, the largest seed company in the world, plans to build a $140 million “non-GM corn” seed plant in Ukraine and work with them in producing an “enhanced corn variety,” whatever that really means.

Right after the decision on the EU trade deal, Jesus Madrazo, Monsanto’s Vice President for Corporate Engagement, reaffirmed [5] his company’s “commitment to Ukraine & the importance of creating a favorable political environment that encourages American biotech innovations to foster a new era of agriculture…”

With its Monsanto partnership on GMO corn, soy, cotton and canola, and is 13th of December 2013 purchase of a stake in a Black Sea grain terminal [6] at Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast, Cargill is set to start its mass supply, storage and proliferation of Genetically Modified Ukrainian corn to the unsuspected third world countries that have increasingly relied on Ukraine vs. the USA for the past 15 years as an alternative GMO free source of imported carbohydrates like wheat (although GMO wheat is not commercially available yet) and corn.

Lebanon, stuck between a GMO corn cob and a hard place?

In Lebanon, Ukrainian corn and wheat and other carbohydrate-rich food imports have been steadily gaining market share over their American varieties for the past 15 years or so. Lebanese flour millers have found Ukrainian wheat to being more versatile, quicker to ship, higher in quality, less contaminated, more abundant and most importantly cheaper on the open market then its American counterpart.

Over the period 2009-2012, Lebanon’s food imports from Ukraine have increased by an average annual rate of 47% to reach USD 196.0 million in 2012.  [7]

Non GM corn contributes to a 36% share of total food imports from Ukraine to Lebanon followed by sunflower seeds and wheat with respective shares of 29% and 27%.  [7]

 

With Cargill & Monsanto’s soft coup over Ukraine’s agricultural sector complete, the future of Lebanon’s food security of non-GM corn & wheat may be up in smoke.

“… We’ve already tested positive last year on this toxic Monsanto GMO soy being imported into Lebanon to feed our cattle [8]…” said a high ranking Lebanese customs official who wishes to stay anonymous.

Local Lebanese officials had their doubts confirmed after a local university lab had the imported cattle feed soy tested positive for transgenic events in their state of the art laboratory in Beirut.  [9] The official later added “…You think that any of those other grains are safe? The corn, the soy, the rice even the wheat are all third choice. Anything shipped for the public is third choice; only the wealthy are eating in this county, the rest are slowly dying!”

Like many government officials worldwide, Lebanese officials attribute GM crops to a low substandard or mass produced “third choice” crop while failing to realize how deadly and toxic transgenic crops really are.

One thing for sure is that third world nations like Lebanon will be competing more and more against countries with much higher purchasing power over lesser and lesser non-GM imported foods to feed their increasingly sickened population who are paying the ultimate price for the uncontested U.S. international hegemony. Lebanon like many poor nations has been stricken by a pandemic of record high cancer death rates in recent years.

In Lebanon cancer has already become the number one killer of all Lebanese, surpassing heart attacks as the lead cause of death since 2010 with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The alarming compendium of scientific data and independent research has now proven that genetically modified foods are directly linked to a growing list of cancer types not to mention diabetes and Autism that are both at an all-time high in Lebanon.

The new cold war and how Ukraine fits in

The well-crafted Monsanto slogan, Ukraine, the ‘Grain Basket of the Future’ is telling because, once upon a time, Ukraine was known as „the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Back in the day the CIA ranked[10] Soviet-era Ukraine second only to Mother Russia as the “most economically important component of the former Soviet Union.

In many ways, the farmland of Ukraine was the backbone of the USSR. Its fertile black soil generated over a quarter of the USSR’s agriculture. It exported substantial quantities of high quality foods to other socialist republics and its farms generated four times the output of the next-ranking CCCP republic.

According to the Centre for Eastern Studies.  [11] Ukraine’s agricultural exports rose from $4.3 billion in 2005 to $17.9 billion in 2012 and, harkening the heyday of the USSR, farming currently accounts for 25% of its total exports. Ukraine is also the world’s third-largest exporter of wheat and of corn.

What is even worse is that Monsanto is eyeing the big fish- Europe!

As Frank Holmes of U.S. Global Investors asserted in a business insider article back in 2011.[12] “Ukraine is poised to become Europe’s butcher…”, “…Meat is difficult and costly to ship, but Ukraine is perfectly located to satiate Europe’s hunger…”

What will happen to EU restriction on GMOs when Europe’s imported meats will be exclusively GM fed by its newly hired backyard butcher? Will this force the EU under international trade deals to import GMO feed beef? Will Ukraine open the GM floodgates on the heads of the European consumer once and for all?

No wonder Eli Lilly is represented on the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council’s Executive Committee. Its “Elanco Animal Health” unit [13] is a major manufacturer of feed supplements, antibiotics, hormones and novel genetically modified viruses that when sprayed on beef, will eat the bacteria inside out so it can be rendered safe for humans to consume of course. As always safety first, no doubt!

 

Morgan Williams the president of the U.S.-Ukraine business council who also happens to be a BigAgro Business club president [14], told the International Business Times.[15] 

“…The potential here for agriculture / agribusiness is amazing … production here could double…,” “…The world needs the food Ukraine could produce in the future…,” and that “…Ukraine’s agriculture could be a real gold mine…”

A gold mine for whom exactly? Already Ukraine was making $18 billion a year in 2012 from agricultural sales before Mr. Williams’ mafia syndicate showed up. Ukraine was steadily and slowly meeting the growing global demand for cheap yet fairly decent quality food from natural wheat, corn, potato, beets and much more.

What will become of Ukraine agricultural sector a few short years from now when most of its staple crops become transgenic, toxic and filled with glyphosate the way the American corn, soy and canola now are?

What will become of its former clients like Lebanon? Will they be able to find alternative non GMO sources for their people or will they be forced to eat Monsanto’s deadly GMOs laced with Monsanto’s toxic glyphosate?

Guest post by the Facebook group Nogenics with special thanks to J P Sottile who’s a freelance journalist, radio co-host, documentary filmmaker and former broadcast news producer in Washington, D.C. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal,co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa. He blogs at Newsvandal.com. This article was first published on Aug. 8, 2014 and all opinions within are those of the authors and not necessarily those of AltHealthWORKS. 

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About Nick Meyer

Nick Meyer is a journalist who's been published in the Detroit Free Press, Dallas Morning News and several other outlets. He founded AltHealthWORKS in 2012 to showcase extraordinary stories of healing and the power of organic living, stories the mainstream media always seemed to miss. Check out Nick's Amazon best-seller 'Dirt Cheap Organic: 101 Tips For Going Organic on a Budget' by clicking here, as well as its sequel Dirt Cheap Weight Loss.