Germany-Biotech Farming.
GERMANY BIO TEC FARMING.
Business is booming worldwide for US biotech giant Monsanto but in Germany the company has encountered fierce resistance. A colorful alliance of beekeepers, anti-capitalism protestors and conservative politicians are in the process of chasing the global market leader out of the country.
When Karl Heinz Bablok wants to relax and get away from his job at the BMW plant, he hops on his bike and cycles out to Kaisheim, a quiet town in Germany’s southwestern Swabia region. It doesn’t take Bablok long to reach his destination, sitting in the middle of a meadow: an apiary, made of rough-cut boards, which he made himself.
Bablok, an amateur beekeeper and skilled handyman, spends much of his free time here, repairing the apiary in the winter and making honey in the summer. The apiary is where Bablok’s recharges his batteries, the place he goes to store up the energy he needs for everyday life and for his job at the BMW plant’s training workshops. The apiary was supposed to be a very private place -- far away from work and, most of all, far away from the public.
But the apiary and the honey he produces there are no longer private. His honey is now at the center of a dispute being staged in German courts, and observed and influenced by both politicians and the media. And it has drawn Bablok, a man who just wanted his peace and quiet, into one of Germany’s major ideological debates -- a battle that has been waged for years in the courts, in the political arena and in the fields, with words, scientific studies and sometimes fists.
On one side of the battle are the genetic engineering companies, and in particular US corporation Monsanto, the world’s largest producer of seeds, which practically holds a monopoly on genetically modified (GM) plants. Monsanto produces the only modified plant approved for use in commercial farming in Germany, a corn variety that is used for animal feed. The primary benefit of the plant, called MON 810, is that it produces a toxin that allows it to fight off one of its enemies, the voracious larvae of a moth.
On the other side stand Monsanto’s many adversaries, a heterogeneous alliance that brings together organic farmers, anti-capitalism activists, churches and politicians with the conservative Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
The dispute between the two camps revolves around the opportunities and risks involved in green genetic engineering. It’s about companies that are playing God and about fundamental questions like: What should man be permitted to do? What can science do? And should we be allowed to do things just because we can? The dispute is also about freedom and its limitations, the freedom to carry out research, and the freedom of consumers, farmers, beekeepers and a corporation. Where does one side’s freedom end and the other’s begin, and who draws the boundaries?
Honey for the Waste Incinerator
Bablok became part of the controversy because some of his bee colonies were collecting pollen from fields where the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture was growing GM corn for research purposes. The bees carried the pollen back to their hives and Bablok, who knew that the GM cornfields were nearby, had samples tested to ensure that his honey was clean. But the laboratory found that up to 7 percent of the pollen was from GM plants. When the case became public, a district court in the Bavarian city of Augsburg ordered Bablok to stop selling, or even giving away, his honey. As a result, he became Germany’s first beekeeper who delivered his honey to a waste incineration facility. Now Bablok is suing the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture to recover his costs and his lost sales, which he says amount to about €10,000.
The suit is complicated and has already passed through two courts. A third court is due to hear it soon and both sides are seeking a judgment establishing a principle. The case is about more than just Bablok’s costs and the purity of German honey. In fact, the future of green genetic engineering in Germany is at stake. A victory for Bablok would further discredit MON 810. In the public’s perception, it would transform the plant into a hazard for human beings.
Bablok, sitting in his kitchen, is an easygoing man given to long pauses between sentences. File folders are arranged on the table in front of him containing motions filed by his attorneys from Berlin, people who are familiar with the material. A beekeepers’ association is helping to pay their fees. The folders also contain the motions filed by the opposing parties’ lawyers. They are being represented by the law firm of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. With its 2,500 attorneys, the firm is about as global as Monsanto.
The documents are extensive, weighty and complicated. The core issue revolves around whether Bablok’s genetically modified honey is subject to the licensing regulations set down by European Union food law. The attorneys for the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture say no. Bablok’s lawyers say yes. The question is so important because Monsanto’s corn can only emerge from the case unscathed if the judges rule that Bablok’s honey is not subject to the food licensing regulations.
Although the loss of sales has affected Bablok, it has not spoiled beekeeping for him. He will set up his hives again this year, just in other locations. He is also trying to forge an alliance of beekeepers in the region. His plan -- his revenge -- is to make Kaisheim and the surrounding area bee-free, so that there will be no bees to pollinate plants in the area.
Nowadays Bablok follows the case from afar. He says that the matter is now "in the hands of the thinking people," the attorneys from Berlin. As a factory worker, he says, he has long since given up trying to understand their arguments.
Monsanto’s German headquarters are located in a business park in Düsseldorf. Only two postcard-sized brass plates at the entrance of a high-rise building, which are easy to overlook, identify the offices. Monsanto is known for its efforts to avoid the public. Ursula Lüttmer-Ouazane greets us in a conference room with her firm handshake. A resolute woman, she is in charge of Monsanto’s operations in northern Europe, including Germany. Her career began with an agricultural apprenticeship and she never attended a university. The challenges of rising to the top in a male-dominated industry are reflected in the lines in her face.
Lüttmer-Ouazane has been in the business for 30 years. She began working for Monsanto 10 years ago, after stints with some of the major players in the industry, including BASF, Novartis and Syngenta. Lüttmer-Ouazane has never romanticized agriculture, which she regards as applied chemistry.
Monsanto’s annual report lies on the table in front of Lüttmer-Ouazane. These are good times for the group, globally speaking. Last year Monsanto doubled its profits to about $2 billion (€1.6 billion). The food crisis in the spring of 2008 drove its stock up to an all-time high of $142 a share. New GM plants boosted sales in South America, leading Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant to announce ambitious goals, which included doubling profits once again by 2012. Grant sees great potential in developing countries, where Monsanto is pinning its hopes on a draught-resistant variety of corn that it plans to begin selling soon.
Europe and Germany were assigned the roles of prestige markets in the company’s business plan. For the critics of genetic engineering, this is not just about hundreds of thousands of hectares planted with corn, ra