Colombian cotton growers want to sue U.S. agricultural company Monsanto for selling them a
bad genetically engineered seed that caused damage to crops.
According to the cotton growers, the seed caused damage to 13 percent of the cotton crops in the north of Colombia, resulting in a 7 million dollar loss, economic magazine Portfolio reported Wednesday.
Conalgodón, the Colombian federation of the cotton growers, declared
that Monsanto gave the seed, stating that it was strong enough to resist
plagues and the effects of the glyphosate herbicide. At the same time,
Monsanto did not give an appropriate information about the variety that
would be planted for the first time in the region.
The seed, known as
DP 164, was three times more expensive than the traditional one, but did not resist the plagues as promised.
Monsanto offeed to compensate the growers with 640 thousand
dollars, but put conditions on the compensation the growers find hard to accept.
Morever, this is not the first time Monsanto has a similar problem in
Colombia. In 2008 same situation was in the Tolima department with Monsanto
seeds.