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Lucia A Keegan  07/31/2006 10:35:24 AM  From  DB/Inbox:  Lucia A Keegan

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UNCLAS        PARIS 05154

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    ACTION: AGR
    INFO:   TRDO UNESCO SCI POL ECNO DCM AMB ECON

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CHARGE: PROG

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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 005154 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BRUSSELS PASS USEU FOR AGMINCOUNSELOR 
STATE FOR OES; EUR/ERA AND EB (SPIRNAK); 
STATE PASS USTR FOR MURPHY; 
USDA/OS/JOHANNS AND PENN/TERPSTRA; 
USDA/FAS FOR OA/ROBERTS/SIMMONS/JONES; 
ITP/SHEIKH/HENKE/MACKE/TOM POMEROY/MIKE WOOLSEY/GREG YOUNG; BOB 
RIEMENSCHNEIDER 
FAA/SEBRANEK/BLEGGI; 
EU POSTS PASS TO AGRICULTURE AND ECON 
GENEVA FOR USTR, ALSO AGRICULTURE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR ETRD EUN FR
SUBJECT: JUDICIAL DECISIONS FAVORABLE TO BIOTECH CULTIVATION 
 
REF: PARIS 2439 
 
¶1.  Summary:  Two recent judicial decisions have been supportive of 
biotech cultivation in France. The first overturned a lower court 
ruling exonerating test plot destroyers.  The second required 
Greenpeace to remove from its website names and locations of biotech 
corn growers.  Both decisions will help provide a more rational 
environment for biotech cultivation in France.  Nonetheless, the 
group of anti-biotech activists, "Faucheurs Volontaires" (Voluntary 
Cutters), continue to threaten the biotech industry and claim they 
plan to attack commercial biotech crops.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  On June 22, the Orleans Court of Appeals upheld the original 
conviction of 49 people found guilty of destroying biotech plots 
belonging to Monsanto in the Orleans area.  This decision overturned 
a lower court ruling last December releasing the defendants from 
liability.  The Appeals Court reinstated a two-month jail sentence 
for one defendant and the others each received suspended jail 
sentences and a 1,000 euro fine.  The Court will continue to 
investigate Monsanto's claim for 390,000 euros in damages. 
 
¶3. Monsanto welcomed the Court's decision stating that it 
"implements the law, protecting farmers' property as well as 
authorized and monitored experimentation."  The French planting seed 
organizations commented that the Court's decision underlined the 
legitimacy of the "right to conduct research."  The defendants, part 
of a group called Faucheurs Volontaires (Voluntary Cutters), plan to 
appeal the decision and to continue to fight biotech development in 
France through acts of physical destruction. 
 
-------------------------- 
Persistent Acts of Protest 
-------------------------- 
 
¶4.  On April 13, fifty people from Faucheurs Volontaires and 
Greenpeace stormed a Monsanto site in southwestern France (Aude 
area), demonstrated against GMO's and hung a banner stating "from 
the field to the plate, no GMO."  Demonstrators were arrested at the 
site. 
 
¶5.  In June, another group of Faucheurs Volontaires, associated with 
the activist farmers' union, Confederation Paysanne, sent 
approximately forty anti-biotech activists to sow organic corn seeds 
in a GM test field in southern Paris (Loiret area).  The group 
claimed responsibility for "sowing life" in contrast to their 
position that biotech companies "sow death." 
 
¶6.  In July, Monsanto announced that three of its test plots were 
damaged and Limagrain, the leading French seed company, and its 
genetics subsidiary, Biogemma, also announced it had had test plots 
destroyed by a group from "Voluntary Cutters."  Also in July, the 
"Voluntary Cutters" announced they would expand their destruction 
from experimental test plots to commercial production fields for the 
first time this summer. 
 
¶7.  On July 26, Greenpeace was judicially required to remove from 
its website a map of France with the locations of fields of biotech 
corn, as well as the names of biotech corn growers, because of 
privacy infringement. The farmers whose names were indicated on 
Greenpeace website had sued Greenpeace, with the help of the French 
Corn Growers Association (AGPM). In reaction, Greenpeace activists 
destroyed some biotech corn in one of these fields, marking a large 
cross which was photographed from an helicopter by a 
nationally-known photographer. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
Biotech Farmers Support Adoption of Biotech Crops 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶8. In a more positive step for the advancement of biotech 
development in France, at the annual French corn producers meeting 
in June, a farmer publicly discussed his justifications for planting 
Bt corn.  He listed the advantages of reduced pesticide use, higher 
production of high quality corn not weakened by European corn borer 
attacks, and the benefits of staggering corn harvests. 
 
¶9. And further, Cultivar magazine, a French technical publication, 
published an interview in its July issue with a farmer growing 
biotech corn for commercial sale in which he described the different 
management steps he took from planting, to coexistence with 
non-biotech corn, through harvesting. 
 
¶10.  Comment:  Some previous court rulings favoring test plot 
destroyers have been discouraging to farmers as well as researchers, 
who reduced their activities in France and/or moved outside of 
France.  These recent more positive rulings will favor biotech 
research and production, particularly if accompanied by reasonable 
legislation on GM and non-GM coexistence.  However, the French 
Biotech Bill has languished in the French Parliament since its vote 
by the Senate last March (reftel) for political reasons. 
Biotechnology is a controversial issue and French Parliamentarians 
are wary of acting on this legislation in the current 
pre-presidential and parliamentary campaign period before the 
elections of May 2007. Still risky, this year's biotech corn crop is 
expected to reach a record 3,000 to 5,000 ha, and would be higher if 
risks were diminished.  Most of the biotech corn grown in France 
goes to Spain in animal feed.  End Comment. 
 
Stapleton