No Bumper Crop, but Bans Aplenty for Monsanto

On Tuesday, Germany banned the planting of one of Monsanto's
genetically modified (GMO) corn seeds, MON 810. The ban shouldn't hurt
sales much because the crop is grown on less than 1% of the fields in
Germany, but it's the sentiment that counts.

Germany joins France, Austria, Hungary, Greece, and Luxembourg,
which have also banned the corn that has been approved for planting in
Europe for 10 years. There aren't many agricultural powerhouses in that
group, but that's not the point: Once the movement starts, other
countries can use the bans as ammunition to fight Monsanto. If the bans
snowball, it could affect the sentiment of consumers as to the safety
of the GMO produce. Without consumers to eat the corn or feed it to
livestock, farmers won't plant GMO corn in countries where it's legal
to do so.

Investors in other biotech companies that sell GMO seeds shouldn't
think they're off the hook. While MON 810 has been the only corn
approved for planting in Europe (and thus the only one banned by
Germany), the EU is on the verge of approving biotech corn from Syngenta (NYSE: SYT), DuPont (NYSE: DD), and Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW). I imagine the newly approved seeds will get the same censorious treatment.

While they've made progress, especially in the U.S., biotech corn
producers have a long way to go before they're going to be widely
accepted across the globe. The good news is that I think we're entering
an era when the traits in GMO crops are more widely accepted by the
general public. For instance, it's much easier for the public to get
behind corn that's resistant to drought than one that's resistant to
the weed killer ROUNDUP. Both help increase the yield, but using less
water sounds more appealing than using more chemicals.

Whether it's Microsoft 's (Nasdaq: MSFT) monopoly issues with Internet Explorer or Wal-Mart
's (NYSE: WMT) image of being a bully to mom-and-pop stores, companies
need to keep their public imagine from going haywire. Monsanto should
nip this in the bud, schnell -- that's fast in German.

For more Foolishness:

fertilizer earnings.The greatest company in the history of the world.India is no China.

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