08:32 – Monsanto, agrochemical giant with controversial products

The name Monsanto has for decades been linked to controversial products for its effects on humans and the environment, including Round Up, which contains glyphosate, at the center of a lawsuit in the United States. [19659002Foundedin1901inStLouisMissouriMonsantowhichhasjustbeenacquiredbytheGermanpharmaceuticalandagrochemicalgroupBayerformorethan$60billionfirstproducedsaccharinapowerfulsweetenerthenbeganagrochemicalsfromthe1940s

Bayer had announced in early June its intention to remove the mark Monsanto, symbol for its detractors drifts agrochemistry.

Monsanto has In particular, it was badociated with the manufacture, with other chemical groups, of the defoliant known under the name "Agent Orange", used mbadively by the American army during the Vietnam War.

Its flagship and controversial herbicide, Round Up, was launched in 1976 and Monsanto developed the first genetically modified plant cell before specializing in GMOs. The first genetically modified seeds, designed to withstand Round Up, are commercially available from the 90s.

Round Up contains glyphosate, a very controversial substance that is the subject of conflicting scientific studies as to its carcinogenic nature . It is also accused of being harmful to the environment and contributing to the disappearance of bees, or to be an endocrine disruptor. Glyphosate has been the most widely used herbicide in the world under various brands since the patent held by Monsanto became public in 2000.

While Monsanto is the subject of numerous legal proceedings in varying degrees of Advances in the world on various topics, the trial that opens in San Francisco about the Round Up and its possible carcinogenic effects is the first of its kind.

In 2012, the group had accepted an amicable settlement of $ 93 million with a locality, Nitro, West Virginia (east) that had housed in the 50s and 60s a plant producing the main ingredient of Agent Orange. The head of the municipality accused the plant of being the cause of health problems of their citizens.

In France, the justice condemned on appeal in September 2015 the American group to compensate a farmer, intoxicated in 2004 by vapors issued by another Monsanto product, the Lbado (containing alachlor), banned in several countries since. Monsanto sued in cbadation

Authorization to cultivate GMOs in the European Union has sparked controversies, controversies and legal battles over the last twenty years. In the United States, farmers have been repeatedly dismissed by the courts in attempts to challenge Monsanto's GM seed crops.

In 2017, an informal citizen court of five professional judges formed in The Hague (Netherlands) Bas) found the firm guilty of violating human rights, of a negative impact on the environment and the crime of "ecocide", a purely advisory opinion intended to feed into existing laws, notably through the creation of Jurisprudence in International Law

According to this "Monsanto Tribunal", "activities (of the group) cause damage to soil, water and the environment in general".

Monsanto denounced a "staged (…) anti-agricultural technology and anti-Monsanto" including denying "existing scientific evidence."

The group today employs 20,000 employees worldwide and makes about 15 billion dollars of encryption e annual business