Monsanto found guilty of poisoning farmer
Feb
14
Written by:
14/02/2012 14:37
Landmark case could lead to more claims
According to the news agency Reuters a French court has found U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning a French farmer.
In the first such case heard in France, grain grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weed-killer in 2004.
He blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.
"It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning," François Lafforgue, Francois's lawyer, told Reuters.
There are around 200 reported cases per year but few even make it to court.
The Francois claim, however, was easier to argue than others because he can pinpoint a specific incident - inhaling the Lasso when cleaning the tank of his crop sprayer - whereas fellow farmers are trying to show accumulated effects from various products.
"It's like lying on a bed of thorns and trying to say which one cut you," one farmer told Reuters, who has recovered from prostate cancer and asked not to be named.
The Francois case goes back to a period of intensive use of crop-protection chemicals in the European Union. The EU and its member countries have since banned a large number of substances which are considered dangerous.
Lasso, a pre-emergent soil-applied herbicide that has been used since the 1960s to control grasses and broadleaf weeds in farm fields, was banned in France in 2007 following an EU directive after the product had already been withdrawn in some other countries.
Though it once was a top-selling herbicide, it has gradually lost popularity, and critics say several studies have shown links to a range of health problems.
France, the EU's largest agricultural producer, is now targeting a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use between 2008 and 2018, with initial results showing a 4 percent cut in farm and non-farm use between 2008-2010.
Monsanto said it was disappointed by the ruling and would examine whether to appeal the judgement.
This story has been added to our corporate database. The database powers all our live buyers' guides, giving the score for each company on our rankings tables.