“Monsanto, out of China!” website (in Chinese): http://www.monsanto-out-of-china.org
On May 25 2013, anti-Monsanto demonstrations took place in 436 cities in 52 countries. With slogans such as “Either mankind will stop Monsanto, or Monsanto will stop mankind,” demonstrators called for the public to be aware of the dangers posed by GMO food. On May 24, 2014, the planet again witnessed anti-Monsanto demonstrations that involved 4 million people. This year, the global anti-Monsanto march will take place on May 23.
Monsanto is a transnational agro-biotech company, widely known for producing GMO seeds. In 1996, the top three seed companies in the world – Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – already had 22 per cent of the global seed market. But by 2011, their combined share doubled, reaching 53.4 per cent. Monsanto alone had 26 per cent. A monopoly by corporations like Monsanto threatens the seed sovereignty of all countries, including China’s.
Roundup is Monsanto’s flagship product, and is a glyphosate herbicide marketed globally, widely used on GM crops such as soybeans and corn. Monsanto has long propagated that glyphosate has a very low acute toxicity, and is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans’. But in March 2015, the World Health Organization’s IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) had 17 experts from 11 countries produce an evaluation on glyphosate, and they pronounced it to be ‘probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A)’. WHO’s IARC has a classification of four groups of carcinogens: Group 1, Carcinogenic to humans; Group 2A, Probably carcinogenic to humans; Group 2B, Possibly carcinogenic to humans; Group 3, Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans; Group 4, Probably not carcinogenic to humans.