Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesChallenge: producing plants resistant to droughts, which can devastate cropsWaldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images
After nine years of litigation, a panel of five judges from the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein, South Africa, has accepted the arguments of the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) and nullified the approval for commercial release of a drought-tolerant genetically modified maize (MON 87460) developed by Monsanto, now Bayer, which was approved in the USA in 2011 and in China in 2013. The ACB argued that the Executive Board of the Department of Agriculture, Agrarian Reform, and Rural Development merely rubber-stamped Monsanto’s application for authorization, uncritically accepting the scarce evidence that the genetically modified maize does not pose a threat to human health or the environment, while ignoring the contrary evidence presented by experts from the center. The Supreme Court concluded that Monsanto had not complied with the requirement to present an environmental impact assessment. According to a report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), MON 87460 only partially fulfills its purpose, failing to withstand severe droughts (African Science News, October 22, 2024; USDA, January 2019).
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