Monsanto France seeks probe over GMO field attacks

PARIS, June 30 (Reuters) The French arm of U.S. biotech giant Monsanto said on Friday it had lodged a complaint after two of its experiments on genetically modified (GMO) maize were destroyed this week.

The attacks, the first affecting Monsanto this season, happened during the night between Wednesday and Thursday in the southwestern towns of Montech and Leojac. No-one claimed responsibility for them, Monsanto said.

''Monsanto France strongly condemns such acts of vandalism and regrets that the opponents to biotech crops assume, regardless of the law, the right to decide that a scientific application is non-pertinent,'' the company said in a statement.

Opposition to GMO crops has been virulent for years in France where a large majority of the population says it will refuse to eat GMO foods as long as it is not proven they are safe for human consumption in the long run.

Yet, France applies EU legislation that permits some GMO maize to be grown and experiments on several types of GMO crops to be carried out under precise rules and after approval.

This infuriates opponents including those who regularly destroy field experiments, claiming the tests lead to irreversible contamination of conventional plants.

Monsanto, who said last month half of its GMO experiments in France were destroyed each year, condemned the rise in field destructions which was the sign of an ''impossible dialogue and of a refusal to debate''.

France's growers this year planted up to 5,000 hectares of GMO maize for commercial sale, 10 times the area sown in 2005.

Four fields have been destroyed this season in France, including the two owned by Monsanto, the company said.

''In the short term, the increase in the number of such acts of vandalism could deprive France's agriculture of the innovation it needs to keep high performance,'' Monsanto said.

REUTERS MQA BD1748