Saturday, July 28, 2007

GMOfuel

Below is an excerpt from the 2007 half year report of mega agribusiness corporation Syngenta.

"Seeds: Sales of corn grew worldwide driven by higher crop prices and acreage expansion. In the USA this was offset by a decline in soybean sales as planted acreage dropped sharply. Syngenta is transforming its US corn portfolio from a conventional to a fully traited offer and the launch of Agrisure(TM) RW marked further progress. The market for corn biotechnologyis expanding rapidly and Syngenta plans to increase R&D investment furtherto capture all opportunities;"

Traited corn is, if I understand it correctly a euphemism for GMO corn, in the sense that it is corn to which desirable genetic traits have been added using biotechnology. GOM corn is used to make "bio"fuel.

and this is how much Syngenta makes:

"'Strong performance: improved market outlook' -- Reported sales up 9 per cent to $5.7 billion -- Crop Protection sales up 7 per cent (1) to $4.3 billion -- New products sales 15 per cent(1) higher at $760 million -- Seeds sales up 4 per cent(1) to $1.4 billion -- Earnings per share(2) up 16 per cent to $12.13 -- Free cash flow $306 million: full year cash return increased to around $1 billion"

$4.3 billions worth of pesticides!

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