Ideology it must be, at least here in Germany. It’s strange to see how an issue concerning Monsanto’s MON 810 “green” corn melts down to molten corn on the cob before your very eyes. What might be approached with calm discussion in another country turns into an hysterical hissing fit of abandon here in Germany before a real discussion can ever even begin.  

Well hidden on page 31 of this weeks’s Zeit (Wissen) was an interesting assessment of the “issue” which of course isn’t a real issue at all. Germany’s banning of the genetically altered corn is of course nothing other than a cow tow to the forces which have created the ideological vicious circle that politically correct German politicians now find themselves in (and they’re all politically correct here, as you well know). Needing to cash in on the well orchestrated populist sentiment that keeps reaching new highs (lows?) in all matters concerning environmental, climate change, anti-science, anti-American, you-get-my-drift hysteria, the banning of MON 810 is a purely political decision which has nothing at all to do with science or agriculture, much less with corn.

That the toxin produced by the corn to kill the corn boring moth larva is the same one produced by soil bacteria and sprayed by organic farmers on their organic fields here (has been for years now) doesn’t interest anyone. The people, whoever they are, have spoken and will now rest better at night knowing that they have stopped that evil US-American Monsanto Corporation from infiltrating their pristine corn fields before they get up and go out to buy some organic farmer’s expensive, toxin-treated corn the very next day.

Although, come to think of it, Germans don’t even eat corn to begin with.

“Das in den Mais eingebaute Toxin gegen Fraßschädlinge spritzen Biolandwirte mit höchstem ökologischen Segen auf ihre Felder. Das Gift stammt aus Bodenbakterien und ist seit mehr als hundert Jahren bekannt.“