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By the mid-80’s Monsanto had begun to concentrate on the life sciences, particularly biotechnology and pharmaceuticals – selling of its petrochemical, paper chemical and plastics division. This was part of a “three-pronged strategy that was to carry Monsanto into the next millennium,”1 that concentrated on keeping existing products profitable, expanding into agricultural biotechnology, and expanding it’s recently acquired pharmaceutical business. This strategy in order to be successful meant that biotechnology had to succeed in Europe, where agricultural exports from the US were projected to be $7 billion for the year 2005, accounting for nearly 12% of all US agricultural exports.2 Failure to achieve success in Europe would mean decreased revenue for the company, resulting in failure of the overall strategy.
Through employing biotechnology, the company injects seeds with a gene that makes the crop more resistant to pests through selective breeding and the use of natural predators. This process in turn reduces the use of harmful chemicals in the agricultural process, promoting environmental sustainability – economic state in which the demands placed upon the environment by people and commerce can be met without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations3 - in both developed and developing countries. Although this is a desired goal, the process in which it is achieved is not universally accepted. A society’s acceptance, not just regulatory acceptance, of a technology plays a significant part in the success or failure of the implementation of a given technology within a specific country. In the case of genetically engineered food, many European ...