Cargill Sues Syngenta Over Engineered Corn

Agribusiness firm Cargill filed a suit against Syngenta charging the seed maker with illegally selling a type of genetically modified (GMO) corn seed before gaining Chinese import approval. The complaint, filed in a Louisiana state court, says Cargill suffered $90 million in damages when it could not sell shipments of corn containing a Bacillus thuringiensis protein from Syngenta’s GMO corn that is toxic to a variety of corn pests. U.S. farmers and exporters have lost an estimated $2.9 billion since November 2013 because of the large-scale rejection by China of U.S. corn with the trait. Syngenta says it believes the suit is without merit and also says it obtained import approval from major corn-importing countries.