Following a violent NATO-sponsored neo-Nazi coup, Ukraine was and still is in dire financial straits, and signed a deal with the IMF. Ukraine still needs billions, and suspected CIA agent and now Ukraine Finance Minister Natalie Ann Jaresko is on the case. What financial wonders will she perform? How many Wall Street companies will gain exclusive access to Ukraine markets? How many Wall Street companies will buy quality Ukraine state assets at bargain basement prices?
Hidden from mainstream media exposure, the World Bank and IMF loan has opened up Ukraine to major corporate inroads, writes Joyce Nelson. Loan conditions are forcing the deeply indebted country to open up to GMO crops, and lift the ban on private sector land ownership. US corporations are jubilant at the 'goldmine' that awaits them.
...In late 2013, the then president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, rejected a European Union association agreement tied to the $17 billion IMF loan, whose terms are only now being revealed.
Instead, Yanukovych chose a Russian aid package worth $15 billion plus a discount on Russian natural gas. His decision was a major factor in the ensuing deadly protests that led to his ouster from office in February 2014 and the ongoing crisis.
...Ukrainian law bars farmers from growing GM crops. Long considered 'the bread basket of Europe', Ukraine's rich black soil is ideal for growing grains, and in 2012 Ukrainian farmers harvested more than 20 million tonnes of corn.
..."Ukraine agriculture will be seriously damaged if the Ukrainian government legally allows GM seeds in the country. Their farmers will find their export markets reduced due to consumers' anti-GMO sentiments both in Russia and the EU."
Rowlands said that Monsanto's investment in Ukraine "could rise to $300 million within several years. Does Ukrainian agriculture want to totally rely on the success or failure of one US-based company?"
...Actually, the real "handout" is the one going to Big US Agribusiness through the terms of the IMF / World Bank loan, which besides opening the country to GM crops, will also further lift the ban on the sale of Ukraine's rich agricultural lands to the private sector.
As Morgan Williams, president and CEO of the US-Ukraine Business Council, told International Business Times in March, "Ukraine's agriculture could be a real gold mine."
But he added that there are "many aspects of the [Ukraine] business climate that need to be changed. The major item would center around getting the government out of business ... "
...Besides being president and CEO of the US-Ukraine Business Council, Williams is Director of Government Affairs at private equity firm SigmaBleyzer, which touts Williams' work with "various agencies of the US government, members of Congress, congressional committees, the Embassy of Ukraine to the US, international financial institutions, think tanks and other organizations on US-Ukraine business, trade, investment and economic development issues."
The US-Ukraine Business Council's 16-member Executive Committee is packed with US agribusiness companies, including representatives from Monsanto, John Deere, DuPont Pioneer, Eli Lilly, and Cargill.
The Council's 20 'senior Advisors' include James Greene (Former Head of NATO Liason Office Ukraine); Ariel Cohen (Senior Research Fellow for The Heritage Foundation); Leonid Kozachenko (President of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation); six former US Ambassadors to Ukraine, and the former ambassador of Ukraine to the US, Oleh Shamshur.
...According to the Oakland Institute, the terms of the World Bank/IMF loan to Ukraine have already led to "an increase in foreign investment, which is likely to result in further expansion of large-scale acquisitions of agricultural land by foreign companies and further corporatization of agriculture in the country."
Meanwhile, Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stated in April: "We don't have a goal of developing GM products here or to import them. We can feed ourselves with normal, common, not genetically modified products. If the Americans like to eat such products, let them eat them. We don't need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food."
[source : Ukraine opens up for Monsanto, land grabs and GMOs, The Ecologist, http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2526593/ukraine_opens_up_for_monsanto_land_grabs_and_gmos.html, 11th September 2014]
Ukraine was the organic bread basket of Europe.
But not anymore!!!
Europe will soon be dying on Monsanto WonderBread...THANKS TO NATO!!
Meanwhile Russia is strongly opposed to GM.
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