Wednesday December 15, 10:22 am Eastern Time
INTERVIEW-French farmer blames Monsanto for GM woe

By Greg Frost

PARIS, Dec 15 (Reuters) - A French farmer named in a class action
lawsuit against Monsanto Co (NYSE:MTC - news) said he blames the life-sciences
giant's involvement in genetically modified (GM) crops for miring him in
a legal dispute dating back to 1997.

Patrick de Kochko, an organic farmer in southwest France and the only
non-American named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the lawyers who filed
the landmark antitrust suit against Monsanto on Tuesday asked him to join as
a plaintiff because of legal problems over his 1996 soybean crop.
De Kochko said he believes a unit of Monsanto sold him soybean seeds
containing GM material, which then contaminated his crop and made it
difficult for him to market his soybeans.

``The lawyers were looking for someone who had experienced damages
because of GM seeds, and that's what happened to me,'' de Kochko said in a
telephone interview with Reuters.

``I'm just a modest peasant...(but) the principle that disturbs me is
that people create these things which then escape into the environment and
then they don't care what happens with them,'' he said.