FAST FOOD CHAINS TURNING OVER A "NEW LEAF?"

Hey, it's Marco! Did you know that Monsanto, the St. Louis agricultural unit of Pharmacia Corp., calls its potato "NewLeaf." It is the latest and smallest crop to feel the sting of a growing anti biotechnology campaign in the U.S. and abroad. Critics have raised enough questions about the environmental and
nutritional safety of crop biotechnology that surveys show many U.S. consumers want labels on groceries containing genetically modified ingredients, a move the food industry resists. However, Fast-food chains such as McDonald's Corp. are quietly telling their french-fry suppliers to stop using the potato from Monsanto, the only biotechnology concern to commercialize a genetically modified spud.
So many food concerns are shrinking from the Monsanto potato that J.R. Simplot Co., a major supplier of french fries to McDonald's, is instructing its farmers to stop growing it.

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