Germany may revoke a license for the cultivation of the Monsanto Co.’s genetically modified corn because neither consumers nor farmers want it. France and Italy have not issued licenses due to environmental concerns.

Genetic engineering “has so far not yielded tangible benefits for the people,” the newspaper Berliner Zeitung quoted Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner as saying. Germany has granted a license for the cultivation of cultivated Monsanto Co's MON810.

Aigner wants to allow Germany’s 16 states and regions within the states to ban cultivation of genetically modified crops, a view that may clash with European Union law, the newspaper said.

In the US a variety of genetically modified corn that was approved for human consumption in 2006 caused signs of liver and kidney toxicity as well as hormonal changes in rats in a study performed by researchers from the independent Committee for Independent Research and Genetic Engineering at the University of Caen in France.

“The MON 810 maize strain has an insect resistance, but unfortunately it hurts rare insects like butterflies and other organisms in addition to those that are bad for the corn,” Alexander Hissting, genetic engineering expert for environmental group Greenpeace, told The Local on Wednesday.

“We’ve been trying to get it banned for years,” he said, adding that environmental monitoring practices at Monsanto “aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”

If the corn is banned, it will mean the end of commercial planting of genetically modified plants in Germany, the Berliner Zeitung said.

Aigner said she wants to allow German states to decide whether they will allow the crops, but such authority may clash with European Union laws.

Farmers plan to reduce the amount of genetically modified crop acreage they plant in 2009, which environmentalists say signals that there is no real market for such products in Germany, the Berliner Zeitung reported.

“It’s anything but a success story, even though it’s legal,” Hissting told The Local. “Greenpeace has a map of where farmers are planting MON 810 maize and you really have to look under a magnifying glass to see it, it’s about 0.2 percent of the land.”

Greenpeace has criticised Aigner’s predecessor Horst Seehofer in the past for accepting Monsanto’s environmental testing practices. Hissting said he was hopeful that Aigner – a member of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria where GM crops are intensely unpopular – is not merely trying to make points back home with rhetoric.

“We encourage Minister Aigner to finally forbid the genetically modified corn before it is sowed in April,” he said.