Costa Rica: “We Don’t Want Monsanto!” – Monsanto Company (MON), The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN) and More

At the same time, investors need to take note that campaigns against the company — and mounting evidence that its products devastate local ecosystems — don’t seem to be going anywhere.

The movement to eliminate food produced in laboratories, rather than springing up from the earth, has been gaining steady steam for a while now. That helps explain why companies that focus on providing food with responsible sourcing and practices that are environmentally healthy — particularly organic grocer Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM), and organic distributors The Hain Celestial Group, Inc (NASDAQ:HAIN) and United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI) — have been increasing rapidly since 2009.

WFM Revenue TTM data by YCharts.

And these businesses are mostly concentrated in North America. Like Costa Rica, others outside our borders are taking stands.

Bhutan, a country that measures Gross National Happiness instead of the usual gross domestic product, recently announced that it will be aiming for 100% of its food to be produced organically.

In Hungary, officials destroyed 2,500 acres of corn grown with Monsanto’s GMO seeds, after they were banned from use in the country.

Peru has banned GMO seeds for the coming decade.

Of course, like Costa Rica, these countries represent the tiniest of drops in the bucket. Only time will tell if these movements make their way back to the States.

In the meantime, investors and consumers of food alike (i.e., all of us) would be well served to stay up to date on the consequences — if any — of planting or consuming genetically modified food.

The article Costa Rica: “We Don’t Want Monsanto!” originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Brian Stoffel

Fool contributor Brian Stoffel owns shares of Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFM). The Motley Fool and owns shares of Hain Celestial and Whole Foods Market.

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